2020 may have been a bad year in general, but it was a pretty good year for reading. Books are pandemic-proof. And so, without further ado, I present my much-too-serious review of my year’s reading. Another step in my journey of quantifying every aspect of my life. Next year I’ve got to remember to track my television and movie consumption. At least I read more than last year anyway. Nothing will ever touch my last year in the Peace Corps though (2018)–so much free time for reading.

I know what you’re thinking–“you’re just throwing away your vote!” I disagree. To help me explain why, I’m going to rely on the classic “Calculus of Voting” equation (see this Wikipedia article for an explanation, although I am using the John Aldrich (1993) version): R = PB + D - C Which says that voting is rewarding(R) only if the probability(P) of the vote changing the outcome and the benefit(B) you’ll receive from the party you favour winning plus the psychological boost you get from doing your democratic duty(D) is greater than the cost(C) of voting.

The other day I got into an argument. Nothing new there except maybe that it happened over Zoom instead of face-to-face. My opponent, a usually mild-mannered member of my church book club, was insisting that only a minor fringe of society believed in disbanding the police. I disagreed, and I was confident that I had enough evidence1 at my disposal to change his mind. After all, I had just seen three pieces of confirming evidence in the weeks running up to the book club meeting.

This week hundreds of universities across America are starting up their Fall semesters. Has there ever been a more challenging time to begin a semester? Maybe during the World Wars? Economic forecasts are dire. Protests continue in many places across the country in response to police actions. And then we have covid. Back in the innocent days of March when the University of Illinois moved to online instruction in response to the virus, I figured we’d have to do this for the rest of the semester, and then we’d spend the summer just laying low waiting for this whole thing to run its course.

PhDs are kind of scary. I remember all the insecurities I had while debating whether I should go back to school. What was a 32 year old doing starting a PhD? Most people are younger than that when they finish! Would all the other students be 10 years younger than me? Would even the professors be younger? Was it selfish of me to make my spouse the breadwinner while I went back to the more carefree life of a student?