Yeah, I get that. I'm totally alone, though, and one thing I learned from the pandemic is spending too much time staring at my own four walls and listening to my own thoughts makes me sad and weird. I wasn't prescribing, I was saying what I was going to do.
I know what I'm doing when I eventually retire, presuming we're not on Variant Omega Zed and all having to hide in our houses lest we catch a super-contagious immune-escape version of COVID: I am going to do volunteer work
and if anyone gets rude at me, or demanding, or puts more labor on me than I want, I will simply quit. Because it won't matter, since I'm not being paid.
There's a national park about an hour from me; if they would take me I'd happily lead walks or do programs or even pick up trash on the trails - I did the simple scutwork type of volunteer work at the park near where I grew up when I was in high school and I enjoyed it.
I have hobbies, but I also need to feel like I"m doing something that matters to someone other than me.
Truth. I once had someone I thought of as a friend until I realized the ONLY time I got invited to her house for anything was one of those home-sales jewelry parties. I came up with a quick excuse and wrote them off my list.
Frankly I was wondering if the vacation-home thing you referenced was.....a time-share pitch? (Do they still do time-shares? I remember a few wasted Saturday afternoons when my frugal dad wanted the set of steak knives and the chance at a bigger "prize" and so we all had to sit through the sales pitch)
Or for that matter: some kid decides that beclowning themselves deliberately (and derailing the entire class) is a way to become Internet Famous. I mean there's a subset of kids (and college students!) who do absolutely asinine stuff in class WITHOUT cameras that stops everything dead and derails the whole class, imagine people wanting to do that for online clout
and the flip side: the shy kids terrified of having their face or voice on camera will never speak in class again
I'm a college prof who has been teaching to a camera (granted, for a very limited audience - only students actually enrolled in my classes) since March 2020* and it's made my teaching materially worse because I'm more self conscious. If I were being filmed and literally any freaking rando could watch me and presumably critique me, post video clips out of context to ridicule me, or try to "rat me out" to my superiors - yeah, they don't pay me enough and I'm close enough to retirement I'd just say 'good luck finding someone who can teach the diversity of classes I do" and leave.
(*first, because campus was closed and I had to complete the semester from my living room, then it was because they oversubscribed one of my classes and we couldn't fit in the room with appropriate distancing, and now it's mainly for people having to isolate/with health issues or childcare issues. I planned SOMEDAY to quit offering class over zoom, but every semester thus far I've tried there's been a bad new variant, and so I just keep laboring under the zoom curse)
when I was a kid in the 1970s, I went to kindergarten. It was 1/2 day (I think it was in the mornings, and we went home for lunch and for the afternoon?) and it was pretty heavily play based. I don't remember a lot about it but I remember there being a pretend kitchen, and a sand table sort of thing, and we got read stories.
Granted, I grew up in a more affluent district and maybe there was less worry about us falling behind - I already could read, having learned at home as a kid, and was learning to print, and I knew some basic math. But I don't remember *aggressive* education in kindergarten; most of the educational stuff I got was at home, and my parents presented it more as "games" than as "you will learn this" so IDK.
I suspect that pushing kids too much too early burns them out.
IDK, I feel like I want to be really cautious for a while yet, 'cos I felt this way ("covid is waning, yay") right before Delta and then again right before omicron. Twice bitten, four times shy. (Though I also feel like that once I finally DO relax a bit, that's when we get the really horrific variant. I have to remind myself that this isn't a malign force bent on outthinking me but it doesn't always work)
I do still mask in class and in stores (in class, because students party, and our student body is only about 1/3 vaccinated as per the latest stats, and in stores because people are gross). I don't love it but I've grown accustomed to it. Will I give it up? I don't know. I'm going to wait at least a few more months to see what new variants crop up.
Also I interact from time to time with someone on heavy immunosuppressants and someone else with a husband who's doing chemo, and I figure the mask doesn't hurt and might help, so....
yeah I want to go to a bigger grocery store than the local ones but the thought of being out interacting with people stocking up for The Big Game gives me pause. Last week it was trying to grocery shop before a couple days of ice and snow, this week it's football fans.
then again, given that we're probably as far away from either team's home city as it's possible to be in the US, maybe not that many people care?
"if you tolerate the moochers, the moochers will soon outnumber the producers.Given the number of politicians who have talked openly about this the last 20 or so years I doubt its still secret."
A friend of mine comments that we express the loudest abhorrence of behaviors we ourselves either indulge in, or are tempted to indulge in.....interesting.
