I love that there are some families and parents in this picture too...
Monday, May 22, 2023
Home: In two pics
I love that there are some families and parents in this picture too...
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Karl Marx, Gordon Ramsay, Farewell London
The guide has a doctorate in Marx studies, and although the sights themselves were merely the seedy front of buildings and smelly alleys, I learned A LOT. The best moment was towards the end of the tour when hearing about Eugene Pottier's travel through England, our multicultural group began to sing The Internationale in their native tongues.
So I had a super nerdy day by myself, then a farewell dinner with the group at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant recommended by a student, where we celebrated another student's birthday, and suddenly everyone seemed super sad to leave and "return to reality." I love these people. But also, I miss my babies, and am ready for my routines and grappling with the reality of a life without Scout.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
"All the world's a stage"
I'm in bed mode now, so just four more days before I head for home. I can make fake it. (Look at me with all my theater and acting references.)
I've been checking in with students and our chaperone, and basically everyone is simultaneously having a great time and also ready to go home. Good to know I'm not the only one.
Also, the last time I did this, At came along as a student and Nu came along as my companion, and I made breakfast for them in my flat every morning and we weren't apart for Mothers' Day. Guess it makes sense that this time would feel different and difficult.
Pic: A Comedy of Errors at the Globe Theatre. Not my favorite Shakespearean play, but I did enjoy it more than I thought I would because it was a different version from the one I saw in May 2019.Monday, May 15, 2023
Hyde Park Time
I remember specifically asking people to memorize their bit, and... some didn't. I need to sit with why I feel so irritated by this.
I don't feel well today. + I'm at that point in the trip where I'm seriously counting down how long before I get to go home. A week is the upper limit of time I can spend away before the experience begins to pall.
Pic: Our picnic at Hyde Park.
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Kensington Pavilion: A toast to tea
In preparation for reading the Edwardians, we sat down to a proper afternoon tea party in the Kensington Palace pavilion today. And like proper people of leisure we lingered there for nearly two hours.
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Oxford: building a longer table
I absolutely love when I can bring my old life and my current life together.
Today we went to Oxford and my students got to meet my old profs. Lectures, Q&A, a long pub lunch at a suitably long table... my heart is full.
A couple of students said they'd like to do graduate school at Oxford/in the U.K. I love being able to help--even a little bit--to nudge open the door from our small bubbles into the world.
What we read: papers by Robert and Will because we were meeting them. And also--thanks NGS--extracts from R.F. Kuang's Babel because it's set in Oxford and is about translation and colonialism.
Pic: Profs and students at The Royal Oak. A colleague brought their adorable 13-year-old doggie to lunch... and I had to quickly blink away tears because I started imagining Scout making it to 13. I miss everyone at home right now, and I think some part of me thinks he'll be there when I reunite with the rest of the family in ten days.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Bloomsbury: reception
A person who yawned in class when I lectured on T. S. Eliot and E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf and Rabindranath Tagore is all smiles here. My feelings aren't hurt or anything. 😉
Pic: Mike and Cindy enacting Hilda Doolittle(H.D.)'s dance of adultery.
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
The British Museum: just saying no (to cultural theft)
W.B. Yeats “The Second Coming”
Thomas Hardy “In the British Museum”
Daljit Nagra "Hadrian's Wall"
George the Poet “The Benin Bronze”
John Keats “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”
Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ozymandias”
Seamus Heaney “Punishment”
Pic: Under the beautiful dome of the British Museum today.
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
London: fuzzy glimmers
I, along with tons of people on the internet, learned about "glimmers," which are "the opposite of triggers" on CupOfJo (and elsewhere) this weekend. I cannot say how much I love this concept.
A bit jet-lagged and tired today, but here are a couple of glimmers.
* Made a quick trip to the local Sainsbury's and I found my favorite mango-passionfruit yogurt. Why do they not have this in the US? It's the most sublime flavor IMO and the first spoonful just took me back to uni days.
* Someone texted me that they got a 4.0 on a test and I haven't figured out who it is--whether friend or student or advisee or kid of a friend, etc... but I'm so happy for them!
Pic: A fuzzy picture of the view from my room (we're right in the heart of Bloomsbury).
