This is the week papers were due, extensions were given, extensions were extended, extensions were, um, overcome by events, and I got shook by the realization that I spent most of my summer prepping for the fall's big class, and I have little prepared for the winter class. So, I am going to be productive today by making a ton of cookies to deliver to friends around Ottawa. Oh my.
And, yes, I am still working hard on the CDSN grant application. It is going quite well as I met with leaders of the new research themes on Tuesday, and they have great ideas for both the what and the how of the research projects. I met with some partners about joining in on this fun. Several others gave me the letters I need to show that we have their support. The CDSN staff has been working really hard to give me the pieces I need. I have now declared that they are off until January.
I will be doing grading tomorrow and Monday, and then I hope to turn to focus on one of my winter classes--civil-military relations. I have taught it many times before but not online (well, the last four weeks last winter hardly count). So, I need to record lectures for the first 30 minutes of each class more or less and then we will have live discussions about the stuff. I have to figure out the writing assignments and come up with weekly discussion questions. Online discussions tend to work better if the students are primed with questions ahead of time. Probably in-person ones as well, but that hadn't been my practice. Plus I have to beat the course management page into submission. But since I am not traveling to my in-laws this winterfest, I have more time than usual. Just more stuff to do than usual. It should all work out. 🤞
The big news of the week, of course, was the vax rollouts in the US and Canada. Well, that and the spikes in both countries. We definitely should not become inured to the toll that is accelerating. People keep seem to forget how exponential growth works. I am fully expecting the daily death toll in the US to exceed not just 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but the two days combined. Clearly, the top ten days of death in America will be entirely the pandemic before Christmas day. And, of course, this is an undercount. The unexpected deaths figures have been far above the official COVID death tally all along. I have seen stories referring to the unexpected death toll for younger folks and, yes, it is appalling. The rage is still there for me as so much of this is unnecessary. The US will probably exceed half a million dead by spring. Canada? Not doing as badly but worse than it should be. Bad leadership especially at the provincial level is killing people. The false prioritization of the economy over the disease, bars/restaurants over schools, the delays in locking down, are all coming home to roost. All of this was not just predictable but predicted. We keep seeing spikes after major holidays as people think that their gathering is immune.
So, besides planning a massive baking festival (plus I made some really good dishes this week--Doro Wat as well as a chili dish, both thanks to the NYT food section), it has been a great week for TV. The Mandalorian ended its second season in spectacular fashion. Flight Attendant was delightful as the protagonist made bad decision after bad decision after waking up in Bangkok next to a dead guy. The two big delights in the show--that her best friend would yell at her for the bad decisions after we yelled at her for the bad decisions AND the dead guy was the best recurring dead guy figment of an imagination since American Werewolf in London. The show was daffy, silly, thrilling, and just a heap of fun.
Speaking of fictional dead guys, I am reading the real story of Operation Mincemeat--the effort by British intelligence to convince the Germans that the next invasion after North Africa was not going to be Sicily but someplace else. The book tells the tale of the idea and planning (including Ian Flemming who went on to write the Bond books), the finding of the body that would carry the false messages, the delivery of said body. And then the point where I am now--the effort by both the British and the Germans to have the Germans get the documents out of the hands of the Spanish navy (the body was aimed to wash ashore in Spain but was found by the least pro-German agency in Spain at the time). Great stuff!
I guess dead body fiction and non-fiction are appropriate 40 weeks into a pandemic.... I will try not to think of dead bodies and the pandemic while spending the afternoon in a manic cookie baking session. And, yes, pictures will be forthcoming to show that it happened.
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