Release Day for Academaze

Today is release day for Academaze, the collection of essays and cartoons about academic life by Sydney Phlox, the more easily indexable pseudonym of Xykademiqz.

Even though my particular publishing model does not require a "big bang" release day, I still love release days. It is great to see something I've worked hard on out in the world. Today is no different, except due to some scheduling issues and my recent "crunch time" I ended up putting this release day on a day when I was scheduled to go in to my main client... so I am later than usual in posting the release day post.

But, better late than never! Academaze is out, and you can grab a copy at the following links:

• Amazon
• BN.com
• Createspace
• GumRoad
• iBooks
• Kobo

You can help spread the word by sharing this post, the release day Facebook post, or the release day Tweet.

Also, Xykademiqz is running a raffle on her blog, and has a running list of reviews as they come in from our advance reviewers (and others). Here are a few quotes from reviews to give you a feel for the book:

"Reading Academaze was like having a long chat with a colleague who’d had experiences similar to mine, but actually processed them instead of simply surviving. It was invigorating and inspiring, and I’m looking forward to sharing the book with my students." - Review by Elizabeth Haswell

"[A]n absolute must-read for anyone who is either thinking of a career in research or has already embarked on the path." - review by Pawel Niewiadomski

"The book is fun, there are tons of RL stories that illustrate each point – I highly recommend it." - Review by Clarissa

"I would highly recommend her book for anyone who is considering a career at a research university, at least in physical science or engineering." - Review by Alex Small at Physicist at Large (Note: the review from Elizabeth Haswell is from a professor in the biosciences, and the review from Clarissa is from a professor of literature... I think the information is relevant for any science professor, and that parts of it are relevant outside of the sciences, but I didn't want to truncate the quote.)

So, what are you waiting for? Grab a copy. Buy copies for all your friends! I think you'll be glad you did.

On a more personal note, I was struck while reviewing the proofs of this book by how far I've come in the technical aspects of publishing. When I compare this book to my first foray into publishing (with my own Navigating the Path to Industry), the difference is quite noticeable, particularly in the paperback version. It is not that Navigating the Path to Industry is terrible- nothing interferes with your ability to read it, for instance. But I hadn't figured out all the publishing norms, and since the paperback was an afterthought, the cover image wasn't the right size, and I had to pad it and I've always regretted my choice of filler color. 

However, this was sort of the plan. I wanted to try out publishing with a book of my own, so that I would make my mistakes on my own work, not someone else's. Even now, when I want to try something new (like adding a second printer for non-Amazon sources of the paperback), I try it first on a Taster Flight. 

I'm not sure if it is worth going back to fix the issues I now see with the Navigating the Path to Industry paperback. Let's just say that it hasn't made it to the top of my priority list yet.

For now, I'll just feel happy for how well Academaze (and Don't Call It Bollywood) turned out!

Weekend Reading: The Silly Season Edition

Another week with no post between the weekend reading posts! I hate that. My excuse this week is that it is the last full week of school for my kids. I call this silly season, because school-related things crop up unexpectedly in addition to the multiple scheduled events.

So, I am lucky if I keep on top of my work and blogging time is basically nil.

However, I do have a few links for you:

This piece by Alex Massie about the assassination of Jo Cox in Britain is one I think we should read and consider here in the US, too. We tend to frame our political agruments in very dramatic terms. As Massie says (and I think is so important I'm going to bold it):

"When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks. When you present politics as a matter of life and death, as a question of national survival, don’t be surprised if someone takes you at your word."

I see this extreme rhetoric more from the right than the left here in the US, but it is not entirely absent on the left. It is wrong wherever it happens, even if (perhaps especially if) you agree with the cause being argued.

I also wonder if our tendency to ratchet up the rhetoric has made it harder for people to take the danger of Donald Trump as seriously as we should. Here is a case where comparisons to the rise of fascism in other countries are warranted, as historians, political scientists, and people who lived through the Holocaust have attested. And yet, so many people brush them off. Is it a "boy who cried wolf" problem? Did the ratcheted up rhetoric about George W. Bush and Barack Obama make it easier for portions of the population to ignore the warnings about Trump? I don't know. But I hope we can ratchet things down.

Donald Trump revoked the Washington Post's press credentials. So Alexandra Petri wrote a style guide for covering Trump.

Here's the story that apparently annoyed Trump so much. Let's make sure everyone reads it!

Speaking of ratcheting down, Bernie Sanders has not conceded, but he is no longer attacking Hillary Clinton and has said he looks forward to working with her to stop Trump. So that's something. But he's still annoying a lot of top Democrats, and this piece from Matt Yglesias explains why.

