7 Quick Takes Vol. 28

I'm linking up with Jen Fulweiler for 7 Quick Takes once again this week.

1. I've spent the past two weeks getting over strep throat, so there has been much laziness on the couch in sweatpants. The Southern Baron proved once again that Louisianans make excellent husbands by cooking me gumbo and gallantly fetching me all the seltzer my feverish heart desired.
   
2. The one upside to being sick is that it gave me lots of time to catch up on online television like Ken Burn's new documentary The Roosevelts. It has a mellow vibe but is also fascinating, with lots of Aaron Copeland piano in the background. I learned all kinds of new facts, like how Teddy lost both his mother and his first wife on the same day, and how FDR wrote Hitler in the 1930s saying "Hey, here's a list of countries I'd really rather you didn't invade." Hitler's response was "Can you believe this idiot?"
   Thanks to cable TV, there are a lot of mediocre history shows out there that just recycle the same re-enactment footage and try to hook you at commercial breaks with salacious teasers. I was most impressed with how much detail and effort went into Burns' work. He features hundreds of archival photos, historic video clips, and shots of different Roosevelt homes. There's a reason he's the king of documentaries. If you missed the broadcasts, there's still time to marathon all 14 hours of it this weekend before PBS takes the videos down!
   
3. To make things even nerdier, my household has gotten addicted to all the brain training game apps out there. The free versions all give you access to only a selection of games, but they mix up the roster daily so you never get bored. Lumosity is the elder statesman of the bunch, with a web counterpart. I really like Peak, which has basically the same puzzle games as Lumosity, plus a few more. It also gives you four games a day rather than just two. and they seem to be more difficult. And then there's Elevate, which favors practical skills over brain teasers. It pairs story-like animation with challenges of skills like listening, reading comprehension, and discount calculation. Basically if you wish you could do SAT problems on your phone while making a cartoon ship sail across the ocean, this is the app for you.
   
4. This time last year we were new kids in our town and didn't know a soul. Now we have suddenly found ourselves deep into volunteering at our parish down the street. He's on the pastoral council, I lector and lead the fledgling Young Adult group. Oh, and we also agreed to take over the Advent Giving Tree. I have to admit, after years of parish-hopping and being commitment-phobic, it's nice to feel useful.
   
5. At the parish picnic last weekend, we got caught up chatting with a Polish seminarian and were the last people to leave. Then we found ourselves at the priests' afterparty on the rectory deck, listening to some man's stories about being in the air force in the 70s. I guess we're in now! As Time Hawkins would say, "Start stackin' chairs."
   
   
   
   
6. This recent Slate article about the insanity and uncertainty of the academic hiring process is some real talk that needed to be shared with the world. Please, for the love of Thomas Aquinas, do not EVER suggest that a grad student should send their resume to an ivy league school or ask where they are going to raise their future kids. They already know they made a terrible life choice by buying into a broken pyramid scheme.
   
7. On a happier note, this week kicks off our month of Three Weddings and Conference. First stop: a mini reunion with my housemates from my Vincentian volunteer year. Niagara Falls, here we come!