Adventures in Slovakia

Who's in your orbit? Teaching has reinforced something that I've long considered a simple truth: the people we surround ourselves with or listen to matter; stated simply, influences matter. During a recent lesson with a group of young students, I asked them what influencers they listen to. This class self-reported using TikTok as their primary social media source. Although I do not have a TikTok account, I am vaguely familiar with the platform, and I realize that, like many social networks, its algorithms have a tendency to show us more of what we like to see as it learns from viewing habits.  My next question was, "What influencers do you watch?" This is where things became more interesting. Many of the young men in this class reported watching Andrew Tate videos. I'm a bit jaded as I have never watched a Tate video; I've only seen clips from news articles I have read about the Tate brothers. With this disclaimer out of the way, I'll continue. I asked wha...

 I recently learned that many of my students were not at all fans of my decision to shave my beard. After growing a beard for the past four months, I figured that the time had come to say "goodbye" and return to my cleanly-shaved self. My timeline for this matter was also accelerated by the fact that I've got a special Fulbright conference next week where I'll be interacting with stakeholders at NATO and the European Commission, and I figured that I'd look more professional if I were clean-shaven.