Day 9-Monkey Pox is the new pandemic

I finished this book…but I lent it out before I could do an appropriate book review. Highly recommend!

Just when I’m forced to return to the classroom in a mere two days, the United States declares Monkey Pox a “national emergency” (last week). Recall that the WHO declared it an “international emergency” in July. Is the CDC serious? The WHO reports that since May, 90 countries have reported more than 31,000 cases. 31,000??!! That’s it?! The WHO’s “Weekly epidemiological update on Covid 19” for the week of August 10, 2022, reports 581.8 million confirmed Covid cases and 6.4 million deaths globally. And yet Monkey Pox was deemed an “international emergency”? Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center, says this is not a matter of concern for the “general population.” Why are the US and the WHO engaged in this fear-mongering campaign? I will never understand…

8/12/22. Friday

8:30-9:00-Yesterday was the Final so I need to check in and see how my students did. The dog and I are up so we go downstairs and I take her outside to go potty. Cheese for her; coffee for me. I unload the dishwasher.

9:00-10:30-Blog post.

10:30-11:30-I field a few emails from my students and strategize as to how to increase the points for those students who are “on the bubble.” This is more work for me but when students are 1 to 2 points away from an A or a B, I want to help.

-L. surfaces and is heading to work. I stop her and explain how I’m unable to email the Audio Syllabus to myself. She quickly air drops the file to her phone and is able to email it to me that way. We both cannot understand why I’m unable to email the Syllabus to myself.

11:30-12:00-I post the Audio Syllabus to Canvas, review the shell, then publish the course. The class is live!! Just in time for the 8/14/22 Fall Semester start date.

12:00-2:00-I check email at College No. 1. There are some unfortunate developments:

-As you know I had to fight for an online class, any online class, for which I was ultimately awarded. That would be Specialty Class 1A. My Acting Dean did NOT want to give me that online class because he wanted to give 80-year-old, retired Dr. R., all of the online classes. I fought hard for the class, going so far as to “bump”, “demand”, whatever euphemism you want to insert here, to get it. These actions equated to numerous hoops I was forced to jump through even though, in the end, my Acting Dean gave me ONE online class simply because he was afraid I would sue the Department for discrimination. Did he say that out loud? No. Was he afraid of me and the Department’s potential liability? Yes. Even so, I received significant push-back from him over giving me this class when my Acting Dean KNEW he (Acting Dean) was retiring the last week of Summer Session 2022. What does he care if I have an online class if he knew he’d be gone in a month? Of course, I had no idea he was retiring - he didn’t announce it until a week prior.

One of the mandated ‘hoops’, as you know, was this: If I teach an online course, I must teach a F2F class, even though 80-year-old Dr. R is exempt from this requirement. Dr. R has also never completed the “mandatory distance education” training that we’re required to have in order to teach online classes. This 1-to-1 policy [one online class / one F2F class] was established by our college president who is also leaving at the end of the year. Why is my Department following the college president’s mandate (BTW - he’s a complete moron) when he, too, is gone? I have no idea, other than to opine that this policy is a convenient tool frequently used to deny instructors in my department from teaching online classes.

After converting Specialty Class 1A into a fully online course and making sure that I abide by the 1-to-1 rule, my Acting Dean scheduled my F2F class for one of the absolute worst time blocks around: Core Class 101, on Thursday’s, from 7:00-10:00 pm. I cheerfully agreed to my Dean putting the F2F class on the Schedule of Classes at 7:00 pm, even though I shouldn’t have to teach a F2F class at all because Dr. R. has NEVER taught a F2F class since he retired approximately 20 years ago and he has all the online classes. I say ‘cheerfully’ because I knew there was no way students would enroll in a F2F class, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm, when they can take the exact same class online. As a result, I was certain that my ultimate goal would be achieved: I would teach one online class at College No. 1. Period. No student in their right mind would ever enroll for a 7:00-10:00, F2F class, that meets on Thursday evenings.

