Back to Basics: AKA Back to Blogging
Image Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/nD2LWjOHi Everyone,
Sorry for being gone for so long and not blogging consistently for at least the last 4-5 months. This blog post will be both an explanation of what happened and what I’ve learned over this period.
I didn’t intend to stop blogging on a (mostly) daily basis, but it is something that just happened as I was teaching during Covid. Every post took longer and longer to write and more and more time was taken by the requirements of school. I found that the more I wrote, the less time I had for grading and preparing for the next week’s lesson. So, while I tried to continue to blog, it just made my life harder and harder, so I finally had to stop. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t have topics to blog about (oh, boy did I have topics), but instead of helping me by allowing me to coalesce my thoughts, it hindered me from getting my work (school or otherwise) done in a timely manner.
However, here are the biggest factors/reasons that I stepped away from blogging at the end of 2020.
School (Online)
So the biggest issue was school. Now, most of you are aware that I’m a graduate student working on my PhD. Generally speaking, school is my largest time-sink in that, even though I’m finished with my course work, I often have to teach in order to stay in school. Well, with Covid this year, most classes were held online. I had two sections of an English Literature class (English 2020: Themes in Literature) and I chose to do Science Fiction. This is a course I’d not taught myself before (even though I’d been mentored in another professor’s class), so I had to choose my own assignments, books, etc. for the class. Even though we had weekly Zoom meetings, I still had to set up the online class distribution platform (for us, it is Desire 2 Learn or D2L), upload any additional videos/PDFs, read the books for the class and make notes on them and then teach them–for 14 weeks straight. This was in addition to prepping my own Prospectus (outline of a dissertation) and then defending it towards the end of the semester. And all this doesn’t include the absolutely MASSIVE amount of email that I had to answer as we did classes remotely. Questions that might normally have been answered before or after class or in the Graduate Student Office, now had to be handled via email, so instead of answering 1-2 student emails per week, I was average 1-2 student emails per day/every other day. Multiply that times 2 (x2) as I was teaching two sections of the course–and well, now you see where the overwhelming majority of my time was spent each week.
As you can see–what would normally be a fairly average semester in-person ballooned to a massive amount of work to make sure everything was ready for class and I still ran into quite a few hitches along the way.
I’ve learned 2 things from this area: 1) try to get as much done and in place before school starts, so that most everything is ready and posted and all I have to do is make “course corrections” along the way. Technically, MTSU is closed this week for the holidays, but I’m already working on my syllabus and planning my schedule and assignments (while reading sources for my dissertation) with the goal of having 95% (or more) of the class uploaded to D2L by the time class starts, and 2) working on things in small increments. I’ve already done a blog post on this earlier this year, but will do another one again as I “re-learned” the lesson again during school.
Computer Keyboard
Thanks to Covid, I had to get a new computer this semester. It wasn’t that I wanted to, but that I had to. My first day of class was an absolute disaster as my Chromebook completely crashed trying to host my first class of the semester via Zoom. It was laggy and unplayable for the students and I had to end the session after about 11 minutes of trying to get students to hear me/see me. It was so bad that I had to use my phone for the 2nd class. I went looking for a computer that could handle Zoom and finally found one powerful enough to host a 20+ person Zoom call (which isn’t easy on a computer, btw).
However, this computer (that I will also be using for my dissertation), was a necessary expense between Zoom and my dissertation, but it’s keyboard isn’t the greatest. The key travel on it is a bit too shallow for the way I type and surprisingly enough, the Chromebook keyboard feels–if not better–at least lest “hard” when I hit the keys too hard. So, it is pretty hard to type on for extended periods of time–or at least it was. I now get a case for all my electronics and this was no different. With the case came an unexpected bonus–a keyboard cover that is has a soft “gell”-like coating. While the key travel is still “harsh,” the cover softens (most) of my keystrokes and I don’t feel the hardness of the keyboard with every keypress. However, the cover has its own problems: I can’t feel the keys the way I’d like and I end up with many more miskeys than I used to make, so I end up mis-typing something quite frequently and have to go back and erase it and then correct it, so my words-per-minute have gone WAAY down. And I was already a fairly slow typist to begin with. Also, because the “gell” doesn’t feel natural, I have to hold my fingers differently (high off the keyboard) and I find that my hands tire pretty quickly in this (unnatural) position.
What I’ve learned is that I work best on this computer when I limit myself to short sessions (for heavy typing sessions, at least–normal web-browsing tasks and other non-typing tasks are a dream). This is where working on things in small increments daily is going to pay dividends as it will allow me to get the things I need to do done, but without the dread of having long painful and fatiguing stints at the keyboard, typing until my fingers cramp up. This problem may be endemic to me as I have fairly long fingers, but I can tell you from experience (typing in feedback to 40 odd students’ papers) that if the keyboard doesn’t feel perfect for me, then any amount of typing that I need to do will be met with a certain amount of mental resistance on my part–I just can’t help it. Good keyboard travel is essential to a happy Sidney.
Conclusion
There are also other reasons why I didn’t blog, but I’m going to stop here. One of those reasons is the internal need that I have for a 5 paragraph essay structure (An introduction, 3 body paragraphs/topics/, and a conclusion). However, I’ve already been writing this blog post for an hour (1) and a 3 point would take at least another 15-20 minutes of drafting at my current typing speed. So, no, I’m stopping here (without the 3rd body paragraph/topic–although you’ve just gotten a preview of what it would have been).
Going forth, I will try to do better with the blog and blogging, but until Covid is much less of a thing (which I’m hoping will be true in 2021), I can’t make any promises. I’ve put other things in front of school before and payed the price. School has to be my primary goal–and if it sucks all the oxygen out of the air for other things that I want to do, then until I graduate, that’s just the price that I have to pay.
Thanks for listening!
Sidney
Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase HawkeMoon on Amazon.com (Paperback) or eBookPurchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Currently Working On (11/2020):
Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
Out to MarketStarlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
Out to MarketThe Independent (Science Fiction Story)
Out to MarketA Spell in the Machine (Science Fantasy Story)
Rewrite (Planning): In Progress Project Seas (Fantasy Story)
Planning: Completed, Rough Draft: Completed, First Draft: In ProgressKnightWatch Graphic Novel (Fantasy Graphic Novel)
Planning: In Progress
