Category: Micro
- October 26, 2020 One underrated affordance of writing a journal manuscript in Google Docs is being able to have two identical copies of the manuscript open simultaneously. Really helps for checking consistency across paper or comparing two sections.
- October 9, 2020 Answering an email from a colleague is requiring me to look through undergraduate courses offered in other colleges on my campus, and now I want to take a bunch of them!
- October 3, 2020 A year ago today, I visited a mental health therapist for the first time and immediately wished I’d done it a decade earlier. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself, and I can’t recommend the experience enough.
- October 1, 2020 The artwork on the “cover” of a Kindle book has been updated since the last time I read it. It’s a relatively minor change but reminds me that you never truly own an e-book you buy from Amazon (and why I now try to buy hardcopy).
- September 27, 2020 Peak Fall 2020: Sending an apology to my students in case the person I ejected from a family Zoom gathering as soon as I realized it wasn’t a sibling (but before I could fully process the face) was one of them looking for help on a Sunday night.
- September 23, 2020 Having my students post a weekly report on what they did that relates to each course objective. When it works, it’s the best kind of assessment—it assumes that there’s learning always happening and that we just need to notice it.
- September 21, 2020 Marvel, I get that WandaVision is intended to be trippy and demonstrate Wanda’s reality warping powers, but unraveling my world by using a song that I’m only just now learning is the basis for the Skyline Chili jingle was a step too far.
- September 17, 2020 This morning, I learned that my kid believes that Batman is Batgirl’s sidekick, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s now canon.
- September 16, 2020 Lunchtime conversation: “Daddy, how long have we lived in this house?” “Well, we moved in right before the sickness, so over six months now.” “No, Daddy, it’s been nine billion months. I’m right.” “... Yeah, you are.”
- September 14, 2020 One of the biggest things that the pandemic is teaching me is how much of good pedagogy is just treating your students like human beings (and how much of bad pedagogy is not doing so). Knew this before, but this semester is really driving it home.
- September 8, 2020 A local library offers access to a fourth-tier music streaming service with a limited collection. Don’t know why most people would bother, but me and my ultra-niche music tastes are doing great.
- September 7, 2020 Sick family member, so I moved my blended class to 100% asynchronous online this week. Almost definitely not COVID, but it’s a slower week in class, and this seems like the kind of semester to be overly cautious.
- September 3, 2020 It amazes me that we all agree autocorrect spectacularly and regularly fails and yet believe that we can trust fundamentally the same tech to do harder work like grade homework, flag content, and suggest prison sentences.
- August 31, 2020 Madeleines are to Proust what theme songs from James Bond movies are to me, except I couldn’t write an entire book about how they remind me of playing Axis and Allies with my brother.
- August 18, 2020 Ça fait plusieurs mois que je fais (presque) tout sur mon smartphone en français, mais aujourd’hui, je me suis demandé pour la première fois si je préfère être tutoyé ou vouvoyé par une machine.
- August 17, 2020 Bike commuting today for the first time in 5 months, Also, commuting today for the first time in 5 months.
- August 13, 2020 The apparent significance of particular numbers is largely a factor of culture and our choice of number system—that is, more arbitrary than actually significant. That said, this is still a bummer of a summer for a tenth wedding anniversary.
- August 5, 2020 Rewriting a syllabus + recurrence of a particular, ongoing personal anxiety + general pandemic stuff = some high levels of pre-semester stress today.
- August 4, 2020 Pandemic parenting is full of frustrating moments—but also gems like this morning’s inventing games using the pieces to Ticket to Ride while listening to Indochine.
- July 22, 2020 Lots of talk right now about students dissatisfied with online teaching. While those voices shouldn’t be ignored, I’ve also already had three students (of thirty) in my fall hybrid class specifically ask to take it fully online.