There was this character Huipil Woman we promised each other, when young, never to become. She is middle aged, just slightly out of shape and slightly faded, and despite not being Mayan she wears a bright huipil with her denim skirt and sandals. The idea is that the huipil, so fine and shining, will hide … More More on Fashion
I was standing in line behind a young man who suddenly turned around so that I saw his face, and it was this face. He turned out to be from Saudi Arabia so it all makes sense, but it was still quite a singular experience. Perhaps that is my visit from the other world this … More Lorca Sighting
People come to cry on your shoulder to spread discouragement, but their more important goal is to invade your space and attempt to create a kind of intimacy just beyond your level of comfort or interest. Once you have accepted this level of discomfort, even for just a few minutes, they know you can be … More J’ai compris
All right, to sum up, here is what I don’t like about it. I got all this advice but the cognitive dissonance was that from what I could actually observe, things were not really this bad. I always thought there was something wrong with me, that I could not see it, and feared what might … More More on Academic Advice
At the Hallowe’en party I learned this song and I have a question: was the video shot in New Orleans? It looks like it. The party was on the side of a bayou off the old U.S. 190, the back way to Maringouin. I first drove this road twenty years ago, on the way from … More Afroman
This blog is about getting over Reeducation, which had several elements – one of which was the academic advice given advanced graduate students and assistant professors, advice I misunderstood because it didn’t really apply to me. In the same period I had a psychotherapist who, unbeknownst to me, was also an AA sponsor; in AA, … More On Academic Advice
I know the reasons why there should be breadth requirements, but when I was in college there were not nearly so many as now, and there were many more courses allowed to fulfill them. And in the end, I do not like required courses beyond prerequisites and corequisites for the major. Am I terribly left … More On Required Courses
The students are desperate to know if they can pass the course and how much work it will or will not take. What easier work can they substitute for the required work, they ask. The instructors are desperate to teach in as expedient a way as they can. This is so they can avoid considering … More High Stakes
It was for a while the case that rest did not rest me but now it does because I am in serious resistance against Dat Whiteman, the result of which is that rest really is rest. Ergo: resistance enables rest and does not disturb it. Axé.
Remember as you read this: all of my stories are mixed in terms of place and time, and my characters are distorted composites created as types; you do not know for sure how many universities I work for or have worked for, or from whose traits my composite characters have been built; I am a … More Still More on Why I So Dislike Teaching Foreign Languages
coldhearted scientist وداد 