Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “micro”



Remembering Governor Andy Beshear’s comments from last May: “You cannot fan the flames and then condemn the fire.” I can think of lots of people who need to hear that this morning.

first thoughts about Capitol riot



I had a friend in Michigan with whom I disagreed on a great deal but who was still an important and supportive mentor for me. On November 9, 2016, we had a very tense conversation where he told me that I would see: The candidate’s bluster might be worrying, but he wouldn’t actually act on any of it. I haven’t talked to him in a few years, but I’m wondering what’s going through his head today.



One of the biggest perks of teaching in an ICT program is the ease with which scenes from the fantastic 1992 hacker/heist movie Sneakers can be worked into one’s lectures.



A Star Wars recap/remix from my house this morning: “The piggy galactic emperor wants to rule space so he can stop astronauts from going into space! But we NEED astronauts so that we can study space!”



First line of this morning’s France Inter news broadcast: “A phone call worthy of an American crime novel.”



The Georgia transcript reads like a student calling after I’ve submitted grades but before the registrar’s deadline has passed, arguing that he’s earned a perfect score but is willing to settle for my bumping him up a couple points to get an A.



TIL that Star Trek’s “warp speed” is translated as the vastly inferior “distortion” in French and that at least one French news outlet has therefore adopted the translation “Operation Lightning Speed” for the U.S. vaccine effort.



Just minutes after complaining that Harry Turtledove works so many recaps into each book of the series I’m reading, I discovered that I’d actually skipped a much earlier book. I hadn’t noticed because the recaps were so helpful in catching me up.



I recently ordered a book directly from a French publisher, and thanks to COVID, watching the FedEx tracking updates is the closest thing I’ve had (or will have) to vacation travel for a long time.



Reading about the Dreyfus Affair is spookier in December 2020 than it was back as an undergrad in French Civ II.



The stress I feel when assigning final grades is compelling evidence that I would never make it as a judge.

some COVID Thanksgiving thoughts



Weird Thanksgiving. 1st since 2008 w/o family (b/c COVID) and 1st since 2013 w/o a morning run (b/c return of chronic back issues). Still so much to be grateful for—but also conscious this year how much “being thankful” isn’t quite enough. It helps me better appreciate what I have but doesn’t change what others lack. I could stand to do better with the former, but I have much more work to do for the latter.



TIL that if you find out your content management students aren’t accessing the LMS course in the way that you told them to (some only check “to do” page, not main course page), you can at least turn it into a review of course material!



Will they take my PhD away if I admit that I never talked about my dissertation in terms of “chapters” and that I don’t understand fully what that means?



I am not sure what I was expecting when I started looking for Mormon* content on Gab, but “we should get the missionaries on this platform” wasn’t it.



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.



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!



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.



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).



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.”



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



Bike commuting today for the first time in 5 months, Also, commuting today for the first time in 5 months.



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.



Rewriting a syllabus + recurrence of a particular, ongoing personal anxiety + general pandemic stuff = some high levels of pre-semester stress today.



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.



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.



My brain has decided to treat me to an unrequested Serge Gainsbourg/Hamilton mashup, and I’m not sure what to think.