Notes from a small country
Hard to believe that it's Wednesday already.
There's nothing new with me. Last weekend was blissfully quiet. Saturday I woke up at decent hour to a beautiful sunrise. The sky was perfectly clear and the view from my quasi-east facing window revealed a multicolored sky. Always a good way to start a day. I then did my laundry, went grocery shopping, went to the library, and took care of other day-to-day stuff that I hadn't had much time to do in the last weeks with Christmas and visitors. At the library I picked up a new Bill Bryson book entitled "Notes from a Big Country". For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bryson, he was born in Des Moines and moved to London around the age of twenty. He proceeded to live there for two decades and work as a travel writer with a very Dave Barry sense of humor. At the end of the 90's he moved to New Hampshire with his british wife and children and once a week wrote short articles for a british newspaper about his experiences readjusting and relearning life in the US. This book is a collection of these articles. As an american living in a foreign country, it's interesting to see what sorts of things he describes, though I am by no means going to be in Germany for 20 years. It's also hilarious. My current German book is actually the German equivalent of Bill Bryson, so the two books fit together well. Anyho! That was probably way too much explaination about a book, but whatever. Life's a bit uneventful at the moment. Maybe one of you will be inspired to read it. Bryson is actually rather good in general. His best book by far is "A Walk in the Woods".
Otherwise the week has been uneventful. Work has not progressed one step, and in fact at the moment it's at a standstill because of a technical problem, which I won't go into since it's rather boring. I gave my colleagues wine from the Amana Colonies as late Christmas presents with the intention that they'd each pick a bottle and take it home. Instead they decided to keep in the lab, so we can open up one now and again at afternoon coffee. Side note: One of my favorite things about Europe is the relaxed attitude towards alcohol. I think they like the crazy fruit wines, though everytime they have to exclaim "wow that's sweet!" and seem happier when it's not so sweet. I think they were expecting something more like normal wine. Oh well.
I also (gasp!) actually started to study this week. In theory I have exams sometime in the middle of February, but I don't really know when. After not studying for a solid six months, I'm actually kind of enjoying it. I even get excited at the prospect of doing an integral. I think my the time August rolls around, I'll be ready to start graduate classes. Though I'm sure it will turn back into work real quick.
Enough rambling for now.
For all of you students out there, I hope the semester started well.
There's nothing new with me. Last weekend was blissfully quiet. Saturday I woke up at decent hour to a beautiful sunrise. The sky was perfectly clear and the view from my quasi-east facing window revealed a multicolored sky. Always a good way to start a day. I then did my laundry, went grocery shopping, went to the library, and took care of other day-to-day stuff that I hadn't had much time to do in the last weeks with Christmas and visitors. At the library I picked up a new Bill Bryson book entitled "Notes from a Big Country". For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bryson, he was born in Des Moines and moved to London around the age of twenty. He proceeded to live there for two decades and work as a travel writer with a very Dave Barry sense of humor. At the end of the 90's he moved to New Hampshire with his british wife and children and once a week wrote short articles for a british newspaper about his experiences readjusting and relearning life in the US. This book is a collection of these articles. As an american living in a foreign country, it's interesting to see what sorts of things he describes, though I am by no means going to be in Germany for 20 years. It's also hilarious. My current German book is actually the German equivalent of Bill Bryson, so the two books fit together well. Anyho! That was probably way too much explaination about a book, but whatever. Life's a bit uneventful at the moment. Maybe one of you will be inspired to read it. Bryson is actually rather good in general. His best book by far is "A Walk in the Woods".
Otherwise the week has been uneventful. Work has not progressed one step, and in fact at the moment it's at a standstill because of a technical problem, which I won't go into since it's rather boring. I gave my colleagues wine from the Amana Colonies as late Christmas presents with the intention that they'd each pick a bottle and take it home. Instead they decided to keep in the lab, so we can open up one now and again at afternoon coffee. Side note: One of my favorite things about Europe is the relaxed attitude towards alcohol. I think they like the crazy fruit wines, though everytime they have to exclaim "wow that's sweet!" and seem happier when it's not so sweet. I think they were expecting something more like normal wine. Oh well.
I also (gasp!) actually started to study this week. In theory I have exams sometime in the middle of February, but I don't really know when. After not studying for a solid six months, I'm actually kind of enjoying it. I even get excited at the prospect of doing an integral. I think my the time August rolls around, I'll be ready to start graduate classes. Though I'm sure it will turn back into work real quick.
Enough rambling for now.
For all of you students out there, I hope the semester started well.
posted by laura s at 2:18 PM
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