Kimberly Hirsh

Me: Let’s see who among my LinkedIn connections has qualitative research in their profile. Maybe I can eyeball their jobs and see what might be worth exploring for my next thing.

LinkedIn: It’s everyone, everyone you know is a qualitative researcher, even improv people.

Hello, world. Got any cool qualitative UX researcher friends you can connect me with? I’d love to learn more about this career (especially in ed tech, fan-serving, or gaming industries). The qual is pretty key. I could get into mixed methods but never pure quant.

My kid’s school is going mask-optional indoors in April and now I don’t know if I’m going to sleep any time soon because I’m freaking out.

I’m freaked out because I’m in multiple high risk categories and my mom is in all the same ones as me PLUS she has leukemia & is undergoing chemo. But I hate the idea of telling my kid he has to mask even if his friends don’t.

I ran the introductory adventure for Hero Kids for M & W. It was a lot of fun and now I’m very tired. 🎲

💬📺🖖🏻 “The part of me that really wants is the part that has to wait in line.” Picard, 2x01, “The Stargazer”

💬📺🖖🏻 “Exhilaration enhances the absorption of knowledge.” Picard, 2x01, “The Stargazer” [Cool how this sums up my whole deal.]

💬📚 “A storm can be a cozy thing when one isn’t in it.” - Kristin Cashore in Jane, Unlimited

What?! Kristin Cashore just had a character in Jane, Unlimited share my one strong Doctor Who opinion! “Nobody likes Martha Jones but I like Martha Jones.”

I can’t tell if the locus of origin of my current inability to focus is in my body, in The World, or shared between them.

I’m at that point in a documentation/literature review where you have to just let stuff roll around in your brain and while it IS productive, it doesn’t FEEL productive.

Me, reading Jane, Unlimited: Wait, wait, wait. Her aunt/guardian was an adjunct at this fancy private university and she got the child-of-faculty tuition benefit? 😏 📚

If you must get a flat tire, I recommend doing it on a beautiful day when you have snacks packed in the car and plenty of data on your mobile plan so your kid can watch Pokemon while you wait for AAA. Bonus if you’ve done everything you can to mitigate your migraine.

I played a LOT of the Pokemon TCG in my freshman year of college, burned a lot of scholarship money on it. When I stored it away I wasn’t planning to keep all my cards and share them with my kid but I’m sure glad I did.

Oof. Doing a second round of coding and I am R-U-S-T-Y rusty.

I let a tiny bit of crying come out at 3 am Monday morning and now all the crying I haven’t done in the past 2 years is trying to push its way through.

🔖 Read Network sitcoms are actually good again. 📺

🔖 Read It’s Called Acting: Learning to Fight for the Stage. 🎭

Hey, Kimberly. You actually are not in a good position right now to do an in-depth analysis of every mention or example of social science in the Star Trek franchise, so settle down. 🖖

How do you handle a day when your brain isn’t doing a great job but you also don’t really want to nap because you will feel logie afterwards and you’ve already gone for a walk and had a snack? Shower? Probably a shower. Or more coffee? Shower and coffee?

🍿 Watched Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe and I definitely cried twice because I’m a big sister and there were some beautiful sibling moments.

🔖 Read Why does social science have such a hard job explaining itself?.

🔖 Read Curing Coronavirus Isn’t a Job for Social Scientists. (This article is from May 2020, which is probably why it has the word “curing” in the title when that seems like, you know, not a thing that is possible.)

🔖 Loved reading what Kathy Tabbutt had to say about Social Science Communication in the January 23 Fancy Comma newsletter. I’ve been thinking through what #socscicomm can be for a few years and am still in process. If you’re interested in this, too, let’s connect!

It can feel like Social Science Communication isn’t a thing, but here are some people doing it:

• Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom
• Dr. Zeynep Tufecki
• Dr. Sarah Kendzior

Who else?

🔖 Read Is it time to live with COVID-19? Some scientists warn of ‘endemic delusion’

“I don’t particularly want to be in a future where I get COVID twice a year,” Pagel adds.

Me either, Professor Pagel. Me either.