Day 5 - Los Angeles lifts its vaccine mandate. A vax card is no longer required.
Mondays… two classes back-to-back…it sucked, as usual.
4/4/22. Monday
-L. Is on spring break and with T. this week. She’s also been working at her new job.
9:00-9:45-I’m up but incapacitated from cramps so I take two Advil and wait for it to kick in.
9:45-10:00-After 45 minutes, I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog. I sit next to her on the couch and she climbs onto my lap for kisses and cuddles. Eventually, she grabs her toy and we go outside. I note that she pooped in two places on the patio (sigh). Return inside and cheese for her; coffee for me. I go upstairs.
10:00-11:15-Shower. I sit in the shower, drink my coffee, and ice my eyes. Lotion. I wear the same turquoise blouse and blazer that I wore to the Charter School on Thursday. I paint my toenails, curl the ends of my hair, and apply make-up, all while listening to The Daily, Be Wealthy and Smart, and Marketplace Morning.
11:15-12:00 - I still have to create my new, online, accelerated 8-week class, from scratch, at College No. 2, and I’m having difficulty recalling how to create a Home Page and what this entails so I review my Home Pages from some of my other shells at College No. 1 and figure it out. Then, I create a Home Page. A ton of anxiety melts away after the Home Page is done.
12:00-1:00-I eat the rest of my scrambled eggs and sidewinder potatoes from yesterday’s breakfast while scanning the 4 extra credit assignments that I graded yesterday. Then, I update the Discussion Boards for my Core Class and Specialty Class 1B. I check email at College No. 1, post the Extra Credit grades, and email the assignments to the students.
Thinning the herd… I notify those students who still have a D or F in the class and inform them that the last day to drop with a “W” is on Friday.
I email “Renee” and tell her I can’t make tomorrow’s hike. I’m teaching.
1:00-1:15 - I load all of my bags in the car and leave.
1:15-2:30 - Driving. I listen to Citations Needed.
2:30-3:30- The two, die-hard F2F students FINALLY converted to online instruction after they were forced to do so during last week’s heavy rains. No way was I going to risk my life for these yahoos. Today, NOBODY is in the classroom and I work on a few tasks I’ve been putting off, such as:
-One of my students from Specialty Class 1B previously emailed me that she was unable to see her current grade in the online grade book. I blew her off and told her to call IT and ask for help. Who knew that she would actually do it? This student can’t even complete her assignments, but she managed to call IT, who informed her that the problem was me! My settings are off and I’m the only one who can fix them. Since I have no idea, whatsoever, how to adjust the online gradebook settings, I email IT and ask for help setting the percentages. I receive a response within minutes with the appropriate steps. This is something I NEVER would have figured out on my own. I should note that Canvas is one of the LEAST user-friendly platforms I have ever encountered.
-Although I reported to the classroom today [for nothing, it would seem], all of the students are online, listening to the pre-recorded lecture. I take this opportunity to check the Fall 2022 Schedule of Classes and am shocked to see that Dr. R. is on the schedule again, for a FULLY ONLINE CLASS, when he is NOT teaching a F2F class, in violation of the 50% rule [ONE online / ONE F2F]. Again, as stated in previous blog posts, why is Dr. R. the only instructor allowed to teach a fully online class? Especially when he still hasn’t completed the Distance Education training. He’s also not scheduled for a mandatory F2F class!
-A closer inspection of the Fall 2022 schedule reveals a strange chunk of Monday time that says, vaguely, “Online class -TBA.” Uh, who gets that chunk of time? “San Francisco?” [the adjunct instructor who also has the privilege of fully online classes when he’s only worked at College No. 1 for three years and resides in San Francisco].
-I’m sick of this bullshit and the blatant discrimination so I email the Chair of my Department and ask for a fully online class. I also ask him to clarify what that strange chunk of time [“Online class-TBA”] means. I also question why Dr. R. is on the schedule to teach a FULLY ONLINE class when he has NO F2F classes [in violation of the 50% rule, enacted by our president last month]. Listen, I’m not an ageist but by my calculations, Dr. R is pushing 80 and a member of the good ‘ol boys club. He retired a few years after I was hired and has been on the FULLY ONLINE rotation ever since. By that I mean, this motherf—ker hasn’t had to teach a F2F class in 23 years!
-The Chair (K.) emails me back with vague assertions of this and that…the interim Dean is now handling the schedule and online blocks were set aside in case there’s interest, blah, blah, blah. One recent occurrence is that K., our Acting Chair, is no longer the Acting, because my Department hired a Permanent Chair. As a result, K. is teaching again and had to put his classes on the schedule, which cuts into the other adjuncts’ [me] enrollment. In other words, as a tenured instructor and no longer Acting Chair, he took classes from the rest of us when he was re-added to the schedule. Enrollment is the lowest I have ever seen and we have a dearth of instructors now - if adjuncts don’t hit 20 students on Day 1 of the semester, our class is arbitrarily canceled.
