Imagine a situation when somebody brushes you slightly with their shopping cart, opens the door without seeing that you are there, cuts in front of you in the line by mistake and says, “Oh, I’m sorry” or “My apologies.”

What is your response?

The reason I’m asking is that in this region people invariably respond with, “Oh, you are fine.” Not “I’m fine” or “it’s fine”, which would make sense to me but “You are fine.”

Example:

“I’m so sorry!”

“You are fine!”

I haven’t been able to get used to this in six years. The response sounds so bizarre to me. My question is: is this a regional thing or is it more wide-spread?

I’m experimenting with traditional American food: steak and a basil – mozzarella – tomatoes – strawberry balsamic vinegar dish. And asparagus. And a loaf that I had to bake in the oven. It is one of those premade loaves that have to be baked.

P. S. For those who asked: N’s martial art was called shotokan.

The Russians are joyfully reporting the following news (the text was obviously translated from Russian with Google Translate, so it sounds a little weird):

Foreign Minister of Tanzania Bernard Camillius Membe, who arrived in Moscow on Thursday, January 15, called Russia a superpower. As informed TASS, he said at the talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“Of course, Russia is a superpower. We will always be reminded of Russia’s historic role that it should play,” said Membe.

I never thought I’d be so profoundly sorry for the Russians. It’s just so pathetic, you know? They send their young men to die by the thousand, experience an economic collapse, destroy a peaceful neighboring country – all just so that a guy from Tanzania tells them they are a superpower with a historic role. 

Dumb sods.

A protest is going to be held in Moscow against free speech. 100,000 people are planning to attend in support of the idea that the speech which offends religion should be illegal.

This is especially hilarious in Russia where, for the obvious historical reasons, nobody is religious. Of course, since nobody in the country knows much about any religion, it will be very easy to ban pretty much any kind of speech as offensive to some vaguely religious sentiments.

The situation where 100,000 of atheists  are marching to ban free speech on religious grounds is seriously funny.

As further reading, I want to recommend to you the most brilliant post anybody has written in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Read until the very end. It’s really powerful.

We are undergoing a new round of budget woes since our ultra-rich new governor is dedicated to the idea of sucking out more wealth for himself from the state. While the sick creep is impoverishing the state to buy a new set of mansions for himself and a new set of charitable organizations where his wife will be able to bully even more Hispanic kids into submission, our university  – a place which educates and helps actual real people – has to struggle to come up with money to feed this leech.

I have decided not to get involved with this series of budget cuts because I’m concentrating on my research. Stupid criminal governors come and go but scholarship is eternal.

But the university has come up with a funny way to process budget cuts: several departments will now share a single departmental chair. I have no idea who will agree to be chair in such conditions. But people are agreeing to teach extra courses for no pay, so I’m sure there will be eager volunteers.

In case anybody is wondering why academics are choosing to do all this extra teaching and service without pay: the alternative is to lie in front of the fireplace working on research projects. And that’s so much harder that people would do anything to avoid it. This is something that idiots outside of academia are too stupid to understand.

Everybody is having a fit of hysteria over the kids who were stopped by police as they were walking alone.

It’s easy to dump on the police and the mean strangers who called the police when they saw the kids walking alone. But you know what? I read the story of James Bulger and of the 38 strangers who saw him being led to his death by two kids and didn’t call the police. Something tells me that those 38 strangers have cursed their decision not to call the police a thousand times since then.

After reading about James Bulger, I’m totally calling the police if I see small kids just wandering around. I don’t want to be that stranger who didn’t call and then has to live with the guilt.

And as for the parents, they should be happy to live in such a caring society where everyone wants to look out for their kids.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais reports that shortly before the terror attack Amedy Coulibaly put his mistress, his brother, his brother’s wife and their child into a car and drove them to Spain.

Yes, this guy was totally a religious fanatic. Presenting a mistress du jour to the family and sticking her into the same space as the brother’s wife and child is totally a normal thing to do among the ultra-religious. This guy must have been hugely traumatized by the looseness of Western morals.

Has anybody tried the Helix Lateral Trainer:

It’s totally the best. The movement is just like dancing.

I’m so glad we switched from the Y to this small local gym. It’s a lot more tranquil in the evenings and there is always cool new equipment. And N has a lot of space for his martial arts routines. He’s very tall and when he does the sweeping martial arts moves there need to be no people for half a mile around.

I’ve started working with my research assistant. This is going to be very cool. I have so much going on research-wise right now that I really need this help. And I’m not giving the RA any stupid busywork assignments where he will have to languish for hours by the copier. The copier will not be involved at all*. I only give out intellectual assignments that are professionally enriching to the RA. And helpful to me.

I remember when I first got hired as an RA, I kept persecuting the professors (I was hired by two people at the same time) to give me more and more assignments. I think I got them to the point of having nervous palpitations whenever they saw me. I was a very responsible student with OCD tendencies.

For people who are about to start unraveling as a result of the news about my RA: it’s OK, this doesn’t mean the big bad wolf is about to devour your “taxpayer money.” Everything is fine. You can breathe now.

* I have just realized that the copier, a machine that used to be so central to my research, has now stopped being part of my scholarly activities altogether. It’s still huge in my teaching, though.

People have shown interest in how I waste the time that the state of Illinois pays me for. Since there is such an intense curiosity towards my schedule, I will keep sharing it until such time as I feel that the public education system is sufficiently vindicated.

Thursday, January 15.

8-9 – breakfast and reading the news.

9-11 – writing the proposal for a book chapter

11-12 – responding to work email and organizing a library workshop for my researchers.

12-14 – writing the proposal and submitting it.

14-15 – lunch.

15-17 – office hours.

17-20 – teaching the literature seminar.

20-21:30 – gym.

I’m on military time, as you can see.

Does anybody have any more criticisms of the public education system to offer?