Welcome back from Spring Break! I won’t ask how your travels were for I assume they were somewhat like mine: ventures outside only for necessities and of limited number and duration.
After CUNY’s rocky start to this transition, we now should be on an even keel until the end of the semester, no more unexpected breaks and no more truncated vacations. Today and tomorrow, I will be getting back your last essays to you and continuing to post here. Please remember to comment on the posts—and even on older ones—as frequently as you can, for those comments will count as part of your grade.
I hope your own journals are going well. Next week, I will be explaining how you will mine them as the basis for a third paper that will be due on April 29th. For the moment, though, don’t think about that but make sure you are recording your impressions of the extraordinary time—remember, you will have to turn in the journal as part of your portfolio at the end of the semester—which isn’t very far away.
We took the dog out a little later than usual today figuring few people would be out on Easter Sunday. We drove over to Marine Park though we would be too late for the dog to be able to run free, for it is a nice place to walk and we thought it would be empty.
Wrong.
While not as many people were out as might have been were we not in the midst of this crisis, hundreds of people were in the park, some of them in groups that seemed, given the coronavirus, uncomfortably large—and many of them were not wearing masks. We avoided the path around the park for it was surprisingly crowded and walked Darcy (that’s our dog) through the large middle field, zigging and zagging to avoid the clumps of people all over the place. There were quite a few children out, which is understandable—parents must be going crazy with cooped up kids. There were people throwing around baseballs and one person was flying a kite.
We were shocked, and I wondered how we are ever going to get used to crowds again.
As we drove away down Avenue U, we were again surprised, this time by how many people were on the sidewalks, many more than on 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge or 13th Avenue in Dyker Heights, places we often pass while walking the dog. We don’t know what Avenue U has been like these past days, but I hope it does not stay as it was today. Though the increase in new cases of COVID-19 has slowed, it will pick up again if we don’t stay in for the most part and, when we do go out, don’t practice social distancing.
I desperately miss the classroom and human contact with students there. Though I like getting email from students and am finding that many of my students continue to do good work, this is not the way I wish to run my classes. Right now, I am beginning to prepare for my summer classes, ENG 2002 (Introduction to Drama) and ENG 2575 (Technical Writing). Given that the university wants to move that way, I am going to set them up on BlackBoard, though it is by far my favorite platform. Still, I have time, at least, to really prepare rather than just throwing things up as we have had to do this semester. I feel lucky in the students I have this semester, for they are managing the transition and, for the most part, are going to come out of it just fine. Still, I am hoping to be back in the classroom in the fall, though I hear all classes are going to be hybrid (partially online), starting only online and moving into the classroom once it is safe to do so.
I wonder how different we are all going to look when we do get back. If anyone is getting haircuts right now, it is at home and by family members. I have a feeling that hair styles, as a result, will be dramatically different in the fall. Fifty years ago, I wore my hair long, even sometimes braiding it. Though I don’t think I will appear back at City Tech with a braid, I am sure I won’t look the same as I did when last I saw students… and I am sure the students will look different to each other.
One way or another, campus culture is going to be different when we all get back. How different? I have no idea. I do think we are going to see much more use of technology in the classroom, for teachers are going to be much more used to it and are not going to want to abandon the skills they have gained.
I just hope we will be willing to talk face to face one again!
I had a plan to go to Canada for my spring break and I think a lot us planned for the spring break but we all had to cancel it during this situation. I have not gone out for the past 13 days as my body has given a few symptoms of the coronavirus. I kept myself isolated in a room from my family as they are worried about me. Before 6 days my situation was so bad that at that point I started thinking that I carried the virus from my work as I worked till the end of the March. I have stopped working when I have started showing the symptoms. I was doing very well until the last day I went to work. During my illness, something really funny happened to me that I asked my younger brother to give me a hair cut because it has been 3 years that I did not have a hair cut and I have to say that he did a good job. For the past few days, I have started feeling much better. Today I got up from bed early in the morning like every day and prayed my morning prayer. After that, I went out for a walk but there is no one outside. My conscious mind asks me,’ when will we go back to our normal life?.’
That is the question, isn’t it? “When?” Good luck to each of us.
it’s been almost a month i am stuck at home. i was planning on going away with my friends at California for the spring break. i was saving up for the trip and everything was almost going along with the plan until this happened. my day’s consist of a regular routine and nothing more. i see people going outside for a run or just to walk for fresh air. my dad don’t even let me do that, that’s how much paranoid he is. i feel like i am sad most of the time staying at home and getting unproductive every other minute. i hope and pray that the lockdown ends soon, so that we can go along with our life. staying inside for this period of time can’t be healthy for anyone. i have seen that china is going back to normal and i hope newyork goes back to normal soon too.
Each time I hear of a trip cancelled, I wince. Better that, though, than the lost lives!
it’s been almost a month i am stuck at home. i was planning on going away with my friends at California for the spring break. i was saving up for the trip and everything was almost going along with the plan until this happened. my day’s consist of a regular routine and nothing more. i see people going outside for a run or just to walk for fresh air. my dad don’t even let me do that, that’s how much paranoid he is. i feel like i am sad most of the time staying at home and getting unproductive every other minute. i hope and pray that the lockdown ends soon, so that we can go along with our life. staying inside for this period of time can’t be healthy for anyone.
Today , I am read the nyyimes newspaper to find some news. This article talk about the a story written by someone who experienced the Spanish flu, millions of people were killed during the Spanish flu, many of them children under the age of five, and it was almost an isolated public health emergency. She has experienced many disasters in her life, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression of the stock market, and the Second World War. After these terrible human disasters, she recorded them and thought in her memoirs that this was the worst human memory. Most people died because of the disaster, their families were displaced, and every family was severely persecuted. The human beings were small before the disaster, and the incompetent people could only wait for death silently. This sounds very sad
It is. The past is filled with tragedy. Let’s hope we are not living in a comparable one.
I haven’t had any set plans for spring break, but I know I surely did want to have fun. But, it’s understandable at times like this. While watching the news I heard that the numbers in Covid victims have been decreasing so social distancing is working. I hope everyone and their loved ones are well and healthy, a little while longer of being inside and hopefully our summer break can make up for spring.
Those are very nice thoughts.
Because I knew a news, the tiger of queen zoo also got the virus. So now pets are also infected. I can only play with him in the courtyard every day, and I will breathe the air. This is unhappy for him, but it is for our safety
Yes, even our pets…
Because of COVID-19, I had to cancel my spring break plan. Originally I wanted to go to Cancun again. Cancun has a beautiful sea and plenty of sunshine. I even think about it. I want to step on the beach with bare feet. If I am tired of playing, I will rest on the beach chair. But this imaginary trip is delayed. I don’t know when the coronavirus will end. I think everyone to like me wants it to disappear quickly.
Last week I actually had 7 assignments and a quiz. I have to say that even for the open-book exam, the difficulty has increased a lot than usual. It took me a lot of time to finish my quiz.
I also miss the days when everyone in the school faces to face. Every day makes me feel tormented. It rained heavily on Monday, and my friend ’s apartment was cut off by the wind. The lack of internet and electricity makes them sadder. The days are too boring.
They certainly can be boring, our days right now. For me, I have plenty of work to do but I am still getting tired of being stuck in my apartment most of the time.
due to covid-19 I been forced to pull 16/17 hr shifts sometimes even more. I feel like my life basically just consists of school and work. I have no personal time for myself due to the fact that the whole COVID-19 pandemic blew everything out of proportion…
My. I hope things get back to normal soon.