Sunday, May 07, 2023
balance sheet
Things I've done: Stocked the fridge, used up all the fridge veggies, watered all my plants, finished class prep for the next week, talked with/texted everyone, cleared brush, distributed the morels we found yesterday, read a ton, cried about Scout, spent extra time with Nu and Huck, fought with Big A, made up with Big A, took long soaks and longer walks...
Things I've not done: actually packed for the two-week trip to the UK my students and I are leaving on tomorrow. Yikes.
Pic: Walk with L in Baker Woods. Trillium in the foreground! L and I found this patch right as we were wondering if we would see some. It was like we had magically summoned them. Trillium!Thursday, May 04, 2023
visits (pasts and futures)
I also got various random kids stepping up to me to shyly say hello. I had to wonder at the combination of shyness and speaking unprompted to a stranger they didn't have to speak to. I was chuckling on the inside and all grown up on the outside. The whole thing was such a delightful interlude.
This had been Nu's school ten years ago, so there were flashbacks to my serious kindergartner and of bringing puppy Scout to school and being told he had big feet so he'd be a big boy, etc. And then I saw Nu's first grade teacher, Ms. G. I remembered how Nu told me and Big A not to smoke (we don't) because Ms. G's parents had died from smoking. Ms. G thought it was hilarious--not her parents' deaths, but what her students' parents remember ten years on. And THEN, I saw one of MY students from five years ago, whom I had mentioned in class just this morning (for the random reason of them having been a picky eater on our London trip). That was truly bonkers.
Today brought many smiles. And Big A will be back home tonight too... (Just seven more trips to Milwaukee before his job moves back to Michigan. YAY!!)
Pic: Wandering with Huck in the backyard... there's grass growing inside this tree hollow!
Thursday, March 23, 2023
a feminist fair
about
these people
for
I took tons of photos as usual. My favorite this year has to be the poster about men's mental health surrounded by the smiling faces of the many guys who came out to support their friend.
I feel so hopeful around my students. 😍
Pic: The Gender-affirming table with pronoun pins, and a blank U.S. map to test attendees' knowledge of trans-exclusionary states.
Sunday, March 19, 2023
(AI) Art Class
EM and I signed up for an AI art workshop around my birthday--I'd asked friends to give me experiences/donations to RDC this year since I already have so much stuff, and this was EM's pick for me. (Let the record show I tried to make her take me to Cocaine Bear, but she balked. Even birthdays will only get you so far. Ha.)
I enjoyed the heck out of the fact that our instructor for this very new tech was a very old person. Take that, ageism! EM and I played with style and color all afternoon. It was fun, especially since I'm not an artist in real life. But like Chat GPT with writing, Dall-E is just ok.
Also (pet peeves coming up next): I thought the point was to get AI to do the boring tasks so humans could have more time for creative ones, not vice versa. It also bugs me when corporations (via AI) steal samples from artists to make stuff (it doesn't bother me when those roles are reversed).
Pic: "Holi in the style of Marc Chagall" by Dall-E2. Love the colors, but the expressions are off; the two on the right look especially tortured.
Friday, March 17, 2023
marking some moments
It's conference day!
I spent all day chairing the WGS section of a conference. Four of my (undergraduate) students presented--brilliantly. I was so proud of them.
Some years we mark St. Pat's Day--our Ganesha wears green, and we make Irish food. This year Nu forgot to wear green was wearing their usual black (and red) so someone gave them a slip of green construction paper to pin to their clothes.
Shoutout to the Michigan legislature for some heartening legislation recently. Yesterday, we passed gun control bills (not perfect, but a start) and expanded the Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Law to include prohibition of discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation and gender or identity or expression." This protects the wellbeing and safety of so many young people I know and love, and I'm truly ecstatic about it.
Pic: A screen shot of some of us at the conference... I like how it looks like an academic photo booth!
* We're not Irish, but I love the Irish for their centuries-long struggle against British colonial rule and inspiring and mentoring the India Home Rule League along the lines of the Irish Home Rule League in the 19th century. Their anti-apartheid work in South Africa and Palestine in the 20th and 21st centuries is another A+. And of course--we all love Derry Girls.
