Yeah, No Thanks
Article (not sure if you can access it without permissions, though)
But here’s the abstract:
Dressing formally or informally as an academic may be a trade-off when it comes to managing impressions towards students, but the extant body of literature remains limited with only mixed results. This research is the first focussed investigation to examine the effects of academic dress formality on the ‘big two’ of impression formation, perceptions of warmth and competence. In a series of three controlled laboratory experiments (total N = 1361), we find dress formality to increase perceptions of competence but to decrease perceptions of warmth, which leads to ‘downstream’ effects on students’ evaluations of instructors and behavioural intentions to enrol in a course. Furthermore, we demonstrate that perceptions of competence may be subject to other information cues (success communication and discipline norms) that can mitigate negative effects associated with dress informality. Implications for higher education practitioners are provided.
Yeah, I’m never going to change the way I dress. I don’t care how “incompetent” it makes me look. I’ve always worn weird and colorful clothing. It’s part of who I am. And I will not sacrifice that part of my identity to “look the part” of an academic. It’s not like I’m showing too much skin or wearing offensive graphic tees or wearing jewelry that clinks together and makes noise when I lecture.
I wear color. I keep it bold but simple. I usually stick with two main colors (pants and shirt) and match one to my earrings and the other to my eyeshadow.
Oh yeah, I’m not toning down the eyeshadow, either.
Students can think what they want of me. I like to think I earn “looking competent” by, I don’t know, being competent. If they can’t get past the way someone’s dressed, that’s their problem.
Also, I’ve never had anyone comment on my apparel other than to say that the colors help brighten their day or that they like the way I always match or that they like that I don’t wear “blacks and grays.”
So fight me.
Book Review: Don Quixote (de Cervantes)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Okay, so I knew nothing about this book other than there was something in there involving windmills and that the word “quixotic” came from it. So I didn’t know what to expect going into it, which made it so much better.
Parts (swaths) of this are absolutely hysterical. It’s easy to feel badly for Don Quixote ‘cause the dude’s delusional, but it’s hard to feel bad for Sancho Panza because he’s in full possession of his faculties but keeps following Don Quixote around EVEN THOUGH THEY ALL GET BEATEN UP LIKE EVERY FIVE PAGES. Y’all should read it if you haven’t. It’s a classic for a reason.
Favorite Part: Like I said, parts of this are absolutely hilarious.
1. Sancho Panza being like “are you absolutely nuts?” when Don Quixote starts charging “knights” – and they’re actually sheep:
Sancho called to him, saying:
“Your grace, come back, Senor Don Quixote, I swear to god you’re charging sheep! Come back, by the wretched father who sired me! What madness is this?”
2. That whole scene when Sancho and Don Quixote puke all over each other.
3. Andres wanting absolutely nothing to do with Don Quixote because misfortune follows him everywhere:
It is certainly true that when he left, he said to Don Quixote:
“For the love of God, Senior Knight Errant, if you ever run into me again, even if you see them chopping me to pieces, don’t help me and don’t come to my aid, but leave me alone with my misfortune; no matter how bad it is, it won’t be worse than what will happen to me when I’m helped by your grace.”
4. When Don Quixote stabs the hell out of a bunch of wine skins while asleep, destroying them all, thinking that they’re parts of a giant.
5. When he absolutely demolished Master Pedro’s puppets because he thought they were real.
Rating: 7/10
Cardy…CD?
BRO so a few weeks ago – for whatever reason – I was reminded of an old game that I used to have on CD way back when I was like in third grade or something. I don’t remember the name of the CD, but it was basically just a bunch of different card games (war, crazy 8’s, hearts, etc.) that you could play against animated characters.
And today I was going through one of my old home movie tapes and there was a few seconds of me holding up a bunch of CD cases. One of them was the game I was thinking of!
It was called Wild Cards!
I REMEMBER THIS OH MY GOD
Edit: A walk-through!
The voices of those characters are etched in my head. Especially Jack saying “hit me!”
This sweater!
This thing right here (from Ragged Priest):
UGH.
