The first days back on campus will set the tone for the year.

 We had our annual all-day faculty meeting Tuesday, through Zoom. Even though those in charge had promised it wouldn't be all day, it was 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with only a short lunch break. I stayed home and "attended" while knitting my pandemic shawl. At the end of the day, I reached the bind off, so I can say that I made this whole shawl during the pandemic break.

Wednesday was the official "first day" of classes, but only the first year seminar actually met. I spent that whole day in my office with the door shut, trying to feel prepared for my classes. I keep thinking of more things that need to be done, so it doesn't feel like I'm making any progress.

The whole building has been stickered. Each of the four stairwells is designated either "up only" or "down only" which has made a quick run downstairs to the nearest printer a much longer trip. I save up as many print jobs as I can before I make the trek.

Thursday I had an 8 a.m. upper level class, in person. One of the students attended through Zoom, but the rest of us were in the classroom. Students had assigned seats, no two at the same table. They all wore masks correctly without complaint, and they wiped down their tables before and after class as if they'd been doing it for years. I tried to get the students to talk more than I usually would by asking them to take turns describing what they liked best about their previous chemistry classes. I found it hard to talk for the whole hour through my mask. I wore one of the chemistry-themed ones I bought online. It has the elastic ear loops and a nose wire, but it kept slipping down my nose so I spent a lot of time pulling it back into position. I know I'm not supposed to touch my face or my mask so much, so it increased my stress to do that. It was also really hard to keep going when I couldn't see anyone's expression. That was weird.

Friday I had the huge general chemistry class, over Zoom. It was scary to be in charge of a meeting that big, but things went okay. The only trouble was getting everyone into their breakout rooms for the quick team activity I wanted them to do. I had 17 breakout rooms, and I had pre-assigned all the students to rooms, but only about half of them were sent automatically. I had to manually sort the others into the correct rooms (thankfully I had printed out a copy of the list) and that took almost ten minutes. Some of the students didn't have their Zoom set to display their real names, so I had to stop and ask "xyzstud, what is your name?" and then find that name on the list. From what I can tell, the students need to add their college email addresses to their Zoom profiles and then this should work better, so I sent the class a note about this over the weekend.

On the other hand, some of the students asked questions during class. They sometimes asked questions I had literally just answered, but that's par for a first-year course. I tried to stop between topics and invite questions, and that seemed good. A handful (four or five) of students stayed after the class to ask more questions, too. As I said to someone later than evening: one down, only 42 to go!

My upper level class had lab Friday afternoon so I spent three more hours with them. It was almost like a normal lab in that class, other than the masks and the disinfectant wiping. I had to remind the students frequently to stay apart. They kept wanting to get close to each other to talk, or use the same equipment. I don't know if I can really prevent it but it raised my anxiety every time I saw it.

Our college president sent a letter to all the students while we were in lab. The letter basically said: "You students need to take this seriously and follow the rules this weekend. Other schools have had problems with student parties and if anything like that happens here, those involved will be suspended. I will not hesitate to shut classes down and send all of you home again if infections increase. If you want to stay, it's up to you to behave yourselves." I watched students from my office window this week and they seem to think that the rules don't apply outdoors. I saw one group of six young men shaking hands while talking unmasked. Several students sat around our outdoor tables having lunch together. They don't seem to understand that being outside is not magic protection. And I, for one, have no confidence that there aren't big stupid parties happening this weekend. I don't like looking at the students in my class and wondering which of them are going to disappoint me by becoming virus vectors, but that's exactly what I'm doing.

Sand through the hourglass

 Every August I feel unready for the academic year to start. I shouldn't even remark on it anymore.

There was finally action on campus. They put small tables inside every classroom to hold a bucket of disinfecting wipes, a gallon bottle of ethanol hand sanitizer (pictured; one of my colleagues is concerned the students will try to drink it), and a box of tissues. I don't know what the tissues are for. Large round stickers also were applied to all the floors and stairwells at about five foot intervals. They say "one-way traffic" and "stay 6 feet apart". We have four stairwells, and now two are Up only and two are Down only. Every room got a new capacity sign (applied with poster putty, so they're already falling) with absurdly small numbers. Half the chairs disappeared from the rooms, and some of the tables, as well as most of the hallway benches.

I worked on campus five days this week again. I went in earlier and earlier, stayed later and later, and still have a to-do list that is exhaustingly long. One day, I spent almost all the time converting worksheets into Google docs. Another day I entered all the lab assignments to the LMS. And as I work, I'm remembering additional things that still need to be done.

