I Freshman year I inhabited a dormitory filled with graduate students largely in scientific and technical fields. In the first semester I became famous there by helping some of them pass their French reading examinations, and translating some letters from the Niels Bohr archive for another. In the second semester I tackled the first part … More On Fitting In. On Graduating. On Succeeding. On Wives
Bueno, gente, I want to start this meme while it is hot even though I, personally, will have to come back later to do a really good job at it, as it will take some thought. But the meme is, a) what are you actually ashamed of, and b) what have you been shamed for? … More Self-Tagging Shame Meme
Now it is time to link to On Shame, the best post ever of all those I have read. Read it at its home, because I am only reproducing the opening riff. After this it gets truly deep. After unabashedly complaining about having an single income family, of which she is not the earner, that … More The Best Post Ever
*Las cabezas bien pensantes is the title of a story by Elena Garro in the collection Andamos huyendo Lola. I spend a lot of time explaining to undergraduates who are the first in their family to attend college how things work and what the possibilities are. The candor of their questions is refreshing and makes … More Unas Cabezas Bien Pensantes
Since, very tragically, I cannot find my files I have decided I will fly blind into class, grounded in what I know from the last time I taught this subject and in what I have been thinking about it over the past few days. Instead of refining the beautiful handouts I cannot find, I will … More On Level Playing Fields
Hurricane Katrina was two years ago today. It was also my cat’s fifth birthday. Today he is seven. He has lost two fangs in the intervening time and Louisiana has lost two fangs as well. I have lost a molar to Katrina-related family tragedy, still unresolved, but I have gained four fangs by rejecting Reeducation. … More Fangs
In one of my departments people do not know how to send mass e-mails. They send them to the secretary, who then forwards them without editing content. We therefore see how the secretary has been addressed. One faculty member always addresses the secretary, “Firstname, dear, would you please forward this message to all faculty in … More Office Protocol Question
I am an intellectual snob – did you know it? I also have low self-esteem, in ways not yet explained on this blog. This academic year I plan to be more of an intellectual snob than I have been in some time, and to cultivate low self esteem as best I can. Read on and … More Intellectual Snob!
I have been cleaning out my books and files. They are excellent, if I do say so myself, and I need to spend much more time with them. Looking at them makes me realize how much more I need to read, but also how much I know. And now that I have almost extirpated Reeducation … More Boiling Down
I expected the first day of graduate school to be like any other school day, since I was beginning the Ph.D. program in the same department from which I had just graduated. But as I entered the building to go teach my class – this having been my first act in graduate school – I … More Diaphanous Screen
coldhearted scientist وداد 