Continue reading “My students on Langdon Gilkey’s Shantung Compound”
This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Tet Offensive. The event has generated perhaps more publications in the English language – government reports, media accounts, academic studies, amateur histories, memoirs, etc. – than any other from the Vietnam War. A sucker for anniversaries of publications and releases of films and music, I wish to commemorate it by inviting non-Vietnamese to listen to a very well-known song among Vietnamese.
Continue reading “Bài ca dành cho những xác người: Song for the human corpses”
I was on campus today for my first meeting of the new school year. It was the first time back since late May, meaning that yesterday was the unofficial last day of my summer. Like last summer, I worked at home and it gave me more downtime and a chance to catch up with popular culture.
Continue reading “I know what you watched last summer #2: my dancing portfolio”
My pre-tenure review was completed last month, and the ratings from the tenure committee were “very good” on all three categories of teaching, research, and service. Apparently the highest rating is “outstanding,” which means for my case that there is room for improvement but I am on the right track. Now comes the hard part: keeping them there for the next two years. Wish me luck because I’ll need it.
Having entered academia in my thirties, I sometimes wondered what it would have been like had I begun graduate school not long after college. It was, after all, the pattern for the majority of my academic friends, peers, and colleagues. I couldn’t help wondering where I’d be on the academic ladder as people of my age now. Yet each time that I thought about it, I always concluded that, most likely, it’d have been a disaster.