Our new faculty person came in on Thursday, which happened to be the same day I had scheduled the chemical waste removal. So that day I don't think I accomplished much, other than assisting the removal guy and walking the new guy around showing him where things are. Turns out, no one had been in his office since March. When he opened the door, we found the ceiling had leaked water all over his desk and his computer and the ceiling tile was ruined. Got that cleaned up, but it was not the way I would have wanted it. No one has gotten his nameplate on the door, or a mailbox in the main office. I don't even know his office phone number. It was a pretty pathetic welcome for him.

I now have 66 students in general chemistry. The thermometers for my lab kits are supposed to arrive Monday and then I can put the kits together. I packed sandwich baggies with the little stuff this week so that, hopefully, those items will not get lost or damaged. Sixty-six baggies: one strip of chromatography paper, two coffee filters, twelve toothpicks, a 9V battery, two corks, three plastic transfer pipets, a coffee cup lid, and a hexagonal nut. 

I have one student in the analytical class who will be attending remotely this semester. He just contacted me this morning about it, which is fine. So all those photos I took this summer will get used (still have to work out how that's going to be organized) at least once. I asked him to meet virtually with me so we can talk it over before the class actually starts next Thursday.

A pretty large number of students in both classes have responded to the Google forms I sent out last week asking for some basic information. Really, it was just a way to start engaging with them, but I did ask some important things like preferred name and pronouns. This week I sent another assignment to the general chemistry students to get them to do a Flipgrid and a Padlet, which are both tools we are going to use regularly. I want them to try it out ahead of time so it's not so scary later. So far, six students have done the assignment (all women, wouldn't you know).

Yes, my whole waking life is focused on school. I'm sure I'm boring, but I don't know what else I could do. It's only four days until the first class. I have a department chairs meeting and two other meetings Monday. Tuesday is an all-day Zoom faculty meeting (I could have sworn they promised it wouldn't bee all day on Zoom but whatever). Thursday at 8 am is my first class, in person. After that, it's no break or letting up until Thanksgiving.

I knit a pair of baby socks this week. I finished the ornament balls. I might start a new pair of adult size socks tonight.

Nothing feels ready

 I cannot believe it is August now. Only about a week and a half until classes start. I'm the least ready I have ever been, and it's all I can think about.

I finished the last of the analytical experiments on Tuesday, so now I have all the data and photographs for that class. Nothing is organized or in any form that students will be able to use, yet, but at least the lab work is finished. Now, for the lecture part of the course...which I have barely begun. I have a document named "Syllabus" that is mostly empty.

I staged all the supplies for the general chemistry kits on the lab benches. We're still waiting for the thermometers and the cardboard boxes to arrive, but everything else is here. I packed 65 baggies of baking soda and 65 baggies of the sand and sugar mixture, and I filled 65 1-mL bottles with Lugol's solution (it's an aqueous iodine+potassium iodide solution) as well as 65 bottles of nail polish remover. Those are all the chemicals we're using for the kits, and I'm only a little nervous about the nail polish remover because it's ethyl acetate and flammable. I hope the amount is too small to be a problem. I'll put warnings on the labels and the instructions.

On Friday, I spent the morning creating Google forms for each of my classes. We've been told to communicate with our students more often than we would have in the past, and especially to send information about class modality. I sent the textbook and required materials information last week, and since I didn't get much of a response, I wanted to send something this week that prompted a response. This week's email describes the class format, for lecture and lab, and links to the form. The forms basically ask for preferred names, pronouns, the student's goals for the class, and anything they are concerned about. For general chemistry, I also asked for them to tell me if they needed to be assigned to the same lab cohort as another student (for example, if they are commuters and carpooling to class) and I asked them to draw a picture of what "chemistry" means to them and upload it. The picture is something I usually do on 3x5 notecards on the first day of class, but I won't have the opportunity to do that this year...

...because on Thursday I received official permission to teach general chemistry online. It will be synchronously through Zoom. Because there is no room on campus that can hold the number of students I have with distancing. I asked for, and got, permission to hold exams in person. Those will be in the campus ballroom which is also being used for cafeteria overflow seating this year. Of course, everything could change by the date of the first exam (in mid-September) but I'm pretty happy about this arrangement. I just cannot figure out how to give an exam-like assessment online to over 60 students without having rampant cheating. I might still have to come up with something when the inevitable happens, but I found I can at least stop worrying about this one thing for now.

