Is there a technical term for the tension a parent feels between disapproving of what U.S. schools emphasize and how they operate but still being proud of their kid for doing well within that system?

I have the first episode of The Sandbaggers on in my office as background noise, and I’m just so impressed at the way it effortlessly introduces the viewer to all the ideas you need to understand the show.

It’s not that I think pumpkin spice tea pairs well with Friday night sushi takeout, it’s that I can’t remember the last week I lost this much sleep over work anxiety, so I need dinner tea to get through the rest of the day.

Thinking this morning about all of the small, human-oriented things I’ve done this semester to try to be good at my job, and how insulting it will be to have them eventually reduced to a number that can be reported to demonstrate “productivity.”

Je ne dirais jamais que j’aime la fumée de cigarette (en fait, je la déteste), mais il est vrai que ça me rappelle la France, et ça, c’est quand-même sympa. (Je croyais ce constat méchant, et puis je suis retourné en France, où on fume vraiment plus dans les espaces publics).

Regular verbs in French commonly end in “-er” so I joked to a friend about « charmander » as a verb. After some conjugations, he asked what it would mean; it turns out that « mander » is already an archaic verb (and we knew « char » was a noun), so we came up with a defensible definition.

Remembering the time that an article in the Daily Caller took a colleague’s research out of context to make it look bad, but because it tripped a Google Alert, it still got included in some “our research in the media!” newsletter.

Trying to figure out if I recognize lines in Star Trek VI because they’re Shakespeare or because they’re lines-quoting-Shakespeare from Star Trek VI.

Wild to teach data visualization so shortly after reading Jacques Ellul rail against it in his “Humiliation of the Word.” As is often the case, Ellul’s complaints feel overstated, but as I talk through specific things with students, I find myself channeling his concerns.

We thought we’d intentionally given kiddo an uncommon name, but the local youth soccer league seems to have recruited all of the other kids with that name, and it’s very confusing for her.

Genuinely good kiddo joke: “What do you call it when people made of jewels steal something? An ametheist!”

A few days into finally subscribing to Kagi, custom “bang” shortcuts are my favorite feature so far.

“AI is as good as any rubric” (an actual statement I overheard at a campus-wide meeting), if true, is more of an indictment of current assessment practice than praise of AI quality.

I have gotten a remarkable amount of work done on my phone while waiting for my delayed eye doctor’s appointment, but it is now time to read Rogue Squadron on Libby and not feel guilty about it.

Saw an AI “summarize this discussion” button in Canvas today and it was a real downer. It seems to be only instructor-facing, which is better(?) but still makes me angry.

« Vous savez pourquoi il n’y a pas de mot anglais pour “la mie” ? Parce qu’il n’y a que ça dans vos pains américains, il n’y a pas de croûte ! » - ma professeure de français à l’université

Okay, so, is “Super Smash Brothers” just supposed to be a play on “Super Mario Brothers”? On one hand, I’m embarrassed for not realizing(?) that earlier; on the other, it seems like low-tier wordplay, so it honestly never occurred to me before.

It’s early, and I’m tired, but with some help frim French, I just realized something cool about the etymology of the word “defeat,” so I’ve got that going for me.

Silly me, worrying about getting up on time to get kiddo to school early for a morning activity. I should have just trusted my brain to continue its streak of waking up an hour early and refusing to let me back asleep.

Outlook reactions continue to be THE WORST.

Un donut, ça remonte aussi le moral (même quand je fais des efforts de consommer moins de sucre).

J’aurai une réunion difficile aujourd’hui, et j’écoute donc Les Cowboys Fringants pour me remonter le moral.

A clone of Deanna Troi named Deanna Quatr.

Apple refuses to easily sync music libraries between computers because they want me to pay for Apple Music. What it actually does is push me to spend more time listening to internet radio.

Today’s been a lot, but I’ve once again successfully channelled “watching Scott Pilgrim clips on YouTube” into “just check out the comics and read those, already.”