It can be really hard to tell people they have to stop talking now... when they're passionately arguing about something we've covered in another part of the program. (And yet, we have other things to do, too!)

I know these things have spilled over into local cafes.

This is only my second year at Evergreen, which is a radically different environment than UNC-CH, where I was before.

But darn, engagement in seminar has been great. The biggest problem is that class ends before they're ready.

(I have more sympathy for this kind of thing with K-12 assignments, where students are often legally obliged to be in school. College is optional. You or your family is paying for the experience. Which puts onus on me, sure, but also on you as a member of the learning community.)

I have little patience for rules lawyering assignments. Sure, if you can convince me that really misunderstood, maybe? But if your point is that *technically* the assignment didn't say foo or bar, fuck it. Either you've come to class to learn, or you should go somewhere else.

She still didn't follow the assignment prompt, and it was a psychology class.

If I were taking a Poetry class through the English department, and turned in my assignment in Chinese would it be reasonable to claim the assignment never said it needed to be in English?

I could read the paper, but not the prompt - so I switched devices to see if I could see it or find it here.

It was pretty terrible.

Collards and brussel sprouts!

(Okay, some big family traditions there, and what I'm bringing this year. Tragically, no ham hocks in the collards!)

I am reminded to sign up for one of the local classes on building cob houses...

I received the start for this starter from the first neurobiologist to be hired by Evergreen, back when the school was just starting. I appreciate the lineage even if I have been ignoring the starter.

(All my starters end up neglect tolerant...)

But it is bubbling nicely now, so yeast is in there now.

The original starter was made in SF back in the sixties, so it's older than I am. (I managed to lose the started I domesticated when I moved away from Ohio.)

But local yeasts and bacteria always do take over.

The lack of speed does have me wondering whether I'm really reviving a culture vs. starting a new one.

I'm not that concerned - this is a venerable culture, that is older than I am. And I think the lactobacillus from the original survived, even if I'm less sure about the yeast.

I've given so many actual and adopted nieces and nephews kitchen stuff for their first apartments. I can't even imagine stopping at eighteen

The cut off at eighteen seems especially grim? Young folks starting out could use some help!

My Ember did not approve of her name being over loaded!

This is my Ember (and you can see her flame tipped tail). We also fostered two equally friendly tortie sisters named Cinder and Ember.

To be fair, my car was definitely a beater. But I loved it.