Reminds me of how one of my grandmothers (a widow living on VERY limited social security, and while family members helped where they could, most of her older children were in a similar boat to her) used to get the "government cheese."
Except. My grandmother was probably lactose-intolerant; she said milk and cheese and ice cream upset her stomach. But she took the cheese anyway; it was easier to accept it along with the macaroni and flour and whatever else was being handed out than to refuse. And she parcelled it out to other people, who wouldn't have strictly been eligible for the handouts, including my family. It made good grilled cheese sandwiches, I'll say that much. It was more welcome in my family than baby carrots would have been that's for sure.
One of my grandfathers would complain that his paper got "womanized" if my grandmother or one of the other women in the family got to it first; he claimed they never refolded it "right"
Roads were okay this afternoon to go out and pick up a pizza, but I'd definitely not want to be walking or driving after the sun went down and the slush re-froze
Stuck at home because of the storm - the roads here look dire, and campus is closed (they even told us not to do virtual classes over Zoom, out of concern people would lose power - I did not but I gather a number of people in North Texas did). So I've got some research reading to do and maybe also I relax a little. I had exams scheduled (first of the semester) for yesterday and today, so the first part of next week is giving those, meaning no course prep...
I was invited to join a Nextdoor for my section of town. I decided that wasn't something I needed. Also sometimes I am the neighbor whose yard gets complained about, I'm sure: I work full time, I am tired a lot and have allergies, sometimes I just don't get to things that fast.
I also don't want the gossip; I live in a small town and I KNOW what people are going to talk about when a Muslim family/same-sex couple/immigrant family moves into the area, and I just don't want to deal with it.
(Also I admit with some embarrassment I hired a plumber to replace my kitchen faucet. I probably could have done it myself but like I said: I'm old and tired and sometimes don't get to things very fast, and paying A Guy meant it was done two days after I picked out the faucet. Then again, I'm a professor, not an online influencer.)
That said: I have removed dead animals from my own yard, including burying a stray (?I hope) cat that apparently got hit by a car and crawled into my drive to die
Now that I'm over the bacterial infection I had last week, and I tested COVID negative (had a double exposure - the one Saturday at the urgent care, and I also, unbeknownst to me, had a student show up infectious to class before that), I can get back to sorting and digging out
This weekend I attack the walk-in closet which is mostly a repository for clothes, including a lot I've not worn in years and probably should just dump. Also I have some more fabric in there but it's mostly already in plastic tubs and could just be moved to the storage unit as-is.
Sadly though first I have a dental check up, and this is the check up where they scale all the tartar off my teeth and also check my gums; do not want. I have genetically bad teeth (insert joke about British Isles heritage here) so even though I take good care of them I always need stuff done. At least I've not needed any crowns or fillings in almost 10 years; may that trend continue.
*vaguely wonders if this has something to do with worker's comp claims about being COVID-exposed at work*
I don't know much about the field, of course - I teach a tiny bit about OSHA in one of my classes, but I am far from an expert.. I suppose it would be v. hard to prove on-the-job COVID exposure, unless the person claiming it could demonstrate that no one in their household exposed them and they literally went nowhere else (not even a grocery store) where they could have been exposed.
I teach on a campus in a state where vaccine mandates and mask mandates have been banned. Every day I have different students having to isolate due to exposure and I have to report who they sat near in class - some more than once during a semester. I dont' see this improving in what remains of my career (a decade, unless I burn out and quit early, which feels increasingly likely)
I like it. And I like the sharing on social media. A lot of my Twitter mutuals do it, and we can commiserate over hard ones, or chuckle over certain words (the one you referenced, for example, though that's rare that there's a double entendre - there is also a four-letter word game parody of it called Sweardle, where you have to guess swear words. (though their definition is loose: one day "Pube" was the answer, which I did not get)
I dunno. I feel like the people snarking on it have never had the experience (that I have had) of being very much on the Outside for much of their lives and finally finding something that lets them feel like a bit of an Insider.
Dropped off the quilt at the longarmers', hit a nicer grocery store than what's available in town. Will need to make it up a bit tomorrow by going in to work for a little grading and to write a couple lab quizzes....
