Once a week with my on-line class, we have an Open Zoom: I make myself available for twice the required time for consultation on classwork and anything else related to writing, lit, or college survival. I screen-share a YouTube playlist so music greets them when they enter, though sometimes they have to chat at me or unmute and yell to alert me to their presence.
One of my three students from California NEVER misses an Open Zoom, which is doubly impressive as it’s 6:30 am to 8:30 am her time. She always has terrific questions, she’s always enthusiastic about her work, she’s taking and aceing all four of our program’s courses for incoming freshmen, she loves writing–and she’s an equine major! Laughing, she told me yesterday that her parents recently asked her, considering all the work she’s been doing, if she was ok, and I’ve thought the same thing. After we dealt with integrating and citing quotes into research papers MLA style, we chatted about the class and the future for about 15 minutes, and I do hope that, sometime when life is less a game of COVID roulette, she comes to see me for writing tutoring. She’s hoping Stephens is opening as it is planning to next month, and, though I don’t perfectly share that hope, she’s already bought her plane tickets. This time reeks to highest heaven and lowest hell, but she’s been a beacon.
In the afternoon, Mom and I and her teacher pal Cathy visited the splendid country home of Madison and Logan Dickens. Madison’s like a granddaughter to Mom and a niece to me; she’s a smart, diligent school nurse and mother of two, and her husband can about build or fix anything. As she cradled her bowling-ball of a newborn Presley in her elbow-nook, she and her agile and avid older daughter Lilly gave us a fascinating tour of the spread.
Like a moth to flame: after months of being relatively painlessly being weaned off sports, can I resist MLB and NBA action?
Streaming for Survivors:
For you and your folks, me and my folks–and for the super stupid…
The Overeem Farewell Tour: Dispatches from the Public School Trenches 