I was really broke in January. I finished a freelance project before the holidays, and invoiced for it, and had to wait for the cheque. The course I teach was cancelled. Then I was asked to teach a second section of the online version of the same course, but I had to wait to get paid.

It was all a bit stressful.

Then, of course, the freelance ( Read more... )

 Something I have observed: Conservatives often like to call people like me-social democrats, communitarians, people who believe that the job of society is to help us better take care of each other-"naive," as though over my entire life, I hadn't had ample opportunities to watch people treating each other pretty badly, hadn't had ample ( Read more... )

 So I'm proofreading an anthology of First Nations literature. Super cool. But I've once again come up against a linguistic snag I encounter inevery work on Aboriginal or First Nations or Native anything that crosses my desk: the term "people."

In contemporary English, the noun "people" has a couple of different meanings: it can mean (singular) an ( Read more... )

So on Thanksgiving weekend, I wrote the LSAT. I'm not going to say much about it, because it's a long test and kind of boring. I have no idea how I fared.

But yes, I'm considering applying to law school.

In case you're wondering, no, it is not a good idea to start a small business while you're applying to law school. Starting a new business takes a ( Read more... )

Number of project-related e-mails I received yesterday: 102 ( Read more... )

The Q.H.M. magnetometer:


( Read more... )

Scientific knowledge is based on empirical evidence, and is appropriate for understanding the natural world, but it provides only a limited understanding of the supernatural, aesthetic, or other ways of knowing, such as art, philosophy, or religion.1
Here follows a very short rant. Maybe a rantlet ( Read more... )

Dear Internets,

Halp!

I need to come up with a title for a short article for a science textbook for grades 6, 7, and 8. The article is about the strange and fascinating reproductive practices of seahorses (short version: females deposit eggs in males' brood pouches. Males fertilize and carry the brood of seahorse babies, eventually going into ( Read more... )

I spent some time yesterday thinking about why I was so irked by my student's blithe request for Tuesday night's lecture materials-why I felt compelled to argue my own position, why I feel defensive, why I feel so very annoyed, why I went on and bloody on about it ( Read more... )

One of my students today apologised in e-mail for missing last night's class. She did not mention that she had also missed an extra-help session I had arranged with her for before the class. She works in retail, and had to close the store. I understand this.

She also asked whether she could hand in last week's homework next week, and whether I ( Read more... )