tsondoku

Sheesh, I’m still writing about stuff that happened in May. I’ve been overwhelmed with work, so it’s hard to find the time to write every day. But going back to the week with my family, one fun thing we all did was visit Klein Farms with Shanna and Nicole (their favorite place maybe on Earth). Ken wasn’t able to join us because he had a cold. Even though it rained that day, we were still able to walk around for a bit. We got some of their delicious freshly made ice cream (I got the coconut flavor, which was to die for) and sat in the covered pavilion. The cows were not having visitors, but we did get to see the goats, pig, and donkey. I got a handful of donkey food from the little machine and fed him, which was actually a big OCD triumph for me – and a cute one at that. The donkey was staying cool by rolling around on the ground. Mom practiced her phone skills by taking pictures that she sent to everyone.  

Shanna commented that I’ve become the family organizer, which is definitely true. It’s kind of ironic because I’m not very good at the logistics of coordinating plans. But especially during the height of COVID, I’ve realized how important it is to make family a priority. I’ve also been realizing that it’s time for someone in my generation to start taking up the mantle that Julia and Shanna have always carried; I’m really the only one in my generation who’s had the initiative to do that. I wish it were possible to host the family here, but our apartment is just too small and not at all child-proof.

Since we hadn’t done much for Mother’s Day, Emmett and I treated our parents to dinner at Hummus House. We got takeout and ate outside at a nearby picnic table. The food was a hit with the whole family, even Dad.

So picking up where I left off about my PA visit back in May…

All went well with Dad’s surgery, and he came home the same day with no complications. There were things he wasn’t supposed to do, like lifting, so I helped out with various things like groceries. While I was in town, Emmett and I got dinner with Nicole at a new place in South Bethlehem called Hummus House. They have delicious falafel and a variety of other sandwiches, including plenty of plant-based options. Nicole has been doing a lot of mentoring and was also busy preparing for a few different conferences. We talked about teaching; what we’d been reading; and how much the Lehigh Valley has changed recently, largely due to the influx of people from New York (a trend that has dramatically accelerated with the rise of remote work). The Valley is practically unrecognizable in some ways, compared with how it was when we moved there. South Bethlehem is rapidly becoming a popular hangout full of trendy restaurants. One fairly new project was the South Bethlehem Greenway, a pleasant trail we walked after dinner. It was windy and chilly, so we didn’t end up walking far. Still, it was nice to check out.

Like on my previous visit, I ended up getting lured to the community college by pizza, and I spent part of an afternoon hanging out with Emmett, Lorena, and Eric at the tutoring center. The center was otherwise empty because summer session hadn’t quite started up yet. Apparently there weren’t a lot of writing tutors on the schedule for the summer, so I thought I would ask about getting my old job back, now that the center hires remote staff. I felt a little weird asking because Emmett is the director now, and Mom also works there, so…just a bit of nepotism going on there. But anyway, I filled out an application and came back in for an interview a couple of days later, and everything went well. Eric seems full of enthusiastic ideas for workshops, outreach, and other projects. The next day, Eric emailed to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse (Emmett and Mom kept joking about me joining “da fam’ly biz-ness”). I was excited about being back at the college!

We had a wonderful Fourth of July – also Mom’s birthday – this year. We drove to PA, and Mom came out of the house with her beaming smile when we pulled up to the curb. Dad was in good spirits, and I think it helped that Nick was there, because things tend to go better when he is. Emmett made hot dogs for everyone (veggie corn dogs for me), and mom had made a big bowl of delicious pasta salad mixed with her fry sauce. Fry sauce has been a craze with my family since our Idaho trip.

Ken and Shanna stopped by for a visit, which was a happy surprise. We sat in the living room and chatted, mostly about the ongoing favorite topic among teachers, ChatGPT. And cheerfully discussed all the different bizarre ways that humanity might meet its end thanks to AI, like the “gray goo” scenario or the paperclip apocalypse. Ken is retiring this year, I think for generally the same reasons many educators have been making an exodus.

After dinner, my family trooped downstairs to the piano, and Dad played his “July medley.” Quiet explosions went off outside. We decided to skip the city fireworks and instead brought lawn chairs outside to gawk at the neighbor’s fireworks. Fireflies filled the air, and Mom played Beatles and Billy Joel songs on her phone using the Pandora app we downloaded for her (we got her a premium subscription for her birthday). We passed around a bowl of popcorn. The nearby fireworks weren’t like the pandemic extravaganza of two years ago, but they were still pretty great. We kept turning our chairs around to try to catch them all. Someone from somewhere behind Maxine’s house was putting on an almost professional display.

