| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- how i learned to write backwards Less than a week until school starts, whatever *that* means. Talked with my dean today and we worked out some various details for the semester, including my impending and hopeful completion of tenure. Last semester was its own beast, what with the mid-semester lockdown and shift to online, but this new semester is going to be singularly weird in that I won't have a chance to get to know most of my students in person. I already know some of them but because my classes are largely asynchronous there's this threat of a real disconnect with the rest of them. We are encouraged to "engage in meaningful and direct communication" with students and I guess it's good that I'm a bit OCD about student communication. In any case it feels as though I am in the process of re-learning what it means to teach, what it means to reach a student, what it means to have a student reach me. Oh, and it's very likely we'll be online in the spring, because of course. I did just buy a new, more robust laptop. It is scheduled to get here Thursday and I can't wait. I love this little Macbook Pro that I have right now but I need something with more rev--something that can nimbly handle multiple applications and 27/7 Zoom. I upgraded to the 16-inch Macbook Pro because I need more screen space when I'm trying to build my online class lectures; plus this new one will have a faster processor, better graphics and more memory. It cost a lot but it's basically my primary method of working (I could have brought a laptop home from school but the ones we have there are basically entry-level and frustratingly ineffectual). A short list of things to do between now and next Monday: *Finish and post first and second week lectures for all classes. It feels like a slog doing any of this right now thanks to the killer heat wave we're having. Seriously, it was 111 degrees on Sunday and then we had crazy thunder, rain and lightening - which almost never happens during the summers here. Today's projected high is 108 degrees. We get a brief respite on Thursday with a projected high of 97 degrees but then it's right back to another week of triple digit temps. Thank god for AC but it feels as if we are hunkered down against the world with the blinds drawn in an effort to minimize AC use because the state is also doing rolling blackouts.
Good times. I guess I should stop meandering about here and get to work. 1:33 pm - 18.08.20
sounds: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- previously on ... - next time on ...
we're all probably OK, I guess. - 21.09.20 - 5:21 pm in which the cat is better but i'm still fucking sad about everything - 04.09.20 - 7:02 pm of fluffs and purrs - 03.09.20 - 7:17 pm some summers, they drop like flies - 30.08.20 - 1:31 pm under the zoom light - 23.08.20 - 2:01 pm |
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