Let it be known, however, that every semester, within minutes of posting the Schedule of Classes, Dr. R and “San Francisco’s” fully online classes fill up within minutes, while the rest of us struggle with low enrollment. There is never an enrollment issue with these two assholes because their classes are fully online, which is what the students want! One of my F2F Core Classes was canceled last semester due to lack of enrollment. I was scheduled to teach 3 classes, but my course load dropped to TWO classes when only 6 students enrolled for my F2F class. This is an $800 take-home hit, per month, every semester this occurs. Why this college refuses to offer additional online classes is beyond me….
Since the pandemic, students have become increasingly savvy, enrolling in online classes at other community colleges since College No. 1 is outdated [the president is in his 70s and believes that students should be taught in a classroom. Although he is scheduled to retire in two months, he continues to enact these arbitrary rules, such as the “50/50 rule”, which staff are forced to obey] and completely out of touch with reality. For example, all classes in my Department at College No. 2 are fully online. At College No. 1, I have one Core Class and one niche class and they are 100% F2F which means nobody is going to enroll. Next semester probably marks the end of my career at College No. 1. I can’t say I’m all broke up about it…
Class started at 2:30 and none of the students arrived. Imagine my surprise [and disgust] when the high school student shows up at 3:30 p.m. The only student who insists on coming to class is this stupid bitch! She emailed me earlier and said that she was going to be late to class because her high school was doing state testing. I told her to go home after state testing and convert to online instruction. BUT SHE DIDN’T!
Instead, she shows up at 3:30, just as the pre-recorded lecture is finishing up for the online students. 3:30! I tell her Lecture is over and it’s time for the podcast. She then proceeds to pull up a chair and talk my ear off for the next hour about how she hates her parents [she’s masked the entire time - the student has never removed her mask in the classroom since the beginning of the semester]; how her Mom gets some kind of subsidy from the government because the highschooler is enrolled in college and she has no idea what her Mom is doing with the subsidy; how her mom only wanted to pay her $5 for 2 hours of work; how she used to have an eating disorder; that her pronouns are “they” and “them” and she wants to be called “Levi”, but her parents would never go for it; that she sees a therapist regularly, has a pet rabbit and a skin condition, and likes to relax with “Anime” although her parents restrict her downtime; that her grandfather, great grandfather, father, and uncle are engineers and her Mom is a math teacher, but Math is this student’s worse subject and she’s having a terrible time in pre-calculus; that her little sister is ten and has been dancing since she was two and experiences body shaming; how ‘dance’ is so expensive, especially the costumes; how her parents refuse to schedule her for medical appointments when she asks, telling her instead that she’s fine; and that she routinely double books and over-extends herself with too many activities on Google calendar.
This kid has no boundaries!
Every time I try to break from the conversation, she just keeps talking. I’m barely able to deploy the rest of the course content to the online students. It’s just a constant stream of verbal vomit and I am so uncomfortable being alone with this crazy, minor child in my closed-door classroom. I have the sneaking suspicion that much of what she says is a lie, especially when it comes to her parents. It’s obvious she hates her home life which is why she’s always in class. She simply hates going home.
I try to deploy course content for my upcoming 6:00 class but I’m unable to focus on the Canvas shell because the student. Won’t. Stop. Talking. I give up. Since I’m leaving early today I should be home before 6:00 and will set up then.
I tell the student several times that I’m leaving at 4:30 today because the only thing left on the agenda is a podcast and the online students are listening to it currently - there is nothing left for me to do - but she makes no attempt to leave. At 4:30, I shut everything down and pack up. She continues talking and proceeds to walk with me all the way to the parking lot and almost to my car, still talking. I suspect sociopathic tendencies and I’m absolutely exhausted from hearing all of this bullshit. I tell the student to listen to the podcast on the way home and I’ll email her the podcast quiz. Spoiler Alert: I never see the student again. The following week her grade drops to a 70%. I notify her that if she misses just one more assignment, she will, more than likely, receive a D in the class and I remind her that the last day to drop the class with a “W” is Friday. She never responds, but does manage to raise her grade and earn a C for the semester.
4:30-5:30-Drive home. I listen to Marketplace, emotionally spent, and eat L.’s leftover noodles in the car.
5:30-6:15-I bring all my bags inside. Kitchen duty and I repack my lunch bag for tomorrow and ready my coffee.
6:15-9:00 - Specialty Class 1B is in session and I deploy class content for tonight. The students email me their Extra Credit assignments and I print them out.
-The high school student from this afternoon emails me that she is ready to take the podcast quiz. I email it to her and she promptly fails it.
-I take Attendance for both classes.
-I email the students who still have Fs in Specialty Class 1B and tell them that the last day to drop with a “W” is Friday.
-I check email at College No. 2.
-I ready the Canvas shell and the Home Page for my high school class tomorrow and put my FiloFolder on the counter.
8:00-8:45 - I take the dog for a walk and bring in my trash cans.
9:00-10:30 - Class dismissed and I upload a few blog posts.
B. invited me for lunch tomorrow so I research what I want and send him my selection.
10:30-11:15-Nightime routine. I put my hair in sponge curlers, select my clothes for tomorrow, and put a clear coat of polish on my nails. Bed. I set my alarm for 4:45.