Living in exile

It was quite an eventful week: livestreaming online lectures, giving feedback to written work, ruthlessly editing a master's thesis in the nick of time, sifting through graduate applicants, conducting online interviews, coordinating some stuff in the background, and many other things. The week was exhausting but not as exhausting as those who are making sacrifices (whether willing or not) at the frontlines of the pandemic.

Sometimes I wonder whether feeling guilty about being relatively exhausted is appropriate. I wonder how much is this parallel to being ashamed of being bourgeois. Instead of complaining, I have been trying to do something in order to make the complaining and exhaustion minimal, not only for myself but for others. Not sure if I am successful.

Today's entry is about our university library. Our university library (though staff and systems not fully bilingual yet; with some faults here and there) has some interesting resources available to faculty, staff, and students. Last semester, I used the so-called 馆际互借 or interlibrary loan to find some rare econometrics/statistics books. I am happy to have stumbled upon this feature though I had to navigate it completely in the Chinese language. In a span of two months, the staff was able to complete my access to The Collected Works of John Tukey which spans 8 volumes and approximately 6000 pages in total. I recommend you use this feature of the library. Of course, don' t forget to 消毒 or disinfect the materials.

Speaking of 消毒, what worries me about eating out or buying take-out is the theatrical nature of 消毒 in some restaurants. They have refrigerator-like units called 消毒柜, but many times I have looked around and found they were unplugged! My advice is to learn to cook at home. If you do not know how, one-pot or one pot rice cooker meals are the best way to go.

Now back to the library. During the higher levels of uncertainty of the pandemic, the library requested faculty members to make book and reading suggestions so that students will have something to do while they are not formally back in school. They still have not included my suggestion (included the book cover which is quite colorful and short summary). I should not be offended but I am. I would have lent them my actual copy but I am on the lowest end of the food chain. My suggestion was Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip. My description is that it is a very short novel about the repair of communities. If you ever get the chance, do read this relatively short novel (instead of 1984 or even Animal Farm, though the latter is short). Compared to the approved suggestions, I believe this is shorter and will be a good way to practice the English language.

Recently, the library has also managed to acquire rights to deploy English textbook and reference materials to students. These materials are deployed via a portal called iTextbook.cn or 爱教材 (literally, love educational materials; I think the pun was intended) as a joint effort from the Chinese book authorities with CRC Press, Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and others. I mention CRC Press because they typically have good statistics books, Cambridge University Press because they have good math, statistics, and economics books, and Wiley because they are relatively a wild card (though it has good classic statistics books). Unfortunately, not a lot of classics are available on the portal. But some of the new books are worth a closer look.

If you feel stuck with your research, teaching, or your studies, I think it helps to read something relatively orthogonal or unrelated to what you are working on. So, I tried to scour the whole database (for which our university has trial access to) for curious readings. Here is my list (I tried to exclude statistics, econometrics books but there are exceptions for reasons I will talk about later). The portal does NOT have a feature that allows use to filter out the books that the university does not have access to. Furthermore, the classification fo the subject matter ranges from the ridiculous to the bizarre (Mathematical Statistics for Applied Econometrics is in art??). I will classify based on my “ librarian” senses (in my other life, I would have made a great librarian):

Curiosities include: Student Handbook for Discrete Mathematics with Ducks (this should pique anyone's curiosity, yet our trial does not cover the actual book!!!!!) Mathematics for the Liberal Arts International Cuisine (Might be worth checking out the Chinese food section if it holds up) Cooking as a Chemical Reaction The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit (why not?) Reading Latin: Grammar and Exercises (yes, is there a problem?) So You Want to be a Journalist? Unplugged Midwifery by Ten Teachers (you never know when the skill would be needed) Understanding Chemistry through Cars (I don't like cars but chemistry was very dear to me) Looking Back in Crime (rewatch your usual police procedurals) An Introduction to Crime and Crime Causation Fundamentals of Fingerprint Analysis (curious...) Port Management and Operations (yes! timely because of potential disruptions to logistics)

The intersection of biology, environment, statistics, management, and philosophy: Bioethics Statistical Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials Wildlife Habitat Management Epidemiology: Study Design and Analysis Essential Epidemiology: An Introduction for Students and Health Professionals Drinking Water Quality GIS for Disaster Management Occupational Health and Safety Management

The ubiquity of quantitative and computational methods: Making History Count : A Primer in Quantitative Methods for Historiams (would be good to know what historians are doing) Making Music with Computers : Creative Programming in Python (this should pique anyone's interest) Computational Thinking for the Modern Problem Solver Business Analytics: An Introduction Data Visualization : Principles and Practice Practical Bayesian Inference : A Primer for Physical Scientists (Might be good to have a context) Financial Mathematics : A Comprehensive Treatment Statistics for Finance (an understated title, table of contents look tough) Modern Survey Sampling Introduction to Coding Theory

The more natural sciences: The Insects: Structure and Function Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life Essentials of Oceanography A First Course in General Relativity (claims that minimal math is required) Physical Geography : Great Systems and Global Environments Horizons: Exploring the Universe General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry