Le Travail

I now do nothing but work, and I still need to step it up further. I understand at last those people who say they do not care where they live or how they dress because all they do is work. I am not convinced the lack of recreation will be good for work on a … More Le Travail

Mais, pourquoi?

If you are foreign and it is the birthday of your father, who lives several time zones away, you may ceremoniously excuse yourself from a meeting early to call him. Then everyone knows that you are a virtuous son and a person with important calls to make. If you are native or perhaps a foreigner … More Mais, pourquoi?

On Getting By

With some effort — not inordinate effort, mind you, but some — I have put together a two year long speaker series for my other department. That is eight outside speakers a year, four per semester, for two years, for a program that has no budget of its own. I have done this for the … More On Getting By

Oxalá

Whiteman (lecturing severely): At third year review, you will not just be reviewing me — I will be reviewing you. By that time I expect you to overhaul the undergraduate curriculum to my taste, add a new graduate program and have housed in the department an additional journal. If you have not provided these things … More Oxalá

Lime

If I put lime on anything I am instantly transported to Latin America, where Reeducation does not reach me. I think I shall put lime on everything, every day, in addition to expanding myself through yoga. I have said it before but it is ever clearer to me how Reeducation insisted on the establishment of … More Lime

On Recrimination

It was also the recrimination, which I had resisted so far but which Reeducation finally drummed into my pores, that made it so hard to work. A year or two later a friend mentioned that he was trying to stop “yelling at himself” and I realized it was what Reeducation had taught me to do. … More On Recrimination