"Well, I'm back," he said.


The last line of my favorite book series: The Lord of the Rings. (The Harry Potter series does steal the "favorite" spot from time to time, but I am overdue for a reread of Lord of the Rings, so my yearning for Middle Earth is a fair bit stronger than my yearning for Hogwarts.)

My use of this line is simply to say that I'm back to teaching in a hybrid environment in my classroom. On December 28th, 2020, my son James was born, and so, while my wife was recovering, and while my family was adjusting to a new little in the house, I taught from my home for two weeks. My students were (for the most part) in distance learning for the two weeks following the winter break anyway, so I felt that didn't really need to be in my classroom. On Monday, I came back.


Monday was MLK Day, so I didn't have students, so the time was spent preparing myself for the upcoming week. On Tuesday, students came back to a "hybrid" model. I saw my Red group Tuesday-Wednesday, and my Blue group came yesterday and will come today. It's been really great seeing them. I didn't realize how much I missed their faces (or, at least, the part of their faces that aren't covered by masks). I missed my colleagues as well, and I have probably spent too much time this week stopping down to various classrooms just to say hello to them (and often to help them with technology)!

I mean, it is absolutely necessary to take some time for myself and for my mental health, but I'm also up against a lot of deadlines this week and next, so I don't really have a lot of time for other people.
  1. The deadline to submit recordings of One-Act Plays for sub-sections is Tuesday, January 26th. We've had good rehearsals over Zoom the week before winter break and the two weeks after, but this week? Well, let's just say that it's been really difficult for me to meet with anyone this week. I've asked cast members to record their scenes and/or monologues and send them to me to look at and critique, but only one student has done so. I'm hoping to meet with everyone to record this weekend, and I'm hoping that it goes well just so we can be done with it. I've found some joy in the process of doing this, but it's not the same as being on the stage, and I'm at a point right now where I wish I hadn't agreed to direct the One-Act Play this year.
  2. I'm currently enrolled in my second class of my Master's journey. It's the Theory and Practice of e-Learning, which is totally applicable right now, yes, but after having done it since March of last year, I'm really kind of done discussing e-Learning. I'm desperate to get my students back into the classroom and not teach through Zoom anymore, but I also don't want that to happen too soon (i.e., before it's safe/before I have a vaccine in me). The deadline to submit my first essay for this class is Monday at midnight. The essay is four to six pages, which is relatively few pages for me, considering I can write a lot more when I'm blogging, but if it's about a topic that I'm not all that passionate about, it's harder to get started. (I haven't started.)
  3. The second quarter ends today, along with the first semester, and so, I'm working with students who are failing (of which there are many this year) in hopes of getting them to pass the semester. Teachers' grades are due by noon on Wednesday. Thankfully, I've been keeping up with the late work as it's come in so far. I've tried to be extra flexible this year in allowing students to turn assignments in late without penalty, but ultimately, that's given a lot of students a "free pass" to lean into their natural tendencies to procrastinate and turn things in at the last minute. Of course, this means that I have a lot of work to grade at the last minute, too.
  4. I've taken time off from providing music at Grace since James was born, but this Sunday is the first with our new pastor in attendance, so I want to be there, which means that I need to choose music for this Sunday and practice it (which will probably happen the 30 minutes before the service starts, considering how my life is going right now).
  5. James, being a fairly typical infant, is not sleeping through the night yet, and so, I'm getting five hours of sleep per night at most, and it's broken sleep at that.
When I started writing this blog post, it wasn't my intent to vent, but it looks like that's precisely what has happened. The world doesn't stop when you have a child. I wish it did. I wish the United States had, like other countries, paid paternity and maternity leave. I wish I could just stay home for two months and not worry about any of these other responsibilities. I wish I could spend my time watching my son grow and play with my daughter and teach her language.


But no, that's not the "American" way. Heaven forbid we do anything to help people. That would be too much like "socialism". In our society, you're useless if you're not productive.

And, of course, writing this blog post is certainly not productive, especially when I have all of these deadlines breathing down my neck. So I best be done for now and get to work!

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