That didn’t happen.

I hit enrollment. Twenty-one students enrolled. The class is going to run.

Two years ago, Dean Gat [in my Department] informed us instructors that 22 enrolled students would now be the “new normal” as to whether or not a class ran. This was a bit of a shock to all of us as the number of enrollees was 12 for years. Oddly, Dean Gat decided to arbitrarily raise it in our Department in accordance with College No. 1’s general policy at a time when enrollment was at it’s lowest - that means many of my Adjunct colleagues lost their classes, which means they lost money. Typically, $900 take home, per month, per class. There was no explanation for the enrollment number change….there never is. if Dean Gat had not died two years ago, my 7:00 pm F2F class would have been canceled due to lack of enrollment because I only have 21 kids enrolled. Unfortunately, she passed under mysterious circumstances - I’ve been unable to find out the cause of death ever since she passed - and we are back to a “12-student enrollment” model to keep the class alive.

To add insult to injury, while I was being forced to teach a F2F class, College No. 1 hired a new Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) who determined that the 1-to-1 policy is bogus because enrollment is down for ALL F2F classes. Why should a F2F class be added to an Adjunct’s class load when they won’t make enrollment? Nobody wants to enroll in a F2F class….except my students, it seems.

In the meantime, the new VPAA eliminated the F2F requirement of “one online, one F2F” because ever since Covid 19, students have been rejecting F2F classes for online classes. Unfortunately, the VPAA eliminated the “one-to-one” rule AFTER the students were already enrolled in my Fall 2022, FTF class. great.

Spoiler Alert: The first day of class, only 18 of the 21 students actually showed up. By the end of the semester, only 14 kids will remain…

——————-

-A more positive development:

Sometimes you run into a gem of a person who knows her job and actually wants to help. I’ve been completing “Cash Balance” forms and mailing them to every place I’ve ever worked in a teaching capacity because I’m trying to convert my “Cash Balance” option into the standard monthly pension that full-time teachers get. I didn’t realize that the fine print on the forms I’ve been sending out says “if the Administrator completes the form, it means the instructor is leaving that particular institution for good.” Shout out to Vicky at College No. 1 who said she didn’t want to sign the form unless I’m truly leaving. As it so happens, I can’t separate from this institution and receive some sort of pension until I’m 55. But, I’m not even sure if I want to collect a monthly pension because I don’t know how much it will be since I’ve been on the Cash Balance model for so long. Under this model, I will be awarded $45,000 at time of retirement for 25 years of service. That’s it. And it will also be taxed.

If I want to convert the Cash Balance option to a monthly pension, it’s a 25% finders fee right off the top that goes straight to CalSTRS for the inconvenience of reverting to the monthly pension option. So, take $8000 off the top. Now, its only $37,000. HOWEVER, CalSTRS won’t calculate the amount of my monthly pension until I quit every teaching gig I currently have. For a 6-month period. This means every school district I’ve ever worked for must sign off on the Cash Balance “conversion” forms attesting to the fact that I am no longer employed with them. Only then will CalSTRS finally reveal the magic calculation that will be my monthly pension for the rest of my life. Recall that this is AFTER I’ve been unemployed from all teaching gigs with no income/pension coming in for SIX MONTHS. I already have a solid pension from my state job, thank god. But what do other Adjuncts do if they want to opt out of Cash Balance in favor of a monthly pension? How can anyone afford to go 6 months without a source of income? It’s obvious that CalSTRS has made it too difficult for 95% of part-time teachers to relinquish the “Cash Balance” payout because it’s cheaper for the school districts to give Adjuncts, or Subs, a lump-sum parting gift and be done with us.

Converting what will now be only $37,000 into a monthly pension averages to around $2.00 a month (no, that’s not a typo) if you take my possible longevity into account. You might think, “Take the $37000 and run”, but I don’t want to because it’s those COLAs that are going to make up the difference. Over time….ten or more years perhaps…the COLAs [2% raise each year] will increase my monthly pension to such an extent that by the end of 10 years, I will have eventually surpassed the $45,000 [minus $8000] that I had coming to me…and then some, depending on how long I live.

