Day 18 - LA County Dept. of Public Health mandates indoor masking and OUTDOOR masking at large events

Not my actual classroom, but you get the idea…

9/2/21. Thursday

9:30 –10:00 -  I wake up naturally so I go downstairs to say good morning to the animal. She’s awake and running around so we go outside straight away and I water my snap dragon seedlings and a few of my other plants while she goes potty. Return inside and pieces of turkey burger for her; coffee for me. I go upstairs.

10:00-11:30 – Blog post.

11:30- 3:30 – I eat the last remaining piece of frozen lasagna and start preparing for tonight’s class during my “working lunch.”  It’s obvious that Thursdays are going to be a complete wash in that I’ll be devoting the entire day to class prep and teaching. Very depressing.

-I have my own AUDIO lecture [about 2 hours] that is scheduled to play tonight, running in the background, so I can listen for any discrepancies.  While it runs, I open the Google slides to make sure they coincide with lecture and check for typos because I can make basic edits myself without bothering L. I also review my lecture notes to make sure I will be conveying identical content to my Face-to-Face students.

-I take a break to call L.’s Vanguard college account, update my contact information, and request a  disbursement check for L.’s Otis tuition.

-Back to class prep and I check the link to the video and the video quiz to make sure it’s ready to run tonight. I make a few changes to the Discussion Board, then send an email blast to the ONLINE students, reminding them to sign in at 7:00.  This is only the third week, so the students still need some prompting.

I review Attendance for Specialty Class 1A and drop the No Shows, per College No. 1’s policy.

I  move onto responding to emails from my students in tonight’s Core Class.  Several F2F students emailed to say they cannot come to class and are requesting the Zoom link. There is no Zoom. I send the same email to each student: “Course content is NOT delivered via Zoom.  Please report to the Canvas Home Page and watch the 2-minute introductory video.”   I’m sick and tired of repeating “There is no Zoom.”

My Dean’s secretary at College No.1 is requesting our syllabi, so I email her the syllabi for my two classes.

I send an email blast to my high schoolers at College No. #2, telling them what to expect for tomorrow’s class and that I will, yet again, be delivering course content via email. I prepare a prompt that I’ll send to them tomorrow morning, around 8:00 a.m.

I prepare snacks for my lunch bag and pack up all of my supplies – Beets speaker, Netbook, file folder with my lecture notes and Attendance, chargers, my mobile mouse/laser pointer, etc.

2:30 – L. leaves for work.

4:00-5:30 – Shower. Lotion. I put on a dress and take out my braids. Full hair and make-up.

5:30 – 7:00 – Driving.  Traffic is heavy for most of the drive. I listen to the Political Gabfest.

7:00-10:05 – Although I received email confirmation from IT that they repaired the speaker in this classroom, they didn’t. I’m able to successfully “pair” my Beets speaker with the computer and blast the audio content to the students that way; otherwise, there would be no audio for the documentary.

Lecture is long and my mask keeps slipping. I truly do NOT understand why students would prefer to be in a classroom, listening to me lecture, INSTEAD of attending class in the privacy of their own home. This is such a waste of my time, especially when all of my lectures are pre-recorded and still hold up.

Of note, is the fact that the pexi-glass shields that have surrounded the computer in this room for the past 3 weeks that  were installed to protect me and other instructors from Covid-19, were removed and are now lying on the floor in a pile, next to the desk.  Apparently, when IT installed the pexi glass shields, the shields blocked the USB port on the back of the computer and it’s incredibly difficult to insert a thumb drive if you don’t have small hands. An instructor must have complained because IT’s solution involved yanking out the pexi-glass shields entirely, safety protocols be damned, and dumping them on the floor. Pexi-glass shields don’t work, BUT this is yet another example of how expendable we instructors are. In the past, Admin has said the shields are one of the ways they are trying to keep us safe yet, just one complaint and the shields are removed and discarded in a pile, on the floor.

This week, I implement the first “Check-in Email” sequence of the semester and spontaneously send an email blast to my ONLINE students in the middle of lecture wherein I ask them to confirm receipt NOW, in current time.  This way, I’m able to determine whether or not they’re following along with lecture.  Most of them respond immediately and I’m pleasantly surprised.

10:00-11:00 – Class dismissed and I take this time to send a stern email to the students who did NOT respond to my “Check-In Email.”  I also send an email to the students who did not sign in on the Discussion Board, chastising them and telling them they will receive 0 credit on the Video Quiz because they were absent. I update Attendance and leave.

11:00-12:00 – Driving. I eat carrots and hummus on the way home. I listen to Southern Fried Crime.

12:00-12:30 – Home and I unload everything.

12:30-1:30 – On Thursdays, L. has an Otis online Digital Media class from 3:30-6:30 so we discuss it. The instructor has asked the students to download some kind of antiquated, complicated software that L. is having a hard time figuring out.  This appears to be L.’s least favorite class.

1:30-2:30 – I’m exhausted. Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 7:00.