Successful End to a Virtual Site Visit

Yesterday was a day of anniversaries:  a year ago, the World Health Organization declared what many of us already knew, that we were facing a pandemic.  A year ago, the NBA cancelled one game and then the whole season--when I think about the early days of the pandemic, I remember hearing this news and thinking that I needed to get more serious about understanding this disease and pretty quick.  Yesterday was also the 10 year anniversary of the Fukishima disaster triggered by the earthquake and tsunami--I remember being awake in the early hours of that morning when I heard about the earthquake and tsunami, and throughout that day, hearing trickles of news about the ensuing disaster.

But yesterday, I was not thinking as much about those anniversaries.  Yesterday was the last day of our virtual site visit from the AVMA team that decides on accreditation for our Vet Tech program.  I had a 7:30 a.m. Zoom meeting, which meant I had to leave the house at 6:30 to get there in time to get the building unlocked and my computer ready to go--or to get to campus, realize that the Internet was down, and race back home. 

For yesterday's Zoom meetings that I was part of, my image was pixelated.  The participants told me that I didn't look pixelated to them, so we proceeded.  That was such a strange experience, not being able to see myself, but knowing that they could see me.  I tried to smile, but not excessively, and I hoped that I didn't look deranged.

We had some items that could be fixed immediately, and we did those, so we didn't have findings.  The findings that we did have are easy to fix--we need to use an updated label on secondary bottles of substances, for example.  We need to create some protocols that will be easy to create.  We need to have the meeting that was postponed when we were all under stay at home orders back in April and May of 2020.

It could have been much worse, but happily, it wasn't.  We got praise for how well we had put materials together.  And more importantly, we got praise for the program itself, for what a good and solid job we're doing training and educating our students.  Hurrah!

I had thought ahead to the moment yesterday when we were done, so I brought out the sparkling (non-alcoholic) cider and the chocolates in boxes that said Thank You or Merci.  We took a moment to toast ourselves and "clink" our plastic cups.  And then it was back to work. 

I did a bit more low-key celebrating last night with wine, cheese, and friends.  I prefer accreditation visits that end on a Friday--it would be nice to move at a much slower pace today.  But it's time to head to work, so off I go.  At least it's not as early as yesterday.