For the first day of the semester

A useful reminder: students want professors who challenge them and care about them.

A call to arms: teachers need to shape the discussion about education reform.

A soundtrack: something to hum on your way to class.

"Wisdom about love is not limited to those blessed with partners."

Sara Eckel does it again.  Read it all.

John Steinbeck on love

From a 1958 letter to his oldest son.  

"There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had."

Job Interview Tips

As someone who recently entered and then (thanks be to the good, sweet, merciful Lord) exited the job market, I thought I might share some nuggets of wisdom with y'all about the whole experience.

Nice thought, right?  Yeah, I'm a nice girl.
 
But then I had second thought. And that thought went something like this: "Damn! Who am I kidding? I have two book projects, four talks, and a few papers to finish before I start my first tenure-track job in three months, Oh GOD WHAT AM I DOING?!?!?!!?!"  [panicked breathing, muscle convulsions, whimpering...]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I decided not to share job market wisdom with you.  Isn't that a nice story with some sort of lurking moral? But I don't want to leave you high and dry either, dear The Readers.  So instead I've decided to post this helpful video on job interview tactics.  And by "helpful" I mean "hilarious", and by "tactics" I mean "as interpreted through the eyes of two small children."

You're welcome.

Now back to those two book projects.... [more whimpering]

Hallmark Holidays

Valentine's Day is obnoxious, but man, do I love NPR.  More here.

Worth keeping in mind

"Don't marry anyone who's not thrilled when you're simply being yourself."

--the inimitable Carolyn Hax

Some good advice

"The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth." -- Dorothy L. Sayers

Working on numbers one and two.  No sign of number three, but a girl can dream...

Worth watching...

Patrick Stewart on domestic violence: