I was at IKEA over the weekend and boy was it packed full of people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a crowded showroom. There were many a young couple who most likely just purchased a house and are now looking to furnish it. Universities are also starting back up for the fall semester, so there were bunch of those sort of families buying stuff for their beloved undergrad.
And all I wanted to buy was a simple laundry basket! Good thing masks are enforced indoors in this part of the country.
It seems time is going in slow motion this year, because it’s difficult to realize the fall semester is upon us once again. It will be another school year of the unprecedented because our campus is going for a hybrid model. Not in the sense that classes will be physical and streamed online concurrently (we don’t have the money for that). Rather, a third of the classes will be on campus, and the rest will be online; either or. Of course, on the support side this poses a tremendous challenge for us. One that we’ve never done before, and hopefully, the last time we ever do it.
Also hopefully people will realize the pandemic is still very much going on, and to carry some grace for everyone else. It’s almost guaranteed that things will not go smoothly, with many hiccups along the way. I can’t speak for other departments, but for sure our department is trying the best we can. Like most places of employment, we are short-staffed, and going through the pandemic all the same ourselves.
As for me. I’m surprisingly excited for the upcoming semester. Nothing quite like extreme novelty to mix things up and create good learning opportunities. For an entity that’s as cyclical and unchanging as higher education, the past two years have been utterly chaotic (to say the least). Scarcely has there been a dull day at work. That’s a silver lining to COVID I can live with.
The answer is always.