Observance

Today, on Columbus Day (Observed) I’m sitting through a lecture on early American history—yeah, academic calendars don’t quite match up to national holidays. (When I was at UD—boo! hiss!—I was told that we would not be off on Labor Day because “we are not laborers.”)

But today, I too feel like Columbus: discovering something that millions of people already knew about. (Thanks, Lisa Simpson!) My discovery: I need a break from sitting through lectures and spending far too many hours in front of a computer doing research and writing.

A modest proposal for renaming the day observed today:

• Stolen Continent Day
• Genocide Day
• Taino Heritage Day
• European Legacy Day (celebrating the effects of smallpox and “conquista”)

Indeed, perhaps we all should just walk backward into the ocean….

Euro-Franz gets a new handy

One of the many (mis)adventures yesterday was signing up for a new cell phone. I can now be reached at +49.1520.647-9009 while in Deutschland, Euroland (AKA the United States of Europe). To receive SMS is always free, so let your thumbs do the walking! (For those of you in (Fortress) Amerika, be sure to use the international dialing code 011 first.)

I am especially interested in receiving well wishes for 16 years of moderately good behavior. Perhaps I really did deserve the muffin I had with my afternoon coffee. And now that I (finally) have access to wireless, I should be in contact/touch more frequently despite the fact that this language program is kicking me in the head. (But I'll save the bitchy blog posts for later.) For now, bis bald.