Nick and Mom eventually retreated inside to escape the mosquitos, but Dad stayed outside with Emmett and me to show us things in the sky. Venus, Mars, and Regulus were in almost a straight line.

The New York Times has been reporting extensively on the AI developments of the past months, and this week there was an article about the tutor bot created by Khan Academy. It’s already being deployed in schools, including Newark public schools, as a pilot program. The chatbot is capable of explaining concepts and engaging students in Socratic questioning, and based on my own experiments with ChatGPT, I’m sure it does at least a decent job. But I don’t think even a very sophisticated bot can ever do what a human tutor can. It can’t connect with students, build relationships with them, understand their individual needs, and provide the kind of genuine encouragement and support that we can. Of course, cash-strapped schools and parents might very well decide that what the bot does is enough. I worry that AI is coming for my job, and indeed, it’s probably coming for a lot of people’s jobs.  

I don’t think AI is inherently bad, though. I’ve been fascinated with ChatGPT since it was made public, and I’ve been using it myself as a self-improvement tool (not to mention having fun with it, like when Mom, Emmett, and I asked it to generate a mad lib for us). I have trouble with “logistical” conversations, so once it helped me write a script for calling my insurance company over a complicated issue. I’ve also role-played challenging conversations, which helped me prepare and approach them more confidently. Of course, that kind of role-playing would be much better to do with a therapist, but I actually did have a couple of major communication breakthroughs afterward. And I sometimes use an AI-driven app called Goblin Tools, which breaks down tasks into smaller steps and estimates the amount of time a task will take.

I think the technology itself isn’t inherently good or bad. Ultimately, it’s going to be a reflection of us. And ultimately, that’s what I’m afraid of.

I didn’t have a chance to write about it at the time, but following Trump's first indictment, I was on campus the day of the arraignment. I kept surreptitiously checking my phone to see whether it had happened yet. I listened to NPR’s coverage on the way home with deeply mixed feelings. On one hand, the indictment seemed to affirm that no one, not even Trump, is above the law. On the other hand, I wondered with a pit in my stomach whether any of it even mattered.  

After all, not only is the Abomination still running in the 2024 election, but the indictment actually helped bolster is campaign fundraising. In a remarkable show of Doublethink, his supporters simultaneously believe that he is the innocent object of a “witch hunt” and that he is the ultimate Alpha Male to be admired for breaking the law and probably getting away with it.

When I got home, I googled whether Trump could still run even if convicted and incarcerated for a felony. Turns out, yep, he can. There is nothing in the Constitution or anywhere else to stop him. I was even more stunned to learn this in light of the roughly 4.6 million people who are currently disenfranchised for a felony conviction 

When E. Jean Carroll later testified in Trump's rape trial, I honestly couldn’t bring myself to listen. It brought back the harrowing testimony of Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh – during which I sat in my car in the campus parking lot and cried – and I assumed the outcome would be the same. The fact he was found liable was unexpected and historic in more than one way. At the same time, there was the disheartening reality that this too had no effect on his campaign, and he was not deterred from volleying public attacks against Carroll.  

It's reassuring to finally see Trump begin to be held accountable for his crimes. At the same time, it’s been far from the cathartic moment one might hope for. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling somewhat retraumatized just hearing his name in the news again. And I suspect this feeling - if shared by enough people - will work in Trump’s favor, causing his opponents to tune out in order to protect their sanity.

And the word of the decade is... “unprecedented.”

Just now I was dozing on the couch with Spunky in my arms, supremely relaxed and purring loudly. I got a cramp in my back from being in an awkward position, but didn’t dare move a muscle.

It was an appropriate day for Adam and I to finish reading I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii,* because the sky was eerily darkened with smoke from the “unprecedented” 400+ wildfires raging in Canada. Bill took pictures of the moon filtered through the singed orangish haze, describing the sky as “biblical.” A stench like burning tires filled the air and seeped in through the cracks around our air conditioning unit. I put on a mask just to go outside, regardless of Nick laughing and saying “it’s fine” (I responded with the dog-in-burning-house meme). Even through the mask, the smoke made my asthma flare up and made my chest hurt. I felt depressed all day thinking about the halcyon summers of my childhood and how kids now and forever will never experience what it was like to live on a not-yet-dying planet.