Still have something like 1/3 of my students on required isolation pending a negative COVID test....
one of my happiest memories from high school was when we acted out scenes from King Lear (we were reading it at the time) and my group got the scene where Cornwall pulls out Gloucester's eyes, and I was like I KNOW HOW WE CAN DO THIS, I'LL BE CORNWALL and we did it by seating "Gloucester" in a chair with his back to the audience, and I palmed a couple of grapes from my pocket, which I then squashed and threw on the floor.
it was deeply satisfying partly because it shocked the other students (I was known as pretty meek in high school)
(We had time to prepare, that was how I knew to have the grapes. I also borrowed an old fur vest from a friend of my mom's; it looked kind of like a doublet)
Heh. My grandma had an old framed "yard of violets" on the wall above the dresser that held her china and tablecloths. I guess that was a thing then. (She was married and set up housekeeping in 1917)
Either if they're vaccinated but exposed and asymptomatic, they have to mask for five days. If they were symptomatic but recovered they can come back one day after fever abates but must mask for five days. For unvaccinated I think they still have to quarantine for 10 days, or five days plus a negative test after day five - but there are no tests here to be had, so it's defacto ten days.
The local public school just closed (with NO instruction online) for three days this coming week, too many of the staff are out sick. I think after that they're supposed to go all virtual.
It's very, very hard for me not to despair and think we fell into a wormhole that opened out in April 2020. Things are bad here, and a few of the people that I regularly conversed with either have gone back on stricter isolation (autoimmune issues) or will be home teaching their kids. I hate how few people I get to talk to on a daily basis.
I'm sure part of my reaction of "we're back in April 2020!" is remembering the horror of going weeks in summer 2020 when I literally did not speak to another person save for my mother on the phone.
I HAD considered taking a quilt down to the longarmer in Dension (she sent her "good customers" 15% off coupons in a holiday card!) but the forecast for here looks kind of dire - rain changing to snow and high winds, so I figure that's The Man Upstairs telling me "Oh My Me, girl, there's a bad variant out there and you're teaching in-person, stay home!"
So I guess I will. Anyway, I need to pack more boxes of books/fabric/yarn and then on Monday (day off) haul them all to the storage unit. I do have someone verbally committed to serve as my contractor but I told him I needed another month to clear crap up.
But my kitchen sink is supposed to get fixed today so it no longer leaks, so washing-up dishes will get easier again, so maybe I make a pot of soup or something this weekend.
Also the wheels are kind of off this semester already - 1/3 of my students on quarantine, several more on "required facemask" (we do not and cannot have a campus mask mandate, thanks, Kevin Stitt (blows raspberry)) and communication is getting bad - I had someone on "required masking" in my class yesterday and I never received the e-mail about it, and I don't think they were masked! So that's fun.....I probably worry more about my other students' safety than I SHOULD. (I don't worry too much about my own - boostered and I always mask in class, and anyway, if covid sneaks past that and makes me sick enough to die? It was my time anyway)
well, it'll work itself out, a lot of college faculty will quit over pandemic frustrations before enrollment drops low enough for them to be fired. I will say a lot of our students seem awfully burned out and disconnected.
this is probably my horrible week talking - I have more students sick or quarantining now (first week of the semester AFTER vaccines became widely available) than any other time in the pandemic. Fully 1/3 of my students are either sick, quarantining, or on "can attend but required to mask" status, meaning exposed-but-five-days-post-exposure-without-symptoms
I don't know what the answer is. Shuttering every university except the elite ones isn't good. Going to a "mostly online education for the proles" isn't a good solution. Maybe there are no good solutions. (And maybe I should keep taking career aptitude tests to see if I hit on something that seems like a reasonable career switch for someone over fifty and without a lot of desire to do a whole new education)
Are you sure the gnomes aren't just on an around-the-world tour? You might start getting photos of their exploits in the mail...
My weekend is going to be boxing stuff up and moving it to the storage unit; I decided to go all-in on house renovation. Of course, I still have to find a trustworthy general contractor but I'm telling myself that's future me's problem, now I have to bung books and fabric into boxes and move it out. (The eventual carrot to get me to keep doing this is both a renovated kitchen and the chance to paint my sewing room a pretty color once I get a little drywall repair sorted)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Retire and Move to Florida, They Said: Part One, The Covid Years”
Yeah, I get that. I'm totally alone, though, and one thing I learned from the pandemic is spending too much time staring at my own four walls and listening to my own thoughts makes me sad and weird. I wasn't prescribing, I was saying what I was going to do.
"
I know what I'm doing when I eventually retire, presuming we're not on Variant Omega Zed and all having to hide in our houses lest we catch a super-contagious immune-escape version of COVID: I am going to do volunteer work
and if anyone gets rude at me, or demanding, or puts more labor on me than I want, I will simply quit. Because it won't matter, since I'm not being paid.
