Lesser Feasts

 The first day of school requires a new outfit. Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 30 August. It takes me a little while to realize that something quite strange is happening. I look out and see books open. Texts are highlighted, underlined, marked up with Post-It notes. The students aren't just smart. They're prepared. I'm going to have to up my game. The only downside is that Georgetown is still requiring masks during class (except for instructors, as long as we stay six feet away from our students). Learning names is going to be difficult. After the first three class meetings I will know the names of the handful of students with distinctive hair, and that's about it. I absolutely hate  not knowing names. Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 31 August. This outfit  has started a new project that I don't quite understand -- something about videos to accompany a sort of great books curriculum for college students -- and they interview me for two different videos. There's a morning...

Content warning: nekkid dudes in a weird painting. ***** I did a rough calculation: there were about 300 papers at this conference. Apart from the plenary talks, there were eleven sessions running concurrently at any given time. That's a lot of medieval philosophy -- more than I have an appetite for. But I missed more sessions than I would have liked, because my jet lag was absolutely brutal this time. ***** When I wasn't listening to papers or sleeping, I was out walking. I love long walks in cities. Paris was having a warm spell, and I made the (in retrospect obviously stupid) decision to walk all the way from my hotel to Sacré Cœur, a solid two miles away, on the hottest and sunniest day. Thanks to a timely rest and a liter of water, I was fine. My heart quailed when I reached the foot of the steps. Maybe I should take the funicular. No. Don't be ridiculous. You've climbed the Seven Hills of Edinburgh. You've walked in the Highlands. It's just steps. Turns ou...

The view from my balcony at the Hôtel D'Orsay  Normally I prepare for travel abroad. In the whirlwind of new faculty orientation and settling into my apartment and my new office, I just didn't this time around. I even managed to schedule an "onboarding" (I hate that word) call for my website redesign for Saturday morning, when I should have been getting properly ready. My packing consists of shoving back into my suitcase whatever I had taken out of it over the previous three days. (Conveniently, settling into my apartment did not include unpacking.) As soon as the call is over, I head for the airport. At some point I get a message from the place I'm supposed to be staying. If my French serves me correctly, they are telling me that for health reasons, they are no longer supplying bath towels. Google Translate informs me that my French is indeed serving me correctly. I'm not quite sure how you can advertise a place as "tout équipé" and then take away t...