And while we’re being all depressed for the young generation, let’s talk about education! As the semester ended, Jeannine, who graduated with me, became the latest of my former colleagues to announce that she was quitting the teaching profession. “I love teaching,” she posted on Facebook, “but it doesn’t love me back.” For her, the final straw was the number of classes that were cancelled at the last minute, leaving her scrounging for work. She had trouble applying for unemployment, and her job search outside academia turned up one rejection after another. Amid all the other issues with the poverty wages for adjuncts, the shrinking enrollment and (conversely) growing class sizes, the unsustainable and increasingly contradictory expectations to work miracles with the freshman dropout rate, the lack of resources and support…I could go on…there are a host of new problems contributing to the faculty hemorrhage.

ChatGPT probably couldn’t have arrived at a worse time, when students are feeling disconnected and overwhelmed academically, socially, and mentally. Everyone I know who teaches at the college level has been describing a year of unprecedented (yup, that word again) disengagement in the classroom. Students sit with blank stares and neither participate in discussions nor chat with each other. It seems like they’ve forgotten how to interact. Meanwhile, even though they are struggling academically in ways none of us have seen before, fewer students are seeking support. Our numbers have been down at the writing center, and from everything I’ve heard and read, it’s the same at college tutoring centers everywhere. The counseling center, meanwhile, is reporting record numbers of students in crisis or showing major symptoms of anxiety. And as they slog through all of this, students are struggling to afford college and wondering if there will be a job waiting for them when they graduate. This was already causing students to question the value of a college education and degree before COVID, and now they’re also asking why they need to meet the reintroduced traditional expectations after attending school in their pajamas for two or three years. I hope that doesn’t sound like I think they’re lazy…I think this crop of students is showing amazing determination, considering everything they’re facing.  

This reality, along with the dilemma of ChatGPT, cast somewhat of a “doom and gloom” shadow over our otherwise gung-ho center this year. And then there’s the constant background din of right-wing attacks on higher education. In November, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared American Federation of Teachers (my former union) president Randi Weingarten the “most dangerous person in the world.” We’re all bracing for higher ed to become a major scapegoat – perhaps the major scapegoat – of the 2024 election. And then you have the parade of articles on the “death of the college essay” and the “end of the humanities,” which are in fact losing students in record numbers.

I’ll write about it later, though, because I actually want to go way back to the last time I visited back in the beginning of March. I spent a week then, too, because Nick was seeing Eluveitie and 7 Spires at the Grammercy Theater in New York. Eluveitie is a Swiss folk metal band including an awesome hurdy-gurdyist, and 7 Spires is an American symphonic metal band. Nick being Nick, he got to the venue early and was second in line, which got him directly in front of the stage. He’d bought VIP tickets and got to meet both bands. He was thrilled with the whole night. In selfies the bands posted later from the stage (with the audience showing), Nick was right behind them.  

The first thing I did after I got to Bethlehem was stop by The Manor with Emmett while he took care of some things. I didn’t want to go inside because of the toxic mold, so instead I hung out on the front stairs and made faces at his Ring camera. We didn’t walk around the neighborhood much since the day was cold and windy, but he did show me around a bit – pointing out the different architectural features of the various historic buildings – on the way to Broadway Pizza to grab a couple of slices. The house nightmare continues with more leaks and floods and such, which is probably why Emmett was uncharacteristically quiet while we had lunch.

Speaking of pizza, Emmett ordered a pie or two for the coordinators at the Learning Center, and he invited me over to have some. There weren’t any students at the time, so I ended up staying a bit while we all sat around one of the tables and chatted. I got to see Lorena and Penny, whom I hadn’t seen in person in years, and also met the new writing coordinator Eric. Lorena and Penny were excited to see me, and Penny said I should come back to the LC now that they have online tutoring. Lorena always asks Emmett about me, which is nice. Eric is a nice, young guy who clearly has a passion for writing and tutoring. He was recently a student at the college himself. Being back in the LC, with its warm and welcoming atmosphere, brought me back to the good times I had working there. I was definitely giving Penny’s suggestion some thought. Even wheezing my way up that stairway – which for some reason smells like a mix of “high school” and “swimming pool” to me – made me nostalgic. As did the daffodils blooming on campus. The winter of my separation from Wayne, I remember seeing those daffodils come up as things began to thaw and starting to feel hopeful again.