I don't think Sanders cares what top Democrats think of him. He is not, afterall, really a Democrat. He's an interesting man, and I am curious to see if his campaign has any lasting impact on politics in this country. I've seen arguments both ways, and I certainly don't have any special insight. There are aspects I hope persist (some of his ideas to make our social safety net stronger, for instance) and some aspects I hope we never see again (the aggressive behavior of some of his supporters, for instance). I think if he and/or his supporters want to change the Democratic party, though, they're more likely to do it from the inside than by yelling from the outside.

What happens when a rabbi walks into a gay bar? That's not the start of a joke... it was something better.

This poem by Maggie Smith really spoke to me this week.

Billionaires and the threat to our free press, from the editors of Mother Jones.

Speaking of Mother Jones, they had a deep dive into gun companies that I am hoping to read this weekend.

Speaking of guns, this piece from Jamelle Bouie expresses how I've come to think about the gun debate better than I can. Here's a particularly important quote:

" It took 30 years for a fringe right-wing vision of the Second Amendment—an individual right to bear arms—to become the dominant one, adopted by all sides and ratified by the Supreme Court. It will likely take just as long to reverse that status quo. The past few years of shootings and massacres have galvanized more and more Americans to take action and try to out-organize the gun-rights movement. If those efforts succeed, then this period, which feels like a nadir, doesn't have to be one."

If we want to change this, we have to be willing to keep up our efforts for the long haul. I was thrilled to see Chris Murphy's filibuster, and the outpouring of support for it. But it was only a start. An important start, but just a start. I see momentum growing, but we have to be ready for this effort to take a long time.

OK, now we need some fun to end on:

Apparently, New Zealand had an avocado shortage this year, and this has led to an avocado crime wave of sorts. Our own crop from our backyard tree is pretty much done now, but it is still funny to think about an avocado shortage when just a month ago we were giving avocados away to pretty much anyone who would take them.

Here's some cool research from Cambodia, showing the existence of large urban centers in the 12th century.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a great weekend!

Weekend Reading: The It Has Been a Good Week Edition

I have a post I really want to write, about the baggage we bring to our careers, but I'm not quite caught up enough to have had time to do it this week. Maybe next week.

It wasn't a bad week, just a busy one. I got the final files for Academaze uploaded everywhere, ready for the June 20 release. I did the initial layout for the print version of The Lilies of Dawn, and got the necessary information to the cover artist. I had the final meeting for another beta test of my "focused management check up" offering (I need a better name... but if you're curious about it, I describe it a bit more in this month's Founding Chaos newsletter, and yes I'm still open for a couple more beta testers). I also put in about 16 hours with my main client.

The week is ending on a great note, too. Today, I booked another in person session of the Take Control of Your Time workshop (the 2 hour workshop version of the seminar of the same name). And I got a contact about potential work from a networking seed I planted months ago. Happy things.

And I have some great links for you!

First of all, Vanessa Fogg, whose wonderful novelette The Lilies of Dawn will come out from Annorlunda Books at the end of July, has a story up at Metaphorosis, and it is great. Go read it!

Also, Likhain, the amazing artist who is doing the cover art for this book, has been posting work in progress images on Twitter. Here's the latest:

my neck hurts but i'm making progress! need more tea erk pic.twitter.com/KB9M09z9CV

— m, manananggal. (@likhain) June 10, 2016

I can't wait to see the final image. Check out her portfolio to see why!

If all of that has you anxious to read the novelette, the advance review copies will be out in a couple of weeks. Sign up to be an advance reader.

Don't forget you can buy Don't Call It Bollywood. Buy and read it now, so that you'll be ready for the next movie watchalong! Or sign up for the GoodReads giveaway, which is running now. Because the deeper point of this book is that we can use books and movies and the like to better understand other countries and cultures, I made this giveaway open absolutely everywhere, and I'll happily pay the postage to wherever the winner lives!

This was a good week, but the freelance/entrepreneur life is not always easy, not by a longshot. Here's Ann Friedman writing brilliantly about that.

I found this NYT piece about "fixing feminism" really interesting, but not quite complete. I'm not even sure that is really a criticism. I think this is a hard subject to discuss completely, because how we think about motherhood and work is such a culturally-loaded thing. I've written before about wishing for a world that I can't quite imagine, in which family and work aren't "balanced" but... I don't know. Integrated? In harmony?

Anyway, I think what is missing from that NYT piece is an acknowledgement of how much a lot of women value their non-caregiving work. I'm sure the author sees this, and perhaps even feels it herself. But there are space limitations, and the need to focus, etc., etc.... and it all makes me feel like we never really have the full, honest conversation. Also, I think we tend to assume how we, personally, feel is universal. I'm sure I'm guilty of this, too.

Another thing missing was the extent to which mothers have always been split between caregiving and other work. I have an old weekend links post about that.

And here's another piece for the conversation I wish we could have: what stay-at-home-moms actually do all day. It isn't 100% caregiving. Laura Vanderkam recently did a project with Redbook about this, and her blog post on what they found is interesting.

