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.
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