Is she doing this on purpose?
This is better than “deadlines in regards to time” that she came up with during the previous campaign.
Book Notes: Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite by Anthony Trollope
Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite is a wonderful novel. It’s also probably one of the easiest to read, so if you want to start your acquaintance with this author but are put off by long novels with a lot of dated political content, this can be a great entry into Trollope’s world.
Sir Harry is a primer on good, positive Victorian masculinity. I shouldn’t even use the word Victorian because this is masculinity for the ages. It’s also a filled with insights on parenting. Trollope feels so strongly on the subject of parenting that he does something unusual to him, briefly breaking the narrative flow and offering advice on how to deal with recalcitrant children. Sir Harry is a good man and a loving, wonderful father. But he loves his daughter Emily so much that he can’t tolerate her sulking. His incapacity to say a decisive no to Emily and his failure to keep his bumbling, overly emotional wife in check lead to disaster.
Sometimes you have to say no to your children, Trollope explains. Say it kindly but then move on. There’s no need to maintain a constant dialogue about it. If they sulk, let them. It’s not your duty to keep them constantly happy. Emily self-destructs because her father can’t find the strength to withstand her bickering. Situational kindness can turn out to be an existential cruelty. Sir Harry isn’t confident in his authority, he vacillates. This lack of a firm parental presence creates an opening into which a confident but evil man snakes to destroy Sir Harry’s family.
Aside from the plot of the novel and the excellent cast of characters, Trollope’s language is a delight. If you love the English language, you can’t fail to enjoy his writing. We are all fortunate in that this was an extremely prolific author. One could spend a lifetime reading him.
End of Digital
After 20 years of administering our computer-based proficiency tests with no problem, we now have an avalanche of students cheating on these tests.
I’ve been proposing for years that we administer these tests in person, removing the digital component altogether. I administered all the Spanish proficiency tests like this during COVID, and it wasn’t a big deal. How long does it take to chat to a person in a language and determine if they can speak it?
We need to move away from digital workbooks and digital testing because AI does it for students without students even needing to answer any prompts. The only reason we are using digital workbooks and testing is to work less. Well, that gig is now up, like I’ve been warning people for a long time.
Of course, nobody will listen to me
Cat Escape
I promise that I won’t become one of those people and torture everybody with endless cat updates but this morning Klara left the garage door open, the cat escaped, and I spent my morning running around the neighborhood, yelling pitifully, “Misty! Misty! Where are you?”
Misty came back with a guilty look on her face but not covered in blood or guts of murdered birds, so I’m hopeful she didn’t get into too much mischief.
Janet’s Law
I have no idea why people say that time speeds up as you age. Maybe they need to read more books to fill their lives with intense emotional and intellectual experiences if they have that problem.
I’m completely shocked that a year ago was just one year ago. It feels enormously longer.
Seeking Updates
Anything interesting at the State of the Union? Any good lines?
I’m still in sick mode until 6 am tomorrow so I didn’t watch.
P.S. Oh, it’s still happening! AI told me it was over 2 hours ago and offered a list of quotes from the speech which I rejected. That was clearly a good idea.
The Plague
Christian Moniz Rabino is a gangster who murdered his girlfriend’s one-year-old son. He was sentenced to probation and anger management classes.
It’s another story what kind of a sorry excuse for a woman brings this kind of fellow into her toddler’s life and lets him brutalize the little boy.
I don’t know what’s wrong with us as a society that we let this happen, over and over again.
TV Surprise
I turned on the TV for the first time in forever and half of the ads are in Spanish. I would have turned it on sooner had I known it would do that.
Moderation Fun
A group of really nice colleagues from Portugal asked me to moderate their conference session. People like it when I moderate because I don’t simply recite the names of the presenters and the titles of talks. I improvise a little presentation of my own where I link people’s research journeys with their talks. It’s always humorous in a very kind way, and it really livens up the meeting. It’s like having a stand-up comedian perform at a scholarly conference.
I agreed to moderate because they asked me when it was an ungodly hour here because of the time difference. I immediately forgot about agreeing like I usually do. Today I received a reminder and decided finally to see what it is I’m moderating. It turns out this will be the wokest conference session in human memory. It’s all about the value of multiculturalism and diversity. One talk is on teaching inclusivity to pre-schoolers through woke fairy tales.
What I don’t get is, the person who invited me is one of the 3 people in academia who knows the extent of my political opinions. Even at my kindest, people have been known to say that they feel their presentation will not be worth listening after my spirited and fun introduction. Imagine how I’ll lead for talks on brainwashing toddlers.
Cat Paradise
The cat is in paradise over my staying home on sick days. Follows me everywhere like a little furry shadow. I just had to luck into the most sociable cat known to humanity.
My only respite comes when Klara returns home from school because the cat prefers her to me. I sometimes see the poor animal feeling torn as to whether to follow me (the source of food) or Klara but she always ends up going with Klara.
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