When do you like to teach? Are you a morning person? Do you like weekly seminars? Are you living the online asynchronous life? How much choice do you have in the matter? In my 25 years of teaching, I've taught many different schedules. Back in the day as an adjunct it was a once a week 3-hour class after filing TPS reports in an iron cage. Not sure I have the stamina for that now. Once I became full-time I settled into customary M/W/F or T/TH offerings. For a long time, I'd teach a class, have a break, teach another class, and then one more. Or teach two classes, take a break, and have one mor ..read more

it just stresses me out so much less to make dinner at 12:46. for years i tried to time it out and have everything ready at official dinner time. plated with preferences accommodated. now with the kids being older and on the run it makes sense to make meals ahead of time with less pressure to eat together as a family unit. i wasn't present when the kids would be in the kitchen talking to me asking questions as i was trying to cook while listening. we still eat together a lot but not all the time which is fine. i'm more present and a better listener when food is ready for them. food and nourish ..read more

A recent observation at a baseball game of 13 and 14 year old players. Late in the game, close score. The team that's losing is batting. Soundtrack would be Billy Joel "Pressure" if it were the 1980s. Point is, kid at the plate is already feeling the pressure of the situation. Kid is way down in their lineup, so apparently not one of their stronger hitters. He swings and misses. Coach (positioned at third base) hollers "You're not gonna hit anything looking at me!" A way of saying he pulled his head and wasn't in a good hitting position. Fair point BUT that struck me as a very unhelpful thing ..read more

I'm in a group text with four buddies I've known since the mid 1990s. We've always been competitive. When we get together for reunions we've competed in Bocce, Pickleball, Wiffle ball, and the art/sport of Talking Shit. We've mellowed out in middle-age. Currently we post our scores on the New York Times mini crossword to our chat. We've competed every day in May. For fun I've started keeping track of the daily winner. It's a fun way to stay in touch. Robert Putnam wrote about the decline of social capital in Bowling Alone. I like how texting and sharing crossword times is a form of social capi ..read more

Having been born and raised in Niagara Falls, NY, I've always been interested in Love Canal. Fortunately I lived in neighborhoods not impacted by the Love Canal disaster caused by chemicals dumped by Hooker Chemical Corporation. It wasn't until this year, at the age of 51, that I learned there's a song called Love Canal, by Flipper.  Last month, PBS aired "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal."  Here are some articles and another video if you're not familiar with Love Canal... From homemaker to hell-raiser in Love Canal  Residents say Love Canal chemicals continue to make ..read more

As a baseball obsessed person, one of my favorite things to do is keep score during games my kid plays. I've helped coach his teams since he was 8. He's now 13 and I'm still around helping a bit. One way I contribute is keeping score, the old school way. It's funny, a few kids this year on his school team looked at my scorebook and asked "What's that?" They had no idea. They had only seen GameChanger which is the new school way of keeping score using a phone. I need a physical book on which I can see everything all at once. GameChanger is cool and a great new tool. I just prefer the tried and ..read more

I'm relatively new to TikTok. One of the creators that comes across my feed is hubs.life (https://www.tiktok.com/@hubs.life), currently close to 500k followers. He's an interesting fella. He highlights his chill life as a daytime office worker. He doesn't complain about work. He's not doing Office Space material. He's actually promoting the pros of working for the man. Slowly he slides his laptop into his bag, and the lean man in nice fitting clothes drives to work in a nice car to a seemingly quiet work environment. Locked in, he does his thing until his one hour lunchtime. Sometimes he goes ..read more

Here's a 16 minute video your students in Psychology, Sociology, and related fields might like. The speaker is Dr. Joanne Davila, Professor of Psychology and the Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University (my alma mater).  I showed this in my Sexuality & Gender course and it led to a good discussion. Dr. Davila mentions features of a healthy relationship (security, respect, good communication, feeling of being valued) and explains three skills that form the basis of what she calls "romantic competence": (1) Insight, (2) Mutuality and (3) Em ..read more

I'm a lifelong Yankees fan. I grew up watching Yankee games on WPIX, loving the banter between Phil Rizzuto and Bill White. I didn't listen to radio broadcasts until adulthood. I found radio broadcasts very comforting during my grad school years at Stony Brook University. There I was, an hour from Yankee Stadium, usually relegated to the library or my apartment studying and writing papers as a grad student in the Sociology Ph.D. program. It was then that I became familiar with the voice of John Sterling, who at that time was paired with Michael Kay. I loved their chemistry and was bummed when ..read more

Tom DeVito understands the NFL marketing machine. I wonder if "My son gaining sudden fame and our Italian heritage being a phenomenon" was on his 2023 bingo card. His son, Tommy DeVito, has been thrust into the starting quarterback position for the NY Giants, and is having quite a moment. His popularity shot up as soon as it became known he still lives at home with his parents. He got tagged with the amazing nickname "Danny Cutlets." It's fun to see Tommy having a moment, and he was even named NFC Offensive Player of the Week. But getting back to Dad. Mr. DeVito is totally in on the marke ..read more