There's a national park about an hour from me; if they would take me I'd happily lead walks or do programs or even pick up trash on the trails - I did the simple scutwork type of volunteer work at the park near where I grew up when I was in high school and I enjoyed it.
I have hobbies, but I also need to feel like I"m doing something that matters to someone other than me.
On “Vacation Homes and Tupperware”
Truth. I once had someone I thought of as a friend until I realized the ONLY time I got invited to her house for anything was one of those home-sales jewelry parties. I came up with a quick excuse and wrote them off my list.
Frankly I was wondering if the vacation-home thing you referenced was.....a time-share pitch? (Do they still do time-shares? I remember a few wasted Saturday afternoons when my frugal dad wanted the set of steak knives and the chance at a bigger "prize" and so we all had to sit through the sales pitch)
On “Concerning Proposals To Place Cameras In School Classrooms”
Or for that matter: some kid decides that beclowning themselves deliberately (and derailing the entire class) is a way to become Internet Famous. I mean there's a subset of kids (and college students!) who do absolutely asinine stuff in class WITHOUT cameras that stops everything dead and derails the whole class, imagine people wanting to do that for online clout
and the flip side: the shy kids terrified of having their face or voice on camera will never speak in class again
"
I'm a college prof who has been teaching to a camera (granted, for a very limited audience - only students actually enrolled in my classes) since March 2020* and it's made my teaching materially worse because I'm more self conscious. If I were being filmed and literally any freaking rando could watch me and presumably critique me, post video clips out of context to ridicule me, or try to "rat me out" to my superiors - yeah, they don't pay me enough and I'm close enough to retirement I'd just say 'good luck finding someone who can teach the diversity of classes I do" and leave.
(*first, because campus was closed and I had to complete the semester from my living room, then it was because they oversubscribed one of my classes and we couldn't fit in the room with appropriate distancing, and now it's mainly for people having to isolate/with health issues or childcare issues. I planned SOMEDAY to quit offering class over zoom, but every semester thus far I've tried there's been a bad new variant, and so I just keep laboring under the zoom curse)
On “Thursday Throughput: The Trailing Edge of Omicron Edition”
when I was a kid in the 1970s, I went to kindergarten. It was 1/2 day (I think it was in the mornings, and we went home for lunch and for the afternoon?) and it was pretty heavily play based. I don't remember a lot about it but I remember there being a pretend kitchen, and a sand table sort of thing, and we got read stories.
Granted, I grew up in a more affluent district and maybe there was less worry about us falling behind - I already could read, having learned at home as a kid, and was learning to print, and I knew some basic math. But I don't remember *aggressive* education in kindergarten; most of the educational stuff I got was at home, and my parents presented it more as "games" than as "you will learn this" so IDK.
I suspect that pushing kids too much too early burns them out.
"
IDK, I feel like I want to be really cautious for a while yet, 'cos I felt this way ("covid is waning, yay") right before Delta and then again right before omicron. Twice bitten, four times shy. (Though I also feel like that once I finally DO relax a bit, that's when we get the really horrific variant. I have to remind myself that this isn't a malign force bent on outthinking me but it doesn't always work)
I do still mask in class and in stores (in class, because students party, and our student body is only about 1/3 vaccinated as per the latest stats, and in stores because people are gross). I don't love it but I've grown accustomed to it. Will I give it up? I don't know. I'm going to wait at least a few more months to see what new variants crop up.
Also I interact from time to time with someone on heavy immunosuppressants and someone else with a husband who's doing chemo, and I figure the mask doesn't hurt and might help, so....
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Middle Of Winter”
I'd be doing it Saturday. Too many of the other places I might "batch" with that trip are closed here on Sunday
at least it's not a first-of-the-month payday, I guess
"
yeah I want to go to a bigger grocery store than the local ones but the thought of being out interacting with people stocking up for The Big Game gives me pause. Last week it was trying to grocery shop before a couple days of ice and snow, this week it's football fans.
then again, given that we're probably as far away from either team's home city as it's possible to be in the US, maybe not that many people care?
On “Of School Lunch, Farm Bills, Free Riders, and Book Clubs”
"if you tolerate the moochers, the moochers will soon outnumber the producers.Given the number of politicians who have talked openly about this the last 20 or so years I doubt its still secret."
A friend of mine comments that we express the loudest abhorrence of behaviors we ourselves either indulge in, or are tempted to indulge in.....interesting.
