November 9th? WTF, November 9th? I thought it was supposed to be November 4.

On November 9th I will be alone! In Houston! Nobody to celebrate with ! We made family plans based on it being on November 4th. People are driving in from across the border to join the festivities! WTF!

I was surprised to see the following statement in Klara’s daily daycare report:

​I practiced using my fingers to trace the letter M for Mummy!

 Since when do they use the British “Mummy”, I wondered.

Then I saw the following and was even more confused:

I explored photographs of mummies. I communicated about what they are wrapped in!

Why would mommies be wrapped in anything? I wondered.

But then I saw the attached photo of Klara trying to wrap a doll into toilet paper and realized that the mummies in question are the ones you find in crypts and tombs.

This is an incredible, incredible country, people. I was standing next to my car in a parking lot, answering an email. A car slowed down and drove into the perking lot from the road. It stopped next to me and a window rolled down. An older lady looked out and told me that my skirt was beautiful and I looked amazing. And then she drove off. The woman drove out of her way with the sole purpose of saying something nice to a complete stranger.

This kind of thing happens all the time. Before I learned to drive and had to walk everywhere, people would always stop to offer rides. And in all the years I was a pedestrian, not a single driver made an effort to splash me with dirty rain water head to foot! Not a single one. To the contrary, drivers always slowed down to make sure they didn’t splash me.

I’m from a country where splashing pedestrians on purpose is a national pastime. Drivers go out of their way to ensure that pedestrians suffer the greatest damage possible. Just because they can.

When I first worked on committee X as a regular committee member 7 years ago, I couldn’t understand why the committee chair loved me so much. He kept showering me with exuberant praise that I felt was undeserved and kept telling my departmental Chair how amazing I was.

It’s only when I started chairing committee X that I figured out why I’d made such a huge impression back in 2009. I did everything I was asked, showed up on time, didn’t lose paperwork, and my grandmothers did not succumb to horrible misfortunes right when the paperwork was due.

My friends, I hereby solemnly swear never again to complain about student snowflakery because I now know that the kind of snowflakery that professors are capable of dwarfs anything students can do.