Day 12-Monkey Pox is the new pandemic

Me…

Many people are still testing positive on antigen tests ten days after contracting BA5; some people continue to test positive FOURTEEN days after infection!! The vast majority of people are no longer positive after Day 10, but there is a “prolonged tail of viral shedding” under BA5 according to Dr. Kim Shriner, Infectious Disease Specialist. Unfortunately, she can’t definitively say how long this “tail” is. Additionally, antigen tests weren’t designed for BA5 (we’re still using the original Covid 19 tests if people bother to test at all) and they’re historically inaccurate. You could get a negative read, even when you’re still positive. BA5 has traded severity for infectiousness. Everyone will get BA5; but they won’t die. The question is: How long are you contagious?

8/15/22. Monday

9:00-L. leaves for work. I hear the garage door open and go back to bed

10:45-11:30-Up and the dog is waiting outside my bedroom door, so I take her downstairs and outside. It is already sooo hot. She goes potty and then, unbeknownst to me, while I’m doing the dishes, runs upstairs and poops outside of L’s room. I find it later.

11:30-1:00-Bullet journal.

1:00-1:20- I text L. and B., then;

1:20-2:20-I shower and ice my eyes. Lotion, light make-up, and Garden Society Member attire; I wear a sleeveless, black, mini-dress with a floral print.

2:30-3:00- I make two spinach salads and add tomatoes, pepper jack cheese, and a can of pinto beans, divided between the two. I report to my office and listen to Audio Lecture - Chapter 6, Part I for my Specialty 1A class.

3:00-4:30-L. and I blocked this time so she could edit several lectures I culled out. She makes the edits on her Iphone and we talk about rescheduling the Animal Farm musical tickets I purchased. Because L. told me she was available on the date that I selected for the tickets, she will have to make the arrangements to reschedule or reimburse me for the cost of her ticket. I don’t mind going alone…

-L. emails me the revised Audio lectures and I replace the old ones in my Specialty Class 1A file.

4:30-6:00-Although today is only the first day of the semester, I am already having a major problem with an OSD student.

One thing you should know, dear reader [insert smile emoji here] is that Adjuncts, as well as the school where they’re contracted, can be individually sued. It’s not enough that an Adjunct instructor is a second-class citizen, making a pittance in relation to the extensive workload that we have outside of class. I’m only paid for 3 hours of classroom instruction, per class - that’s it! If you’ve been reading this blog, you can see that I’ve put in hundreds of hours in class prep by the end of the semester and all of this work is unpaid. HOWEVER, it is absolutely needed in order to teach a 3-hour lecture.

But back to my original point…Adjuncts are also personally liable if we fail to adhere to state or federal guidelines. We can be disciplined, terminated, and/or sued. Make no mistake about this…if an adjunct is sued by a student, the college is the first entity to scapegoat the Adjunct instructor and throw her under the bus. I don’t care if my contract isn’t renewed…but I’ll go down “swinging” before I let any asshole student take me to court.

For the past few days, I have been receiving upwards of 5 emails a day from this crazy OSD bitch, complaining that she is unable to access the online content for Specialty Class 1A. This student purports to have lung cancer (and various other ailments), but one of her dying wishes is to take Specialty Class 1A - it’s on her bucket list. Uh-huh….sure. Spoiler Alert: I learn several weeks into the semester that this crazy bitch is 65, so it ain’t lung cancer. The number of emails is excessive and the OSD Director is cc’d on every one. After several days of this pattern, I define it as “harassment”, even though, by the end of the semester, nobody else will.

These emails are stream of consciousness rants [so there must be a psychological component to her disability as well. Instructors are not allowed to know the student’s disability; it’s confidential, which I think is bullshit] …almost no punctuation…and they collectively accuse me of failing to provide an “accessible online classroom.” That word “accessible” is key, because if the class is NOT accessible, I’m not adhering to ADA state and federal guidelines. I immediately see the student for what she is…a litigious bitch looking for a lawsuit. She makes allegations with abandon…some are true…but most are not.