"
Reminds me of how one of my grandmothers (a widow living on VERY limited social security, and while family members helped where they could, most of her older children were in a similar boat to her) used to get the "government cheese."
Except. My grandmother was probably lactose-intolerant; she said milk and cheese and ice cream upset her stomach. But she took the cheese anyway; it was easier to accept it along with the macaroni and flour and whatever else was being handed out than to refuse. And she parcelled it out to other people, who wouldn't have strictly been eligible for the handouts, including my family. It made good grilled cheese sandwiches, I'll say that much. It was more welcome in my family than baby carrots would have been that's for sure.
On “The Morning Paper”
One of my grandfathers would complain that his paper got "womanized" if my grandmother or one of the other women in the family got to it first; he claimed they never refolded it "right"
On “Weekend Plans Post: The 20 Year Roof”
Roads were okay this afternoon to go out and pick up a pizza, but I'd definitely not want to be walking or driving after the sun went down and the slush re-froze
"
Stuck at home because of the storm - the roads here look dire, and campus is closed (they even told us not to do virtual classes over Zoom, out of concern people would lose power - I did not but I gather a number of people in North Texas did). So I've got some research reading to do and maybe also I relax a little. I had exams scheduled (first of the semester) for yesterday and today, so the first part of next week is giving those, meaning no course prep...
On “Dead Squirrels and Plumbing Problems”
I was invited to join a Nextdoor for my section of town. I decided that wasn't something I needed. Also sometimes I am the neighbor whose yard gets complained about, I'm sure: I work full time, I am tired a lot and have allergies, sometimes I just don't get to things that fast.
I also don't want the gossip; I live in a small town and I KNOW what people are going to talk about when a Muslim family/same-sex couple/immigrant family moves into the area, and I just don't want to deal with it.
(Also I admit with some embarrassment I hired a plumber to replace my kitchen faucet. I probably could have done it myself but like I said: I'm old and tired and sometimes don't get to things very fast, and paying A Guy meant it was done two days after I picked out the faucet. Then again, I'm a professor, not an online influencer.)
That said: I have removed dead animals from my own yard, including burying a stray (?I hope) cat that apparently got hit by a car and crawled into my drive to die
On “Weekend Plans Post: Let’s Get Ready To Rumble”
Now that I'm over the bacterial infection I had last week, and I tested COVID negative (had a double exposure - the one Saturday at the urgent care, and I also, unbeknownst to me, had a student show up infectious to class before that), I can get back to sorting and digging out
This weekend I attack the walk-in closet which is mostly a repository for clothes, including a lot I've not worn in years and probably should just dump. Also I have some more fabric in there but it's mostly already in plastic tubs and could just be moved to the storage unit as-is.
Sadly though first I have a dental check up, and this is the check up where they scale all the tartar off my teeth and also check my gums; do not want. I have genetically bad teeth (insert joke about British Isles heritage here) so even though I take good care of them I always need stuff done. At least I've not needed any crowns or fillings in almost 10 years; may that trend continue.
On “Biden Administration Withdraws OSHA Vaccination or Testing Emergency Temporary Standard”
*vaguely wonders if this has something to do with worker's comp claims about being COVID-exposed at work*
I don't know much about the field, of course - I teach a tiny bit about OSHA in one of my classes, but I am far from an expert.. I suppose it would be v. hard to prove on-the-job COVID exposure, unless the person claiming it could demonstrate that no one in their household exposed them and they literally went nowhere else (not even a grocery store) where they could have been exposed.
I teach on a campus in a state where vaccine mandates and mask mandates have been banned. Every day I have different students having to isolate due to exposure and I have to report who they sat near in class - some more than once during a semester. I dont' see this improving in what remains of my career (a decade, unless I burn out and quit early, which feels increasingly likely)
On “What’s a Wordle?”
I like it. And I like the sharing on social media. A lot of my Twitter mutuals do it, and we can commiserate over hard ones, or chuckle over certain words (the one you referenced, for example, though that's rare that there's a double entendre - there is also a four-letter word game parody of it called Sweardle, where you have to guess swear words. (though their definition is loose: one day "Pube" was the answer, which I did not get)
I dunno. I feel like the people snarking on it have never had the experience (that I have had) of being very much on the Outside for much of their lives and finally finding something that lets them feel like a bit of an Insider.
On “Weekend Plans Post: No Longer Batching It Rock And Roll Weekend”
Dropped off the quilt at the longarmers', hit a nicer grocery store than what's available in town. Will need to make it up a bit tomorrow by going in to work for a little grading and to write a couple lab quizzes....
