Today is fired.

This week I did some more unpacking the office. I was there all day Monday and emptied most of the boxes, which meant making a pretty enormous mess. All the books fit on the shelves. I found my desk supplies and was able to fill up the organizer cart.

I went in again Wednesday afternoon and finished emptying boxes. I got most of the files put into drawers. The biggest remaining pile is stuff I need to go through carefully, to maybe shred or maybe scan, like old committee papers. I've already dumped my recycle bin at least five times and on my way out that night I took a box full of papers to the shredding bin, so it's not like I'm keeping everything. I just need to look at things carefully first and I didn't have a chance to do that at all when we moved out last year. Keeping focused on cleaning up this mess helps to distract me from the despair and fear of the pandemic, so that's good I guess. Here's the status after Wednesday:

Yesterday afternoon was the college annual budget presentation. Like many schools, our fiscal year begins July 1. The Board of Trustees met and approved the budget yesterday morning and I do appreciate our administration keeping their word to communicate with us as soon as possible. The news, however, was grim. Perhaps the worst budget situation we've had since I joined the faculty. We've been using our savings the past three years, trying to buy time for the fundraisers and recruiters to shore up revenue, and that hasn't worked. We have a huge debt because of the building projects and steadily decreasing enrollment, and now a pandemic. The senior leadership team had already announced voluntary reductions in salary a month ago (10%, which unless they are getting paid even more outrageously than I believe, is hardly enough). No raises for anyone now (as if!). No retirement contributions. Thirty or so staff positions eliminated.

My lab manager's position was not eliminated, thank the gods! but has been reduced to 30 hours per week. As supervisor, I had to sit in on the conference call between her and the Provost this afternoon. My staff person was far stronger than I would have been in her place. I'm only grateful that I was informed by the Provost yesterday and had time to negotiate (well, beg, really), because the original plan was to put her on a 9 month contract which would mean my department would have no staff support for the summer months (summer classes, summer research, all the prep work that happens during those months like hazardous waste disposal) and I argued that we needed her too much. I suggested the 30 hour week instead, and the Provost got that approved overnight. I still don't know how we're going to function. She and I will talk on Monday and start sorting it out.

That call was difficult enough, but afterwards the Provost called me back and told me that our building assistant is one of the people whose positions were entirely eliminated. C has been our secretary forever. She has worked at the college for 42 years! She knows everybody and is beloved by all, as far as I can tell. She is the absolute best, and does so much from handling our mail to scheduling rooms to just being fun to talk to. No clue how that stuff is going to get done now. She's had a rotten time with the construction - last summer they made her move her office three times for no good reason, ending up in what was basically a biology closet - and she never got angry. She has listened to me bitch and moan about whatever I thought there was to be upset about for all these years. I cried on the phone, and the Provost cried, but what good is that? I won't even get to see her again because we aren't authorized to be on campus on the same days next week. If I were her, I'd pack my stuff and be out of there over the weekend, anyway, so I wouldn't have to cry with everyone all day. I'm looking through my FOs to find a suitable gift. I might give her my Queen Anne's Lace shawl. I think she deserves more than a pair of socks. 

This day, this week, this year is fired.

Moved Back With My Own Kind

Being on campus was not as weird as I expected. It felt almost like coming back after a long weekend or a holiday, but everything looked pretty much the same as I remembered. There were new signs posted on the exterior doors with the mask requirement, and I had to call Campus Safety to get in to the building where my temporary office is. It was almost empty of people, but that's not unusual in the summer. I saw some of the Physical Plant staff, and the Mailroom person, and one faculty colleague who said he was also on campus to move offices.

On Wednesday, I was there for about three hours in the afternoon. I packed all my books and most of the files from my file cabinet. I had kept all the boxes from last year's move so I was able to reuse them. I filled 21 boxes that day.

On Thursday afternoon I was back to finish. Our Logistics person had already moved the first boxes out of there so I had room to work. The last eight boxes were not packed with much organization. I had to take down all the plaques and things on the walls, all the papers from my door and bulletin board, and I basically dumped all the contents of my desk drawers into boxes, willy-nilly. I know that's going to be hell to organize later, but I just wanted to be done once I had started. I was surprised that it only took about an hour. This is "Winter Camp" empty:

I am taking the five-drawer file cabinet in the back right and the short bookshelf in the front right to the new building. I do not get to keep that Steelcase desk that I've had for 17 years, and I will miss it a lot even though it's beat up and old. I hope the next occupant of this office appreciates it! I will also miss my faculty and staff neighbors from Winter Camp. It was a nice experience to interact with them on a daily basis this past year. It gave me a different perspective than when I was only in the science building every day.

