My pandemic journal continues with Part 24. Best wishes for Pandemic Year Three! May the memes help you get through another pandemic year.
Mon. 6 Dec. 2021
During the pandemic I’ve had a sort of “amnesty program” where I accept just about any assignment late until the end of the semester. This ends up being mostly “low stakes” assignments that are quick to grade so it’s not a huge burden, but students have been turning a lot of stuff in late this semester. I was worried about this until I realized it gave me a perfect excuse to procrastinate on grading their finals.
And since I’m not going anywhere, I’m not worried about taking my time until closer to my own deadline for entering grades (a week from today). Besides, the longer you wait to enter their final course grades, the fewer complaints you get. So my amnesty program seems like a winning policy for everybody, except students who turn everything in on time, who mostly have nothing to worry about with their grades, anyway.
Mon. 13 Dec. 2021
Well, I got everything graded and grades turned in on time. I have a couple little administrative things to do before I can officially call it a semester, but I decided to take today off, too. I took some books to sell to McKay’s (a big used bookstore in town), and picked up a few new ones (including Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight, which I’ve been wanting to read for a while and somehow haven’t read yet).
Going to McKay’s is something I used to do a lot more often before the pandemic, so I had about three bags of books to sell, for which I got something like $50 in store credit. Not bad. Today only about maybe 20% of the customers were wearing masks, and the anxiety that creates just wears me out, so I didn’t stay in the store as long as I would have liked. I also skipped going to Barnes & Noble afterwards for my double bookstore adventure (another common pre-pandemic activity… yes, I’m a nerd).
I didn’t drive much before the pandemic, and I drive even less now, but driving around in traffic this afternoon I had a thought. I’ve lamented in recent years how little love Americans seem to have for each other in general. Many of us won’t wear masks to protect each other, and the very idea of the public good seems antithetical to the American way of life in many ways, not to mention the hatred for other Americans that Trumpism brought to the surface.
But after driving around for a few hours today, I found myself having a pretty dim view of other people, too: how can people drive so stupidly?! Do they have no decency? Can’t they see what they’re doing? So, I kind of understand our American misanthropy. So, maybe creating a country where most of us have to drive a lot has contributed to creating a country of “freedom”-loving misanthropes. Okay, maybe a stretch. But I still hate city driving (road trips are okay), or really going anywhere these days given the pandemic and everyone else’s apparent belief that it is over. So I end up hating other people, which makes me hate myself, which is just too exhausting… and maybe I’ll just stay home for the next year.
After my bookstore visit, I wanted to have a leisurely lunch on a patio, but I drove by a few restaurants I like and it didn’t look like their patios were open even though it was 60 some degrees and sunny. I’ve had this problem in the last couple months. Hey, bars and restaurants: the pandemic is still a thing and getting bad again, so yes, I want to sit outside even if you think it’s too chilly.
I was also thinking the other day that, maybe for the first time ever, I didn’t give any F’s this semester. I did a little more than usual to track down people who owed me assignments, and there’s the amnesty policy about late work I mentioned before. I also had a few students drop before the deadline, so I didn’t have to give them grades. I can only think of a maybe a handful of times in my 15 years of teaching where I’ve given F’s to students who did all of the work (usually they fail because they’re missing a lot of assignments). So, it’s probably partly luck, but maybe my efforts to help students get through the class have paid off.
Tues. 14 Dec. 2021
This afternoon I'm on campus doing some post-grading administrative odds-and-ends, including unpacking the office I moved into a year-and-a-half ago (yeah, I know). I found a pile of in-class handwritten assignments, printed papers, and handwritten quizzes from 2019 and early 2020. In the years right before the pandemic I was shifting my pedagogy to be as little online as possible. And now with a bit of melancholy I don't see myself ever going back in that direction again.
Sat. 18 Dec. 2021
It has been a mostly relaxing week.
A few random scenes from the last couple days.
Sitting drinking a beer on an unusually warm December afternoon, watching gnats circle in the sunbeams.
A little nap on the porch on a lazy warm afternoon/ getting up to read a bit/ a little day drinking/ wearing my pajama pants outside… because why not?
