health

Fun with TMD

Perhaps you’ve heard of TMD (also called TMJ). Maybe you even know what it is, or maybe you’re like I was: aware of the concept, but kind of fuzzy on the details. TMJ stands for your temporomandibular joint: the joint at the base of your jaw. Thus, saying you have TMJ is kind of like saying “I’ve got elbow” or “I’ve got knee.” Everybody has TMJ. TMD, on the other hand, stands for temporomandibular joint disorder. I, unfortunately, have both. I’ve always been a teeth grinder. I had one special night guard made, and I actually ground right through it,

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COVID Then and COVID Now

Yay. Another COVID topic. I know that’s just what you all want to read. (Not really. I know from my blog statistics that these COVID posts don’t get many views these days. And yet I persist.) However, I was looking at COVID numbers today and thinking back on where we were a year ago. The contrast was surprising, and (unfortunately) disheartening. Come with me, back to Maine in mid-August of 2020. The university was ramping up for a return to in-person classes. Masks were required everywhere (indoors and outside on campus), we had strict social distancing caps on all indoor

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On Doing Your Own Research

It seems these days more and more people are encouraging each other to “do the research” so they can be properly informed about a subject and make their own decisions. As an academic librarian, you would think I would be thrilled with this newfound desire to delve into research. Instead, I’m left scratching my head. The problem is that what I mean by “research” seems to be quite different than what many other people think it means. Perhaps a lot of this stems from the fact that I believe different levels of research are appropriate for different projects. For example,

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Assessing COVID Risk for Kids

I’m going to lead off with the obvious: I’m not a doctor or a medical professional. I’m a librarian. I’m good at finding and evaluating information, but nothing in this post should be viewed as some sort of ironclad definitive statement when it comes to COVID risk for kids. My main reason for posting this is that I’m the father of an 8-year-old, and I’m tired of vague statements floating around in the interwebs about “COVID isn’t as dangerous for kids, but it can still affect them.” My daughter can’t be vaccinated yet, but there’s a whole ton of things

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Weekend Fun: Moderna Side Effects

I’m at the front end of many of the people I know who are getting vaccinated, and I know I had a lot of questions going into the second vaccine (Moderna for me), so I thought it might be helpful/interesting to go over what the experience of having side effects was like for yours truly. Heading into the shot, I thought I might get some side effects (definitely worried enough about them to Google a fair bit beforehand), but I also thought I’d be able to power through them okay. It was a day of feeling crummy, and I’d know

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