I should be surprised it took this long

 (Started this post on Monday; now it's Friday.)

Back in August, when we were frantically trying to figure out what was going to happen vis-a-vis classes this fall, everyone here was betting the whole in-person class thing would not last more than three weeks. And then the third week came and went. The fourth week came and went. The weeks kept passing with nothing changing. We started thinking, hey we might make it!

"Ha, ha," said the Universe.

Yesterday our Governor announced new rules, which include prohibiting all in-person college and university classes starting Wednesday. We were so close! We were scheduled to end on Friday, with all the students returning home for Thanksgiving break and then one last "virtual assessment week" after that. I managed to squeeze in all the lab activities for my big general chemistry class, finishing last Thursday. Those students took their last exam in person on Friday. My upper-level class had only one lab period left tomorrow, and most of them had already finished all the experiments, but there was going to be an exam Thursday morning.

So I had to revise the plans for this week while I was not sleeping last night. The general chemistry students were going to come in to the lab this week just to check out of their drawers and return our lab kits (damn, were those a good idea!), but now they all need to find time to do it either today or tomorrow. Some of them are in quarantine and can't come at all, but thankfully that's a small number.

The other class now needs to come in tomorrow and check out instead of Friday. There are about 30 lab reports I'm expecting, and I told the student they should turn in as much as they could, but to talk to me if there are reports they can't finish by tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be pretty ugly, I expect. I'll have to muster up some more patience and compassion from somewhere. I assigned one less experiment this year compared to normal, so they really all should have been done about two weeks ago. But I know I have at least two students who have not completed the lab work; well, now they have no choice but to be done.

And I need to figure out what to do about their exam. I had only started writing it last Friday, but now it needs to be different because it can't be in person. That means through our LMS, and I sure-as-hell don't trust them not to cheat.

(Finished on Friday)

It's been a strange week. I made it through the chaos of lab checkout Monday and Tuesday. We finally got word on Tuesday that faculty would be allowed to work in our offices and labs the rest of this week (until December 11, according to the current plan). I've come in my normal hours every day, and I taught my classes through Zoom which wasn't so weird since we were doing that anyway. I spent most of one day writing the exam and posting it on the LMS. Although it isn't finished yet, I think it's going to be all right. I set up each question as a separate "quiz" so the students can do them in whatever order they like, and there will be a generous time limit for each question that will cut down on searching the book or the internet for answers. 

The building has been so quiet, so empty:

I am sitting in my office now, just waiting for six o'clock, the deadline for the students to turn in their lab reports electronically. I could just go home, but I want to use the school printers to print out hardcopies of anything that comes in. I've already heard from one student who had a computer crash this morning and may not be able to turn in his four reports on time (I'm not very sympathetic, since they've had the whole semester to get these done; why does anyone have four reports left on the last day?) and one student who lost a data file (collected a month ago; again, why did you not write the report then?). I think there are maybe four others still out there? I tried to count up everything I have in the stack this morning, but may have missed some in the jumbled pile of things at home. I've been taking stuff home almost every night, just in case we actually can't come back to campus after this week.

Tomorrow I plan to take the whole day off from school work. I am going to sleep late. I am going to read a book. I will knit and watch dumb TV. I will grade the piles of assignments next week, although I'm staying home to do it. I am not going to campus next week at all.

Trying to relax

 This week, two students in my upper-level class were required to quarantine. One was in my classroom on Monday while the other attended via Zoom, unexpectedly. Then Tuesday I was notified that they were both out for two weeks. Until now, this class has avoided the quarantine issue pretty well, so we've been lucky. I spend six hours a week with them in the lab, and last week we started the lectures-in-the-classroom part of class (previously, the small-group activities had all been through Zoom). The difficulty is lab, of course, as we have all known since the pandemic started. I spent so much time last summer going through the experiments and photographing everything, and I had hoped not to need any of that material, and we almost made it. But now, not.

So I spent half of one day putting together a Google Slides file of one experiment that both students need to finish the course. I organized and captioned dozens of photos and a video. They won't be able to do any of the work in the lab, which means they'll miss using the HPLC themselves, but I can't do anything about that. One of the students had only just started the penultimate experiment the day before he was sent off, so I spent half of another day setting that one up for him as a Google Slides file. If they get out of quarantine on time, they'll be able to attend the very last lab period which gives them just enough time to clean out their lab drawers and check out, but no time to do any lab work. I am glad I had the materials prepared (nearly), but sad that I needed to use them.

With those two out, and two other students finished with all the experiments, lab was kind of quiet the rest of the week. The truth is, we are nearly done for the semester. Only two more weeks before Thanksgiving Break, and after that there is one last "virtual" week in which I only have one class period scheduled for both classes, and no labs. I'm giving the last exam for General Chemistry next Friday, and the last exam for the other class the next week. There are no Final Exams this semester. I feel utterly exhausted every day. I don't want to get up in the morning (but I do) and I don't want to go to campus (but I do) or teach anybody anything (but I do). I'm still holding things together as best I can, although I do a lot of crying in the evenings at home and some days I'm awfully frustrated with everything and other days I'm despondent. It's just a slog to get through the days to have a little respite Friday and Saturday evenings.

This weekend, our local undergraduate research conference happened virtually. Talks were on Zoom, posters were on Slack. I was in lab yesterday afternoon so I missed the keynote and the first few talks, but I made it to the Friday evening poster session and chatted with our students who were presenting. Then I attended the rest today from home, although I confess I wasn't paying a lot of attention. I graded a bunch of lab reports while keeping one ear on the presentation because that was all I had to grade this weekend and I hoped to finish early and have time to read a book or something tonight. I've accomplished that and I feel a little lost now. I never was very good at relaxing before the pandemic, and now I don't really want to do anything. I basically want to do NOTHING. That's hard for me but I'm so tired I can just sit on the sofa and stare at the wall for 20 minutes.

I haven't bought any yarn since March, because I have plenty and I'm knitting so slowly that I haven't needed any. I bought some online this week and it arrived yesterday. My plan is to make mittens for the staff in the Registrar's Office. I just decided last weekend that I should do something to show my appreciation for them, they've had the worst time of anyone on campus this year. Can I make six pairs of mittens? I don't know. I'm going to try. It gives me something to do that doesn't make me angry or sad.