Above the clouds

You won't believe this (and I guess there's no way to prove it) but I'm posting this from an altitude of 37000 feet above the gulf of Maine. I just waved down to the Boston peeps, and we're now settling in for drinks. SAS is offering wireless internet access on all their transatlantic flights which is SO cool. Oh, if you're reading this right after I posted, go to AIM and see if I'm online to chat :-)

As excited as I am about being able to check my email from above the clouds, I'm also so sad to be leaving the US and especially my honey again. It's hard not to cry. These past 10 days of my (temporary) homecoming tour of Michigan have taught me so much about myself and my life...so if you can't take deep philosophical posts, don't come back here for a few days while I'm being thoughtful-Ness.

To Boston peeps

If you're going to watch the Boston marathon, cheer on this guy for me, will ya?

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/sports/4382203/detail.html

Thanks :-)

A vacation, finally

I'm off like a prom dress tomorrow to see the BF and for a home-coming tour of A2 for 10 days.

I SOOOO need a break and experience normality again! Even though I spent 19 years of my life here in Germany, the place continues to feel alien, and I continue to feel like a cultural retard in everyday life. I would like to have the experience again of being able to walk into a store and know what I can buy there. Or to have people say "Excuse me" when they invade my personal space. Or to go to a restaurant where they not only put ice in your tap water voluntarily, but actually have ice available for such a purpose.

In the good news department, I can report that my mother had an MRI of her brain last week and it did not show any new metastases, and the old ones are shrinking. Yahoo! We still have to find the source of the trouble with her leg, so that could send me to the bad news dpt very quickly, but for now, this is good news about the brain.

Anyway, if you don't see me while I'm there (sorry to all the folks on the East coast!), I'll report when I get back.

Classifieds

Happy Birthday (yesterday) to Sonia, who hopefully rocked away in Montreal to celebrate in the usual fashion!

Lots of dichotomocomplexitostructringstructuresturtlesallthewaydownagencylatemodern
subjectivtykinshipIrvineandGal2000- thoughts to Cecilia who's in the middle of doing her prelim exams in a 2-room-apt in Paris with a 4-year-old and a teething 6-month-old and doing GREAT! Keep it up, honey!

Andy has joined the ranks of blogging UMich anthropologists, and he's so prolific, he puts the rest of us to shame. See the link on the right.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my favorite grandpa who would have been 82 today. That would have been some kind of party.

Miscellaneous stuff

Apparently, the economic downturn in Germany has been cancelled. Today, I saw the 10,000th precious infant being wheeled around in a 750-euro-bugaboo stroller. Were, I ask, is the economic crisis when people left and right can buy $1000 strollers?

I want to send a big heartfelt "Gute Besserung" to all the peeps out there who have undergone an uvulopalatopharyngoplasty recently. You know who you are! May you be able to code-switch your song between bird-of-paradise and pigeon again soon!

I also want to thank the lucky stars that the car making the awful squealing noise for about 5 miles on the highway today wasn't mine (or rather, my mother's car I was driving) but the one driven by an old grandpa who, driving about 70 mph, had probably forgotten to release his emergency break (those were a few sweaty minutes where I contemplated what would happen if the car suddenly fell apart in the left lane of the Autobahn).

Finally, I want to remind everyone that the collection for my iPod is still open in order to accommodate overwhelming numbers of donations :-)

I want an iPod

Reading Sonia's ever-thoughtful and entertaining blog, I realized that I want an iPod. Or rather, I was reminded that I want an iPod. Last fall, when I bought my computer, I was too stupid to take advantage of their special bundle offer that gave you something like $100 off when you got an iPod and a PowerBook, and I was still unexperienced in the ways of spending the money of the National Science Foundation (ie tax payer dollars) that are now languishing in some university account where no one cares one bit what I'm getting reimbursed for.

It's kinda ridiculous for me to want an iPod (though maybe not as bad as for Sonia's dad to want an iPod). Recently, I realized that I had gone for three months without listening to any of my CDs. I haven't bought a CD in something like 2 years. My ears are misshapen in such a way that those bud-type earphones never stick in them. I neither have a sense of rhythm nor the ability to dance like those people in the iPod commercials. I am clearly no poster child for iPods.

BUT BUT BUT beyond the obvious coolness factor (always a failed proposition on me -just like preppy clothing that never looks ironic on me like it does on Erika) and the obvious opportunity to broaden my musical horizons beyond old Elton John and 80s pop they don't even play on the radio anymore cause it's been so overplayed that browsing the iPod library would offer, there are many practical reasons for why I should own an iPod:

I could listen to music while walking the dogs to drown out all the rude people I meet in the city and not even hear the rustling leaves of the exhibitionists roaming the forest.

I could have something more discreet than knitting to do while waiting about in hospitals for ever (knitting in pulblic still elicits stares as if I have some birth defect).

Transferring my (albeit limited) music collection to an iPod would give me something productive to do here that's not as psychologically demanding as is working on my field research.

I really like the green iPod mini -I wouldn't be so greedy as to demand the big one with the giant hard drive. Sonia has generously offered to donate 5 $Can (or is it Can$? You Never know with those bilingual policies) to my iPod fund, so that leaves only US$ 176 to go. Who's with her? Anyone? It's for a good cause!