Still have something like 1/3 of my students on required isolation pending a negative COVID test....
On “Our First Show”
one of my happiest memories from high school was when we acted out scenes from King Lear (we were reading it at the time) and my group got the scene where Cornwall pulls out Gloucester's eyes, and I was like I KNOW HOW WE CAN DO THIS, I'LL BE CORNWALL and we did it by seating "Gloucester" in a chair with his back to the audience, and I palmed a couple of grapes from my pocket, which I then squashed and threw on the floor.
it was deeply satisfying partly because it shocked the other students (I was known as pretty meek in high school)
(We had time to prepare, that was how I knew to have the grapes. I also borrowed an old fur vest from a friend of my mom's; it looked kind of like a doublet)
On “Comp’ny’s Gone”
Heh. My grandma had an old framed "yard of violets" on the wall above the dresser that held her china and tablecloths. I guess that was a thing then. (She was married and set up housekeeping in 1917)
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Holiday Hangover”
Either if they're vaccinated but exposed and asymptomatic, they have to mask for five days. If they were symptomatic but recovered they can come back one day after fever abates but must mask for five days. For unvaccinated I think they still have to quarantine for 10 days, or five days plus a negative test after day five - but there are no tests here to be had, so it's defacto ten days.
The local public school just closed (with NO instruction online) for three days this coming week, too many of the staff are out sick. I think after that they're supposed to go all virtual.
It's very, very hard for me not to despair and think we fell into a wormhole that opened out in April 2020. Things are bad here, and a few of the people that I regularly conversed with either have gone back on stricter isolation (autoimmune issues) or will be home teaching their kids. I hate how few people I get to talk to on a daily basis.
I'm sure part of my reaction of "we're back in April 2020!" is remembering the horror of going weeks in summer 2020 when I literally did not speak to another person save for my mother on the phone.
"
I HAD considered taking a quilt down to the longarmer in Dension (she sent her "good customers" 15% off coupons in a holiday card!) but the forecast for here looks kind of dire - rain changing to snow and high winds, so I figure that's The Man Upstairs telling me "Oh My Me, girl, there's a bad variant out there and you're teaching in-person, stay home!"
So I guess I will. Anyway, I need to pack more boxes of books/fabric/yarn and then on Monday (day off) haul them all to the storage unit. I do have someone verbally committed to serve as my contractor but I told him I needed another month to clear crap up.
But my kitchen sink is supposed to get fixed today so it no longer leaks, so washing-up dishes will get easier again, so maybe I make a pot of soup or something this weekend.
Also the wheels are kind of off this semester already - 1/3 of my students on quarantine, several more on "required facemask" (we do not and cannot have a campus mask mandate, thanks, Kevin Stitt (blows raspberry)) and communication is getting bad - I had someone on "required masking" in my class yesterday and I never received the e-mail about it, and I don't think they were masked! So that's fun.....I probably worry more about my other students' safety than I SHOULD. (I don't worry too much about my own - boostered and I always mask in class, and anyway, if covid sneaks past that and makes me sick enough to die? It was my time anyway)
On “National Undergraduate Enrollment Falls Again in 2021”
well, it'll work itself out, a lot of college faculty will quit over pandemic frustrations before enrollment drops low enough for them to be fired. I will say a lot of our students seem awfully burned out and disconnected.
this is probably my horrible week talking - I have more students sick or quarantining now (first week of the semester AFTER vaccines became widely available) than any other time in the pandemic. Fully 1/3 of my students are either sick, quarantining, or on "can attend but required to mask" status, meaning exposed-but-five-days-post-exposure-without-symptoms
I don't know what the answer is. Shuttering every university except the elite ones isn't good. Going to a "mostly online education for the proles" isn't a good solution. Maybe there are no good solutions. (And maybe I should keep taking career aptitude tests to see if I hit on something that seems like a reasonable career switch for someone over fifty and without a lot of desire to do a whole new education)
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Garden Gnomes That Weren’t There”
Are you sure the gnomes aren't just on an around-the-world tour? You might start getting photos of their exploits in the mail...
My weekend is going to be boxing stuff up and moving it to the storage unit; I decided to go all-in on house renovation. Of course, I still have to find a trustworthy general contractor but I'm telling myself that's future me's problem, now I have to bung books and fabric into boxes and move it out. (The eventual carrot to get me to keep doing this is both a renovated kitchen and the chance to paint my sewing room a pretty color once I get a little drywall repair sorted)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.