After a pretty disastrous first day of online teaching, I redeemed myself in handsome fashion today. I took three classes and in every one of them, a student told me they had found it really helpful. I am quite proud of how quickly I picked myself up after being knocked to the ground the other day. That said, a dark cloud floated across the horizon towards the end of the day. A student emailed me saying he was confused by one of the answers to the tutorial questions. I replied, hoping that I hadn't gone wrong with soling that question in class, and confusing the hell out of students from the unluckiest university cohort ever. But, I resolved that if the student said I had gone wrong in class, I wouldn't spend too much energy contesting the charge. I would simply apologize and send a clarificatory email. In this crazy world, there are far graver mistakes than bungling up the explanation to the IS-LM-PC curve.
If Covid teaches us one thing, it will be to become more self-sufficient. If you go to pieces, it is possible to put yourself back together. This is not to say that one shouldn't seek help. But if no help is readily available it may still be possible to cope without it. Our problems are ultimately our own and we are responsible for solving them. One can't always count on others for support, and one might be surprised by how well one gets on without that support. When there is no one to go crying to, sometimes the only option is to have a cry by yourself and get on with what you have to do.
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