These emails come in rapid succession and she alternates, randomly, between the Canvas email platform and the College No. 1 general platform, which means I am continuously toggling back and forth between these two Inboxes so that I am not labeled “unresponsive.” For the entirety of the semester, I will respond to every email within 24 hours, weekends excluded, even on days when she sends upwards of 10 emails in a 2-hour period. A few examples:

-This crazy OSD bitch accuses me of failing to put the Chapter 1 Review Quiz and the Chapter 1 Video Quiz into my Specialty 1A Canvas shell. She cc’s the OSD Director on this email so I do, too, in my responses.

Read the Syllabus. There are no quizzes assigned for Chapter 1 because online classes can be intimidating during the first couple weeks of the semester. In the beginning, I’m simply trying to acclimate my students to this new format for delivering content. Although the Syllabus is posted under Module 1, I email it to her, “for her convenience.”

I respond to her much as I’m responding here, in this blog post, but keep in mind that the amount of time it will take to respond to upwards of 4, 5, 6, sometimes 10 emails a day, which is what the semester will bear as she enters a fever pitch, is inordinate, excessive, and will consume the bulk of my waking hours for the next three months, to the extent of little else. My other classes, as well as my personal life, will be eclipsed by this horrible person. And, although I will reach out to multiple entities for help, nobody will do a fucking thing…

-This crazy OSD bitch alleges that Slide 16 is missing from the Chapter 1 Google slides. I research this and find that this is true. In the Audio Lecture, I inadvertently instruct the students to move to Slide 16 when lecture is actually over and I’m providing a 3-minute overview. So she’s correct…there is no Slide 16. Of interest, however, is that no student has EVER brought this to my attention, over the three semesters the class has run, because everyone, collectively, has understood that it was a simple oversight. All of the information referenced in the Audio lecture was posted to the previous Google slides and content is not impacted by the lack of phantom Slide 16.

Enter one of my first attempts at gaslighting. I quickly create a new slide, add it to the Google series, and email her that the slide is, in fact, there. I continue to cc the OSD Director because she is cc’ing the OSD Director.

The student then emails back that one of the bullets on the slide I just created is misnumbered. In my haste to create a slide, the bullets say 1, 2, and 2 instead of 1, 2, and 3. She actually took the time to put this in an email and cc the OSD Director! I’ve had issues with students in the past, but I can honestly say, over the past 25 years of teaching, I have never had a student email me about something so petty concerning a misnumbered Google slide. Additionally, students NEVER cc Department Deans. This is the first experience I’ve had with a student cc’ing Department Heads. Can we actually refer to this bitch as a student? She’s 65.

I reply to her email, cc the OSD Dean, and say that the bullet sequence was corrected. It galls me to have to put this in an email and I vow I will NEVER admit to another error again.

-Yet another email from this bitch. This next email is hard to convey to people who don’t understand how Canvas works, but I’ll do my best.

Instructors design “Modules” for every week of the class. This means I have 16 Modules posted in my Canvas shell. All of the assignments are “UNpublished”, meaning the students cannot access them until I post content in accordance with each week of the Syllabus. So, at the beginning of each semester, only Module 1, i.e., Week 1 assignments are available to the students.

Every semester, I copy the previous Canvas course into the new Canvas shell; sometimes there are slight glitches. In this case, I transferred all of the previous content into the new Canvas shell and ALL of the assignments are supposed to be UNpublished. As stated above, I’ll make them available as we move through the semester, i.e., I will “publish” the assignments for the students each week.

All of this occurred successfully, EXCEPT for the Chapter 5 Review Quiz; the software accidentally “published” ONE 10-question, multiple-choice quiz. It’s not due for five weeks and is located under Module 5/Week 5, far down on the Canvas shell.

*This crazy OSD bitch emails me that she’s confused by the assignment and has no idea what to do because my instructions were unclear. She cc’s the OSD Director on this email.

I respond that the Canvas site is still “under construction”, but will be up and running in the next 24 hours, and that she happened to open an assignment that is not due for five weeks. I note that the due dates, of which she can see, for this ONE published assignment reflect that this quiz is not due for another 5 weeks. I encourage her that, in the future, if she is confused by an upcoming assignment, she should simply check the Syllabus for clarification. I again attach the Syllabus for her convenience, even though it is already under Module #1 on Canvas. I cc the OSD Director on this email.

I have to note for the reader of this blog that the level of sophistication it takes for a student to access the ONLY published assignment on the entire Canvas platform is very high. After this exchange, I realize that this bitch understands the Canvas software - most students don’t - and she will use her understanding to build a case of “failing to provide” an accessible classroom against me. I won’t let that happen.

