New routines
After about a week of frantically prepping for the transition to remote learning, my house looked like a tip. I’ve got a small 2-bedroom flat. My neighbours manage to fit an entire family in their flats on the same surface area, so I strongly suspect that the Tardis option is not activated in mine. Or maybe they simply don’t have as many books as I do 👀
On Tuesday I brought back a lot of stuff from the office. There was no word yet about losing access, but I wanted to minimize my need to get on campus. I also have so far been about a week ahead of developments, so now I tend to act on premonitions: when I came back from Spring Break on March 8, I already knew I would be going into the social-distancing lockdown without toasted sesame oil, an essential ingredient in my kitchen, because I couldn’t get to the store before the weekend of March 14, and that by then it would be unwise to venture into Montgomery county. I also stocked up on beer and wine, and stationery that weekend – by this weekend those stores are closing. (What? stationery is not one of your life’s essentials? Are you sure you’re human??). So no surprise for me that next week we are very strongly discouraged from coming to campus for all but the the most essential activities. I don’t know if scanning is essential , but my students will have to make do with photographed excerpts for some texts. I was so proud of my scans this semester: to size, and OCR-ed for access. Sigh.
Between all the stuff I dumped at home, and scrambling like a squirrel up a greasy pole to get ready for some contact time with students this week, my home office looked like a a bomb went off, and the kitchen was a battlefield. Today, I finally carved out some time to set that right. I even have before and after pictures!
I made a very quick but tasty dinner with cauliflower, chickpeas, paneer, and a jar of Rogan Josh sauce. I practiced flute for 45 mins. Basics: long tones, scales, some tunes I know well so I can focus on sound instead of stumbling over my fingers, but it’s what I need to get back into it after a week off. I did my shoulder rehab exercises. I cleaned up the kitchen. And I had a zoom-beer with friends. Because that’s the new socializing now. And it felt all in all like a pretty good day.
So now I have to figure out what my new routines will look like. And I am not alone. In the Zoom whiteboard function, I asked students to list (anonymously) what their coping strategies were. There was some escapism in Youtube or Tiktok videos, but one of the most frequently mentioned was “routines”, “structure”. They also added that it was really hard. Sometimes the roles in class are swapped, and students hold up a mirror, showing us just what we need as teachers. They’re awesome like that. We just need eyes to see.