I haven't been trying to have many Pandemic Thoughts this spring. I am annoyed by the NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN hot-take business. For the first time, I agreed with something Mark Lilla wrote (which was itself a simple statement of the obvious), that's how bad that that world has gotten. I am also horrified by the morbid undercurrent I see on Twitter and in journalism that glories in the overturning of everything because it's exciting for bored people to watch things burn. But a lot of things have been going well for me even during the plague.
First, due to our brilliant and prophetic decision to get an au pair this year to watch Scrunchball, we continued to have in-home childcare for both kids even after Goomba's preschool closed and everyone was forced to social distance. (May I recommend this avenue to you? It's pandemic-proof.) This allowed me to do my online teaching easily, and even to enjoy the convenience of it for the few weeks that the endeavor required.
I taught a class on conservatism this spring that was, I think, the best class I've ever taught, thought the subject was not exactly in my wheelhouse. I discovered that you could stage an admissions competition, essentially, for an upper-level seminar, which allows you to hand-pick your students. You will not be surprised to learn that the quality of discussion that resulted from this act of social engineering was about 10x better than my usual courses. The students were fantastic. Then we went online after spring break, and they were still wonderful. It remained a good course even though we had to sit on Zoom for two straight hours each week, and I still looked forward every week to teaching it. But I think they all expected A's in the end as a result, since they did such a good job with the readings and discussion under the conditions, and there had been so much to-do at the university about the need for pass/fail (or, ideally, universal-pass) grading and how this was the most traumatic thing any student had ever experienced and no one could be expected even to get out of bed under these conditions, no less study. So they were not pleased to discover that I was maintaining normal grading standards and that it was even still possible to receive a B+.
After the term ended, I finished up this essay on early liberal ideas about homeschooling because suddenly my dissertation/book became relevant to the real world. But since then, I've been sort of ineffectual and unmotivated to complete a bunch of projects with approaching but not imminent due dates. This is usually about the time we'd take a family trip, but instead we are in a state of malaise. The hardest thing is focusing on reading. Almost everything else I can do ok, but somehow not this.
Like Emily Hale, I mostly don't feel like sheltering in place is radically different from my regular life in social terms. I was basically hovering between a triad of classroom/home/coffee shop before this. Now coffee shop is closed and classroom moved to my bedroom, but it's not like there are dozens of local friends I regularly saw that I now no longer see. The main people I interacted with before haven't changed much. It's still pretty much my family and my students. I actually see my long-distance friends more now than before via video chat. I had a bunch of travel lined up for this spring that was obviously cancelled, about which I was actually not too sad at the time b/c I don't love conference travel and was panicking and behind on everything during spring break. (And I am over here cheering for the annual disciplinary conference to be held in Unpleasant City to be axed this fall...) There was a conference here at the university I was looking forward to this summer, but now it's been moved online to a format that involves two days of sitting on Zoom for SEVEN HOURS with breaks for us to clomber down to our kitchens and fix up a sandwich and clomber back up to our laptops. Please send help!
So, two months later, I think my initial enthusiasm for this prolonged period of family bonding and cocooning and productivity is starting to flag. It was productive (by Miss Self-Important standards) and I worked a lot and enjoyed my family, but now I am tired and there is no real sense in which you can take a break from sitting home all day. Not exactly a national tragedy unfolding here, but I would like to talk to some other people again about something other than, WILL EDUCATION EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN?
On that topic though, a donor just gave us a lot of money for our program at Utopia U (we are the barely mentioned one with no link in the press release, not the marquee program that got most of the money). So while Utopia U is impoverished, we have lots of available money, though probably not much to spend it on this fall at least. My kids' preschool is being converted into a "forest school" on the grounds of a local summer camp. The grade schools are staying silent about their plans for now. It's a weird time for sure.
We are moving to Oregon in July (just for a year! husband has one-year position). This is also a source of much uncertainty - who will take our cat? (Do YOU want our cat?) Will we be able to fly? (Our flights have already been cancelled and rescheduled once.) Will anything be open there this fall? Also, cat? Take my cat, please!