If you’re like me, you emerged from the Christmas special that served as the final episode of the third series of Downton Abbey with two questions: 1. What kind of a tacked-on, half-baked ending was THAT?!?! I’ll never watch again! (aloud) 2. When does the next series start? (unspoken) Answers: 1. It’s Christmas show tradition, says … More Life after Downton: A Survival Guide
One of the statistics provided every day by WordPress (the service that hosts this blog) is a list of “referrers,” websites that blog visitors click on to get to your blog. Most of the referrers for this blog are sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, and WordPress itself. Most visitors have been here before and … More Fun with Googling
Tomorrow marks the beginning of our spring semester at Bethel, which should officially make me stop thinking about our recently-concluded three-week travel course in England, Belgium, France, and Germany and force me to focus on, oh, writing syllabi for the classes I have to teach. So as a farewell to January’s journeys, a few things … More What I Will and Won’t Miss About Europe
Dear Chris, It’s Thursday night, the kids just went to sleep, and you’re writing this to yourself because you know that the first thing you do in the morning after getting a cup of coffee is to read your own blog — and you need to see this advice right away: Shave. The. Beard. You’ve … More An Open Letter to My Bearded Self
Yesterday’s picture of a plum pudding is easily the best image that’s ever been on the cover of this blog, so I’ll just leave it up while I offer a second straight Christmas-y post… Fun seasonal facts about myself: I’m horrible at coming up with creative Christmas gift ideas But if I do have an … More Some E-Stocking Stuffers for My Readers
I haven’t yet reached the point in the blogging life where I feel comfortable enough in my own narcissism to assume that anyone wants to read about my love of cooking or my desire to grow up and be Christopher Kimball, but until that day arrives… Here’s a sort of foodie post that I wrote … More How to Serve a Dickensian Christmas Dinner
I’m recycling most of this from last November 11. Lazy? Sure, but keep in mind that I won’t get a chance to pull this again unless one of two equally unlikely things happens: (a) we adopt a calendar with more than twelve months; or (b) I’m still blogging on New Year’s Day in the year … More 12/12/12
For Thanksgiving I’ll simply repost a brief piece I wrote for our department blog earlier this week. Probably most useful for those of you who like to put off your shopping (and menu planning) until the day of the event, though there’s also some fun trivia in there even if you’ve got everything set to … More Have a Historic Thanksgiving!
I’m not sure if it’s my little-celebrated German ancestry, my occasional studies of that nation’s history, or that I’ll be spending five days there in January with my World War I students, but Adam Fletcher’s two-part post, “How to be a German in 20 easy steps,” made me laugh as much as anything I’ve seen … More How to Be German
I’m normally a pretty optimistic person, but when I go in the other direction, I can plot out nightmare scenarios with the best/worst of them. So while I’ve already gone on record as disdaining “sky is falling” pronouncements about the future of American higher education, some friends and I are nonetheless prone to a kind … More If Being a History Professor Doesn’t Work Out…
The Pietist Schoolman 