The Dying of Blogs

At this point blogs seem to be almost obsolete. All the interesting discussion of ideas seems to have migrated to Youtube in the last five years or so. I read very few other blogs now and they seem to have less and less interesting content. I am pretty sure that my audience has been stuck at less than a half dozen people for the last six or seven years. Of course this blog's main function has been merely as an electronic diary for myself for quite some time now.

New Year's Break

My New Year's break is almost over. Tomorrow I go back to work. Besides going up into the mountains I didn't do anything special. I went to the gym to work out a lot. I ate at B to B a lot. At one of my lunches at B to B I witnessed a gun battle on the street below. But, I still have no idea what it was about. Yesterday, I was taking a cab to the park by the bazaar to eat Nepali food when I saw my friend in the car in front of me and he told me to get in with him. Then his car broke down before we reached the bazaar and we ended up taking the bus to the park. Other than that I didn't do much.

New Article on Germans in Labor Army Available

My article, "Forced Labor in a Socialist State: Ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan and Central Asia in the Labor Army - 1941-1957" is now available on my Academia.edu site. Just click the link on the title of the article.

Happy New Year

Yesterday I went up to the mountains with some Kurdish friends to celebrate the New Year. The green mountains were beautiful. The grilled fish was delicious. The weather was fantastic. Finally, I had a great time.

Gym

Yesterday, I joined a gym in order to intensify and better organize the exercise my cardiologists have demanded. The coach there wrote me out a weekly exercise plan. I am hoping that this will at least delay for a significant period having to have anymore stents inserted in my arteries.

I Now Have Iraqi Residency (good for ten months)

I finally got my residency and work permit sorted out and got my passport back with another Iraqi visa. It is good until the middle of next January.

Next Semester

I got my schedule for fall 2018. Like this semester I am only teaching three large classes on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings from eight to eleven thirty. This is a reward for getting two articles accepted for publication before July 2018. It doesn't appear that any amount publishing will ever get me promotion here. But, at least it does get me "flexible schedule." Next semester's "flexible schedule" has two CIV 102 sections and one geography class.

Holidays

It turns out that today is Raparin Day which is the day the uprising against Saddam Hussein began in Ranya. Which meant that my attempt to do business at the bank today failed since the bank was closed. For some reason our university is the only educational institution in all of southern Kurdistan that does not have the day off. So I was given no indication that today was anything other than a normal work day before I attempted to go to the bank.

Today is also the 65th anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately, the despot is more popular than ever. From everything I can see on the Internet it appears that the younger generation in the US is completely unaware of his crimes. But, American university students became a lost cause more hopeless than the Confederacy years ago.

The Weekly Grind

Yesterday, I graded over 80 quizzes. This morning I have been making progress on another eighty plus. But, I haven't finished the pile yet. I have fifteen minutes left of office hours and so far only one student has come in. Having my office hours from 7:30 to 9:00 in the morning has really cut down on the amount of stress in my life just as my cardiologists ordered.

Friday

Yesterday, I had a brief video chat with my wife and daughter. Then I took a taxi to the bazaar and walked to the park to buy some Nepali noodles. There was one particularly annoying beggar woman who kept following me around and refused to leave me alone even though I kept telling her I had no money. After she finally left and I was able to finish my noodles, I took a walk through the bazaar and drank some tea.

Weather

It has now been raining almost nonstop for nearly two weeks here now. This is after after having absolutely no snow at all down here in the city this winter. The rain isn't that hard which is good because my umbrella committed suicide and I haven't been motivated enough to purchase a new one.

Another Week

The work week is finally over. In addition to lectures and endless marking of quizzes I have been discussing a conference proposal with a colleague in the US. It looks like I'll finally get back the US later this year. The last time I was there was January 2011.

Kurds in the USSR

My article Kurds in the USSR, 1917-1956 is now up on my academia.edu page. You can access it here. 

Thank God it is Finally Thursday

I am very glad that the work week will finally becoming to an end today. I have classes from 8:00 am to 11:30 am and then Kurdish class at 4:30-5:30. But, I do not have to go to Baghdad this weekend so I at least have a short break to rest.

This Morning

It is now 8:30 am and I have been at work for one hour and twenty minutes. During that time I have accomplished three things. Two of them are routine matters relating to teaching. The third thing was revising a syllabus for a proposed course on the history of the USSR. This is proving to take a lot longer and a lot more revision than I initially anticipated. Fortunately, I haven't had to take anything out yet. I have just had to add stuff. Everybody else so far seems to want me to put more emphasis on international relations and geopolitics. I suspect this is because history itself as a discipline is extremely devalued in the region compared to IR.

New Publication on Germans from Kazakhstan and Central Asia

My article, "Forced Labor in a Socialist State: Ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan and Central Asia in the Labor Army, 1941-1957" will be appearing in The Journal of International Crimes and History next month.

Iraqi Visa Obtained

I got back from Baghdad with an Iraqi visa. The trip is exhausting due mainly to the huge number of security checks in both Sulaimani and Baghdad. It is easy to get into Sulaimani, but hard to get out. Likewise with Baghdad.

Random accomplishments of the week

This week I finished revising another journal article that will hopefully be published soon. I also submitted another journal article to a big name journal. I have no idea how that one will fare. I just hope it gets sent out to peer review.

Saturday, I have to go to Baghdad to pick up my Iraqi visa. Sunday I give my first test as opposed to quiz of the semester. I gave my first quiz on Tuesday. I haven't graded it yet.

A German academic currently working in the UK contacted me about Russian-Germans in Kazakhstan this week.

The end of the first week of the semester

Today at 11:30 am I finished the first week of the semester. Having a TA to take roll is great. It looks like it will end all of the hassle associated with the this task. Already there are some people burning through their eight allotted absences before they receive an F.

I really like the schedule of only having classes 8 am to 11:30 am Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursdays. It means I finish before lunch and get everything over fast. It also means I have all Monday and Wednesday to do other things. This week I got all the revisions including redoing all the footnotes as in-text citations done for a journal article which will come out in June. That means I can probably get the same schedule next semester as well since priority in scheduling is given to those that have a peer reviewed publication in the previous semester.

Middle of the Week

Yesterday I taught three classes all in a row. I had my new TA with me this time. I am hoping that her additional presence makes managing the classes easier this semester. In particular I am hoping that having her take attendance for me alleviates the problem of absenteeism. 

My new flatmate sent to replace the one that moved out on Monday also arrived last night. I thought he would come earlier. But, his departure was delayed. I am guessing he stays longer than the last one so I won't get the flat cleaned again for free this week. The first guy was from Syria and the new guy is from Iran.

This morning I had one student show up for my office hours. That gave me time to redo the citations from footnotes to in-text citations on the revised journal article I submitted two days ago. I got an email about this needed change from the editor yesterday.  Fortunately, it only took me an hour and a half to retype all of the citations. So I managed to get the article off before breakfast today. The article will be coming out in June.

I have a department meeting at 5:40 pm and I don't feel like going home and then coming back. So on my list of things to do today I have some reading for my 306 class, cleaning my desk, and redoing the citations on another journal article. I probably won't do the last one today since I spent this morning doing a very similar and boring task.