There’s something about this sweater that reminds me of something…some article of clothing…from my childhood. And I hate that I can’t picture the specific article of clothing.
It’s not the shape of the sweater but rather those dangly fabric pieces. I can’t figure out why and it’s driving me crazy. There’s some memory all crumpled up in the back of my brain that’s trying its hardest to uncrumple and appear clearly, but I can’t get it to.
Mom, do you have any idea what I’m talking about? I don’t know if I had an article of clothing that looked kind of like this or if there’s something with dangly strings that I used to wear as a kid, but I can’t figure it out and I’d really like to, haha.
Carbs Aplenty
Yummers.
I hate how carbs have been vilified. Carbs are wonderful. They power your brain. They help you run. They’re TASTY.
Focus on Nothing
Do you weigh less than 130 pounds?
Yup. But I’m also super short, so.
Do you straighten your hair every day?
I don’t think I’ve ever straightened my hair.
What kind of car do you drive?
I don’t drive.
Does the last person to put their arms around you mean anything?
Yup! He’s my husband.
What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?
Oreo.
Do you wear earrings daily?
When I’m working, yes.
Do you prefer purple or green grapes?
Green, though I’m not the biggest grape fan.
When’s the last time you got your eyebrows waxed?
Never.
Have you ever been in a tanning bed?
Nope. And I have no desire to.
Did your last kiss mean anything to you?
Yup! This was also my husband, haha.
How’s your hair right now?
Horrible, as always.
Have you ever wanted to go to Australia?
Nope.
What’s your favorite fast food restaurant?
McDonald’s (chain) and Cougar Country (local)
When’s the last time you washed your hands?
Like an hour ago when I got home.
Who were you with the last time you were drunk and where were you?
I’ve never been drunk. But the last time I had alcohol was in…2010? I had a little shot of whiskey with Sean, Aaron, and Lanky when visiting them.
What is one thing within the last year that if it had gone differently you feel might have changed things now?
That is a very oddly-worded question, haha. I think if I hadn’t done ASHA I would have missed out on a big opportunity to expand my teaching skills beyond just math/stats. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been good work.
Have you ever witnessed someone getting the shit beat out of them courtesy of karma?
Nope.
What is something that you associate with summer?
Increasingly high levels of fear and anxiety over climate change.
Give me the capital of the state you’re in now, please.
LOL JOKE’S ON YOU I’M NOT IN A STATE
Have you ever ran around outside completely naked?
Not completely naked…
When you’re hungry, does your stomach hurt?
Only if I’m REALLY hungry.
Would you say that you have a nice smile?
Ew, no.
Have you ever walked in on your parents doing something kinky?
EW, NO
Do you use mouthwash?
Nope.
What color do you paint your toenails?
Bold of you to assume I have toenails.
Can you be trusted with secrets?
Sure.
Pill to make you braver or one to make you smarter?
Smarter.
When was the last time you used a bar of soap?
Whenever the hell I showered last.
Seattle Marathon Swag
Dudes, isn’t this a pretty medal?
One of these days I’ll run a race in person, I swear.
I’m just still scared of COVID.
(And can’t travel during the semester.)
French!
My second class of French started today!
There’s a much broader range of French experience in this class compared to the first one. Some students had French immersion in school; others of us took the intro French class and that’s all we’ve had so far.
It’s intimidating! But I’m ready to learn.
More Colorware Stuff
Just testing out a few ideas for some colored AirPods (my present to myself if I get tenure).
Any thoughts?
OH CRAP
It’s so cold here that everyone’s burning through power and the grid’s ready to bite it.
We really are Canada’s Texas.
The only things on in our condo right now are my computer and a few lights (we’ve turned the furnace down, but I guess that’s on, too).
Edit: we survived the failure threat! No rolling power outages.
Die another day, Alberta power grid.
NO BUT SERIOUSLY IT’S COLD YO
Oh my god.
OH MY GOD.
So this was the temperature when I headed into campus this morning.
No, I didn’t walk in (though I thought about it, haha). Instead, I took the bus.