OK, moving on.

So, Hillary is now the presumptive nominee. I'll admit it, I cried watching her speech. She is not perfect, her policies are not perfect. But as I've written before, I've come to find her personally inspiring. And I find this nomination meaningful. This post, from a woman I suspect is 10-15 years older than me, resonates.

I hear what my African-American friends are saying, and what some of the Black women I follow online are saying, too. Some of Hillary's specific flaws make it really hard for them to celebrate her nomination like a lot of white women are. I understand that, and can't fix that... so I will just offer this: read about Shirley Chisholm if you haven't already.

Also, we need to be careful talking about how we talk about suffrage. White women unambiguously got the vote in the US in 1920. Black women technically had it then, but in practice could not exercise it until the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. Native Americans weren't even considered citizens until 1924, and so couldn't vote. Even after they were recognized as citizens, they often could not vote and it was not until 1947 that courts started ruling against barriers to their voting. Asian-Americans faced similar issues into the 50s. So, yeah, you can really only say that white women got the vote in 1920. Here's a timeline if you want to fill in the gaps of the story you were taught in school.

My last little bit of election stuff is to marvel at this week in memes.

First, Donald Trump sorta rickrolled us:

Also will never give you up, run around, desert you, etc. pic.twitter.com/hKFUwQEEHa

— Dr. Ed (@ICUDrEd) June 8, 2016

Then Hillary's social media team just owned the memes. First the "delete your account" one:

Delete your account. https://t.co/Oa92sncRQY

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016

And then the "Thanks, Obama" one:

Thanks, Obama. https://t.co/DzKgMFgdmP

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 10, 2016

This is all just... weird for me. I'm too old.

This is a neat story about some cool pottery... and the image on the top vase is one that all Southern Californians will recognize. (H/t to Badmomgoodmom for sending me that, and while you're at her site, check out this post about providing infrastructure.)

Here is a cool, but bittersweet, story about a bit of Harry Potter in the real world.

Indeed:

FYI: Hamlton is excellent writing music. Why do I write like I'm running out of time? DAYCARE PICKUP, baby.

— Chavi K (@ChaviKar) June 10, 2016

A Happy Things Hodge-Podge

I sat down to write a post, and discovered at least 20 emails indicating I had new comments. All were spam. That is cleaned up now, but finding some of them required skimming through some old comment threads that had some nasty "full anonymous" (i.e., not pseudonymous) commenters. I guess the spammer was looking for old threads with a lot of comments? Or it was just bad luck. Whatever the reason, the combination of dealing with spam comments and the forced revisiting of old nastiness but a bit of a downer on my mood.

So, instead of the post I was thinking to write, I'm going to write a post with a hodge-podge of happy things.

---------------------

Pumpkin is a complete bookwork now, and has happily incorporated that into her identity. As far as I can tell, no one at her school teases her for it, or if they do it is entirely good natured and doesn't bother her. Her friends certainly recognize that aspect of her personality, though: she's still spending her way through the Barnes and Noble gift cards she got for her birthday back in April.

Here are a couple of her current favorite series (the links go to the first book in the series):

• The Edgar and Allen Poe series 
• The Family Tree series
• The Land of Stories series

I'm sure there are more, but I can't keep up with everything she finds. Partly that is because Mr. Snarky usually takes the kids to the library (a bit of a trade for me usually taking them to gymnastics), and partly that is because I want her to have the space to explore on her own. She also recently read (and loved) The Secret Garden.

For my birthday last weekend, the kids and Mr. Snarky got me a hammock. We've set it up under our big, 60 year old avocado tree (it is a wonderful tree for many reasons!) I love the hammock. So does Pumpkin, and on the weekends, I'll often look out and see her in the hammock, reading. That makes me almost as happy as being in the hammock myself, reading.

---------------------

Petunia got one of the Frozen light up tracing easels for Christmas. She has taken to setting it up on the floor near our phone table and stretching out on her stomach, writing and drawing on it. On Friday evening, I asked her what she was working on. She said: "A book. A very long one."

I'm not clear whether or not this is the chapter book version of her Captain Draw series, which she started recently. Captain Draw was inspired by Captain Underpants. He has three crayons on his head. I had a picture of it, but I can't find it right now. When I find it, I'll try to remember to post it, because it is wonderful.

---------------------

We went to a rugby game today. There is a new US Pro Rugby league, and San Diego has a team. This is the second game we've gone to (the first was on my birthday). We lost today to Denver, by one point. But it was still a good game, and it is fun to get to see live pro rugby here. The kids want to go back in two weeks to the last home game. We'll see.

---------------------

I have been doing a new thing on Thursdays at lunch. I read a short story or essay instead of reading Twitter. Here is a post I wrote about it for Tungsten Hippo. If you're inclined to join me in my weekly #lunchstory habit (it doesn't have to be on Thursdays), I think it would be fun to see what people are reading!

