One of my summer resolutions is to meet and cultivate a minimum of two mommies with children Klara’s age. Obviously, I’m doing it for her sake and not mine. I’m prepared to make heroic efforts to melt the Midwestern immigrant-wary ice. 

Rep. Cummings is saying on the news that Obama “took the Democratic party to very high heights.” 

If these heights include losing every office that could be lost, then yeah, they are sky-high.

The obliviousness of these people is stunning.

The reason why I’m against the famous pre-req is that it punishes students like I used to be in order to spare a few ne’er-do-wells the inconvenience of having to withdraw from a course that proves to be too hard for them.

I don’t understand why we keep sacrificing the interests of good students in order to cater to people who aren’t interested in the material and aren’t making an effort. 

There are people who are simply not teachable, and no amount of futzing with pre-requisites, pedagogy, textbooks, etc will change that. If they don’t want to learn, there’s nothing you can do. So I’d rather we let it go and concentrated on people who do want to be taught. 

I have no house key (gave it to my parents), no car (gave it to my husband), and no office key (left it at home). 

I managed to get myself home from work courtesy of Uber but I can’t get inside the house. It’s hot and I’m very thirsty. I’m sitting on the verandah, looking at a big fat bottle of mineral water in my dinner table that I can’t reach because I’m locked out.

My parents have never lived in a small American town, so they lock up so tight you’d think this is Fort Knox.

Today I’m sporting a Chilean accent, according to a new Spanish-speaking colleague.

Given that the last time I spoke to a Chilean was back in 2004, I can’t be copying anybody’s pronunciation. This tells me that I’m hypercompensating for turning many years old the day before yesterday by developing a childish lisp (which is what the Chilean accent is.)

This is very embarrassing because I don’t control the accent.

The problem with having planned out so beautifully the spring schedule and having written it down in a cool new notebook is that now I’m very ready to begin working. But I’ve got to finish out the semester instead. And that bugs me.

Turns out we’ll need to give up any of our inherited titles or orders of nobility at the naturalization ceremony. This is definitely giving us pause. We have already renounced participating in acts of genocide or crimes against humanity, and now this.

Identity is only and always about editing out parts of self.