It’s bitterly cold out, with a windchill of -25. Our university has a late start this morning, with nobody coming in till noon today. That’s right in time for my classes, which are all in the afternoon today.
I don’t like days like this. I like my routine, and if my routine gets disrupted, I wish they’d disrupt it all the way and give me a day off. I understand where they’re coming from — losing half a day of instruction is not as bad as losing the whole day, and the temperatures are going up (to a -15 windchill). Just because I function well with a change in my routine doesn’t mean I like it.
This has been the strangest first week of the semester, and the strangeness is extending into week 2.
A little background: I go on campus Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays during Spring semester. Monday has office hours and meetings; Tuesdays and Thursdays are when I teach and hold office hours again. (Another class is online and yet another conducted over email and meetings as it is the internship class).
The days I don’t go into work allow me to work on class plans, research, and internship site visits (which won’t happen for a few weeks). They allow me to do this, in addition, without dressing up for work (except for those internship visits.) I work, but I don’t teach. It’s a lot more relaxed.
As I mentioned last week, the university closed because of an energetic snowfall dumping 7 inches of snow over a 12-hour period. With students coming in from the countryside and plows unable to keep up with snow and wind, we canceled school for Tuesday. My first day of class was Thursday.
Four days at home followed this because Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and then I would be back to teach Tuesday. Except that my university is cancelling classes on Tuesday because of dangerous windchills, making my next day in to teach on Thursday again.
It feels strange having this much time outside of office, with the flexibility of work it creates. It’s equally strange not having face time with my students. I’m going to have to work on how to get the students caught up with class topics. But it’s not as strange as teaching under COVID, where I taught a semester online with no face time with the students.
So here’s to another couple days of working while playing classical music, drinking hot chocolate, and with bunny slippers on!
Words Like Me 