After a week off due to traveling "the long way" to Nashville to speak at the Tennessee High School Press Association conference this past Monday, I am back home and trying to quickly catch up with some grading, email responses, etc.
I know that teaching online should mean that I could manage my courses from anywhere there is Internet service, but this past week didn't offer many "downtime" hours to log on and focus on student writing. My home office and my desktop computer (souped up with lots of memory, large monitor, surrounded by source material and resources) is where the work really gets done.
I had about 30 minutes at City High in Iowa City to talk with a journalism class, encouraged by current adviser Jon Rogers to provide a bit of early in the year inspiration.
My keynote in Nashville went well as did my session, but I was reminded, once again, just how much separation there is between me and current high school students. Heck, their advisers are almost always younger than our children. Students still find it entertaining to hear me belt out my a cappella version of The First Amendment, mostly because it's so incongruous to have this old guy in a suit and tie with a thinning dome of white hair sing, so that's a reliable "show closer" for such conferences. It's nice to have a closer in your back pocket that leaves people energized and (sometimes) singing along.
Tomorrow I drive up to Fort Collins for my annual participation in J-Day, and I will likely be singing the First again as part of the closing ceremony. Granddaughters Grace and Anna will both be there as part of the Arapahoe HS delegation, and I will touch base with lots of advisers I got to know when I was in charge of such events.
Can't say I miss organizing and worrying about J-Day. Still, even with somewhat diminished numbers due to schools still recovering from the pandemic and a serious lack of bus drivers, it's always a fine event. That 160-mile roundtrip drive will also be a good reminder that teaching online is something I should never take for granted. Making two trips a week to Fort Collins on the state's busiest stretch of road was no fun.
Tomorrow night, after the J-Day stuff, comes my first in-person church choir rehearsal of the school year (the choir takes the summer off), which is another reminder of "normalcy" and a welcome return to routine. Maybe next Tuesday we will take in a movie at AMC (special Tuesday discounts) and dine at a local restaurant.
I heard on NPR that such routines are part of what makes and keeps people happy and that they are good for our mental health. When life seems like we are lurching from one crisis to another, and from one job or activity to the next, we can get tired mentally and physically.
Kathleen said today that her summary of our quick road trip through Iowa (before we headed south to Tennessee) would be "from health issues to babies," and that is a solid way to look at it. We saw old friends, most of whom are dealing with eye issues, and heart issues, and bad knees and backs, not to mention encroaching wrinkles and bad posture. But we also saw five kids under six in Fairfield, including three babies all born this summer.
In other words, we saw families at all stages, finishing with a couple hundred high school kids we will never meet again in Nashville.
So, Iowa, Tennessee, and Colorado tomorrow.
Not a bad little fall trip.
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