First true week of Quarantine Rundown
Today is Friday, and it's the end of the first week that we have all really been in lockdown together. The statewide order went out on the night of the 19th, and all of us in the house, including my sister in law Jacqueline who lives with us, really started doing it in earnest on the 20th. Rae and I were already doing it as much as possible, but I think the 20th is when Jacqueline really started taking it more seriously.
We're adjusting. Rae still has office hours and lots to do on her classes now that they've moved to online, and Jacqueline is taking courses that have moved online, some of which have synchronous lectures, and the most comfortable place for her to be while she watches them is the couch, so for those two hours Rae and I try to be quiet. (This is more difficult than it seems. We're not used to keeping our voices down in our own house, but we're trying.)
I've been trying to make vegetarian food sometimes, because Jacqueline doesn't eat meat, and in quantities that she can have leftovers on nights that I make meat. I've made some VERY good meat over the past couple of weeks, too. Rae and I watched this video a while back about various ways to cook a whole chicken, and this somehow got me over a lifelong nervousness about dealing with raw meat. I've made two (or is it three?) chickens in the past couple of months, and I'm making another one I got at the store on Monday tonight. We'll save the bones and some of the meat to make broth and soup. I feel like a pioneer. Also, I learned that a good way to get crispy skin and seal in flavor is to salt the outside of the chicken ahead of time and then put it in the fridge lightly covered in foil for five or six hours before you cook it. This lets the chicken dry out and gives the salt time to sink in before cooking.
We've started trying to find things that all three of us can watch at the same time. Rae and I are still blazing through Clone Wars and the Tangled series, but last night we started A Letter for the King on Netflix, and it's pretty cool. High fantasy standard setting, but the kids in the main group all have very distinct personalities and none of them are terrible actors, David Wendham made me sniffle in the second episode, and I'm interested to see where this is going. Ten year old me who wanted high fantasy TV shows around in the same number that there were sci fi shows is VERY HAPPY.
I'm also trying to get into a workflow rhythm for my classes. I'm not technically teaching this week, but I want to be in a place where I get up at 10 and putter around for a couple of hours before having office hours from noon to 1 on MTWTh. We're going to try that out next week. This should also give me enough time to get up early and go to the store if I decide I want to do that on a weekday. The last time I did that I was back home by 10:30. I've heard through the news and, more importantly, community facebook groups, that grocery store supplies are going back to normal with the exception of toilet paper (which we're fine on for at least a week), so I'm not going to go out early again unless I hear there's a need to locally.
I had the idea this morning of using some of my time I'm going to dedicate to my classes every day to just individually email or Canvas message 10 students with a personalized "how are you doing with the book you chose?" message. I can keep track of who I contacted and whether or not they responded in the record keeping spreadsheet I've already got going, and it'll be a good way to remind people I exist and this class exists while we're not doing any smaller assignments before the big one. I'm thankful to the "humanizing online learning" advice I got from Rachael, a friend who teaches about the concept to faculty at our university along with doing the same job I'm doing.
So the theme of this post (and probably a lot of future posts) is going to be, "lots to think about, but not a lot of structure to think about it in." I'm trying to not just scroll social media mindlessly when I'm not doing something for the house or spending time with family or doing things for school. I'm trying to keep up with this journal, I'm reading a bit (Star Wars TFA novelization right now... taking notes for Reasons), and I got a bit of work done on a fanfic the other night that I've been tinkering with since January. I did a tarot reading for a friend the other night, and as I write this my piano is sitting to my left looking forlorn. Maybe I'll take the cover off later and play a little. Maybe I'll end up on tumblr for hours instead. Time will tell.
We're adjusting. Rae still has office hours and lots to do on her classes now that they've moved to online, and Jacqueline is taking courses that have moved online, some of which have synchronous lectures, and the most comfortable place for her to be while she watches them is the couch, so for those two hours Rae and I try to be quiet. (This is more difficult than it seems. We're not used to keeping our voices down in our own house, but we're trying.)
I've been trying to make vegetarian food sometimes, because Jacqueline doesn't eat meat, and in quantities that she can have leftovers on nights that I make meat. I've made some VERY good meat over the past couple of weeks, too. Rae and I watched this video a while back about various ways to cook a whole chicken, and this somehow got me over a lifelong nervousness about dealing with raw meat. I've made two (or is it three?) chickens in the past couple of months, and I'm making another one I got at the store on Monday tonight. We'll save the bones and some of the meat to make broth and soup. I feel like a pioneer. Also, I learned that a good way to get crispy skin and seal in flavor is to salt the outside of the chicken ahead of time and then put it in the fridge lightly covered in foil for five or six hours before you cook it. This lets the chicken dry out and gives the salt time to sink in before cooking.
We've started trying to find things that all three of us can watch at the same time. Rae and I are still blazing through Clone Wars and the Tangled series, but last night we started A Letter for the King on Netflix, and it's pretty cool. High fantasy standard setting, but the kids in the main group all have very distinct personalities and none of them are terrible actors, David Wendham made me sniffle in the second episode, and I'm interested to see where this is going. Ten year old me who wanted high fantasy TV shows around in the same number that there were sci fi shows is VERY HAPPY.
I'm also trying to get into a workflow rhythm for my classes. I'm not technically teaching this week, but I want to be in a place where I get up at 10 and putter around for a couple of hours before having office hours from noon to 1 on MTWTh. We're going to try that out next week. This should also give me enough time to get up early and go to the store if I decide I want to do that on a weekday. The last time I did that I was back home by 10:30. I've heard through the news and, more importantly, community facebook groups, that grocery store supplies are going back to normal with the exception of toilet paper (which we're fine on for at least a week), so I'm not going to go out early again unless I hear there's a need to locally.
I had the idea this morning of using some of my time I'm going to dedicate to my classes every day to just individually email or Canvas message 10 students with a personalized "how are you doing with the book you chose?" message. I can keep track of who I contacted and whether or not they responded in the record keeping spreadsheet I've already got going, and it'll be a good way to remind people I exist and this class exists while we're not doing any smaller assignments before the big one. I'm thankful to the "humanizing online learning" advice I got from Rachael, a friend who teaches about the concept to faculty at our university along with doing the same job I'm doing.
So the theme of this post (and probably a lot of future posts) is going to be, "lots to think about, but not a lot of structure to think about it in." I'm trying to not just scroll social media mindlessly when I'm not doing something for the house or spending time with family or doing things for school. I'm trying to keep up with this journal, I'm reading a bit (Star Wars TFA novelization right now... taking notes for Reasons), and I got a bit of work done on a fanfic the other night that I've been tinkering with since January. I did a tarot reading for a friend the other night, and as I write this my piano is sitting to my left looking forlorn. Maybe I'll take the cover off later and play a little. Maybe I'll end up on tumblr for hours instead. Time will tell.