one small interaction

 This semester, I had the added labor (minor, but still added, because it meant maintaining a separate BlackBoard page and remembering to post the assignments/do the grading on there) of a 'special studies' version of my ecology lab - someone who was a transfer student apparently took the lecture part at their former school, but there was no lab. So I've been doing that.

They saw me in the hall and stopped me today because I hadn't posted a lab for this week (this is the last lab, we are doing tree identification because it's likely going to be raining and we might not be able to get outdoors; I can do tree ID from herbarium sheets). They asked me if we had a lab, and I said yes, and explained what it was, and added that it was the last lab for the semester for them (next week is the students working on their independent project, which is part of the lecture material).

And they thanked me, and said "you're the best."

And yeah, I get that may have been a casual throw-away comment, but it reminded me of how I missed that kind of easy, casual interaction. Most of my classes in recent weeks have been almost "empty" - with people joining online instead (and in one class, I'm down more than half the class, I think a lot of people just gave up). 

And it makes me sad. I miss the before-times. I miss a lot of things, some of which are things I didn't get very often even then:

- walking into a diner-type restaurant at breakfast time, and smelling coffee/bacon/toast and having a big menu to order from, being able to get exotic stuff I'd never fix like Belgian waffles

- traveling on the train

- going out shopping without worry, without HAVING to distance from people (though I usually did, really, and now I realize I really disliked crowded stores and did my best to shop at low-density times)

- stopping at Pruett's just casually on the way home to pick up something "different" for dinner instead of having the week's meals planned out like the Normandy invasion so I'm sure I've bought everything

- antiquing. I suppose I could do that NOW but also, driving to Sherman is way less appealing with all the construction

- just being able to talk to people without masks or a screen in the way, or being able to go grab lunch somewhere with someone. It does seem all of this has reduced our ability to just make small talk and I miss that.

- celebrating holidays the way I used to. I really missed having Christmas with  my mother in 2020, that one still hurts.

- not having all the added labor related to doing stuff half online for teaching, and feeling like there are so much higher expectations of me at the moment, like if I forget to post a recording of a lecture someone is going to resent it. 

- going to a restaurant for lunch occasionally on my "no afternoon classes" day. Getting carry out is not the same, and also, most of the places that do carry out don't have as healthful of food.

Everything seems to require more effort now, and just doing a casual "hey maybe I should run to the gourmet shop downtown" now has become a major production. And people seem to drive worse, and people seem to act worse in public now. 

I hope things eventually stop seeming so effortful. Even going down to the drinking fountain to fill my water bottle - well, I have to put my mask on, and that's a tiny added hurdle that makes me go 'eh, I can wait until later to get water'

***

I had promised myself, "Well, if you review MANOVA enough for Friday this morning maybe you can go to the gourmet shop in town for a few minutes this afternoon" but oh no, I did not get it done. I find I have a harder time buckling down and working and I don't know if it's just pandemic tiredness or if I've burned out. Or if I've developed something like ADHD where my concentration and executive function are just trashed. The thing is, I can't just go "I can't" and not do the thing, I have to do the thing - so I throw out the "fun things" I had planned as "I don't have time now" and that probably makes the lack of volition to work worse.

Currently, the "stick" of "you will be underprepared and look like an idiot and you will fail" works a little better than the "carrot" of 'get this done early and you can go do something fun"

though I will say I did get allllllllll the updating on my BlackBoard pages done for the next few days, that's something. (Well, other than posting the recordings of the lectures for tomorrow and Thursday, it never ends)