Category Archives: Musings

Why computer scientists need to read literature

Yesterday, my beloved colleague Sharon Alker in English joined us for a CS Lunch discussion of how Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is relevant to computer scientists. In a nutshell, she argued that 1843 was a time of technological change in many ways like our own, and she had us closely read some short passages in that light.

But before we looked at A Christmas Carol, Sharon shared the following list with us. I have gained her permission to share that list with you, gentle readers. Continue reading

Checking out Emberfuel Coworking

This week I decided to visit Emberfuel Coworking in downtown Walla Walla for their monthly first-Friday open house. My faculty office opens onto the CS Commons, which I’m sure will fill up with students again once classes resume. So, I’m looking for other places to work during my sabbatical.

I’ve been curious about Emberfuel for a while. I learned about the open house from Meetup.com, which a LACS colleague persuaded me to join at our annual meeting about a month ago. Here are my first impressions. Continue reading

Sabbatical habits, part 1

For me, June marked the beginning of a year-long sabbatical. This meant an abrupt return to the research I almost entirely neglected during my first year back to teaching and administration after the birth of my child. All I had done was write two proposals – one for summer research, and one for the sabbatical itself.

This won’t be a post about the content of my research: that’s a topic for later in the year. Rather, this post discusses the habits I’ve retained from the academic year, new habits I am forming now, and habits I am considering for later in my sabbatical. Continue reading