Wednesday, March 08, 2023
one celebration at a time...
Happy International Women's Day!
Here's a pic from the annual MacCurdy House International Women's Day tea celebration today. I think it's the first one we've had in person since 2019. As always, great conversations and solid community building.
(Yes, I know it's Holi today too, but I got home so late from work... the plan is to celebrate it on Saturday when more of the family is home anyway.)
Thursday, February 23, 2023
OMG/ChatGPT/Canon in D
I took a trip down memory lane earlier this week when I recalled the first time I heard Pachelbel's "Canon in D".
Then on a whim I sauntered down AI Alley when I asked ChatGPT to write me a poem based on that incident. ChatGPT obliged with the poem on the left.
It's quite the doggerel.
Which is why I don't share the moral panic about students using it to cheat on essays and exams. From everything I've seen, ChatGPT seems to tend towards the bland and the banal. I think I'd be able to tell something was off from the odd combination of impeccable grammar and tediously repetitive sentences.
Famous last words as I head off to grade midterm essays and exams...
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
circle of care
But the kind words inside about the classroom being a "positive space" where they could "learn and grow"nearly made me cry.
It has been a tough couple of weeks for all of us in this part of Michigan. The streets and sidewalks are full of election lawn signs repurposed to offer support and bouquets left at impromptu shrines all over the place. I now know of way too many first degree survivors of the shooting. Classes resumed yesterday at MSU and I'm proud of students for continuing to demonstrate at the capitol and demand common-sense gun reform.
I am sad that second-degree survivors like my students who stayed on the phone with their MSU friends during lockdown or were traumatized by proximity and details have just been expected to show up and carry out their duties as if nothing happened. (I'm mostly guilty of this too. It's difficult to do something substantial without institutional approval.)
In the evening, BSL stopped by on her way from dropping off a care package for SE, and I had a care package for her. Not quite O. Henry "Gift of the Magi" style, but for a moment like this, I think I like the ecology of a continuum of care more than a transactional one-to-one economy. And hugs are among the best thing humans do.
Wednesday, December 07, 2022
a "class" picture
I look forward to all the conference presentations that are going to evolve out of their work here over the next few months...
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
one big (and lots of small) thing(s) done
The honorary inductions went beautifully. The student EC-led ceremony was perfection and my behind-the scenes-work paid off in a seamless and stress-free way.
That's one big thing off my calendar--after the NWSA convention is done next week, I'll have so much less on my plate from a work standpoint!
I scheduled a ton of meetings after my three classes because I was going to be staying late for the induction anyway (five meetings actually: one social, one committee, one curricular, one NWSA, and one financial). I'm proudest about the financial one. I now know how to file an expense report versus hoping someone from the financial office will rescue me--not even dreading the filing deadline tomorrow, because it's already all done!
I went to work in early morning mists and drove home with a brilliant half moon. At had hung out with Nu while I was at the work thing. So I got to see and hug all four kids when I got home. (I'll never stop wishing this happened every day.) Then I chatted with At as we folded his laundry and I dropped him back to his place in Lansing. Time to relax with a big bowl of biriyani (I made it 24 hours ago for At's Boss Day today) and whatever bad show I can rustle up.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
falling asleep thoughts
Here's Huckie looking so much like Falkor in The Neverending Story (ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah aah ah).
I think I termed Scout Falkor before, but nah, it's Huck.
Got a ton of work, grading, and prep done. Discovered that Nu really likes chickpeas today. Did lots of planning for Big A's birthday. Did my laundry too, but can't count it "done" until I put it away (which will probably take 3-4 business days 😏).
I'm going to bed and it's not even 1:00 am yet! Nice!
scale
Max is tiny; the responsibilities are huge. One forgets the massive undertaking the care and keeping of little ones can be. He's absol...

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At had us pose for this pic up at Aunt R's place on Lake Huron so he could put it up in his dorm. "Don't tur...
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Today is the birthday of the best sister in the whole world (mine:)! Happy, Happy Birthday, Chelli! [AA, my favorite aunt in the whole world...
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Friends and old neighbors shutting it down in honor of John Crawford. _