Tonight I’m watching the Hugo award ceremony streaming online. The ceremony is in Washington, DC. DC’s not that far and I thought about going (I presented on the academic track at Worldcon in 2016 and 2018). But with the pandemic and some other travels, I decided against it. But I did vote for the Hugos with a supporting membership, as I’ve done for several years now.
Later, after the ceremony: I didn’t pick a lot of winners, maybe even worse than usual, but that’s okay. They were all deserving. The streaming and the ceremony itself has only very minor hiccups, so good job to everyone who made it and DiscCon III happen! And congrats to this year’s Hugo winners and finalists! I’ll write more about it soon.
Tues. 21 Dec. 2021
I’m officially in full winter break mode. We went to see the new Spider-Man movie in a mostly empty theater with friends! And open captions! (I watch everything at home with captions, so this was cool). It was one of the better Spider-Man movies of the 25 that have come out in the last 20 years. I think most of the few people in our auditorium were even wearing masks, but it was less so in the lobby and such. C’mon people…
I really, really want to see the new Matrix movie tomorrow in IMAX, but it’s also coming out on HBO at the same time, so I may not go back to the theater again so soon (it will be more crowded, but I could sit in one of the front rows…).
The omicron variant is spreading really quickly, so maybe we should all stay home until January…
Fri. 24 Dec. 2021
We were going to visit friends for Christmas Eve, but one person is sick (thankfully tested negative for COVID). Oh well.
Update on The Matrix Resurrections. I loved it! I watched it at home on HBO. My initial thoughts are here.
I will definitely be watching it again. Maybe in a theater if I can find a less crowded matinee or something.
A random thought I’ve had a few times recently (lately while watching the pretty good Amazon adaptation of Wheel of Time). Let’s call it a Christmas Eve conundrum.
Why are British accents the main accents in fantasy movies and TV? I realize there are explanations for this (the legacy of Tolkien, the way that Hollywood uses British accents more generally, etc.), but I don’t find any good reason for it. These are made up worlds, after all! Why can’t elves have Tennessee accents? Why can’t that village boy who finds a magic sword sound like he’s from Brooklyn or Boston? Why can’t the fair maiden have an Australian accent? At the very least everyone in The Witcher should have a Polish accent!
Sun 26 Dec.2021
Christmas was good. Relaxing. We’re in the middle of a heat wave of sorts with temps in the 70’s. Today I spent most of the afternoon on the porch reading (with a few little naps), and then I took a long walk. I was getting a little warm on my walk. It’s a few days after the solstice, but I was wondering if we had been temporarily been relocated to the Southern Hemisphere.
The warm weather is supposed to continue most of the week, but with some rain. Obviously the larger reality of global climate change is troubling, but I’ll try to enjoy this week, anyway, which I plan to take off for relaxation before doing all the stuff I have to do. But that stuff can wait, because it’s been a fucking year. And I need a break.
Mon. 27. Dec. 2021
I think my biggest accomplishment of 2021 (so far) was to get some metal implanted in my skeleton, thus fulfilling my dream of becoming a cyborg.
Fri. 31 Dec. 2021
The last day of 2021. I think I will start a new pandemic journal file. This one started in March 2020 and has gone on for 192 pages single spaced. Maybe the fact that I will need a file called “COVID 19 Journal 2022” says something about this pandemic and these times.
I’ve had a nice week off. Like really completely off (I did peek at my university email, but didn’t respond to anything work related). It’s like I’m some sort of European or something.
We had the highest number of COVID cases in the county for the whole pandemic the other day (over 900), so the omicron surge has begun. So I didn’t go to a movie theater this week as I thought I might, although I did watch The Matrix Resurrections again on HBO.
I have to get the car oil changed today, but otherwise I’m pretty much staying home.
I only have to be on campus one day a week in the spring semester (which starts Jan. 10), and I wonder if we might go online for the first few weeks. Luckily if South Africa is any indication, this surge will spike quickly and be over in a few weeks. I hope that’s the case.
It has been ridiculously warm this week with highs in the 70’s all week. I’ve been sitting on the porch in shorts and a t-shirt reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a science fiction novel about people actually doing something about climate change. It’s weird. There must be some word (in German probably) for trying to enjoy warm winter days even though climate change is happening.
