Well, today begins the return to Spring semester for UMaine.  The work day is 48 minutes old as I write this—so far, no crises!  At least, none that I am aware of.  I’m going to call it a win for the moment.

We’ve been planning for this for a couple of weeks now—not as much time as we needed, of course, but long enough to wonder how all of our carefully-laid plans will survive first contact with reality.

I am looking forward to talking with my students again—I’ve got Zoom meetings planned with them on Thursday—and catching up on everyone’s experiences, as well as finding out what they need to finish the semester as best they can.  I don’t think that it is going to be much of a “return to normal” in these very trying circumstances, but having regular check-ins with students will be as close as I can get, at the moment.

I’m also looking forward to getting into a more regular cycle of giving feedback.  Because we’ve been on Spring Break, most of my work has been catching students up and responding to late work.  I don’t know what submission rates are going to look like in the coming weeks, but I hope that it lets me at least get into a familiar pattern.

So, anyway, I’m staying positive over here as we all return to work.  I don’t know if I am as positive as the picture below suggests, but I’m trying my best!  I’m sure you’ll be able to tell by my post tomorrow exactly how long my optimism lasted.

“No one told me there would be ducks!” by Colin Bowern is licensed under CC BY 2.0