Monday, September 07, 2020

One of those indescribable days

If I'm having a more piquant day than I'd expected, it's my own fault: I didn't look closely at the jelly jar while making my peanut-butter sandwich this morning so I didn't realize it was hot-pepper jelly until I bit into my lunch. But at least I had some calming companions out at the pollinator garden. I saw a fritillary but it flittered off before I could get a photo.

Meanwhile, teaching has been tough. Some days teaching is like trying to bathe a cat, and other days it's more like trying to bathe a dozen wildcats with their tails tied together while the house is on fire. Guess which kind of day I'm having? And it's supposed to be a holiday!

My office computer is currently possessed by gremlins that make the monitor go black at random moments, like in the middle of a Zoom class--my students are still there, but I can't see them. And then I've been having trouble with the internet connection in one of my classrooms all semester, making it difficult for students in quarantine to join the class via Zoom, but just today the IT people told me the internet connection has always been unstable up there and they're not sure they can improve it, which makes me wonder: how can anyone expect me to include remote learners in a classroom where the internet thinks every day is Labor Day? I mean, if the rest of us have to work, surely the internet should have to work today! And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!

But this too shall pass. My sandwich was surprisingly good and the pollinators never fail to amuse. Now if I can just subdue the wildcats and get some cooperation from all my tech, it might almost feel like a holiday, even if I have to teach.





2 comments:

dgwilliams said...

They should provide a wired option for internet connectivity in that room for the presenter's computer! The old school way is the gold school way 😁

Bev said...

And that's exactly what our IT people are working on...it's just a difficult room because it was not designed to be a classroom at all. They'll get it done.