Otto's Random Thoughts

It looks like I have more work this weekend than I thought. I have to grade three first drafts of research papers and write two letters of r...

It looks like I will finally get some free time this weekend. I have finished grading all the little papers I assigned and the big papers ar...

I finally finished grading all the dozens upon dozens of late papers I have received since Friday. A full 70% of the grade for all three of ...

I have been busy putting together grades. Way too many late papers have come to me in the last week. I finally finished grading everything I...

In case I do not have time to blog between now and Friday here are my thoughts on Thanksgiving. This year I am thankful to finally have a jo...

Right now I am busy trying to finish up the semester. I have three more weeks of class after this one. Two of those will be devoted to stude...

Evidently, I erred in referring to Ruth Derksen Siemens as Dr. Siemens. I misconstrued the phrase "Her PhD studies in the Philosophy of...

ICP 255 3 Credits International and Comparative Politics American University Central Asia Spring Semester 2008 J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D. Meeting T...

Dr. Ruth Derksen Siemens has put together an impressive web site based upon letters written by the Regher family during the early 1930s. The...

In 2003 I wrote an article on the Soviet deportation of whole nationalities for an encyclopedia on European migration. I am not sure when th...

This morning when I woke up it was snowing. A couple of hours later when I went to work it was still snowing. It is not too cold, but the mu...

On Monday Greta Uehling spoke in front of my Political Culture class on the return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea. The talk went very well. I t...

ICP 329.5 3 credits International and Comparative Politics American University of Central Asia Spring Semester 2008 J. Otto Pohl , Ph .D. M...

On Saturday I purchased a big bottle of Louisiana hot sauce from Beta Stores on Chui . It has made my meals at the AUCA cafeteria much more...

If you follow this link it will take you to some pictures of Kristina Gray, her husband Ken and even me.

Yesterday I had a guest lecturer speak in front of my Russian Politics course. Unfortunately, only six students showed up to class. But, oth...

Last week I did not have to teach any classes due to Fall Break. Instead I put together my course on borders and migration for next semester...

On Saturday I went and saw the German jazz quartet Sublim, fronted by saxophone player Angelika Niescier, play at the Philharmonic Hall her...

Currently my reading is almost entirely orientated towards facilitating my teaching. First and foremost this means a lot of rereading of the...

Yesterday my department had an outing at Ala-Archa, a mountainous state park outside of Bishkek. The climb up the mountain nearly killed me....