Some people are doing a good job keeping up on all the changes from day to day. I’m just struggling to get by—making the transition to online teaching, reading and responding to dozens upon dozens of emails about online teaching, about dealing with the restrictions the virus has thrown upon us…spending too much time reading the news and scrolling (this I need to cut down on)…it’s been a tough time!

I’ve made a document of all the gigs and concerts that I’ve lost so far. It’s been a lot, but I can power through. I’m missing playing though, and I’m debating whether doing a live stream “concert” would be something worth doing?

I’m lucky in that so far all of my private students are agreeing to move online, but the longer this goes on…how many of them will have to cut back on violin lessons as an unnecessary expense? Hopefully few and I can keep my hope up! I’m also teaching most of my college students in a similar way and honestly, it is almost as good as an in person lesson. You don’t need a lot of fancy technology, unless you don’t have a computer or a smart phone. People online will make you think you need a $400 microphone and expensive headset to make it work, but so far the biggest difference I’ve seen in my lessons seems to be the internet connection. I joined a few facebook groups for online teaching ideas, and one of the posts yesterday seemed to imply that you should make sure no one else was using the internet for streaming as it would slow down your connection. I thought that was hilarious because at my house I’m using video chat and Louie is streaming video and using video chat for his job as well and we just have to deal.

I sometimes think maybe my students are just different than others…other teachers say, make them use zoom. I feel like if I tell mine to do something specific that will just make everyone give up. I asked mine to do what was easiest for them, and truly, everybody has different technology comfort levels. For instance, I was attempting to use bluetooth headphones yesterday and I couldn’t get them to work and so ended up hanging up on a student. Another student couldn’t get the video on skype to work and ended up having to use a different device. Some tell me they’ve never used video chat before and don’t understand it at all…I think the name of the game right now is making people feel as comfortable as possible so I’m teaching using a variety of platforms, and it seems to be working well enough. I won’t insist that their parents stop working remotely during the lesson even if it slows down the internet because that is (dare I say it) more important than the lesson. Music is important to life, but let’s not overstate the importance of a music lesson. I think it’s important for kids to keep things as normal as possible, and that it’s important to learn music, and if we are going to be stuck inside for awhile, we might as well keep going, plus it’s something to keep occupied with and take your mind off other difficulties. But I don’t care if the sound quality is a bit sketchy and if the student isn’t standing exactly in the right place. Maybe I need to step away from the facebook groups!

So how are we doing? Stressed and anxious…but doing okay. I’ve been eating well (we’ve been cooking up tons of vegetables) and exercising daily since getting back from Atlanta. I miss going out and seeing people—I never even thought of myself as that social but there’s something about feeling like you can’t do something that makes you especially miss it. I suppose our favorite activity to do was to go out to eat, to let someone else serve up the food, and we would eat it surrounded by other people chatting and hanging out. Who knows when we will get to do that again?

I am still holding out a twinge of hope that summer is better but I also know this could go on for a year or more, at least in some form. I have plenty of toilet paper because I stocked up before we went to Atlanta. Louie can do his job remotely, even if he also misses going to work and seeing colleagues and being around people (it’s the being around people, just generally, that really bugs me). I am lucky to have him, and I feel empathy for those that live alone and might feel especially lonely. I worry about the long reaching effects of social distancing. I worry about job losses, especially for the self-employed, and also for those with employers. In my field, most people have lost their work, so many if not most of my friends are affected. I have friends who are already on furlough from their jobs as well. We may not get to go to France, but it’ll be okay: we will go another time. Or we will still go…part of me still has hope that the scientists and doctors will figure this out really quickly!

I call this Day 5 because we drove back from visiting friends in Atlanta last Sunday, so this is Day 5 of teaching from home. The weird thing is that I actually have a weekend in front of me: with proper time off and everything, even though I didn’t ask for it and didn’t want it. We’ve decided to start a garden since I have the time, and bought things we needed earlier in the week. It’s been quite rainy this week but hopefully tomorrow we can at least start the weeding and redo the borders on the garden beds in the backyard (they used to have bricks lining them, but with the plumbing issue last year the backhoe ruined a lot of them).

It’s too bad we don’t have any leadership from the state or federal level in this crisis, but our city leaders have been doing well. We need more testing and we need help for people—I am a firm believer in straight up cash to help out, because what else will really do it? But our federal elected officials are more concerned with making profits and hiding the truth than actually helping people or avoiding a pandemic (horrible conspiracy theories involving the president either causing the pandemic for profit or, at a minimum, allowing it to grow for profit, start to feel more real when you read about senators having intelligence briefings, then selling stock and buying stock in companies that help you telecommute, and then telling the american people that the virus is under control or not an issue at all…it starts to make you think anything is possible with these horrible people in charge, who care only about their own personal profits).

I know I’m ranting, but this is my page to do so . And things are rough right now, for everybody. Don’t you wish we had a president you could trust was doing her (or his, I suppose) best for the nation, for everybody in it?

Anyway, what are your weekend plans? Are you going to work on your yard, if you have one? Binge watch TV? Rearrange your furniture? Watch live-stream concerts?