Daily
- Costco can be crowded when you go at opening hours, 10:00 am. It is better to go around 10:45 am, when the initial buyers, who tend to be small businesses, check out.
- Costco shrimp is delicious. China and Thailand are the top two producers of shrimp. Wow, even shrimp is from China.
- Costco sells wild honey. I loved the wild honey from Nicaragua. So delicious.
Podcast
Bloomberg Law covers the case where graduate students won the right to unionize. As a graduate student, I know that we could be always treated better. A bit more stipend and less research/ teaching load are real blessings. However, I am not sure if unionization is the solution to improve the welfare of the graduate students. As the podcast discusses, it is really hard to spell out all the working requirements for a graduate student. For instance, if the contract stipulates 10 hours of research work a week, does a graduate student stop research after reaching the limit although he knows he can save more time later by putting two more hours this week? Also, grading and office hours can take longer than expected, does the graduate student just stop grading or cut the the office hours short? I believe that spelling out all the working conditions can be quite challenging and inefficient. I think a better solution may be for the faculty and the graduate students to negotiate and work out an improved working conditions.
Pureum's Perspective 