Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
The White House today recommended that we limit our meetings to groups of ten or fewer. We average about fifteen times that at the Pub Quiz, so we will be suspending the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz until further notice.
Devoted Pub Quiz attendees have been asking for virtual means of participating in the (or a) quiz for us to have fun with until we get together again in person. I LOVE this idea, but don’t quite have the bandwidth for that this week. Why? Because I oversee the instructional designers charged with supporting faculty who were teaching online during week ten of the quarter, are giving exams this week, and who will be teaching remotely in the spring as the coronavirus era continues.
The result? An impressive (and brand new) website found at https://keepteaching.ucdavis.edu. Working with the amazing folks at the UC Davis Center for Educational Effectiveness, we at Academic Technology Services (where I am also the Academic Associate Director) tried our best to share our knowledge about teaching in a time of crisis. I’d be curious to know what you think of the product, even though it is continuing to grow and evolve to meet faculty changing needs.
So, you’d think holding a Pub Quiz online would be easy for me. But while Dr. Andy who works at UC Davis is a modest team player who forefronts his students in all his in-person learning opportunities, Your Quizmaster is a what William Butler Yeats would call “a vainglorious lout” who creates all his content days beforehand, and demands absolute compliance with his rules and processes.
I’m fond of the first guy, but people want more of the second. As a result, I had already begun work on a Patreon page for the Pub Quiz, and at one point had thought of launching a Pub Quiz podcast or even Pub Quiz YouTube channel. Who knows if those will come about anytime soon. Instead, I will merely promise you something by next Monday (March 23rd) for you to look forward to.
Meanwhile, Happy St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. Keep the Irish people and the people of all nations in your heart. As for me, tonight I will look forward to spending a quiet Monday night at home for the first time in more than a dozen years. It’s no wonder that the economy is reeling if we can’t even meet for a proper Pub Quiz.
I wish you and your families health and calm.
Sheltering in place,
Your Quizmaster
P.S. “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ― Pema Chödrön