Here is the scene from the bus stop in front of our house. Doesn’t the air look frozen?
Anyway. Took the bus in but decided to actually take it down to Brentwood Mall ‘cause I needed groceries. It’s about 0.36 miles from the Fresh Co there to the math building, so I figured walking back to campus after getting groceries wouldn’t be too bad.
Ha.
Have you ever been outside in feels like -53? It’s colder than anything I’d ever experienced, that’s for sure. Like, -40 is cold. But dropping it another 13 degrees? Ouch.
Ouch.
Needless to say, I took the bus home after I was done with work. I was actually surprised at how many students were in my afternoon class given how cold it was.
Edit: there’s ice on the inside of the Kines building doors. Freaking brr.
It’s Cold, Yo
Every year we get like two two-week periods of absolute hellish cold. Usually one of these periods overlaps perfectly with winter break (end of December-ish) and the other happens sometime around he start of Winter semester (mid-January).
We didn’t really have much of a cold snap in December, but HOLY HELL it’s cold right now.
We’re talking “feels like” temps in the -40s.
And it’s just going to get colder of the next few days!
What is with people and beverage containers?
Seriously. It’s a thing.
We laugh and roll our eyes, but if you’re from my generation, you can’t deny that a big portion of your coolness factor in high school was the color combo of your Nalgene bottle and cap and how utterly covered in stickers that thing was.
(I had no stickers on mine. I was not cool.)
Also, you know that if social media had been a thing back then, it would be exactly as bad as it is with the Stanleys.
Awooga
(This has absolutely nothing to do with anything I did today, but that’s like half my blogs anyway, so whatevs.)
So I have two different directions I go when I go on my long runs. At the bottom of our hill at the River Path, I either go:
1) left, heading east until I hit the Bird Sanctuary, then I head south until I get to my turn round point, or
2) right, heading west into Bowness Park and then turn north into the Scenic Hills and Tuscany neighborhoods until I get to my turning point.
The first route is WAY flatter than the second route. Observe:
Elevation change for the first route:
Elevation change for the second route:
Note the y-axes in those.
You’d think the first route would be easier, right?
Eh. It’s a lot more monotonous than the second route, and also it’s uphill (even very slightly) on the return trip. The second route is much more varied in terms of scenery and neighborhoods and it’s basically downhill the whole return trip, which is really nice, haha. Especially on a marathon+ run.
Does anyone actually give a crap about this? Nah. But again…that’s like half my blogs.
Half Life (not the game, for once)
Do y’all know what’s special about the date July 27, 2024?
It’s the day that will mark my having blogged half my life. And considering I’ll be 36 (almost 36 and a half) then, that’s a long time to have blogged.
That’s pretty wild, right?
A party shall happen.
(It won’t.)
Bling-a-Ding-Ding
Oooh.
So like all of those earrings are fire, but why in the hell am I so into those bread tag bags? Like, I don’t even carry a purse (I use that Kipling bag that my grandma got me like 20 years ago), but the weirdness of those bread tag bags is unparalleled and I love them.
Ugh.
I like a lot of the rings, too, but I’m not a ring person and DAMN those are expensive.
NUMBER ONE
My first marathon of the year!
I didn’t make it an official resolution or anything, but I’d like to run a marathon a week if possible. There are going to be weeks where it’s too cold to run outside or too smoky or too hot (and there’s no way I can run a whole marathon on the treadmill) so this is not a “EVERY WEEK OR ELSE” thing, but if I can, I’m going to try to do a marathon for my weekend long run each week.
Am I already going to miss a weekend next weekend because it’s supposed to be like -17? Probably. Haha.
Also, this sign:
This is right where I start/end my run, haha.
Make Like a Baby and Head Out
YO so I love Procreate.
Why?
Because I was able to use it to finally, finally able to create a header for Eigenblogger that used my own handwriting rather than a font. Check it:
I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, but the dimensions of the header file are weird and the few prototype headers I drew just didn’t work with those dimensions no matter how much I modified them.
