{"id":5408,"date":"2021-10-25T18:55:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T16:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5408"},"modified":"2022-11-01T06:30:34","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:30:34","slug":"on-the-road-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5408","title":{"rendered":"On the Road Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s on the tram on Monday morning that I realize I\u2019m having something of a lowkey panic attack. To be fair, I\u2019m not hyperventilating and my heart isn\u2019t racing. It\u2019s more that I am sweating and wishing everyone around me would magically rush off the tram at the next stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It occurs to me that it\u2019s because I am doing something for the first time in two years. I am going to work. In pants. Oh, like many, I\u2019ve worked solidly throughout the pandemic. I\u2019ve taught, edited, given workshops, and written coursebooks and magazine articles consistently over the last 19 months. All online. All in loungewear. There is very little traffic between my bed and my computer in the living room twenty feet away. I have to contest with a grumpy cat and a permanently hungry dog, but that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time I\u2019ve been on public transport, surrounded by commuters, early in the morning in almost 18 months. And I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, I like it a little. I\u2019m out of the house, I\u2019ll see other people today in person. This means I can pat a friend\u2019s shoulder or, theoretically at least, pummel into oblivion a student who refuses to do their homework. My lunch is in my bag, my shoes are tied, I am reading. I feel almost like I\u2019ve been removed from the workforce and this is my first day back, which it sort of is. I decide to enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do. But I don\u2019t. Did you know that when students are sitting in front of you in the same room, they can see when you scratch yourself? They can also hear the aggravated asides you make even if you hit the \u2018mute\u2019 button. There\u2019s no escape. There are no breakout rooms. You can\u2019t put students into breakout rooms to talk while you go get a drink of water. And there\u2019s very little chance of a cat walking across the screen and cheering everyone up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By afternoon, I am exhausted. I\u2019ve only taught two classes, but I\u2019ve been on my feet all day, a thing I\u2019ve only just remembered. I tuck myself in the corner of my office and plan for Tuesday. My colleagues and I chat while I do it. I am taken away from my work by a couple of questions and by the time I get back I have to fully work my way back into what I was doing. I cut my tomatoes and eat my lunch without the benefit of a sitcom I normally watch while eating. And at the end of the day, very tired, I head down the steps towards the tram stop and home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

On my way down, I try to find the positives. They are there. I am rewarded by my Fitbit for reaching 10,000 steps, which would have been rare when I taught from home. I leave work, happy to leave the building and my day behind, but understanding full well that that\u2019s exactly what I am doing: leaving my work day behind. In the home teaching months, work and home blended and were only separable by when I finished working and planning. Now, for expediency\u2019s sake, I have to plan before leaving, so when I leave the building, I am done. It\u2019s a nice day and I am enjoying fresh air, another point in favor of going to a place to work.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secondary school has let out and while I wait, roughly 82,993 students between the ages of 12 and 17 pile out of the building filling the air with curses in broken voices and smoke and covering the ground in spit. That\u2019s one for working at home \u2013 not dealing with the public. The loud, crash teens, the maskless who think they are a pillar of individual thought but who really just look like total assholes. The downright unpleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have almost soured from my position when I get on the tram. I sit away from the kids and open a book to enjoy 40 minutes of uninterrupted reading time while someone else drives me home. And it\u2019s work in the office for the win.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s on the tram on Monday morning that I realize I\u2019m having something of a lowkey panic attack. To be fair, I\u2019m not hyperventilating and my heart isn\u2019t racing. It\u2019s more that I am sweating and wishing everyone around me would magically rush off the tram at the next stop. It occurs to me that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/trams.jpg?fit=4592%2C3056&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1pe","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5409,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions\/5409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}