There was actually a box from Wayne sitting on the landing at my parents’ house. Dad had literally listened for ticking when the box arrived, not an unreasonable reaction considering that Wayne threatened to burn their house down. When he left, they changed the locks. I figured the mystery box probably held my long-lost CD collection, which I’d assumed I’d never see/hear again. I guessed, correctly, that he finally sent it because he had moved and needed to get rid of stuff. Of course, Emmett and I looked up the new address on Google Streetview – a bougie apartment in a bougie neighborhood of Seattle. I don’t think about Wayne often, but I’ve got to admit the look of that place stung, what with the yawning gulf between it and the dilapidated, unsafe places we had drifted between. It’s good that he seems to have gotten his life together, but more than anything, the street view reminded me that he wasn’t really incapable of holding down a job. I think he just sponged off me because I let him.

The box was indeed stuffed with my CDs, and it was a joy to see them. I couldn’t wait to listen to them in my car. Wayne had taken out all of the Ash albums, but everything else was there. On top of all the familiar discs was a homemade one with a YouTube logo on it. The first thought that popped into my head was “computer virus.” The second was “deepfake video with my face pasted on a porn star” (a form of digital violence that has become disturbingly common with the recent AI advances). I never found out because the CD apparently fell out of the box when I brought it to the car…probably for the better.

As always, one of the highlights of visiting my family was listening to our radio shows with Mom (which we’re doing again now as I write this). Of course, we listened to Your Hit Parade and Mainly Acoustic on WDVR. Mom and I have matching WDVR hats now for donating during pledge drives (which also got me a shout-out from Carla on the air since I donated during her show). Mom also introduced me to a Monday night show on WDIY called Folk Classics, which features songs by Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, and other greats from the ‘60s. I’ve been trying to listen to it every time when I remember. The Monday and Friday shows are a relaxing way to bookend the week.

Dad’s birthday was during my visit, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a very happy one. He had hurt his back and greeted his birthday by falling out of bed. The fall made his back worse, and he spent the day exceedingly grumpy and hardly thrilled about being a year older. I made him a card on Canva, and Emmett edited it to look nicer. For a special birthday dinner, Mom made blintzes, and I made cornbread for dessert.

After a record 35-year run, Phantom of the Opera closed today to “cheers and tears,” as the Times reported. Nick is especially sad about it because Phantom had a huge impact on him and sparked his love of music. I’m thankful I got to see it with him on Broadway and became a huge fan myself that day. Nick still talks about how I was so floored I couldn’t peel myself out of my seat when it was over.

I was able to make a virtual appointment with a different doctor at my practice, Dr. K., who kindly saw me on extremely short notice. She offered to prescribe Paxlovid, but unfortunately I know I won’t be able to get them down because I have trouble with large pills, and these are horse pills (not to be confused with the actual horse pills Trump supporters have been taking). [OK, maybe they’re not really horse pills, but they’re about multivitamin size, which is too much for me.] But she did prescribe some things to treat the symptoms, including a refill of my inhaler and a cough medicine that’s stronger than the OTC stuff without being a narcotic. Later, when I started getting more respiratory symptoms, she also prescribed prednisone; still waiting on that one.

By late yesterday afternoon, my cough had turned into an incessant barking hack. I’ve been wheezing and rattling and hocking up ghastly things. [Eww, sorry.] I had to reach for my inhaler about five times last night and also did a round of my nebulizer, which helped me breathe better. All in all, so far, I’m feeling miserable but hanging in there. For me, these kinds of symptoms aren’t unusual when I get sick. It’s worst when I try to lie down, so I didn’t sleep much again last night.  

Nick is totally better now. He has been kind to me yesterday and today, I guess now that he sees I tested positive and have been feeling so sick. He picked up my meds and made me matzoh ball soup. He also said that he is going to think about his anger issues.

Nick’s office has been closed this week for a deep cleaning. It seems like the company is taking what happened with Eddie seriously, because HR is getting involved in some capacity. Nick is all too glad to see that happening because the guy is…well, the sort of person who would come to the office with COVID. He tried to get Nick fired once. It turns out that after his positive test and his adventures infecting the whole office, Eddie got on a plane and went to Florida for Easter. I just can’t understand what’s wrong with some people.  

My whole family has been checking in to see how we’re doing; I’m lucky to have the caring family I have. Nick’s parents, too. Bill has been sending lots of encouraging texts. I didn’t really want to tell Dad because I knew he would get upset, and I’m afraid he’s going to give himself a stroke. As expected, he is very worked up. Angie, Lucas, and Carla have all been there with kind words and nice text chats. And Spunky hasn’t left my side. Cats are the best.

Wow, I’m amazed I was able to write all that. Must be a good sign. That said, I need to get some rest.