God, folks, I just saw a coyote. Right by my nextdoor neighbors’ house. It looked exactly like this:

And it just stared at me. I knew I heard weird howling at night and saw suspicious paw prints in the snow in winter but I didn’t expect to see one in the middle of the day. It was entirely unafraid of me. At first, I thought it was a fox, although it was bigger and had a different maw from the foxes I’d seen before. But I googled it, and it’s a coyote all right. 

I’m now afraid to go outside.

What was really dumb was that immediately after the doctors told me, “There’s no heartbeat, we are sorry, there’s nothing we can do”, they just left the room. And I was there alone for a very long time. So long that I eventually had to go look for them. They were nowhere to be found, so I had to ask the receptionist. She was not aware of what was happening and asked me cheerfully and very loudly, “So? Are you excited to meet your baby next week?”

It was dumb because the first thing I did after they left the room was run to the window. I don’t know why, it was completely unthinking. I could have jumped. Another person would have. 

I understand that they are a regular practice and they aren’t used to these cases but still, it’s a medical practice. Shit happens. They surely get miscarriages, birth defects, hormonal dysfunctions that lead to depression. 

The practice I was with when I expected Klara specialized in this kind of cases. They didn’t take anybody but women like me, so they at least knew how to react. Once when I was there for an appointment, it did happen. A woman came in who was in the last weeks of pregnancy, and they had to tell her the baby was not alive. The doctor stayed with her for one hour forty minutes. And then another hour with me because I was obviously not reacting very well to what was happening either. 

This is why I keep saying that all doctors need to take at least one course in basic psychology because they need to remember that they work with people and not malfunctioning machines. 

I never told this part to anybody before. 

You never know who you really are until something very very shitty happens. And then it’s like, “Oh, so this is who I am. Huh.” It’s all in there already but we don’t get a chance to find out in normal circumstances.

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Eric’s death. We went to the cemetery but it’s hard to grieve with an 18-month-old who thinks a cemetery is a super fun place with all the plastic flowers and teddy bears and balloons. Plus, there is a pond with ducks, geese, huge red fishes and little turtles. By the end of the visit, we were all laughing and feeding Klara’s lunch to the animals.

I find it completely disgusting when people organize for the sole purpose of bullying a woman for daring to have an opinion. I think Wax’s article has a noticeable potential for humor, and I poked fun at its wording on this blog. But I’d rather chew my arm off than sign such disgusting, Soviet-like letters publicly to bully a colleague for expressing a point of view I might disagree with.

I condemn the idiots and the bullies who signed the linked piece. They are horrible people, and I wish somebody would tell them that to their dumb little faces.

And now let’s wait for the complete and utter silence from feminists who will studiously pretend to not notice that a female academic is being shushed into silence.

Our university’s top administrator informed us, 20 minutes before close of business on Friday, that he will give himself and other admins raises while faculty members will get nothing because we need to be punished for unionizing. He didn’t use these precise words but the implication was clear. 

Then he had the discussion board sabotaged to prevent us from discussing this.

Of course, we will get our raise, this idiot will apologize, professors will write him crappy evaluations, and the Board of Trustees will put him out on his ass. I’ve been here long enough to know how this works. 

What’s sad, though, is the plummeting quality of our administrators. They don’t come to us from business but I almost wish they did. At least then if they did evil things, I could be angry. But it’s impossible to be angry with this bumbling fool who just talked himself out of a career for some mysterious reason. 

We used to have inspiring, strong administrators. And now we get these mediocre, boring people who can’t even plot against labor in a half-assedly competent way. What a comedown. 

It took me 20 minutes to figure out why the Russian blogosphere has erupted in such insane anti-Muslim hatred today. Finally, I discovered that what caused all the hate was something really beautiful. Muslims in Moscow defied the prohibition on unauthorized gatherings and came out to the Myanmar embassy to stand in solidarity with the Rohingya who are being exterminated for being Muslim. 

Here are the brave protesters:

And the Russians are so angry not only for the customary hateful reasons but also because they are envious. They envy the Muslims the courage to come out in protest. (It’s illegal in Russia to appear in public even in a very small group unless you have a written permit.)

I feel deeply for the Rohingya and I’m glad somebody else is willing to stand up for them, even at a great risk. 

FB tells me that in the Game of Thrones I’m somebody called Cercei Lannister. I tried all of my uploaded photos, and it’s always the same result. 

Is it a good character, at least?

And also, on the subject of adjunctification, I’m tired of the idea that I need to feel contrite and constantly self-castigate over an issue I in no way caused and that nobody is brave enough to even name. I have no idea whatsoever what can be done to solve the problem. As the MA inevitably becomes the new BA and then the new GED, it’s going to intensify. 

And I hope never to discuss this issue again until people quit pretending they are unaware of all I just said. 

This year for the first time our department has a non-tenure-track person with a PhD teaching language courses. I have no idea whatsoever how this could have been avoided and how even the most perfect economy imaginable could have changed the situation. 

This is why this kind of article bugs me.  It’s all empty, ridiculous blabber that doesn’t speak to the core issue faced by all the departments like mine who don’t see any other solution. What kind of an economy do we need to have to offer tenure to people who teach nothing but Spanish 101 or equivalent because there’s nothing else for them to teach and who do no research because they do not want to? 

The conversation around adjuncts as a phenomenon is dumb, fake and annoying because everybody knows (but nobody wants to say it aloud) that there is one easy and cheap way to end the adjunct problem in languages: cancel the language requirement. It’s either that or put up with a growing army of adjuncts. 

I’m so tired of the hypocrisy surrounding this issue. Everybody knows what’s happening but everybody pretends to be wide-eyed and ignorant about it.