Next I went over to the science building to check things out over there. I carried my small carpet and a tote bag of loose items with me. I saw our building secretary and my lab manager for the first time in three months and had nice chats (masked and at a safe distance, hopefully) with both of them. I wandered through all our labs just looking at "my" stuff. It felt good to be "home" again.

The Logistics team showed up with the rest of my boxes, so I helped them arrange those in my new office and then I started unpacking. This next photo is the new office, with most of the stuff in a pile just inside the door. Half a dozen or so additional boxes are out in the hallway.

I used LibraryThing both times I packed to keep track of my books. (I have all my books in the database and already tagged to designate the ones in my office versus at home.) Last year, I tagged each book with a letter corresponding to what box it was packed in, and I repacked in those same boxes this year. LibraryThing made it easy to generate a list of what should be in each box, and so far I'm only missing one book (I think I brought it home last summer and forgot to update the database). As I unpacked, I deleted the box tag from the database. I know, this is somewhat excessive, but it makes me feel much better to be organized. It's like I have control over a small part of my life. I emptied four of the nine book boxes before I had to quit for the day. Logistics should have brought my file cabinet over today so that next week I can start reloading it. I will also take my new desk organizer to campus next week; it has been in my spare bedroom since March.

Working on this helped me to put out of mind tor a short while that we're still in the midst of a pandemic, that all is not right in the world, that I don't really have a clue how fall semester is going to go, and my other worries. It felt good just to do something, make something happen. 

Ready?

Tomorrow I am planning to return to campus for the first time since March 23. It will be my first time going anywhere in three months. I have been permitted to go to pack up my things in my temporary office and have them moved to my new office in the new science building. I'm feeling nervous about it, because I don't know what it will be like on campus, but I think I am ready to take this step.

Last week I had to begin doing the daily COVID-19 self-screen, which is an online survey with questions asking about symptoms and travel/contact with others. Every day before 9 am I have to submit this survey. On Wednesday there was a strong thunderstorm here at midday, and some tree limbs fell on the power lines about three houses down from mine, taking out our electricity. We were without electricity for 27 hours, until late afternoon on Thursday. For all that time, I didn't have internet and I was trying to conserve phone battery as much as I could. On Thursday morning, since I couldn't do the self-screen online, I called Campus Safety to ask what I should do. The dispatcher filled out a paper form for me. Then I got a nasty-gram email from Human Resources, scolding me for not doing the online survey. I answered that I HAD done it, by phone, and they said "well, you should have called us, not Campus Safety!" Well excuse me, jerks! I could have done nothing at all, but I made an effort and CSO had no other instructions so I think we did admirably! 

I'm making a list of what I need to bring home from my office to work on for fall classes. When we evacuated in March, I only brought one box and one tote bag home, and it was only things I needed for my spring classes in progress. I'm only allowed on campus Mondays, Thursdays, and afternoons on Wednesdays, so I'll still need to do the majority of preparation at home this summer. I need textbooks, and files from my office computer (I could use the VPN to remote in, but it takes a long time and is clunky. Much faster to just copy things to my flash drive when I'm there.)

I'm required to wear a mask at all times and to sanitize everything I touch (I don't know how that's going to happen, unless someone has left cleaning supplies for me). A few weeks ago my PhD alma mater had "germ keys" for sale in their alumni e-newsletter, and I bought a bunch of them (from a somewhat-shady Ebay seller based in Hong Kong). They look something like this:

They are for pressing elevator/keypad buttons and opening doors without touching. They haven't arrived yet, but the tracking information says they are being processed by Customs at the port of entry. My plan is to possibly engrave them with people's names and give them to my department colleagues and other people I like. In the meantime I am thinking of wearing a pair of thin winter gloves for opening doors on campus. I have to dig around in the box of winter accessories in the hall closet to find them.

In other news, we received our first box from Imperfect Foods on Saturday. I signed up in mid-April and was on the waitlist for about seven weeks. It was kind of fun to pick out what we wanted one night last week, and everything arrived in pretty good shape although the box looked like it had been dropped upside-down a few times in transit. The blueberries had escaped from their container and were rolling around loose. One of the tomatoes was slightly smashed and another had a black bruise. Everything else seems fine and it has been a joy to have an enlarged variety of produce in the kitchen. If this helps us cut down on the number/length of trips to the grocery store, I'll consider it a win. We set up our second box yesterday and may have gone a little overboard, but I like that we can say "never send us cilantro" (or whatever), and I like that there is much more variety available than I was expecting.

