Zoom Shouldn't Be Complicated

My Alexa yells at me each morning around 6:00 AM, each time it takes me by surprise, and I lay there yelling back at her to snooze, but like many of us, she has selective hearing. By the time she catches on that I want her to snooze, I am wide awake and no longer needing the nine extra minutes. I seem to lay there each morning thinking that an additional nine minutes of sleep will make a difference as if a body can even get a through full sleep cycle during that time. My foggy morning brain is convinced that the extra nine minutes will make or break my morning. When Tema hears my voice yelling at Alexa to leave me alone, she immediately begins purring and sprinting around the apartment. It is the moment she had been waiting seven hours for, waiting patiently for me to wake up. Thus starts the morning routine, coffee, vitamins, make the bed, read, write, and wait. I force myself to stay away from my desk which lures me in with an endless to-do list. I force myself to stay away because, in a small apartment, it is hard to draw a line between work life and personal life, they seem to always invade each other's time. I used to go on a walk each morning at 6:00 when the sun was rising and it wasn’t so cold out but now I catch myself curled up in bed knowing that the walk will be cold and dark. 

There is a multitude of things that shouldn’t be complicated, Alexa shouldn’t be complicated but she seems to make the simple task of sleeping quite difficult. Wearing a mask shouldn’t be complicated yet it has become just that for many. Being selfless shouldn’t be complicated yet it is rare. Zoom shouldn’t be complicated but it is. I could go on.  

I live and breathe zoom, spending all of my waking moments staring at the screen. Moving into another season and I have accepted that my computer is working just as hard to keep up as I am. You would think that because I spend my time on the zoom that I would be an expert. Honestly, I should have invested in zoom long ago but I still can’t seem to figure it out. Zoom itself isn’t complicated but all things that it entails, (well breakout rooms and time management on zoom is actually complicated and always will be but that is beside the point). Logging into zoom every day to see my students safe in their homes shouldn’t be complicated and cause stress yet it does. It is complicated because no matter what, there is only so much in my control. I only have so much time with them. I only see so much of their identity making its way through the screen. It is complicated that no matter how much I tell my students that I love them and I am providing grace-I can only do so much from afar. I can drop off packages on their doorsteps but that won’t change the fact that we are all stuck within the four walls of our home trying to maintain community while the world seems to fall apart by the moment. This is complicated, you know that I know that, everyone knows it. Sometimes the most simple tasks will be the most complicated because we are a complicated species. 

I am urged by fellow bloggers to have a call to action or a lesson to share but I’m lost sometimes to provide one to you. I don’t have it all figured out, I don’t have the “10 Best Tricks to Become a Marathon Runner in 2 Weeks” or “How to Monetize Your Instagram” figured out just yet. Am I a successful blogger if I don’t have the best traveling tips right now? Am I a successful blogger if I don’t have my zoom classroom perfected yet? I hope so, to be quite honest, the only call to action I have for you each week is to have grace, transparency, and authenticity in your everyday actions. I try to demonstrate it in each of my posts so you know that I too am on the same path you are. 

Zoom is so complicated and I don’t have the answers for you on how to put students into breakout rooms without losing momentum, but I am getting there. Life is complicated especially right now, I don’t have all the answers but I know that both of those will become less complicated when we are selfless and provide grace for each other. When I log onto zoom each day I don’t know if my students will care in the slightest about my lesson on why women in the Middle Ages had little to no power, but I know they will care that I made it extremely clear how proud I am of them for pushing through life right now. I am reminding them and you that the challenges right now are forcing your identity to adapt and evolve. That is a beautiful and complicated thing.

Xoxo

Corrinne Ruth