Opinions, art, debate
After all the hype, I’m sure everybody is curious about the surprise breakfast. You can’t see it in the picture but the gigantic salad with the rose has the a la huancaína sauce.
The China set is a gift (from the past, not today), and it’s a really beautiful story.
Please observe the virtuous cups of water and the inordinate number of pickled foods.
Thank you, everybody, for the birthday wishes!
In good news, in class we are reading a play where the male character tells the woman he likes that he can’t offer lifelong love but promises to”try to choose her every day”. All of the (mostly female) students were repulsed by this and said that the female character should not agree to this choosy arrangement.
Choosy is no longer chic.
“I will go out now to buy you a surprise bouquet of flowers for your birthday,” N tells me. “Then I will hide it under your desk. Don’t look there because it’s a SURPRISE bouquet of flowers.”
It really concerns me that we and people of other political beliefs increasingly live in realities that don’t coincide.
I talked this morning with a colleague who is a professor of chemistry and a US citizen and who can’t travel to his father’s funeral because of the tense political situation.
Can you guess in which country the funeral takes place? A hint: it’s a country where it’s dangerous for an American to go.
Another hint: I’m going there in May.
Yes, it’s Montreal, Canada.
The colleague delivered this update like it’s a completely normal thing. Like it requires no explanation. And yes, exactly a year ago I had an identical conversation with another colleague. It also involved the dangers of traveling to Canada. There’s probably something going on in the other side’s news cycle of which we are utterly unaware.
Yesterday we had a long meeting of the curriculum council where people from the English Department complained that they are burned out because they do a lot of “hidden labor.” For thirty minutes we listened about hidden labor. Then a Middle Eastern colleague, who is notoriously non-PC, said, “What is this hidden labor you keep mentioning?”
“Well, for example, it’s when we spend time with students outside of the classroom,” somebody explained after the initial shock passed.
“So … office hours?” the Middle Eastern colleague asked. “It’s in the job description that we hold office hours. How is this unusual?”
“There are many other kinds of hidden labor,” another colleague, who is known for being very vocal, spluttered. “For example, I’m here at this meeting. This is hidden labor.”
“I can see you very well,” the Middle Eastern professor quipped. “You aren’t well-hidden.”
Much of the liberal agenda stems from the liberals’ fantasy that somebody is going to prevent them from having sex.
The cat refused every human food I offered it. I even shared a bit of my boiled sausage (not the spoiled one, don’t worry) with her, which is very big of me. I don’t share my sausage lightly.
But she goes crazy for the rotisserie chicken. I have no idea what it means.
I’m off to a meeting where people will scream at each other over whether the Dean adding one extra student to several sections of English composition last Fall was beyond the pale or acceptable. And all I want is to buy a rotisserie chicken, bring it home, and drop into bed with a reactionary book on the relationship between Franco and Hitler I found on Kindle Unlimited.
Truly, the English Department has what we would call First World problems. I have a fresh appreciation for my colleagues who never, at least, told me they were burned out by having one student over the enrollment cap in their section.
For my big birthday celebration on Saturday, N and Klara bought a jar of my favorite Bubbies pickles. They will be making a surprise brunch for me. The pickles are an inspired choice because I don’t cate what else is served as long as I can have those pickles.
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