Juggling Identities During COVID-19: Day 11
Day 11: April 6, 2020
Global cases: 1,346,036; Deaths: 74,654
Egypt cases: 1,322; Deaths: 85
Maha Bali
@bali_maha
Associate Professor of Practice
AUC Center for Learning and Teaching
I wake up to the sound of the alarm and decide to snooze a bit. No 7am school bus today. No urgent work, so I check WhatsApp and email. I pretend to read what is on all the WhatsApp groups but I don’t have the patience, I just want them to look like everything is read. I find a message from my boss telling me she updated the slides for our webinar today, and to call her around 11.
I check my Twitter DMs. Find in a group DM of friends who are working on “continuity with care” like myself, that our Australian friend found out one of her students tested positive for COVID-19, and that my Iranian friend in Japan resigned from her teaching job because the institution refused to let her teach online or in a space that allowed social distancing. Another friend reshares a document collecting all the institutions that have introduced a Pass/Fail option to students this semester. I close my eyes a bit.
An hour later, I wake up on my own, so I just get up, and my husband and I stand in the kitchen. He makes coffee while I prepare breakfast. We watch the news for the latest updates on COVID-19 around the world. Boris Johnson is admitted to hospital for “routine tests”. We are doubtful they are just “routine” as he tested positive for COVID-19 more than a week ago and still has symptoms.
At the beginning of this crisis, my husband, who is a doctor, watched the news on COVID-19 almost every waking minute and held every other TV channel in contempt. But a few days ago, I realized this was having a negative effect on my well-being and also affecting the anxiety levels of our eight-year-old daughter, so we agreed to reduce the amount of airtime spent on COVID-19 news, and to switch to lighter entertainment before bedtime. But we still watch some news in the mornings.
I text my mom to say good morning and check out some GIFs and memes on WhatsApp, forwarding one of them to my husband that I think he would enjoy.
I ask my husband if he needs to go to work today, and he says he does, for one urgent operation, and that he expects to be back around 3pm or so. I also have work from 9:30am-3pm today.
I head towards my laptop to finish posting my teaching plan for today, so students know what to expect. I am about to join our morning department check-in meeting on Zoom, when my daughter wakes up and asks if I can do the meeting sitting next to her in bed. So I grab my phone and earbuds, and sit next to her in bed, cuddling until she wakes up fully (I think to myself, this is a far cry from our usual morning routine of 5 minutes of cuddling and 30 minutes of “yalla yalla yalla let’s get ready before we miss the bus”!
Our department meeting is focused on a new development (an email sent by the university to faculty and students) and we discuss it, and then I have to go to my class at 10am. By this time, my daughter is up and we agree on what she wants for breakfast and I “go to class” while she gets her morning started. I am happy to see that two of my most engaged students made it to class. Last week, they both had connectivity issues, and I missed them. A few students are confused by the new password on my Zoom room, and I explain the security issues and why I added the password and waiting room to prevent intruders.
Based on the latest developments in online learning at AUC, and based on what students have told me on Slack (our app for chatting), I know this class session will NOT be centered on the original topic I was planning to discuss, and that instead students will want to discuss the latest developments sent by the university.
First, they ask clarification questions to understand what’s happening. Next, they share their reactions to this new development, and share stories of the various things happening to them in other classes – the good, the bad, and the unbelievable. We do this, and though it seems like a venting session, it relates very much to the topics of my class, covering digital literacies, empathy and equity.
After discussing the particular situation, I ask students to take 10-15 minutes to read a brief article I had recently peer-reviewed which covers topics of surveillance and equity within technological platforms and we discuss it. I have learned from listening to students at AUC that students are often wiser than we give them credit for.
We never get around to discussing the original topic of the class, but time is up, so I ask them to watch a brief video on it before our next class, and to post their comments on a Google doc we are using for this class session.
I usually sit on my laptop for class, but when I know I have a full day of lots of Zoom meetings, I switch it up. I did my entire department meeting and class session on my Zoom phone app, using my headset and putting the phone in my pocket while I do some light exercise, walking around my dining room and salon. It’s my way to ensure I get some exercise done every day.
As we close out the class, a few students linger to ask questions about the upcoming project, and one of them asks if I know what will happen with the Student Union petition for Pass/Fail grading. I tell them I do not know the verdict, but I heard we will know the final word today. But I don’t have a time-frame or an inkling of what the verdict will be.
I sign off of Zoom and have the regular morning discussions with my daughter: What do you want to wear today? (Thankfully, she is over her recent obsession to color coordinate with me, an obsession she developed during the closure of school). She gets dressed and checks the stream for her own class on Google classroom, does a quick Arabic quiz (and yes, she asks a couple of times because even though the quiz is a grammar quiz, she doesn’t actually understand all the words in the sentences!). I find I have a few minutes of free time so my daughter and I try out one of the designs in an Origami book. We get started together and she finishes it up on her own.
I call a couple of colleagues, then we have a consultation meeting with a faculty member (my kid interrupts to show me her completed origami project, and I try to play with her while also doing the consultation). Then it’s time for our webinar of the day. This 1pm time makes me tense because I have a webinar and my daughter has a class meeting at the same time. Our home wifi doesn’t usually do well with this, but both my daughter and I are out of data on our phones … and, as with some other days, my kid has a technical problem reaching her class.
I step away from the webinar for a minute to try to help her, discover I can’t because it’s a problem on her teacher’s side (I see the disappointment on her face, but she sees that other students had similar problems).
Our webinar goes well, and then I have another group consultation meeting. I leave my laptop and do this one on the phone, not walking this time, but relaxing on the sofa. Midway through the meeting my kid comes around to cuddle during the meeting, which is nice, but she also tries to talk to me and play with my earbuds, which is really NOT cool. We settle on her taking one of the earbuds but not touching anything else. Midway through this meeting, my husband calls and I have to ignore the call and text him that I’m in an important meeting that ends at 3pm.
For The Caravan’s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
When I finish, I am so exhausted. Zooming from 9.30-3pm is way more exhausting than a regular work day.
At this point, we are hungry but I don’t have energy to cook with my daughter (which we both enjoy) so I ask my husband to order something and my kid decides she wants to do some craft work (today: home made soap. Don’t ask. It’s more difficult than it looked on the box!).
Husband arrives, followed soon after by lunch. In the middle of lunch a colleague calls. I decided while working from home that I need to give some time to family and skip the work calls, so I decide to call her back after lunch. My daughter and I make a little more origami and I realize some designs are much harder than they look! Darn, and here I thought I had found an easy hobby!
The rest of the day has fewer events, except that I call my mom and discover a relative is unwell, so I make a couple of calls to cousins. We discuss how difficult it is these days to support someone who is sick or to pay condolences. We think about how complicated it is for family who don’t live in the same city or country to reach each other in emergencies. It’s one of the hardest things about the locking down and curfew.
I find some WhatsApp messages from friends and faculty and my kid’s school group. Everyone at AUC is waiting to hear the latest news about online instruction from the university administration. By the time this diary is published, we will know.
Did they, or didn’t they?