I hardly did any knitting this week. It was the first week since early March that I was allowed on campus five continuous days, and I tried to make the most of them. I came home exhausted every evening and usually only managed to stay awake until about 9 o'clock, dozing off on the sofa while watching whatever TV BAM had on. Of course, after sleeping for four or five hours, I wake up again with my head full of panic and worry and I can't always get back to sleep before it's time to get up at 6. I try to go into the living room and read a book for a while, and sometimes that helps but not always. Therefore, I only made a tiny sweater ornament from the yarn leftover from the most recent pair of socks, and I'm still working on the beaded ball ornaments, but I haven't even picked out the next thing I want to make. I need to clear space in my head for that this weekend and look through my queue.

I fit in a morning walk every day this week. It was cool every day, around 15 C. The deer were plentiful and they seem to be bunching up in herds again after ranging the park in pairs or trios plus fawns for the past couple of months. I see a lot more of the bucks now, too. Two of the biggest guys are starting to look seriously burly but those two hang out together and I haven't seen any aggression from any of them so far. Too bad I won't be able to get out there as often after classes start. I also noticed I haven't seen or heard a red-winged blackbird there in at least a month, and the cardinals have gone quiet, though I still see them. The birds now are ones I don't know, they make a variety of cheep-cheep songs, but very different from the noise of spring. I saw (and heard) the first V of Canada geese flying over the neighborhood on Thursday. 

Keep on keeping on

July has ended. It's August. That fact feels like doom sometimes, but so far I'm holding it together... mostly.

This week I put in more long hours in lab on the 2.5 days I was allowed to be there. I finished the redox titration experiment and did about half of the next one, an argentometric titration. Argentometric means with silver, so I have blotches of brown silver staining on my fingers from where I unknowingly touched some of the solutions. That will wear off in a few days. Here's one of the solutions, showing the red-brown iron indicator color.

I just have the analysis of the unknown(s) remaining for next week and then I will do the final lab experiment, which is another titration. Next week, we are allowed to be on campus every day so I should be able to get this all done by Wednesday. 

And then I have to start packing kits for general chemistry. Most of the supplies we ordered have arrived; we're waiting on the thermometers and a couple of other things. I have large bags of M&Ms and Skittles with me this weekend so I can sort them by color and pack little sample bags for the kits. I went to Lowe's yesterday evening and bought a box of metal nuts that will be part of another experiment. (Lowe's was pretty empty and everyone I saw was wearing a mask and keeping their distance. The more stressful part for me was using the self-checkout lane because apparently I forgot how money works! It took me a long time to remember how to pay using my credit card in the machine.)

Friday while working from home, I started going through the general chemistry lab schedule systematically. I updated the procedure handouts for the old experiments, checked over the ones I wrote this summer for the new experiments, revised the instructor's handbook and rubrics, and then posted links to the procedures on the LMS. I also programmed the weekly lab safety quizzes in the LMS. I only got four weeks done, but I feel like it was good to get started on this.

Only two students have responded to my email and video about textbooks. One student has emailed me four times on different topics. The other one couldn't find the book list on our bookstore website and I had to send him step-by-step instructions. I wish I knew if this was evidence that all the other students are having no problems with the textbooks rather than only these students have bothered to read my email.

I missed my appointment with the counselor on Tuesday. She called our house phone instead of my mobile and my husband (not knowing who it was) told her I was working. Then he didn't tell me she had called until an hour later. I emailed her afterward to apologize for the mixup, and she said I could reschedule, but I don't know if I will. I feel that I didn't get that much out of talking with her the first time. 

I received a summons for jury duty in the mail. Because of course. I haven't been summoned in 17 years of living here. I was summoned once in Tucson when I was about 18, and I went and sat in the courthouse for a day but didn't get chosen for a jury. The report date on this summons is in October, but I have to send in the qualification questionnaire now. I did that online today and received an auto-response that one of my answers may qualify me for excusal. I'm supposed to check back with the system "periodically" to find out the court's decision. If I don't get excused, I'm going to ask for a postponement until next summer. I just hope I get it...how do I do jury duty while teaching classes?

One thing I found odd about the instructions in the mailing was the assumption that everyone will drive a personal vehicle to the courthouse. There was a map and pretty substantial instructions for parking in a certain city lot and taking our downtown free shuttle to the court building. I would probably take the city bus instead (well, maybe not during a pandemic).