The Quality of Close Relationships as an Indicator of Physical Health
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is a long-running study on happiness. It started in the late 1930s with 268 Harvard students and 456 young…
How I Had a Weeklong Stay at a Hyatt for Free
My first credit card was a United Airlines co-branded Chase card. I do not have a recollection of why I applied for it, possibly because…
Are Low-Paying Postdoctoral Positions Becoming a Thing In the Past?
More than a decade ago, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher right after graduate school, in 2009 when the Great Recession started. Although it was…
What Does Queen Hatshepsut’s Mummy Teach Us About Money?
How do we gauge whether paying for an item, an experience, or a service is worth the price tag? This is something I have been…
Enjoying Time Outside for Physical and Mental Clarity
I was listening to a podcast yesterday by ChooseFI called Outside 365 while doing yard work. It’s springtime and I was pulling invasive plants like…
The Price of a Chai Latte: Dollars or Hours?
When we decide to purchase an item or an experience, whether it’s a cup of chai with oat milk or a ghost tour (two things…
Is ‘Work-Life Balance’ in Academia an Oxymoron?
A close friend of mine had her birthday recently. She lives in a different state, and we had scheduled a ‘phone date’ for that day.…
Is the ‘Inner Circle’ of Academia the ‘Tenure Track’?
During the April faculty meeting, my college honored three of my colleagues who are retiring, from three different departments. To begin with, we had some…
Tracking expenses as an awesome starting point for FIRE
I have always been frugal. When I first started my PhD, my yearly stipend was $21,500. This was the first time in my life I…
How to approach teaching delayed gratification to college students.
A few years ago I renamed “office hours” as “help hours” in order to entice more students to come talk to me. I have a…