Day 25-Monkey Pox is the new pandemic

Online teaching…today is a work day…

8/28/22. Sunday

8:30-9:00-The dog starts licking my face so I take her outside, then go back to bed. When I wake up it’s 10:45 and the day is officially shot to hell.

11:00-12:30-I make the last meal in my rotation: Lemon Chicken. It’s more labor intensive then I remember; the chicken needs to be breaded, then fried, then baked and the recipe also calls for lemon zest. I make the dish, clean the kitchen, put it in the oven, and quickly jump in the shower. I create a reduced shower time for myself because the chicken will be finished in about 20 minutes [it was already fried].

12:30-1:10-Shower and I run downstairs to pull out the chicken.

1:10-1:30-I change into workout clothes and eat a cashew Lara Bar.

1:30-2:30-I do a 30-minute Insanity Max-Power workout and recover.

2:30-4:00-Lotion and I change into Athletic Housewife attire: black, off-brand, LuLu Lemon-type leggings and a sleeveless, form-fitting black shirt that I dress up with pearls. Full make-up. I report to my office and record two “Welcome” videos for my online classes [one class at College No. 1 and one class at College No. 2]. L. will have to drop them into my Canvas shells when she returns.

-I text B. and ask if he wants to come for Patio Coffee on Tuesday.

4:00-6:00-I finish loading and updating the Canvas shell in conjunction with the Syllabus for my Synchronous online, “Einstein” high school students. As stated in a previous post, I don’t have a previous template for this course [16-week, online, in-person course, every Monday and Wednesday, from 3:00-4:25 pm] so I had to create it, largely from scratch. I completed the first 10 weeks of the Syllabus and now I’m down to the last 6 weeks; this section, strangely, seems to be the most laborious, and I make multiple corrections to the Syllabus template I’m using.

In the midst of all this I prep a baked potato, but it sits on the counter for several hours before I have time to eat it.

6:00-7:00-I take a break and prepare my potato with barbecue chicken, cilantro, and red onion. This is the only thing I’ve eaten all day.

Return to my office and I put the finishing touches on the Syllabus and the Canvas shell for my “Einstein” high school students while I eat my potato. The Syllabus and the Canvas shell are finally complete, but I still need to load the Discussion Boards.

7:00-9:00-I switch to College No. 1 and check the Yuja platform. I followed Druv’s instructions to the letter and a transcribed copy materialized, although the transcription resembles what I refer to as “word salad” or ‘word shit” (non-sensical sentences and words that are AI generated and unintelligible). HOWEVER, this is the platform I was told to use - I have it “in writing.” If the transcription doesn’t make sense, then College No. 1 needs to step up and pay for Rev.com (human transcriptionists).

I take this time to load every Specialty 1A Class Audio lecture onto the Yuja platform for transcription. While I’m uploading, I multi-task a few other items. For example:

-The Rev.com transcription that I personally ordered arrived in my Inbox. I download it, play my Audio lecture on double speed, and check the transcription for errors, which are almost none. I have to say that Rev.com is a great service. It should be - it’s expensive.

-I’ve already posted about it but I still can’t seem to load my Audio lectures directly into the Canvas shell for Specialty 1A Class at College No. 1. L. had to create a special Google link for many of the lectures, causing that crazy OSD bitch to have a conniption fit. I email IT at College No. 1 and ask why I keep getting a “400 Error Message.”

-One of my students from Specialty Class 1B, who is now taking my current Specialty Class 1A emailed to say she doesn’t like the Google link that L. designed because the student is unable to play the lecture at double speed. I agree with the student…as a work-around, the Google link is sub-par.

-It’s possible I’m unable to upload ANY additional material because I’ve exceeded my “data capability” in the Canvas shell. As an experiment, I delete numerous files from the shell, in the hopes that once the extra material is removed, there will be space to upload my Audio lectures. After quickly deleting about 50/75 files, I try to upload an Audio lecture into the shell - it still doesn’t work.

9:00-10::00- I switch to my Core Class and delete numerous files from that shell. When I try to upload an Audio lecture, it actually works! Success! Hmmm…but why am I able to upload Audio lectures into the Core Class shell and NOT the Specialty Class 1A shell?

-I switch to my online class at College No. 2 and successfully upload an Audio lecture into that shell. I just figured out the problem!! The Canvas shell for Specialty Class 1A is corrupted! The regular protocol for uploading Audio lectures does, in fact, work…just not for the 1A Canvas shell.

-I switch to 1A again and try uploading the Audio Lecture into a “Page” format, instead of a “File” format like I usually do and…it works!! I can now remove the Google links that L. created and simply upload the Audio lectures into a “Page.” As long as I don’t select “closed captioned”, it’s effective! Talk about double-work, unfortunately…

10:00-11:00-I spend this time swapping out all of the Audio file Google links L. created with my regular Audio lectures, using the “Page” format. Success!!! The students are now able to adjust the speed of the lectures.

