The terrible thing about home improvement stores is that you go in to get one thing (in this case: paper nursery pots) and end up with a ton more. And I on purpose did not go to a garden centre, which would have turned worse 😬
@annemartine I've got some seeds from my aloe and from another succulent and I want to try whether they'll work! Also I've got a mother of thousands and can't bring it over rmy heart to just throw away all the baby plants...
Took the pretty hard decision to step back from the steering group of Astronomers for Planet Earth this week - I've, realistically seen, not been able to put in my weight for the last two years or so. And I don't see it becoming better as much as I hoped it would. Hard to let go - it grew up from an idea some of us had on twitter (during an in person conference!) and look at how much folks do now with it! But it's time to give it to folks who will actually invest more time than I.
@venite thank you 💚 I also need to change the framing in my head - it feels like I failed, but I helped create something useful and now better folks are taking over. And some of the folks who started it continue. And I'll be able to contribute, in ways that are better suited to me at this point of my life than organising.
"Will man das Gemeinsame der unterschiedlichen Spielarten des Antisemitismus herausarbeiten, stößt man fast immer auf ein merkwürdig verunsichertes Selbstverhältnis. Ich möchte versuchsweise die These entwickeln, dass jegliche Form des Antisemitismus in seinen unterschiedlichen Varianten stets etwas mit einem ungeklärten Selbstverhältnis zu tun hat ... "
Argh, I hate it when people don't have an out of office autoreply and emails and messages I send just disappear 😬 Just tell me when you will be back. I can work with delays, but I do need to know whether I have to wait a few days or a week or weeks ...
Work from home breakfast: homemade bagel chips (American-Ashkenazi-Jewish) with gorgonzola cheese (Italian), mango (I guess originally from Southern/Eastern Asia), Georgian coffee (brought to me via a Tatar friend in London who lived in Georgia for a long time) and a paper (American, Dutch, British, German and Italian) I am late submitting my referee report for.
@vicgrinberg I did have Georian coffee in Georgia, last time in 1986 or so - but it was basically not different from Greek/Turkish/etc jezve-brewing in a hot sand tray.
Still struggling today, but hey, look at how happy my plants are. Aren't they total beauties?
The aloe flowers a second time this year (I missed the peak of the flower last time but collected the seeds that I'll try to plant in fall, when the worst of the work travel is over.)
@mmdolbow one of these is Ikea, another a local plant swap and a third a present from parents in law (it was a bigger plant that turned up super sick, so I just cut some bits and planted them). What I'm trying to say: just get some 😊
Ugh, visas are so much fun. So a colleague was supposed to support me at the IAU in South Africa.
But they are from a country requiring a visa. Fine. Only for the visa you need a stamped bank statement. The consulate does not accept a digital signature. And the Dutch bank - the colleague lives in the Netherlands - does not give out physical stamps only digital signatures. So their visa got rejected.
And the usual plea: if you can, please donate! If you are an immigrant in NL, you can do it in English and I'm glad to go with you if you don't want to go alone!
(Also fingers crossed they don't kick me from the donation programme, my ferritin was low last time 😭)
@can you are welcome! Don't necessary assume that they are correct - Dutch doctors will also famously send you home with paracetamol when they should not (the Germans on the other hand prescribe antibiotics for colds ...), so who knows which side is correct.
Fand ich einen wichtigen Artikel - ein Plädoyer fürs Trittbrettfahren (es braucht beides, das hohe Engagement und die breite Masse und es ist OK, nur zum zweiten zu gehören, wir alle haben begrenzt Zeit und Energie!):
"Es gibt eine transgenerationale Traumatradierung über mehrere Generationen. [...] Es hat nicht mit der zweiten Generation aufgehört."
"Nun würden all diese Dynamiken noch verstärkt. Denn am 7. Oktober sei etwas Wesentliches geschehen. Davor hätten die Nachfahren Holocaustüberlebender in dem Bewusstsein gelebt, dass sich das kollektive jüdische Trauma vor ihrer Geburt ereignet habe. Jetzt sei das anders."
I haven't read this particular novel of hers (but I bought it as a present for my partner and now asked him to bring it to NL so I can do so on our upcoming vacation 😅), but her "Visitation" and "The End of Days" are books I keep recommending. I've also heard the translations are amazing!
(Yes, I'm distracting myself but Erpenbeck is seriously an absolutely stand out writer!)
@vicgrinberg
Super excited about this, too.
Kairos is waiting to be read on my bookshelf.
I've also read Jenny Erpenbeck's novel 'Go Went Gone' (Gehen, ging, gegangen) which is wonderful and heartbreaking and heartwarming