Since I read it last Friday I have been meaning to say something about this article in Inside Higher Ed about why female academic appear to have lower birthrates than male academics and than female professionals in other fields. Of course, between work and family obligations (and grinding fatigue) it’s taken me until now to get to it.
Is this a clue of some sort?
Category Archives: Passing thoughts
Who are you calling funny looking?
Yesterday, heading out to lunch with some colleagues, I noticed some of the other people out on the street were … oddly attired. We saw these folks as we were passing by a cinema, so our first thought was, “Maybe this has something to do with the Speed Racer movie?”
And then we remembered the banners, and last year’s Memorial Day weekend in downtown San Jose.
Sympathy for exam-takers (at least, in some cases).
Another dispatch from grading Hell (fourth circle), in which the reader gains some insight into circumstances which evoke my sympathy, and circumstances which do not.
I have this pedagogical strategy where I try to make my students think more than they have to write. One way this strategy manifests itself is in how I deal with case studies on finals exams.
Death is not an option: giving in to temptation.
Which would you totally do if you didn’t know better (and suspect someone might catch you)?
How hot was it?
The classroom I taught in this semester was fairly hot. Even when it was chilly outside, the temperature in the classroom was uncomfortably warm.
Of course, I think it might have been worse for me (pacing in front of the whiteboard, trying to keep things lively) than for the students most of the time. But today, we had the final exam in that room. And unlike most class meetings, every single chair in the room was filled.
And we experienced record highs, temperature-wise.
So, how hot was it? I give you the testimony of one of the students taking the final today:
Death is not an option: end of semester edition.
Which do you choose?
Behind door #1:
Busy.
I have at least six things I really want to write blog posts about at the moment, but the day job is a harsh mistress.
So instead of a content-laden post, you get a list so you can play along vicariously.
In the next nine days, I must:
Cult Book Meme.
I’m still grading, but Bikemonkey tagged me on a book meme and I really want to cross something off my to-do list tonight, so here it is.
The rules: books you’ve read in bold and books you started but never quite finished in italics. (In that latter category, I’ll include books from which I’ve read substantial excerpts without prodding myself to double back to read the whole thing.)
And now for the books:
Pop quiz.
Captivated by the colors I saw, I took this picture today.
Any guesses as to what it is?
Do jokes reveal something about who you’re talking to?
On April Fool’s Day, our local Socrates Café had an interesting discussion around the question of what makes something funny. One observation that came up repeatedly was that most jokes seem aimed at particular audiences — at people who share particular assumptions, experiences, and contexts with the person telling the joke. The expectation is that those “in the know” will recognize what’s funny, and that those who don’t see the humor are failing to find the funny because they’re not in possession of the crucial knowledge or insight held by those in the in-group. Moreover, the person telling the joke seems effectively to assert his or her membership in that in-group. People in the discussion probed the question of whether there was anything that could be counted on to be universally funny; our tentative answer was, “Probably not.”
With this hunch about joking in hand, I wanted to take a closer look at a particular joke and what it might convey.