Mrs. Chow > Recent Status Updates

Snowed in and reading! Finished introduction: Weingarten organizes the book’s chapters around “the four things teachers do that are so important to the future of our students and the future of our nation” (19): 1)teaching critical thinking 2)making schools “safe and welcoming” for all students 3)creating opportunity for all and 4)creating agency by building strong unions.

Marco. Polo. What a blessedly beautiful metaphor for writing novels. RIP Shreya Tripathi. Fuck the pharmaceutical industrial complex that killed her.

I can’t put it down: “Why must we treat what are obviously systemic problems as failure of individual morality?” (124).

Brilliant reflection from a brilliant author. So many good passages and lines … beautiful and insightful prose in a study of a disease. Example: “…[M]uch of what some imagine as dichotomous turns out to be spectral, from neurodivergence to sexuality, and what appears to be the work of individuals turns out to be the work of broad collaborations” (78).

If only every American would read this book (or at least the summary) and then think about it.

One of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read this year (maybe this decade). Abundance seems like such an alien concept today when the “politics scarcity” are what motivate voters. But one of the most salient points: “blue America practices its own version of scarcity politics” (208). I need to look up Jerusalem Demsas’ October 2024 Atlantic piece.

So meaningful to read after walking these streets last week. History is alive and has a story!

Really good summer read!

Needed a good historical fiction to get me through a few long flights & layovers. Quite engaging so far!