It sounds like my dad is giving up on the hospital and wants to move her to a skilled care facility. She's had countless blood tests, 2 MRIs, 3 CAT scans, and six specialists looking at the results and saying, huh, that's weird--everything looks normal. She was able to eat a little breakfast this morning, which is an improvement, but, uh, things could be boding better.
(Blood levels fine in every way, and MRI shows nothing, but she can't eat or stand or sit up or use her right arm.)
My mom has been in the hospital for a few days and I am not getting any information or answers so I am taking my anxious ass to that long Nathan Fielder movie so I can shut off my worry brain for 3.5 hours.
Oh hey, I have a new article out! "Jeremy Bentham meets the unaccountability machine," in a nod to Dan Davies's book The Unaccountability Machine.
Me: "Accountability cannot be only for the poor and disenfranchised, for the working class, without inviting a total dissolution of government by violent means."
The other major interaction on this train is one person who thinks someone else's baby is crying too hard too long and needs some advice about calming babies, which she is not taking kindly.
The trains in NYC are all utterly screwy this weekend, with construction, emergencies, diverted lines, confused people, locals going express and express going local, packed cars, and then, blissfully, a dude in a hyperrealistic Ghostbusters costume getting absolutely grilled by a megafan about microdetails of every movie, show, and game based on the IP and also if you could have your say about one single thing about the next Ghostbusters movie, what would it be?
"Definitely, practical effects."
Constructive and informative paper reviews are such a highlight of working in a peer-review heavy field.
Did our work get ripped to shreds? Hell yeah. Did I learn an incredible amount from the shreddage? Helllll yeah.
Betty Gilpin is giving a truly unhinged performance for the ages on season 2 of The Lowdown.
But it is also the difference between an elective seminar, which that student took last spring with me, and a gen ed course. There is just some work that has to be done to get people on board.
I don't like succumbing to the argument that we let the losers fail and I devote my full attention to the students who care, because what makes me a good professor is that even students who struggle end up learning something valuable and memorable. But I also hear what my student was saying--he has been looking forward to this semester and learning this material and he is bummed out that so much of class is "can you take out your book? did you do the reading? can you stop private conversation?"
I was having trouble with a weirdly unruly class this term. The vibes are very cheerful and positive, but about 8/25 students cluster in the back and try to have their own conversation and private jokes and it's unbelievably distracting. One of the better students asked me to let them have their laptops out so they can just type and giggle at each other and shut up. But instead I asked everyone to write me a letter about what we all can do to improve the class and already it seemed to help.
Ne soyez pas trop jalouxses du badge trouvé à Toronto
Badge fait par @evelynf , déposé à la librairie Another Story
If I were a business on this street, I would be petitioning Mamdani's office every day. So many empty shops on one of the most theoretically desirable shop rows on Broadway are just too depressing.
Since we are at the end of the line and near a big park, we do get quite a few disoriented, displaced, and desperate people in the neighborhood. In 2020, our neighbors put out a "Friendly Fridge" and now has a robust distribution network to get food to hungry people and match them with city resources. But the construction has created a lot of places where someone who wants to surprise you and demand money can do so without being seen by the street--and backlash from people yelling at loiterers.
It has looked exactly like this, with an empty elevator shaft and a staircase with no roof, since May. The original staircase was removed when I was working at my previous job in 2023. Most days, nothing happens. A few days a month, guys are walking around teasing each other and calling the site disgusting. Very occasionally, work noises can be heard.
Every time I pass it, I whisper, "Our Sagrada Familia."
For 3.5 years, this is what our block of Broadway looks like as the MTA builds an elevator and replaces a stairwell at our subway station. The businesses all along the block are suffering and many have closed permanently. What used to be a big open plaza next to the park is a warren of filthy construction sites, rats, and garbage. Even the Burger King on the adjacent corner has closed.
Meanwhile, I keep thinking about how in 2016, Chengdu had 2 subway lines and the next year had 12. /no tankie
Trying to find peer reviewers for articles in fields that have not had institutional support in the 21st century is really depressing. Dead, emeritus, preacher, administrator, stock broker, internet shaman, crafter...
(Sometimes emeritus profs are eager to review but if they've been emeritus for 20 years, I have reservations...)
This photo is like a Renaissance painting. It's Caravaggio in stadium lighting.
I wonder how many Yankees superfans have been banned for life from attending games. Hundreds?
Just saving this tasty little morsel for no reason. (I don't waste any energy disliking the Yankees, but their fans in the stadium suck. I think after last night, most of them would agree with me.)
