Forwarded to me by a friend on Twitter:
The past week saw the release of ECU’s plan–“Return of Pirate Nation“–for the fall’s return to ‘normalcy.’ I appreciate how much we all want to get back to face-to-face classes, but it all really feels delusional to me.
The release of the plan, which is undergoing regular updating as new questions/concerns are raised by a variety of constituencies, was followed by an online ‘town hall’ with the Interim Chancellor. I like this guy, and think he’s doing as good a job as is possible through all of this. The ultimate decisions about being open/closed, shifted to online completely, etc., are all being controlled by the UNC system, so it’s hard to know whether the policies he’s trying to design/implement are following a path he believes in, or the path he’s there to make happen.
This certainly sums up my feelings:
https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already
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Yesterday, though, a really pleasant one for Pattie and me. The boat-dive out of Beaufort, which we’d be eagerly anticipating, was cancelled due to bad weather. So we packed up our gear (and the tanks we’d already rented), and headed out to an abandoned quarry on this side of Raleigh (Fantasy Lake Scuba Park) and gave our new equipment a maiden voyage. We moved at our own pace (rather than having to get up early to catch a 6 am boat), and got in some very enjoyable diving. Equipment works great; regulators are smooth and easy (though no great depths here, i.e., only 35′ max in the area we explored), and Pattie had an easy adjustment (no adjustment, really) to her new buoyancy compensator. The biggest learning curve was in the packing, as we have more gear than we’ve had in the past, and in the rinse-and-dry at home. Finding a place to hang things (over tile in the laundry room) and using a dehumidifier turned out to work like a charm–after dripping a bit on the deck.
We were ready to head out again today, but I’m not feeling tip-top, so we’ve decided to take it easy for today. Tomorrow, though, we’ll head out again!
