I. To make it clear that Lucas is not their cause, Fang and I try to explain our occasional bouts of depression to him as “bad brain chemicals.” It’s been a week of bad brain chemicals for me, with the situation becoming critical on Friday, Saturday, and today. I alternated rest with long walks, conversation […]
[Continue reading...]On professional development
October 3, 2013 By
In my post earlier this week, I wrote, Recently, my university revised its general ed requirements, and in order for a course to count toward those requirements, we had to send department faculty to a course design institute to ensure the courses met university-wide learning outcomes. I was actually fine with that, as we were […]
[Continue reading...]A survey of what?
October 1, 2013 By
As my university goes through program prioritization and redesigns its undergraduate core curriculum to feature all the right buzzwords, I’m once again reminded of how broken the history survey course has become. I’m not the first to say it, nor will I be the last, but the thought woke me up again at 3:30 this morning, so […]
[Continue reading...]Quick update
September 17, 2013 By
I think it’s safe to say phone interview #2, a fairly informal chat, went extremely well. I learned a lot about the institute and I’m impressed by what its staff has done and by the director’s vision for the future. Plus, it ends up that the internship I did this summer matches up neatly with […]
[Continue reading...]A matter of fit
September 12, 2013 By
I. This week in our upper-division U.S. women’s history course, my 40 students and I are reading and discussing Susan Klepp’s Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760-1820. I’m really enjoying the book because I’m learning a ton from it, but it’s clear some students have already given up on it. Last class, one […]
[Continue reading...]Fatigued
September 11, 2013 By
On September 11, 2001, Fang and I had just moved to Davis. We only had rabbit ears on the TV and we were using our old dial-up internet access from Southern California. We were watching NBC, and when we saw, through the static, the first WTC tower fall, Fang said, “This country is about to go […]
[Continue reading...]All I have are random bullets
September 5, 2013 By
It’s the beginning of the semester, and as usual, I’m pulled in a hundred different directions. The project from my internship with Seth Godin–it’s a hybrid online/offline learning experience–is in pre-launch. If the project sounds interesting to you, you can sign up for updates. I’m playing intern matchmaker at work, and all kinds of new […]
[Continue reading...]Random paragraphs, end of summer edition
August 25, 2013 By
Island hopping I step back to the classroom tomorrow to teach two courses with ridiculously sweeping titles: U.S. History to 1877 and Women in America: Colonial Era to the Present. Fortunately, I’m not one to fret about coverage. As I’m sure I’ve explained somewhere on this blog or its predecessor, I take the islands-in-an-archipelago approach […]
[Continue reading...]None of this would be possible, of course, without Fang
August 17, 2013 By
All my big dreaming, all my traveling hither and yon, with or without Lucas (but especially without), would not be possible without Fang’s steadfast support. How amazing is he? Check out his latest post, in which he braves wildfire to get the dog to surgery. . . . . .and then realize he’s spent just […]
[Continue reading...]The Leslie multiverse
August 17, 2013 By
When I returned home from the final day of my short, grossly underpaid stint as a staff writer for a newspaper named for a fish that climbs out of the water to mate, Fang–then the art director of the paper—sent me an e-mail in which he expressed his delight in working with me and announced […]
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