Guess who will be spending New Year’s in the most beautiful, amazing, phenomenal, exquisite, and sophisticated city of Montreal?

It is unbelievable that I have never had an opportunity to show the city I love so much to the man I love even more. N. has never been to Montreal but he has listened patiently to me gushing about the beauty of the city I call home for years.

Now I will get to take him to Montreal and show him all of the places in Montreal that mean so much to me. I’m so happy that I think I’m going to cry.

I will be in Montreal between December 28 and January 2. Of course, now I will have to work out a tight schedule to make sure we get to experience everything I have planned. Some of the highlights of the trip will be:

1. A walking tour from the house on St. Mathieu St. where I lived as a student down Sherbrooke St. to the house next to Parc Lafontaine where I worked on my doctoral dissertation in 2007-8 with stops at all of the significant places that have personal meaning for me on the way.

2. A visit to Stogies Bar on Crescent. Oh, the memories. . .

3. A walk down St. Laurent and then up St. Denis.

Of course, I know it will be cold and snowy and the Russian person among us hates the snow and the cold. Go figure.

A student is answering a question about the possible consequences of the independence of Catalonia:

“Another negative consequence is that Spain’s population will become smaller. And it is always good to have more people around in case you need to go to war.”

It’s like they can’t help themselves, you know? They open their mouths and egregiously offensive remarks about rape start pouring out:

A Republican congressional candidate says abortion should not be legal, even when it involves “the rape thing,” according to audio provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. An activist working on behalf of liberal group FUSE Washington asked questions of Republican hopeful John Koster during a fundraiser Sunday. Koster said he does not oppose abortion when the life of the mother is in danger but then explains he would oppose it when it involves rape or incest. Koster twice uses the phrase “the rape thing” when describing his views, first saying that he knows a woman who was raped and gave up the child for adoption without any regrets. “But on the rape thing, it’s like, how does putting more violence onto a woman’s body and taking the life of an innocent child that’s a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?” Koster said in the exchange.

You’d think that with juts a few days to go before the elections these folks would be able to control their idiocy at least somewhat. But no, the hatred of women is so overpowering that they are like an addict in need of a fix. And see the entire, “a woman I know feels this, ergo all women in the universe feel the same thing because women are like robots that respond the same when you press a button”? Woman-hating at its best. I wish somebody asked him if he noticed any difference between women and cell phones. Also note the utter incapacity to process the concept of consent.

Scary shit, folks. Go vote. Keep Koster and Co out of our bodies and our public spaces, too.

People who have been to grad school don’t need NaNoWriMo*. We had a NaNoWriMo experience every November and April for years and years.

To the rest of participants, I wish the best of luck.

* NaNoWriMo is a website where people try to write a 50,000-word text in one month.

FeMOMhist celebrates having tenure because, among many other things, it allows her to say “no” to service obligations without fearing consequences.

This is an interesting perspective for me because I say “no” to service obligations precisely because I don’t have tenure. Recently, I visited a workshop organized by the Dean’s office that prepares us to submit our tenure dossier.

“Please, please, just start saying “no” to all those service obligations,” the Assistant Dean implored us. “Nobody gets tenure because they have done a lot of service. Just concentrate on publishing. This will decide whether you get tenure.”

I know I said this before but I love my university.