-Another email. Previously, I emailed all of the students and instructed them to sign in on the Discussion Board the first day of the semester so that I know they’re enrolled in the class; this is how I take attendance. This crazy OSD bitch emails me that she cannot find the Discussion Board on the Canvas platform. She cc’s the OSD Director on this email.

By now I know this is bullshit, because in just a few emails I’ve already discovered that she’s incredibly savvy with regard to Canvas minutiae. She knows exactly where everything is located and is using the course content against me. I research her complaint and discover that she was the first student to sign in on the Discussion Board! In other words, she lied. I email this bitch and note that she was the first student to sign in on the Discussion Board and that I’m unclear as to the nature of her issue. I cc the OSD Director on this email as well. She doesn’t respond.

-As an OSD student, this crazy bitch is entitled to extra time on her tests. Lets face it - that’s why these students claim to have a disability…so they can have an unfair advantage over the rest of the students by receiving extra time to complete their tests. I’ve said before, in this blog, that this program is such a racket. I’ve had students doing poorly for the first several weeks of the semester only to report to the OSD Department and suddenly claim that they are disabled so I will give them more time on their tests so their grade will improve. In accordance with federal guidelines, an “OSD” student can file for “modifications” at any time during the semester but, as I’ve said previously, OSD students truly in need of assistance don’t even know where to find the assistance.

The end result is a department [OSD] trying to justify it’s existence by catering to students who are simply gaming the system. Spoiler Alert: Next semester, by Week #14, one of my students will have a strong C in the class. With just two weeks to go, she will report to the OSD Department and file her disability claim so she can have double the time to take the Final. She got a B in the class.

There is a caveat with regard to the “extra time” concession and the OSD Dean personally told me this several years ago: if the extra time is already “built into” the quiz, then Instructors don’t have to provide it to the OSD student. As a result, this is how I run my tests: A 10-question, multiple-choice quiz should take 10 minutes to complete HOWEVER, every student gets 30 minutes. This is way too much time to complete a 10-question, multiple-choice quiz, but I love responding to those OSD assholes who say, “Where’s my extra time?” with “You’re not entitled to extra time because it is already built into the quiz.” They’re, like, “whaattt? I’m entitled to extra time!” Uh, in accordance with OSD guidelines, I got your extra time right here, bitches! It’s baked in - take it or leave it.

-This crazy OSD bitch is requesting extra time and we have “the conversation.” She’s not happy about it, but these guidelines are sound because the OSD Dean, himself, told me about “built in time.” In short, you’re not getting more time on the quizzes. Go fuck yourself.

———————-

-As I respond to email after email, I also manage to send Add Codes to two students who want to enroll in one of my classes;

-I have a Chapter 3 Audio lecture playing in the background and I note the edits I need to make as it’s playing. I eat a Lara lemon bar.

-I load the new-and-improved Specialty Class 1A lectures for Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 into the Canvas shell under the appropriate Modules;

6:00-6:30-I quickly change and leave for Striders.

6:30-7:30 - We walk the Hospital Paseo route. I walk alone and think about how fucked up my schedule is for this semester as well as possible strategies for dealing with this fucking bitch.

7:30-8:30-After Striders, I drive to a new place I’m thinking of hiking - Haskel Canyon Open Space - and check it out. There’s no shade here so I’m on the fence about it.

8:30-9:00 - I go to Whole Foods and buy 4 turkey meatballs and a small container of the Greek tortellini salad. I drive home and talk to L. and N. about what color I should spray the decorative twigs I bought for the studio recently.

-9:00-9:45-I eat my food, read a Money Diary, and do a bullet journal. For the first time in several days I finally feel satiated after eating a meal.

9:45-11:10-I finish my bullet journal.

11:10-1:00-I listen to another Audio lecture and make edits while I upload a blog post.

1:00-3:30-I load an extra Video quiz into my Core Class then update all the dates for each Video quiz assigned for the semester. I also check the links for all assigned documentaries and podcasts to make sure the content is still accessible.

-I listen to yet another Audio lecture and make edits.

3:30-4:00-Kitchen duty

4:00-5:00-Nighttime routine. Sunless tanning. Bed. I set my alarm for 9:00