---------------------

My Time Management course continues to sell now and then, even though I still haven't figured out how to market it, and haven't even had time to go in and add the new testimonial quotes that have come in. This is a really small amount of money in the grand scheme of my budget, but the response to this course (which I almost didn't do) gives me hope that if I get myself motivated and organized to figure out how to market my courses in a way that doesn't make me feel sleazy, I might have a chance to build that into a sustainable business. Which would be awesome. I've decided to make that something I focus on after I come back from vacation.

Speaking of vacation, it is coming soon! I won't post the exact dates before I go, but you might notice a lull in posting. Also, if you are in Wellington, Auckland, or Rarotonga and want to try to meet up in person, send me an email. I can't make any promises, because we already have a lot of family and old friends to  catch up with, but I'm always happy to try to organize a meet up. 

And that's all for tonight. I feel less grumpy about the spam, so this post has served its purpose. I'm off to bed. 

Weekend Reading: The Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham edition

Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham roughly translates to "sometimes happy, sometimes sad" and that seems to fit this week's links. Also, I watched the movie last night! More on that below.

This has been a very eventful week. First of all, I posted the pre-order pages for Academaze. Then Don't Call It Bollywood came out. And then I co-hosted a Twitter watchalong of Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham with the author of Don't Call It Bollywood. That was really a lot of fun, but it took 3.5 hours. It was so much fun that I think we'll do another watchalong, but not until later in the summer. And maybe I'll aim for a weekend afternoon/early evening, because my kids were not at all pleased when I told them they had to go to bed with an hour left in the movie. (Yes, both kids watched the movie, too. They loved the dance scenes. Pumpkin didn't mind the subtitles at all, and Petunia kept asking me what was going on.)

Anyway, I created a storify of the watchalong, so check that out... and next time, consider joining in the fun.

Also, I've posted an excerpt of Don't Call It Bollywood. I picked the chapter about the difference in movie-watching style and expectations for audience behavior between Western and Hindi films. It is one of my favorite parts of the book, and is a good representation of how reading the book will change how you view the films. 

Finally, I sent out the link to advance review copies for Academaze, so if you think you volunteered to be a reviewer but didn't get an email from me, let me know.

OK, on to the other links.

While I was enjoying the high quality escapism of Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham, the Trump rally in San Jose degenerated into violence. I am scared for my country. I still think we'll defeat him at the ballot box, but I am frightened by the violence he has unleashed, and the legitimacy he has given to hate speech. I worry about how his supporters will react when he loses. I worry the win won't be convincing enough to send the message that there is no place for the hatred and xenophobia he espouses. And mostly, I am just sickened by and angry at the mainstream Republican leaders who are enabling him. In my opinion, they have no place in public office, because they have shown that either  they care more about their own power than our democracy or that they are fools. Or both.

Anyway, here's David Frum on the damage the Trump candidacy is doing to our democracy.

And here's Josh Marshall on why we need to prosecute the people who committed violent acts in San Jose, regardless of which side they were on.

Here's Jeet Heer on Pat Buchanan's column arguing that Donald Trump is "The Great White Hope."

Maybe when (if?) we survive this test to our society, we can work on convincing the angry white men (and, to a lesser extent, women) who make up the core of Trump's support that there is a place for them in the diverse society we've become, and that this is a better society for all of us than the one they are nostalgic for. I mean that. Deriding their feelings of loss and hopelessness might feel good, but will not help us make a peaceful transition to the better society we can be. Yes, they should just get with the program, but there are clearly enough of them to be a threat to the rest of us, so it doesn't really matter what they should do. We need to deal strategically with what they are doing.

That's enough of that.

We've got an antibiotic resistence problem brewing, and it is showing up in UTIs. This is another thing that scares me.

There's now a species of praying mantis named for Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Listeners complained there were too many stories about women in a history podcast... but only ~20% of the stories were about women.

Jessica Abel's essay on changing her personal business model is a really good read, even if (and perhaps especially if) you don't think you have a personal business model.

I really loved this essay about the Jennifer Berman club.

This story about Hokule'a, the Hawaiian canoe sailing around the world by the stars, is great.

A writer pays a fortune to take his daughter to see Hamilton and it is worth every penny.

Speaking of Hamilton...

-Did you read him his Miranda rights?
Yes, Sarge.
-His LIN-MANUEL Miranda rights?
(sigh) (puts on costume) "How does a suspect, defendant--"

— John Moe (@johnmoe) May 26, 2016

I want to visit this place:

Sunset in a life-sized LEGO landscape, Broken Hill, New South Wales, 2012. pic.twitter.com/mqAIDUIWW5

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) June 3, 2016

Happy weekend, everyone!