By Any Other Nerd

Complete without Kids: An Insider's Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance by Ellen L. Walker My rating: 3 of 5 stars Walker approaches the subject first by re-framing it as "childfree" instead of "childless". Linguistically, this intrigued me from the start because it speaks of how we tend to frame adults. They are lacking--"childless". In a culture that orgiastically worships children and youth, to be "childless" means you lack any connection to what's important. Curiously, the word has overlap with the word "chilly"--clearly not a conspiracy of any sort, but interestingly nonetheless as that is somehow childfree adults are described as the author points out. The book operates as a guide for things to consider if a person is on the fence or a reinforcement of the decision for those that have decided. In fact, in many ways the author tries to play to several different audiences ("Childfree living by choic...

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre My rating: 4 of 5 stars Confession time--I haven't read much of Satre's philosophical work; though I would guess that's many people. However, after reading No Exit, I am much more intrigued. No Exit is a one-act play in which three people find themselves in a room without (wait for it...) an exit. They have been placed in here as their essential version of hell to wait out eternity. The surprise is the method in which hell is enacted. It's not filled with traditional sadists who want to throw these characters on the rack and watch them writhe in pain, but rather a balance of or rather an imbalance of the three characters is what makes it the quintessential hell. Each character seeds the anger and frustration as they each reveal their secrets and then their true selves, illustrating why they make the perfect threesome for eternal damnation. I found Satre dialogue engaging and that the characters were easy to formulate through...

Good morning America! It's Wednesday, November 9th and the cards have fallen where they have fallen and if you're like most of us, you have many different views on how and why they fell the way they did.  There are millions of ecstatic Americans that their candidate has been elected and yet, there are millions more who did not vote for this candidate and even part of the base of pro-voters did it reluctantly.  After a race that has been going on for years, we awake with a hangover and utter regret.  Our regret stems not just with the outcome of last night's dirty tussle of (ballot) sheets but from recognizing that this is what always happens.  We awake, we see the results, we feel dirty about the process, but we go on.   Many of us voted; many of us didn't.  There's an assumption that at least if you vote, you have a right to complain, but those who refuse to participate in a process that feels problematic from the onset have right to not waste their e...

Unlike the summer session, wherein it's basically the program straight for three weeks, this semester is a little more challenge to navigate.  The work is just as hard and engaging, but it's dispersed over the semester with us meeting each Friday.  So determining a rhythm is a bit of a challenge, not just for me or others in the cohort, but for the instructors as well, especially with our larger than usual group. Finding the right rhythm was challenged by the fact that all of us impact each other.  The professors had trouble settling into working with thirteen students as opposed to the usual six to eight.  This impacts what we do in class, how much content we cover and whether we're able to hit everything we want.  This disruption to a steady pace also made reading in the first month, though now challenging because it wasn't entirely clear what we were reading for.  Yes, we know the course and we will read the content, but what frames or takeaways we sho...

I think he's got his wires crossed. #DailyStickMan #DailyCat #catstagram #catsofinstagram http://ift.tt/2ftVcjT Check out other editions of The Daily Stickman Adventures . If you are receiving this via email and do not see the image posted, please click the link to The Daily Stickman Adventures .

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Oh no...wait, is this happening? #DailyStickMan #DailyCat #Cattoon #Cats http://ift.tt/2fPcOcV Check out other editions of The Daily Stickman Adventures . If you are receiving this via email and do not see the image posted, please click the link to The Daily Stickman Adventures .

Breakfast...oh yeah! #DailyStickMan #breakfast http://ift.tt/2ea4UKP Check out other editions of The Daily Stickman Adventures . If you are receiving this via email and do not see the image posted, please click the link to The Daily Stickman Adventures .

I totally see the resemblance... #DailyStickMan #RyanGosling http://ift.tt/2e727Ch Check out other editions of The Daily Stickman Adventures . If you are receiving this via email and do not see the image posted, please click the link to The Daily Stickman Adventures .

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair My rating: 5 of 5 stars Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was the next book I picked up and it hit me hard. I understood the influence of this book, but I never realized it would hit me emotionally. Now, those who have read it may not agree and some have seen the story as more of a propaganda piece against the more problematic issues of unfettered capitalism (that is, a pro-socialism diatribe) than an actual novel, but I think that does a disservice to what makes the book as impactful as it has been. The story begins with the marriage of Jurgis and Ona and traces their experience immigrating to the United States. They eventually end up in the meat-slaughtering district of Chicago where the entire family seeks survival in a brutal world of employment in unsafe working conditions, surplus population, and ruthless employers. Jurgis’s descent from poor but seemingly livable rural life in Lithuania to wanton criminal is heartbreaking at times. The once proud and...