-I cannot find transcription for three, upcoming documentaries that I assigned for Specialty Class 1A, which means that crazy OSD bitch is going to complain. Druv told me how to upload outside media sources so I upload the videos to the Yuja platform to see if Yuja will generate a transcript for each one. After a few minutes, it does not look like Yuja is capable of transcribing a documentary - perhaps it’s a copyright infringement of some sort? I place yet another order for transcription - a transcribed documentary, this time - via Rev.com. This also costs me $118.

I finish editing the transcribed lecture that I ordered - and paid for - from Rev. com and note that there’s a discrepancy with two slides. There’s supposed to be a photograph of The Handmaid’s Tale on the second to the last slide and the very last slide is NOT referenced at all in the Audio lecture. I know that crazy OSD bitch will report the slightest discrepancy as she attempts to gather evidence for a possible lawsuit - there is absolutely no room for error in this class, which makes for a very stressful situation.

L. isn’t here currently, BUT, I play around with the slide and figure out how to insert the “graphic”; then I delete the last slide entirely.

Week #3 content for Specialty Class 1A (home of the crazy OSD bitch) is ready and should be error-free [I post weekly content every Monday morning; all assignments are due the following Sunday, by midnight.]

-I update my Chap 3 lecture notes for my F2F Core Class this Thursday.

-I post a notification for the essay contest to both of my shells at College No. 1.

-I check my personal email.

11:00-12:00-I check email at College No. 2 and the “Einstein” high school liaison finally came through! She emailed me the roster, with the student’s email addresses, so I can finally contact them.

I’m shocked to discover that there are ONLY EIGHT KIDS in this class! EIGHT! Something actually goes my way!! At a Community College this class would have been canceled weeks ago, but under the Dual Enrollment program, the high school is the “client”, which means College No. 2 canNOT arbitrarily cancel the class due to low enrollment. It also means that I will receive the same pay as an Adjunct Instructor teaching a standard class of 40 students. I can’t believe my good fortune! As an Adjunct Instructor, teaching in a Dual Enrollment program (at a high school) is one of the safest assignments - this gig is guaranteed.

-I realize I do NOT have a “Welcome” email template on file so I prepare the “Welcome” email for my EIGHT students, which I save for posterity, so I can reuse it again in the future. Then, I email each student welcoming them to the class, and attach the Audio Syllabus, regular Syllabus, Chapter 1 Audio lecture, and the Google slides so they know what to expect [they still don’t have access to the Canvas shell]. I’m still tripping over the fact that I only have EIGHT students!!! Two girls open my email immediately even though it’s midnight. I bet they’re my best students [insert smile emoji here].

12:00-1:30-That crazy OSD bitch insisted last week that I personally email her the weekly course content, separately, even though all of the assignments are posted and accessible on the Canvas shell. It is unclear why she can’t access it [she’s lying], especially when it’s apparent she is more knowledgeable than my younger students when it comes to the Canvas platform.

Under separate cover, just for her, I prepare and email the following [all items are on Canvas]. This takes way too much of my time:

1. A PDF of the Google slides for the current chapter;

2. The Audio lecture;

3. The transcribed Audio lecture [she is the only student I’ve ever had who has requested a transcribed copy of every Audio lecture];

4. The link to the assigned documentary (or podcast);

5. The transcribed documentary (or podcast) [she is the only student I’ve ever had who has requested a transcribed copy of every documentary or podcast];

I hope she dies.

-I find a graphic that I want to insert for one of my Core Class Google slides, but this particular graphic - which is perfect - will only load as a QR code. I make a note to have L. check this.

-All the while, I continue to upload my Audio lectures to the Yuja platform for transcription.

-At the same time all of the above is occurring, I’m playing a new documentary that I’ve assigned and designing questions for the future Video Quiz that will accompany it. You Tube is no longer featuring the original documentary, so I had to find another video, watch it, and prepare a new Video Quiz. This particular assignment will be posted in two weeks so I want to prepare the Video Quiz well in advance.

1:30-2:00-I go into the Canvas shell for Specialty Class 1A and tweek Module #3 slightly as I’ll be posting course content in a couple of hours. Did I mention there is absolutely no room for error in this class? (on account of that crazy OSD bitch).

2:00-2:30-Finally I can take a breath and spend this time looking up hotels near the Integatron, where I am planning a mini-vacay. I also look at Joshua Tree National Park for possible places to stay.

2:30-3:15-I finally call it. Nighttime routine. Bed