Muri-o shinaide

There's a phrase in Japanese, "Muri-o shinaide," or "Don't do the impossible," said when someone is going way out of their way for you.

I think it's my new motto.

After working until 11:30 on the talk, I decided to cut my losses and switch gears. I mean, I could have stayed up all night and made the handout nice. But enough playing catch-up. In an hour I'm going to do what I should have done initially: give a talk that I've more or less given before. It's not quite the same, but it's in the same research program, it's original fieldwork, it's new to the people here, and really I'd rather give a good talk than one that hasn't really had time to cook yet. The last two months have either been sans apartment or sans computer, up until this week, and, well, it's good to let go of the desire to do the impossible.

The thing I noticed about coming to work this early is that it's dark. Also, I saw many more people at Saint Denis commuting in the opposite direction. Usually I get out here too late to see that! Another fun thing about this morning, in trying to get my key to work (it's been really, really sticky) I broke it in half. Fortunately the business end came out of the lock.

No news on the rioting other than what the BBC is saying: some shots were fired in the southern suburbs. Y'all have prolly seen more about it than I have, since I don't have TV.