The college still hasn't given more information about fall semester, other than the change in semester calendar. We are expecting that there will be limits on the number of students that can be in the lab at a time, and I'm hoping that number is 12 so that we can have our usual-size sections. I participated in advising for incoming first-year students the past two Mondays and now we have 21 registered for both sections of General Chemistry lab. The Registrar emailed me yesterday afternoon to ask what I plan to do about it, and I said I wasn't sure I should increase the section capacity (normally we have caps of 24, but if I can't have 12 students at a time this fall, I shouldn't do that) and I wasn't sure I could add another lab section. If I add another lab section, that will increase the total number of students in the lecture section to at least 60 and up to 72. That's not good for me (I teach the lecture). I told the Registrar I hoped to have more clarity before the next advising date, which is thankfully not until middle of July.

A bad week

This will be sort of random.

This past week was hard. Last weekend there were all the protests for Black Lives Matter after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, followed by the rioting, looting, police misbehavior, and all that. Even here we had a riot with fires and looting downtown, followed by two nights of curfew although the protesting has continued daily. The National Guard came in and set up a perimeter downtown with their big vehicles and military equipment and it wasn't good to see that we've come to that during a pandemic.

Yeah, remember the pandemic? Still happening.

On Monday afternoon our governor suddenly canceled her stay-at-home order that was supposed to last another two weeks. Businesses are starting to open, retail on Thursday, dine-in restaurants next Monday. Of course that is a good thing for business owners and employees, but the virus is still out there and this increases the probability of more infections.

On Tuesday I was notified (by about six different emails) that my science faculty colleagues and I have permission to return to work on campus, starting June 15. We had to do some online training related to COVID-19 safety, which actually was good. That was due by yesterday Starting next week we all have to do an online self-check before 9 am every day whether we're coming to campus or not. After June 15 we're allowed to come on certain days of the week to keep occupancy less than 50%. I get Monday, Thursday, and afternoon on Wednesday.

On Tuesday I learned a friend was laid off. He worked in student activities for a small college in California. He lost his on-campus housing at the same time, so now he's planning to move back to his parents' house in Pennsylvania because there are no jobs open. Colleges and universities are not hiring. I want to help, but what can I do? I don't want him to move in with me, and he'd rather live with his own family anyway.

On Thursday the college president announced that we will be starting fall semester one week earlier than previously planned. 

On Friday the college president announced that we have eliminated fall break and will end the semester on the Friday before Thanksgiving. The whole week of Thanksgiving will be break, followed by a week of "virtual assessment" which I think means online final exams. This makes our 15.5 week semester (already shortened a year ago from 16 weeks) now only 14 weeks. Over the last three years I have needed to cut two full weeks out of all my fall semester courses, and it is maddening.

Friday afternoon I attended the college's Vigil for Racial Justice on Zoom, which was organized by our Student Senate (good on them!). I cried (who cares about my tears). It was really nice. The chaplain prayed, the president gave a good speech, the director of the diversity center spoke, and we had a moment of silence (actually more like 5 minutes of silence) while a presentation of the black lives lost played on screen.

The virus is still out there. I'm still facing the probability that I will teach all my courses online, from my second-floor spare room or from my campus office/bunker. Everything is on fire and it's all unfair, but especially unfair to non-white people so why do I think I have anything to complain about? Last night I had trouble sleeping again, so I got up and read a book for an hour or so and then fell asleep on the sofa until 6 am.

There were some nice things this week. Let's see...I put up the umbrella and lawn chairs I bought last week and I look forward to enjoying them.

On Friday I got to chat over Zoom with a friend from college I haven't seen in years (how is that possible?) It was so good to see her, and talk for an hour. I kind of miss having friends.

Last weekend BAM and I played Tales of the Arabian Nights over Zoom with some friends here in town. And we had our regular game group over Zoom Tuesday night. 

Today after lunch I spent two hours cleaning maple seeds and other debris out of the gutters. It felt useful to climb the big ladder and scoop muck and flush the downspouts. I got muddy and sweaty, scraped my knee on the ladder. I had to strip off all my clothes in the garage and take a second shower afterwards. I saw my neighbor, who was also doing yard work. 

I really want things to be "normal" again... but I don't also. Things weren't so great before the pandemic, for a lot of people. I don't want to just forget all of that because it doesn't directly affect me. I'm confused, and worried about the future, and overwhelmed by my work responsibilities (but I feel guilty because I have a job when so many people don't). Half the days I don't want to face getting out of bed, but I do because at least I can go for a walk in the park after breakfast and that calms me. What am I going to do when I can't take that walk every day? When winter comes again and it's dark and cold? When the virus finally catches up with me or people I love?