I feel like I should have some sort of year-end reflections on a full calendar year of the pandemic. Maybe I will a little later…
Later…
I went for the oil change. I wore a mask inside. Nobody else did, but it wasn’t crowded at all. It’s slightly cooler and foggy today, but still t-shirt/light flannel weather for me, so I took a weird little walk around the suburban wasteland of car dealerships and body shops while I waited. Why is America so hostile toward sidewalks? The mind boggles.
I got lost driving home around Missionary Ridge. I think there are wormholes up there. One second I was en route back the way I came, the next second I had no idea where I was. “Why don’t you use the GPS?” techno-denizens of the 21stcentury might ask (and Beth did ask). I don’t mind being lost, to be honest. A bit of wandering does me some good, breaks me out of the tyranny of knowing what’s going on, teaches me new things geographically, psychologically, philosophically.
And of course as Tolkien said, “Not all who wander are lost.” Although I was lost, until I hooked back up with a familiar highway, somehow far to the northeast of where I had intended to go. And I didn’t have to throw any jewelry in volcanoes, either, so that was a bonus.
So the big summary of the year:
Amidst a previous COVID surge, I fell on the sidewalk on campus (quite absurdly and unceremoniously, I might add) and broke my shoulder. It required several days in the hospital amidst that COVID surge, surgery (my cyborgification begun!), and several months of physical therapy. I got worker’s comp to pay for most of it, which was great, but I learned that really just means you have to deal with another health insurance company, which is not great.
I also learned during my convalescence that I was even more burnt out than I had already thought (and I thought I was really burnt out). With my injury, physical therapy, and everything, I just couldn’t do as much as I had before. I had to slow down. Which was a great thing. I feel like I would have gotten there eventually, due to the pandemic, earning tenure in 2020, and to be honest, just feeling middle age seep into my bones.
My students were fine with it. They wanted to slow down, too. I can’t help but feel bad for my peers who rely on me for publication and editing deadlines and whatnot, but I learned that almost all the time nothing bad actually happens if you do stuff late. And you know what? Most of my colleagues secretly want to slow down, too, loathe though the miserable workaholics of academia may be to admit it. I think the pandemic has revealed that most of humanity secretly wants to slow down, too, loathe though the capitalists and bureaucrats may be to allow it.
I and pretty much everybody I know got vaccinated in the spring and early summer (despite about 40% of my fellow Americans being steadfastly unvaccinated, which is weird for many reasons). We thought things were getting better pandemic-wise. And they were.
I went on a few summer trips, taking proper precautions. I even flew for one trip, masking on planes slightly better than I expected. But I learned that I prefer to drive. Long car trips are a way of getting lost without actually getting lost (with a little bit of getting lost just to spice things up).
And then the fall surge hit. We had a mask mandate on campus, thankfully, until the state legislature took it away the last week of the semester. Fall 2021 seemed to me to be the hardest pandemic semester yet. Students, faculty, staff, and all of us are burnt out, and we need help that we aren’t getting (although the pause on student loan payments has been wonderful). And unlike the fearful yet hopeful days of the early pandemic, there seems to be no end in sight anymore.
And now at the end of the year we are facing our sharpest surge yet due to the omicron variant. And people are still expected to go to work and school, a lot of people are unmasked and unvaxxed and living their lives as if the pandemic is over or never began, there are still stadiums full of thousands of sports fans gathering, and holiday travel is only recently diminished due to employees calling in sick. But we all agree we want this pandemic to be over.
And Betty White just died today, so there's that.
It seems a bit presumptuous to say, “Happy New Year” all things considered, so instead I’ll say, “Best wishes for the new year.” May things go as well as they can all things considered. Best wishes to humanity, and to you, dear reader.
Here are the latest numbers at the end of 2021, pandemic year two:
Worldwide
Cases: 288,050,111
Deaths: 5,451,376
US
Cases: 55,432,239
Deaths: 846,711
Hamilton County, TN
Cases: 71,335
Deaths: 780
Worldwide fully vaccinated: 48.3%
US fully vaccinated: 62.0%
Hamilton county at least partially vaccinated: 59.6% (everyone), 69.1% (12 and up)
Hamilton county fully vaccinated: 54.6% (everyone), 63.2% (12 and up)
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