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| A photo from my social distancing walk on Sun. 29 March 2020 |
Since today is the last day of the month, I figured this was a good cut-off for a series I had no idea I would be starting at the beginning of this looooong month of historic proportions. See my previous entry here.
Also since it's the last day of March 2020, here's a repeat of my entry from March 22.
March 2020: The month the human race came together and collectively sighed, “Well, fuck.”
Wed. 25 March 2020
This week I’m making a point to respond to each and every student on my discussion boards, just to make sure they know I’m thinking about them and I realize this is hard for all of us. I still haven’t heard from a lot of them. But my discussion board for World Philosophy due last night was technically optional (a sort of test run since we’re new to this), and I heard from about 60% of the 60 or so students. That has to be pretty good… right? We’ll see how I do when I have things due for real tomorrow night in both classes. I’ve only heard from a few of my upper level students. Hopefully they’re just putting this off since nothing’s due until tomorrow night. I wonder how much time I’ll spend on Friday and later trying to get in touch with students who didn’t turn anything in this weekend. Not because I’m mad they missed the deadlines, but because I genuinely want to make sure they’re alright.
Another milestone coming up this afternoon: my first ever Zoom office hours! I’m not expecting a lot or necessarily anyone to show up, which is much like my regular office hours. For regular office hours students have to navigate the labyrinth of the 540 McCallie building. I wonder if it will be any easier for some of them to navigate the technological labyrinths of Zoom office hours.
Later…
I just graded my last in-class assignment from the week before spring break while listening to the score from the movie Ad Astra. A score for a melancholy film about a quiet, lonely journey into the unknown leaving behind the world you knew with little hope of return in which you eventually discover that in the vastness of an uncaring, silent universe the only thing that gives human life any meaning is our relationships with others… feels kinda appropriate. These assignments were hand-written by my students. They’re tangible reminders of the world we’ve left behind, at least for a while.
Thurs. 26 March 2020
One of my Asian-American students said people have been making racist jokes about her lately. A thesis student hasn’t been able to work on his thesis because he’s had to work 60+ hours a week to save up for eventual unemployment. What shitty times we live in.
Bibliophile problems: When you’re trying to watch the news to get informed about the global pandemic, but you’re distracted by looking at the books on everybody’s home bookshelves.
Sat. 28 March 2020
I’ve never been the type to get bored (too many books to read!), and I’ve never bought much into the idea of defining people according to generations (maybe the most Gen X thing about me), but I have to admit these “Gen X can entertain themselves” stories are on to something (see one here). I haven’t been bored at all. But maybe check in with me in a month or so.
Speaking of books, I finished Cujo yesterday (that ending, what a gut punch). Today I finished an academic book I’ve been working on for a while (Where Are the Women? By Sarah Tyson, which has a really helpful chapter on strategies for reclamation of contributions from women in the history of philosophy, which I used in my course Ancient Women Philosophers: India and Greece).
I was trying to read only women authors this month for Women’s History Month, but Stephen King snuck in there somehow (see a previous entry). So on a whim I picked up a book I purchased from the author at Worldcon in Kansas City in 2016: Stay Crazy by Erica Satifka. Seems fun so far.
I still hadn’t heard from about 9 or 10 of my 90 or so students, so I sent them personal messages today. I’ve heard from four already. I hope the rest are okay and just being regular flaky students rather than … something worse.
My union (United Campus Workers!) had our first UTC meeting on Zoom yesterday. Union organizing is an uphill battle in the best of times, but this is going to be tough. We’re going to try to reach out to more people on campus to join, but this is much harder if you can’t meet with people in person. (Tennessee is a “right to work” state, so we can’t require workers to join a union in a workplace, but we have the right to be in a union. Since union membership is voluntary, a lot of our time is spent trying to convince our coworkers to join).
It doesn’t take a lot of prescience to see that hard times are ahead in academia. What remains unclear is exactly how bad they will be. By analogy, the 2008 financial crisis affected university budgets for several years (it gutted the job market), and in some ways these effects linger to this day (for instance, in the attitude that we must always be ready to sacrifice some of our employees in a crisis, and we are always in crises, real or imagined). Here’s how 2008 affected me: I was getting started writing my dissertation around the time (I defended my prospectus in spring 2009). Combined with Beth starting her own graduate studies at the time, the 2008 financial crisis is part of why I didn’t defend my dissertation and finish my degree until 2013. As I sometimes like to put it, I took the scenic route through graduate school.
The present crisis may be much worse, even though it doesn’t have to be. We are an incredibly wealthy society with more than enough resources to get us through this crisis, but we have too much wealth hoarded by too few (the recent $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress is a start, but still doesn’t do enough for most regular people). I’m particularly worried about facilities/maintenance workers and contingent faculty (especially adjuncts, who are already treated extraordinarily shittily). I think unions will be vital in fighting back, but we may be in for quite a fight.
Sun. 28 March 2020
Back when I started this journal on March 18 there were about 200,000 cases and 8,000 deaths worldwide. Today, March 29, just 11 days later, there are now about 680,000 cases and 32,000 deaths (at least confirmed). Back then Italy was the country with the most cases and China was second. The other day the US became the country with the most cases. We now have about 124,000 confirmed cases. So, we’re #1… we’re #1… ugh.
This afternoon I played online Dungeons & Dragons with some friends. I discovered that Warlocks are awesome, especially when their patron is a Cthulhu-like unfathomable being from beyond our reality and the Warlock casts Hunger of Hadar, a spell that opens up a portal to the dark between the stars (seriously, that spell is amazing). Mwahahaha!
Tonight I took a social distancing walk. I ended up on campus. It was eerily quiet, but weirdly beautiful. There was a nice sunset. (see photo above!)
Mon. 30 March 2020
Today I was a committee member for a student’s honor’s thesis. It was a really good thesis, and I enjoyed reading it. Honor’s theses tend to be a bit longer, so I spent most of the morning reading it. Having the defense on Zoom wasn’t quite the same, but it wasn’t so bad, either. Zoom with smaller numbers of people isn’t quite as weird.
Tues. 31 March 2020
The last day of March seems like a good time to repeat this thing I said before.
March 2020: The month the human race came together and collectively sighed, “Well, fuck.”
The other day I remembered something amusing. When I was a kid in the 80’s, my Grandma once told me that you only need to use one square of toilet paper at a time. Grandma grew up in the Depression of the 1930’s, so she was always thrifty and careful with resources. She always overcooked meat, and she often ate food way past its due date. Anyway, at the time I laughed at Grandma. But now, in these bizarre times of shortages brought about by some people’s toilet paper hoarding, I’m no longer laughing. Sorry, Grandma.
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