Category: Weekly Wanderings
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Weekly Wanderings: Random Things I’ve Read Edition
A bunch of things I’ve read and want to share, with a bit of commentary here and there … ▪ Wait inside the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and you’ll notice the same announcement playing every ten minutes or so: a reminder (first in English, then in Japanese and Chinese) that Detroit is in…
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Weekly Wanderings: Censored Bear Edition
▪ It’s not often that my longtime love of Winnie the Pooh has much to do with my career as a China watcher, but the two finally converged a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the PRC government’s decision to censor online images of one Silly Old Bear because he allegedly resembles President Xi Jinping…
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Weekly Wanderings: Heavy and Light Edition
This has been a very weird week for me: although I’ve been surrounded by a bright and cheery Michigan summer filled with fun things to do, I’ve also been preoccupied with the many dark and dispiriting news stories surrounding the death of Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died on Thursday while still serving an…
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Weekly Wanderings: Roadblocks, Detours, and Roundabouts Edition
▪ How many times this spring did I tell myself, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll get up and start writing again. Tomorrow for sure”? Pretty much every day. But as the near-silence around these parts indicates, I never followed through. The #1 reason for this is that for the past several months I’ve found it nearly impossible…
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Weekly Wanderings: Too Many Words Edition
▪ Usually, when I start skipping weeks here it’s because I’m too busy and/or traveling. Although I am, as always, looking at an overly ambitious to-do list and an overly crowded travel schedule, those aren’t what has kept me from writing as much lately. A lot of writers I know have spoken about running into…
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Weekly Wanderings: AHA FOMO Edition
▪ Four thousand historians descended on Denver this weekend for the annual American Historical Association (AHA) conference, but I wasn’t among them. Driven by a fear of missing out (FOMO), I went back and forth and back and forth about going to the conference, eventually deciding that I just don’t need to be there this…
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Weekly Wanderings: Out with the Old, In with the New Edition
Slightly delayed due to an epic cold (now better)/holiday laziness … ▪ Happy New Year! Like nearly everyone else I know, I am glad to see 2016 disappearing in the rearview mirror; as it was for so many other people, for me it was a year of change and disruption, expectation and disappointment. Not everything…
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Weekly Wanderings: Snow Globe Edition
▪ We got our first significant snowfall of the winter in Ann Arbor last Sunday—just over 11 inches—and it has snowed a little bit more nearly every day since. In the Mid-Atlantic, of course, a snow accumulation in double digits would bring cities to a standstill; here, though, nobody seems at all fazed. I was…
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Weekly Wanderings: Gilmore Girls Edition
▪ After months of waiting and speculating and standing in line to get a promotional cup of Luke’s coffee, it’s finally here! All four 90-minute episodes of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life were waiting for me on Netflix when I woke up on Friday morning, begging to be binge-watched. And binge-watch I did.…
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Weekly Wanderings: Leftover Halloween Candy Edition
▪ I think Halloween is a fun holiday. I haven’t dressed up in a long time, but I like seeing the costumes that people devise, and who doesn’t enjoy handing out candy to (mostly appreciative) children? As an adult, though, I haven’t lived anywhere with active trick-or-treating: I was either in grad student housing (Yale…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 