Day 27 - Los Angeles lifts its vaccine mandate. A vax card is no longer required.

This teaching s—t is never ending…

4/26/22. Tuesday

5:00-5:15-I’m awake but I lie in bed for transition time. These 5:00 AM days are so hard.

5:15-5:30-I go downstairs to say good morning to the animal, but it’s too early for her to acknowledge me so I start warming up my coffee. When she hears the microwave, she staggers over to say hello and we go outside. I wait for her to go potty, then return inside. Coffee for me; cheese for her. I go upstairs.

5:30-6:20 - Shower. Lotion. I sit in the shower, drink my coffee, and ice my eyes while listening to The Daily. Today’s outfit is a black and white blouse with pressed flowers attached [it sort of looks 3D] and gray pants. I’m wearing glasses today.

6:20-7:20-I’m out the door by 6:20. Traffic is…light! What the hell is going on? I listen to Best Laid Plans and eat apple slices with almond butter for breakfast.

7:20-7:40 - At the parking lot and I need to come up with a “time filler” activity for class - either today or Thursday. I have an Eureka moment while parked and know how to fill the extra class time.

7:40-8:00-I walk to the office and stop in front of the standing thermometer [“Temperature Normal!”]. My guess is the thermometer always says “Temperature Normal.” The mask mandate was recalled due to that weirdo federal judge’s decision and nobody in the country is masking…except this school, College No. 2.

8:00-9:30-Class is in session. Today’s itinerary is a lecture and a podcast. One of the students asks me to email the quiz to him later in the day because his phone died as he was taking the quiz at 8:10 AM this morning. Although the quiz has been open for five days, he tried to take it 4 minutes before it was due. I express my irritation at his poor time management, but ultimately agree to email the quiz to him when I get home.

Class dismissed.

9:30-9:45-I drop off the Attendance and walk to my car.

9:45-11:00 - Traffic has returned to…horrible. I eat turkey meatballs and schedule an appointment for Juviderm injections for Thursday. I don’t want to wait another day but the only opening Abel has this week is Thursday at 5:15. This is incredibly poor planning on my part and means that I will drive to Inglewood for my 8:00 class, return home at 11:00, only to leave again, at 3:45, to drive to Encino for my 5:15 appointment. These appointments usually take 15 minutes, which means I will be smack in the middle of rush-hour traffic at 5:30-5:45 as I drive home from my appointment. I internally berate myself for some time over this terrible turn of events.

11:00-11:45-Back in town and I get a Starbucks, sit in the parking lot, and work on my bullet journal.

11:45-12:00- I get gas. It’s $5.65 a gallon and takes $40 to fill up.

12:00-12:30 - I stop at Walmart and return the wrong book that I ordered online. This is the second time I ordered the actual book, but received the Cliff Notes version instead. No, it’s not my fault - it’s a Chinese vendor who keeps committing a bait-and-switch.

12:30-1:00-Home and I unload all of my bags.

1:00-2:00-L. Is in the middle of a Zoom presentation at Otis, wherein she is depicting photographs of her art and defining them as patriarchical female exploitation. I sit in and listen…L.’s presentation was incredible! Her’s was the best one - even the teacher said so - and L. sounded so polished. Much better than the other students…

2:00-4:00-I’m exhausted and a little depressed over the numerous days I’ve wasted grading papers. This time, “the man won” and I’ve been a slave to the job for a 4-day stint. My life has been consumed with work, unfortunately, over this period of time.

-I read more of the Curated Closet and take a brief nap.

-L.’s Dad is still in town and arrives to install L.’s new bathroom faucet.

4:00-6:00-I go to work. I respond to students who are responding to the emails I sent to them on Monday, asking why they got Ds and Fs on their quizzes. One student says he is taking 4 online classes and that’s why he got an F on the Video Quiz…because he wasn’t able to watch the video. You just f—**ed yourself when you told me that. I pounce, tell him he is overextended, and strongly suggest he drop the class. I’ll keep saying this for the rest of the semester… he’ll never be able to blame me for excessive course content if he can’t finish his assignments because it’s ultimately his fault that he’s taking too many classes.

-The “soccer star” I mentioned previously responds to my D/F email informing me that he took the Video Quiz at work, during a break, which resulted in a D. Here’s a suggestion: don’t take the quiz during your work break, dumb ass.

-Yet another student who got an F on the Video Quiz blamed her poor grade on the length of the PBS documentary. She said it was too long and she couldn’t understand and she couldn’t understand the content.. This is one of the shortest, clearest videos on the Syllabus, weighing in at a whopping 50 minutes. I ask probing questions, then inform her that she needs either the Learning Center or Writing Lab intervention, possibly 1 to 2 days a week, which NOBODY ever wants to do. I ask her to articulate her issues more fully so I can schedule an appointment for her with the appropriate tutor. Don’t con a “con”, bitch - you got a bad grade on that Video Quiz because you didn’t watch the f—**ng video.

-I email the Video Quiz to the high school student I spoke with this morning.

-I grade two quizzes that were emailed from a student in my Specialty 1B Class.

-I send screenshots of the three purple-paper assignments with my edits to the students from my Specialty 1B Class.

-I send a nasty email to a student for submitting his Inquizitives on the wrong platform. His grades won’t “populate” and the Norton Help Desk is having a terrible time trying to figure out the issue.

L.’s Dad has been here the entire time, but an hour ago “fell sick” as he was installing her faucet and was forced to take a break. He moved to my office and has been talking to me ever since, while I’m completing the above tasks. Eventually, he leaves.

6:30-7:30-I walk the dog.

7:30-7:45-I eat some sort of pastry thing from Tarantelle that L. brought home from her many travels; then

7:45-9:45-write in my bullet journal.

10:00-11:00-L. Is spending the night at T’s house, but she forgot to pack a few items and stops by the house after work. We talk for a while and L. leaves.

11:00-11:45-I change into workout attire, read a few more pages of the Curated Closet, then do an Insanity Max - Power workout. It’s pretty lackluster and I only get in 25 minutes instead of the full 30 minutes.

12:00-1:30 - I do the dishes then remove all items and appliances from my kitchen countertops in preparation for the contractor tomorrow who is coming to repair my ceiling. Then, I clean the counters and the sink so the contractor doesn’t think L. and I live in squalor. I bake a lemon-pepper, white fish dish, while simultaneously cleaning off the counters and eating a Lara Bar (the flavor is Cashew Cookie).

1:30-2:00- I pack a lunch bag with several items because the contractor will be in the kitchen most of the day tomorrow and I won’t be able to prepare food. I take the dog out and shut everything down.

2:00-3:30 - I sit on my bed for a minute and fall asleep instantly. I wake up 90 minutes later.

3:30-4:00-Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 6:15.