Day 3-Monkey Pox is the new pandemic

I hate this job…

8/6/22. Saturday

6:00-There’s no way I can go birding. Too tired. I go back to bed.

9:00-10:00-I’m up. I take the dog out, grab my coffee, then go back to bed.

10:00-10:30 - I lie in bed and drink my coffee.

10:30-11:30-I water my plants.

11:30-2:00-I have a small bowl of of L.s rigatoni and proceed to go through 366 emails at College No. 1. I’ve been putting this off, but school is starting in one week - I have to catch up.

-Some news:

A) Both the Acting Dean and the Acting Chair of my department stepped down.

B) We have a new President. One of her stupid mottos is “Say Yes” [to the students]. What about faculty?

C) There are only two females in my department: Me and my colleague, A., another Adjunct. I’m pleased to see that A. was assigned two fully online classes! For YEARS, retired (annuitant) Dr. R [80+-year-old], who is getting both a pension and an Adjunct salary, has been the only online instructor in my Dept. and it’s bullshit!! I started complaining about this…hard…and both the Acting Dean and Acting Chair gave me pushback about my complaints and the fact that I wanted online classes, too.

When I asked (demanded) an online class, I was told it was too late to “bump” another colleague and take his class because the semester was a week out from starting. I replied, “I’m not trying to bump anybody. I want an online class, too. It’s not fair that Dr. R and “San Francisco” [another adjunct who lives in San Francisco] are the only instructors in my department allowed to teach online classes.”

Because I demanded an online class, they felt compelled to give it to me, probably because they were worried I’d file a discrimination lawsuit. HOWEVER, the Brass told me I also had to teach a F2F class in accordance with the outgoing President’s F2F rule: “One online class, one F2F class.” Seriously? The President is gone! Who cares about that janky rule?!

The Brass then proceeded to schedule my forced F2F class for the worst possible time slot: Thursday, from 7:00-10:00 pm. I was, like, “Bring it, bitches. Ain’t no way enough students will enroll in a F2F class that meets from 7:00-10:00 at night, when they can enroll in an online course.” I know I will only be teaching ONE class this semester, but I made peace with that because F2F sucks! And the one class I will be teaching is an online course. Yay! Nobody’s interested in a F2F class that meets from 7:00-10:00 pm.

The Discovery: I’ve been duped!

D) Uh, why did Dr. R’s online class load increase to THREE?!! He has THREE online classes and NO F2F classes! What gives? What about the outgoing President’s one-to-one ratio rule? I was looking forward to seeing 85-year-old Dr. R mandated to return to the classroom, after skating with his outdated, poorly formatted, online classes for the past 20 years. As soon as I saw that he was assigned THREE online courses, I got on the horn with my Dean and Chair and said, “Where is Dr. R’s F2F class?” Those assholes then proceeded to tell me that the F2F rule no longer applies!! Because the former President is gone. Really?!…then why am I scheduled to teach a F2F class? YOU BASTARDS!!!

E) All is not lost, though. It’s like I thought…at this moment, my F2F Core Class is under-enrolled and it’s not going to run. Good. I’m happy with my online Specialty 1A class so whatever. The new Chair offered me an accelerated 8-week online class as a consolation prize, the second half of the semester - this college has never run an 8-week course before, so I find this odd, but, like I said earlier, they’re probably afraid I’m going to sue. Unfortunately, the offer came in 3 weeks ago and I wasn’t checking email because I’m off during the summer, so I didn’t respond in time. I send an email today, but the 8-week class probably went to someone else.

F) I respond to an email from an OSD student who enrolled in Specialty 1A. Every time she emails me, she also cc’s the OSD Department Chair, something I find incredibly annoying. The student says she is dying from lung cancer, but taking Specialty 1A is on her bucket list. Uh…why? If you’re dying why would you want to spend your last days on earth taking a community college class?

G) I switch to College No. 2 and email a few quizzes to some of the students. This class - an accelerated SIX-week class - ends in just four days. One of my students can’t open the link to a video that he is supposed to watch so I send it again and give him step-by-step instructions for finding it on You Tube. He’s Gen-Z, but still can’t figure it out.

2:00-2:30-I “course copy” a previous class into my new Canvas shell and start setting up the F2F class at College No. 1, because even if the F2F class is under-enrolled, as an instructor, you’re never sure the class won’t run until the first day of the semester. I’m confident it won’t because, Hello! 7:00-10:00 at night? No way. But, we have to be prepared in case the class does, in fact, run. The quandary: you can end up spending hours and hours of unpaid labor to set up a class that never goes live and you won’t know until the first day of class. It’s the perils of being an Adjunct.

-I print out the transcribed lecture that L. prepared for me last month for my next Audio Lecture.

-I reserve a ticket at Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens for next week.

2:30-3:00 - I text L. that I need to meet with her regarding downloading an Audio Lecture into Canvas. I no longer have email capability through my IPad so L. will have to airdrop the lecture from my IPad onto her laptop and then email it to my hotmail account. Then, I can pull it from my email and load it into the Canvas shell that way. The only problem is that L. Is spending the weekend at my parents. L. says she can meet with me, at 3:00, at the Whole Wheatery, in Lancaster, on Sunday.

-I search my email for the Huntington Summer Stoll tickets that I ordered, and it takes a significant amount of time to locate them. I also research the 1919 Cafe (at the Huntington) and try to establish if they’re open during summer stroll hours.

3:00-4:00-Shower. Lotion. Make-up. Garden Society Member uniform. I wear a strapless long black dress with a floral print and backless sandals.

4:15-5:00-B. picks me up and we drive to the Huntington for the Member-Summer Stroll that I booked. Because I’m a Member, this event is free.

5:00-6:00-B. and I walk to the 1919 Cafe, which is set up cafeteria style. I get a taco bowl and water. The taco bowl is…okay. We’re in a cafeteria…what can I say? B. gets something??, along with a piece of peach pizza the size of his head and gross lemonade. We also buy one round of over-priced drinks.

6:00-8:30-B. and I walk around the garden for the next 2.5 hours until it closes.

8:30-9:30-Driving. B. drops me off at my house, but doesn’t come in because I have a shit-ton of class prep to do.

9:30-1:00-I grade six Extra Credit essay assignments from my students at College No. 2. It is slow going because they are horrible writers. I thought I would be able to record the new lecture tonight, but I’m exhausted.

1:00-1:30 - Kitchen duty and I ready my coffee.

1:30-2:30-Nighttime routine. Sunless tanning. Bed.