I like it. I’m sure I’ll have to modify it as I will likely change up my color scheme again at some point, but for now it’s all matchy-matchy AND it’s my handwriting. Finally.
YAY!
It’s Not Even a Contest Anymore
It’s time for that racing chart of my cumulative walking/running miles from year-to-year.’
Where’s the glitz? Where’s the glamor? Where’s the excitement?!
It’s not there. 2023 trumps all.
2024 will (likely) not eclipse 2023, so there may be some excitement next year.
But since it’s tradition, here it is.
Top Books of 2023 (LIES IT’S ALL LIES)
Yo.
So I had every intention of doing a “Top Five Books I Read in [insert previous year here]” thing like I’ve done the past several years. But…
a) I only read 12 (?!) books this year, and
b) Nothing even remotely compares to War and Peace.
I’m not kidding. I can’t make a “top five” list because all the other books are all at the same-ish level and War and Peace stands mountains above them all. I guess maybe Andersonville is a bit higher than the others, but still. A “top two” list? Nah.
War and Peace is my “top books” from last year.
Fight me.
Walk da Walk, Run da Run (2023 Edition)
Is it walking/running stats time yet?
YES??
WOOOO!!!!
Here are my walking stats for January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.
Total number of days walked/ran: 365
Total mileage: 6,515.09
Total number of steps: 14,228,321
Total calories burned: 479,577
Total walking/running time (minutes): 95,233.67 [that’s about 66.13 days]
Average speed (mph) per walk/run: 4.55
6,515.09 miles is approximately the great circle distance between San Diego, California and Naples, Italy or between Helsinki, Finland and Cape Town, South Africa.
I beat last year’s mileage by almost 1,000 miles. Almost. I should have tried harder.
Anyway.
I’m pretty sure Nate will divorce me if I keep ramping this up, so I took the preventative measure of only walking 16 miles today, as the first day of the year basically sets the precedent for the rest of the year.
Edit: the fact that I’m not going to be breaking an old record this year has taken away a big portion of my already very tiny will to live. So that’s fun.
Music: 2023 Edition
One of my favorite end-of-the-year things to do is to give y’all my top musical picks (as I’m sure you all know). So let’s get to it! These are my five favorite songs from 2023.*
*Note that these songs are ones that I’ve discovered in 2023, not necessarily ones that were released in 2023.
Call On Me performed by SYNTHONY
Eric Prydz’ Call On Me has been one of my favorite songs since…whenever I first heard it (way back before 2009). Add an orchestra to it and you get this year’s top song. This has such an awesome energy and I LOVE how much you can hear the strings.
Freaking love strings.
http://www.nevergetoveryou by Prozzak
This is such a catchy song. I found this over the summer and my poor mom had to listen to it on repeat when I was down in Moscow with her, haha. I love how it uses the ICQ “uh-oh!” sound (which also happens to be my text notification sound).
Pompeii MMXXIII by Bastille and Hans Zimmer
Adding Hans Zimmer’s influence to anything automatically makes it better, but there aren’t a lot of songs that work as smoothly with that influence as Pompeii. I love what the orchestra adds to this already beautiful song.
Aquatic Ambience by Scizzie
So I mentioned this back when it was really popular on TikTok as background music for slide videos featuring pictures of 90s/early 2000s nostalgia. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently it actually samples a bit of music from the song of the same name from the game Donkey Kong Country, which came out in 1994. So maybe that’s why it’s hitting the nostalgia button so hard? Though I’m sure I’d never heard that song before. Regardless, 0:15 evokes a feeling that is difficult to describe.
Variation 15 by Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer
Even without the scene from “Dunkirk” that this music accompanies, this holds so much emotion, pain, and release. “Home” is definitely a close second on this soundtrack, but this one beats it out because of that build starting around 2:40.
The year’s almost done. LET’S CRAM IN ANOTHER SURVEY
Yo.
1. You’re about to cook dinner for some guests. What appetizer do you start with, what will be the main course, and what dessert will you serve?
