Monthly Archives: June 2016

So far… so good…

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Something important to understand is that diabetes is not an illness in the infection sense. Diabetes is a propensity that shows up according to your genetics, your diet, and the luck of the damned draw. Diabetes is a rate of progress in everyone, and what you can try to do is exert some control over the rate of progress.

I ended up pulling a lucky card in the random drawing. My diabetic propensity is apparently quite high once triggered, but it appears that it was mainly coming from things over which I had some control. No one can explain why I was at an A1c of 10.6% with no prior warning and no physical damage. That is a high number. By the same token, I now have 12 months of results in the 5.0-5.3% range, with all other measures not even triggering me as prediabetic. Taking metformin is now optional for me, and my physician thinks that “annual” is probably unnecessary for my annual physical exam.

So far… a bullet was dodged.

And yet, diabetes is a progressive condition, and my propensity is apparently high. But so far, at least, so good… maintaining a diligent lifestyle with 0% tolerance is not at all challenging.

“Avengers 29 p 7, 15” (June 1966)

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“Avengers 29 p 7” (June 1966)
by Don Heck (1929-1995) and Frank Giacoia (1924-1988)
13 x 23 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

“Avengers 29 p 15” (June 1966)
by Don Heck (1929-1995) and Frank Giacoia (1924-1988)
13 x 23 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

Fifty Years Ago!

Black Widow is captured by Russians, brainwashed and sent to destroy the Avengers. She enlists the help of the Swordsman and Power Man.

The Avengers find themselves unable to revive the fallen Goliath. A doctor informs them that he will recover but must never attempt to shrink any further than his present 10-foot size. Goliath storms out in anger.

Black Widow was last seen in Tales of Suspense #64 where she and Hawkeye battled Iron Man, they were defeated and Black Widow was taken back behind the “Iron Curtain.”

The Swordsman was last seen in Avengers #20 where he was recruited by the Mandarin to infiltrate and destroy the Avengers, this plot of course failed.

Power Man was last seen in Avengers #22 where he was used by the Enchantress in a plot to defeat and discredit the Avengers.

I’ll take Manhattan

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For 30 years, NYU has been using a clever strategy to increase its connections and recruiting from a diverse collection of schools. It is called the Faculty Resource Network (FRN). NYU invites skilled faculty instructors (mainly, now, from outside NYU) to design and run weeklong faculty-to-faculty seminars that are targeted at exposing faculty from underserved settings, and who themselves may be underprepared, to work with contemporary ideas and hands-on instructional strategies. About 5 of the 17 faculty members I worked with this year, for example, were uncomfortable with creating their own PowerPoint slides, so moving them to think about students generating literature-based instructional materials was a fantastic.

My seminar (“Real Work: Authentic Scientific Practices in Student Assignments”) was the only one that used a science context, and even then, I only included ‘scientific’ in the title because NYU wanted to get more scientists to participate. As it was, I had 3 CHEM, 5 BIO, 2 ENGIN, 2 PUB HEALTH, 2 NURS, and 2 SOC WORK, and 1 SOCIOLOGY.

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