-Unfortunately, CalSTRS is a bureaucracy and not a good one. It seems that there is nothing in their database showing that I’ve ever worked for College No. 1. This, after having worked for College No. 1 for 25 years! I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this flawed reporting for some time now and here’s where Vicky comes in. After she informs me that she can’t sign the form unless I am officially separated from College No. 1 (which I’m not), I explain to Vicky how CALSTRS has no record of my employment at College No. 1. She is curious enough to actually try and figure out why.

Eventually, she does. Here are her findings:

College No. 1 has been dutifully reporting my “salary earned” to CalSTRS this entire time. As Vicky puts it, “the money is there” but the units (semesters) I’ve worked have NOT been reported to CalSTRS because - drum-roll please - I didn’t complete the “Permissive Election” form 25 years ago, at time of hire. Vicky asks if I happen to have that form on file at my house. From 25 years ago? Sadly, Vicky, I do not. But if I did, I just trashed it two weeks ago during my master purge office project. Although Vicky doesn’t want to sign the form that I mailed to her because that starts my separation process and I’m still working at College No. 1, Vicky is happy to write a “Letter of Verification” and see if that will fly when we ask CalSTRS to determine my monthly stipend.

Of note, College No. 2 DID sign the form in June so I’m a little panicked. Does that mean THEY started the separation process? I’m assigned two classes for Summer Session and a full load for the Fall. Probably not.

-I submit a key request for my new F2F classroom at College No. 1.

-I field emails at College No. 1, including a lengthy email exchange with an OSD student in Specialty Class 1A. I can tell she’s going to be a problem.

2:00-2:30-I break for some of L’s olive tamponade on pita crackers, then water four of my plants because these plants, in particular, need to be watered daily.

Kitchen duty - there is not much to do - and I ready my coffee for tomorrow in preparation for birding.

2:30-3:00-I read Blood, Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness.

3:00-4:30-I pour Green Goblin draino down my bathroom sink and let it sit even though I hate dealing with such toxic chemicals. Shower. Coffee. I sit in the shower and ice my eyes. Lotion. Light make-up. I wear a Garden Society Member dress today with my new ballet flats. I’ve been trying to stretch my ballet flats by inserting chop sticks into the shoes while they sit on my shoe rack so I try them out to see if the chopsticks worked. Spoiler Alert - they didn’t.

4:30-5:00-I go to Target and return two tank tops that don’t fit.

5:00-6:00- I go to Kohl’s and return a watering can that I ordered from Amazon because it’s the wrong size. I eat apple slices and almond butter in the car before going in. Once inside, the Return Line is long and when I get to the counter, the employee tells me I’m in the wrong line (sigh).

-6:00-7:45-I drive to Starbucks, get an ice coffee, sit in the parking lot and read Blood, Orange Night.

7:45-8:00-I drive home.

8:00-8:30-I finish Blood, Orange Night and change into workout clothes.

8:30-9:30- I do a 15-minute Insanity-Ab workout and a 30-minute Insanity-Sweat workout.

9:30-10:30-Recovery and I make a spinach salad with tomatoes, cheese, walnuts, and pepper jack cheese. I know it’s late but there’s almost no calories associated with this meal. I read the Currated Closet.

10:30-11:30-Nighttime routine. I run water down my sink but it’s still clogged, even though the Green Goblin draino has been sitting there for hours. Bullet journal

L. and N. surface - N. Is spending the night.

11:30-12:30-I’m interested in a new documentary that came out, produced by Reece Witherspoon, involving Eve Rodsky’s book Fair Play. I start watching it but accidentally fall asleep.

12:00-1:00- nap

1:00-2:00 - I wake up and start my nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m.