Flexible hours

One of the best, but also worst, things with life in Academia is the extreme flexibility in terms of working hours. With two kids waking up super early, I appreciate being able to work odd hours and taking time off when the sun is shining like today. With some bad news that I needed to digest, I decided to go for a longer run to the gym and then home via Mariedal for a total of 23 kilometres.

Once home, I am making the last preparations for tomorrow’s seminar and also reading a bit in my Pale Rider book. Sometimes history, in this case in Brazil, does seem to repeat itself:

‘On 12 October 1918, the day when the flu spread through the elegant guests at the Club dos Diários, the satirical magazine Careta expressed a fear that the authorities would exaggerate the danger posed by this mere limpa-velhos – killer of old people – to justify imposing a “scientific dictatorship” and violate people’s civil rights […] by the end of the October, when half a million cariocas – more than half of the population – were sick, there were still those among Rio’s opinion-makers who doubted the disease was a flu’.