Just Working Away the Day

 

 I am just stuck on the computer again all day, trying to muster up the energy to do a lot of the fine detail work of getting online educational materials prepared.  The need for huge amounts of fussing and fidgeting of each and every little thing is by far the most challenging part of non face-to-face teaching.  

This fussing and fidgeting over various electronic minutia is not easy for a more "big picture" guy like myself.  In my normal, "big picture" fashion of being a face-to-face professor, there is so much more flexibility and spontaneity... that is just not as workable via the electronic format.   

Once this Covid-19 Pandemic is over (hopefully it WILL eventually be over), I will be so excited to return to traditional face-to-face teaching.  I feel so much more invigorated and alive when I can interact with students, and when I can be more spontaneous with them, and more (academically) entertaining for them.  

I have learned some quite interesting things about electronic teaching, and have liked some of the new things I now know.   I *may* adopt some of them even in future face-to-face traditional teaching..... but in a far more ancillary fashion than they are at the moment.  

It is a true relief that today has been a "normal" pipe day for me.  I thought about my pipes for a bit when I first awoke, and a bit more during my morning run (after I finished the Rosary).  And, I thought about them a few times while working.  But, there was none of the EXTREMELY INTENSE yearning, and none of the DEEP frustration that I had experienced last Friday. 

I am hoping the more even keel feelings of my beautiful pipe hobby are what my psyche experiences all week.  Yet, I know at any day or moment, I could experience the truly very intense passions for a pipe and pipe tobacco.  I have been thinking about this perplexing situation for the last few days, from a more psycho-social perspective.  I may be able to try to coherently get them down here sometime in the next few days.  

PipeTobacco