Blogs

“A year ago, I could not have imagined that we would be where we are now,” she said. “Who knows where we’ll be in five more years?” ask Ms. Koller, a representative of Coursera, the most utilized of the MOOC options so far.

I don't know about you, but when I come back to my work after the holiday break I get a serious case of the winter doldrums. Being in the throes of the Michigan winter, what I really want to do is snuggle up in some warm fleece and read murder-mysteries in between episodes of Downton Abbey. I long for the wide-eyed optimism I had going into the fall semester when everything seemed possible, but now I'm lucky if I remember what day it is, what exactly it is I have to do, and what in the world I was thinking when I was working on this draft of my dissertation proposal a few weeks ago.

In a recent interview with Mother Jones, the author Philip Pullman admits: ‘I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.’ Pullman, who has been outspoken about his own lack of faith and has critiqued organised religion in much of his writing, describes a set of rituals he has around his writing

Last Friday I had the chance to drop by the MLA conference for the first time ever. In my faculty days, I used to attend APSA fairly regularly; now I can sometimes be found at the League for Innovation or the AACC. The MLA was a new one. But between an opportunity to participate in a bloggers’ panel in the Exhibit Hall Theater and an unusually accessible location, I couldn’t turn it down.

This Hanukkah/Christmas my wife and I gave each other Fitbit Ones, a wearable digital activity tracker that measures steps, distance, calories burned, stairs climbed and sleep.

Many creative writing courses operate under something called the gag rule. I didn't like it, but didn't know why.

The “end of history illusion” was coined by Daniel Gilbert and his colleagues. Their research, cited in last week’s NPR article You Can’t See it, But You’ll be a Different Person in 10 Years, showed that people tend to underestimate how much they will change in the future.

I usually ease off on reading news stories during the time period between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It isn’t that the news is less important, it is just that I find this an ideal moment to just relax and enjoy quality family time. This year was different. I was focused on the cliff, the ominous fiscal cliff.