April 27 Day 50: A Self-referential Celebration

As the title indicates, it has been fifty days since I started emergency remote teaching but more important than that, this is my 49th blog post. Personally, I don’t think multiples of ten are that impressive. Perfect squares however are a thing of beauty.

Think about it with respect to birthdays: 0, 10, and 20th celebrations each happen at a unique stage of life but 30 vs 40 or 60 vs 70 are not that different. Now compare to perfect squares:

0: perhaps the most important birthday—a proof of existence
1: more for the parents than the child
4: old enough to care and be excited but still a family affair
9: old enough to care and want to celebrate with friends
16: a very sweet moment at the verge of adulthood
25: the time when career and families starts to coalesce
36: a period of family and stability (I hope)
49: approximately the halfway point
64: beginning to slow down. Bonus Beatles song to celebrate (also 4^3)
81: a squared square ((3^2)^2) and likely the last fourth power you will get to celebrate
100: A truly remarkable milestone

Each number represents a unique stage of life worth celebrating. Now if I can only convince Hallmark to change their marketing strategy.

As this blog has only existed for 7 days and this is my 7^2 blog post, I thought I might highlight some of the early reflections as they all got posted en masse. I don’t expect anyone to read through posts chronologically but maybe someone would appreciate pointers to the serious highlights in my humble opinion? ICYMI:

March 13 Day 5: Upside Down and Inside Out
I start here since this post inspired the creation of the entire blog. A colleague asked to repurpose a Facebook post for the UW Center for Teaching and Learning blog “Teaching Everywhere“. I said yes but when asked where to link the post so that people could read through my reflections, nothing exist. I spent that evening 7 days ago, creating the blog that you are now reading.

March 16 Day 8: Personal Mantra and the Second Wave

March 18 Day 10: Swallowed by Black Hole

March 23 Day 15: The Third Wave

March 31 Day 23: Thinking Forward

April 4 Days 26-27: I Believe in Academic Freedom

April 13 Day 36: Don’t Call it Online Teaching

April 21 Day 44: Conjectured Cause for this Pause This marks the first post written and posted on the day in the title. And you are essentially caught up.