Are we talking about stuff that I can make myself? If so:
Appetizer: cheese and crackers (SHUT UP IT COUNTS)
Main: penne with broccoli and feta
Dessert: those layer cookies in my Master Recipe List
2. What articles of clothing have you been wanting to buy/did you buy recently?
I actually haven’t bought too many clothes lately apart from my running shoes.
3. What is a positive or inspirational quote that you really like?
I have no idea, haha.
4. What would a perfect yard look like for you?
A non-grass yard (like rocks or sand) or a yard full of native plants. I’d like to conserve as much water as possible OR help the environment out with some good plants. It’d be nice to have a little fire pit in there somewhere for making hot dogs, etc.
5. What is a topic that you have just recently become interested in?
How recent is recent? I’ve gotten insanely interested in running in the past several years, but I’ve become even more interested in distance running since then.
8. Can you name something that makes you feel nostalgic from each of the following: a scent, a sight, a sound, a taste, and a feeling?
Scent: NOPE
Sight: the playground at St. Mary’s
Sound: a marching band
Taste: Corn Nuts (I used to eat tons of these while playing Quake and various other games back in 4th grade when we lived on Tamarack St. Just a very specific memory.)
9. What is a video that you’ve seen recently that has made you laugh?
This freaking thing. I watch this more than I should.
10. What is a meme or picture you’ve seen recently that has made you laugh?
I’ve been organizing all my documents, pictures, videos, etc. to do a big end-of-the-year backup of all my stuff, and this stupid thing never fails to make me laugh uncontrollably.
11. What are some small things that make you feel incredibly happy?
A good run. Frisson-inducing songs. Doing anything creative.
12. Do you have any goals for the near future?
I do indeed. Get tenure. Run the Calgary Marathon ultramarathon. Keep working on my story. Visit my mom.
13. What is one small thing your significant other does that makes you happy? If you are single, what is one small thing a friend does to make you happy?
I love it when Nate nerds out about things he enjoys. Comic books, baseball, history…I like seeing him enthusiastic about his interests. It makes me very happy.
14. If you could have a dollar for every time something happened, what would it be?
If I had a dollar for every time I cried, I’d be a rich little sad fart.
15. What is something that you wish more people in your life were interested in (a topic, a hobby, etc.)?
Nothing specific, I don’t think. Though I do like it when people have a strong interest in something in general. People showing enthusiasm in a topic/hobby/whatev really makes me happy.
16. What is a feel-good song that you’ve been listening to lately?
Does Eric Prydz’ “Call On Me” count? That’s still one of my favorite songs and I’ve been listening to it a lot more recently.
17. Without naming the TV show, can you give some hints to describe a show you enjoy?
Five man-children in a metal band and their shenanigans. And the people plotting their demise.
18. If you were to adopt a new pet today, what would you name it?
BRO I HAVE A LIST
19. What are some things you enjoy seeing pictures of?
Leibniz (though I guess those would be drawn/painted portraits rather than pictures…but still). Clouds. Cats.
21. Have you ever bought something recommended by an ad before? What was it, and were you happy with your purchase?
I think I found Outdoor Voices’ exercise dress via an ad. I have a few and they’re very comfortable, so yes, I’m happy with those purchases.
22. What games, if any, do you play on your phone?
Does Duolingo count as a game? I also play sudoku.
23. What do you have on your bookmarks bar?
A lot of things, haha. D2L, CNN, MLB.com, Twitter, links to the semester’s WeBWorK pages, a running site…those are the first several ones up there.
24. What is a website that you visit frequently that isn’t a form of social media?
D2L, haha.
I did not participate in this…
But let’s pretend I did!
It’s the Runner’s World Running Survey 2023. LET’S GOOOOOOO
I have indicated what my response would be by putting a red circle over the appropriate response in each infographic.
I’m circling both for this one, as my first actual serious attempts at running were when I lived in Vancouver (so when I was 22/23), but then I stopped and started again in 2020 when I was 32.
I’m in the majority here.
I’m not in the majority here, haha.
Yeah, it’s a problem.
Another majority.
Don’t bother me when I’m running. Running is my “me time.”
Woo!
Eigenblogger 