Storm watching from Indiana. The fact we’re in the red bit means we will be nice and toasty warm this weekend as I understand it

It’s January so it’s time for internet articles on how to be your best on a budget. Why spend your hard earned money on Starbucks when foraging for acorns in the woods is delicious AND a good workout

Ending a busy first week of the semester being haunted around the building by myself

Absolute animals emailing me on 1st January to schedule meetings for the Spring semester

The thing I am writing would benefit from reproducing some of the graphics from recent Russian military medical publications but given that I would then need permission from the copyright holder that’s probably a no

Primary sources on famous military losses are like “we did great, everything went well and we were winning and then just decided to leave for … reasons… maybe we just just winning too much yes that’s what it was anyway we left the battle we were winning congratulations to us”

GP cancelled an appointment and offered a replacement slot… three months later

Pharmacy tech: you’re one day older than my dad! Me: 💀

Happy turning on your out-of-office email season to all those who celebrate

Me answering emails this week

We’re also swapping out working class people for billionaires which is probably a metaphor for something

Some nerd spam from someone masquerading as the @historians.org - pay a fee to get a copy of the AHA program

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Having to use two-factor authentication to log in to my work phone in my work office before people I work with can call me and I grew up in a house with a rotary phone

That holiday feeling when you realize you don’t need to use powerpoint for at least 3 weeks

Cat outraged that I am spending the evening working rather than hugging her and honestly so am I

Bloomington city council plowing the roads like a resentful teenager cleaning their room

Once again getting emails intended for my academic doppelgänger, a specialist in prostate cancer

Apparently UK’s Channel 4 recently broadcast a documentary* on how we can tell all about Hitler from his DNA and irony thy name is television

Rereading Steppenwolf so I can daydream about being an isolated weirdo in an attic

I've just signed this petition to save modern languages at the University of Nottingham: c.org/WjsgXNLstG

Petition started by students in Modern Languages at the University of Leicester. The department has been told it will close despite its stellar NSS record and brilliant teaching and research - the same devastating short-term thinking as elsewhere. Please sign and share www.change.org/p/save-moder...

Staggering harm is being done to #language learning in Higher Ed. No oversight or strategic thinking, with cold spots now present. Petitions alone this week in response to closures: Nottingham · Change.org Leicester · Change.org #edusky #langsky @britishacademy.bsky.social @hetanshah.bsky.social

Modern Languages students at the University of Nottingham have started a petition to save languages degrees. Please sign and share www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...

Americans using leaf blowers to spend 15 minutes moving leaves that would have taken 5 minutes with a broom

At least some of the glee over Kim Kardashian not passing the bar exam is because she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could be a lawyer, which is the experience of any number of women in any number of professions

Relaxing Sunday morning with a 30 page briefing document on healthcare enrollment

Top notch work from @themoscowtimes.com - glasses engraved with a quote from the official judgement banning them in Russia moscowtimes.world

My former employers of over three years ago, Nazarbayev University, have outdone themselves this time and added my IU address to their faculty email list

Have decided to improve my week by rewatching Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula

It’s that time again - to introduce American students to the best worst British holiday, Burning Historical Catholics in Effigy Day

Sadly Prof. Plokhii was not able to join us this week due to illness, but we hope to reschedule for a later date

There’s a ladybug on the outside of my eighth floor office window and it’s making me feel under ambitious

Giving myself a real scare by trying to finish a conference paper on a Friday

Next week already 😱

Although what exactly an armhole is when it’s a body part remains unclear

Once again appreciating Evernote as I use it to build a mini phrasebook of early modern Russian anatomical and weaponry terms by photographing definitions from various dictionaries

Sometimes people just want to set you up to be the asshole by asking fundamentally unreasonable things so they can be pissed when you can’t or won’t do that

Definitively in a “what if I just didn’t show up to work today and see if no one notices” kind of mood

Idiosyncratic problems of working from home as the cat decides to sit in the fruit bowl and throw all the fruit on the floor

NYT thinks people in Asia learning an Asian language is weird

Introducing my students to the influence of Bela Lugosi and 1930s horror on modern American puppetry

Having half a piece of banana bread and a cup of coffee for breakfast and then wondering at 11am why I feel weird

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes

Using the IU phonebook to look up my office phone number to put into an online form IU is making fill out that I had to sign in to my IU account to complete

Today in Midwestern friendliness I got yelled at by a stranger for locking up my bike to a bike rack in an area where he felt there was too much bike crime and, feeling I wasn’t listening to him, he got so aggressive a passerby came over to ask if I was ok

At the stage of drafting my #ASEEES25 paper where I think - what is the point here, why did I choose to write about this, how can I actually make this into something someone is going to want to listen to

In fact several of IU’s major online services are hosted on AWS so it’s been a great and productive day

Turns out Canvas is hosted on Amazon Web Services so there goes like half my day I guess

One of the conversations I've been trying to have with anyone who will listen if that for unis like mine, which have big classes, this will require either shrinking class sizes drastically or significantly scaling up teaching assistance. There's no way around it.