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.