Germany West: Bielefeld

My itinerary last month looked something like this: Chicago --> Frankfurt --> Berlin --> Hamburg --> Berlin --> Dresden --> Bielefeld --> Dresden --> Leipzig --> Frankfurt --> Chicago. I have put these photos up under "Germany West," because as with my previous trip, my research took place primarily in old East Germany. I did however make a one-day junket over to the western part of the country, to the University of Bielefeld, in order to hear a paper and to have one of my dissertation chapters discussed. (A research group there also studies the German Hygiene Museum.) In order not to eat into my time at the archives, however, I planned to do all my traveling on the same day, which meant an early morning, a late night, and more time "on the rails" than I actually spent in Bielefeld. For you lovers of all things trains, planes, and automobiles, this is "the train post." (Not all of the photos are from that specific trip.)

S-Bahn in Berlin Hauptbahnhof

Inside a Regional Express traveling through Berlin

My InterCity Express (ICE) train arrives in Berlin!

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

S-Bahn in Hamburg (with person running to catch it)

Christmas decorations in Hamburg Hbf.

"Antique" Strassenbahn cars in Dresden; these run on the E3 line.

Train set in the Dresden Hauptbahnhof. For 1 Euro you can run the trains. I just watched.

Germany North: Berlin & Hamburg

Editor's note: Do you know the joke with the punchline, "Why the long paws?" Well, if you've been concerned that I've been spending all my time working and that is why there haven't been any more blog posts since I've been in Germany there are two reasons. The first was a prolonged period with intermittent internet access, and the second was that when I wasn't working, I was having fun; and when I wasn't doing either of those two things, I was sleeping--not composing blog posts! Hence the long pause. Here begins the rest of the series on what I've been up to over here.


I was recently in Berlin for the fourth time. It felt…familiar. You know, familiar for being a big city in a foreign country. I am very glad I have been lucky enough to travel internationally as much as I have. I was thinking, if finances allow, every young person should travel—at the very least as a tourist for a few days here and there, at the most living somewhere for at least a month. (That’s barely enough time to get used to a new place, discover its gems, etc.) The idea would be to literally broaden his or her horizons and to help against a certain American exceptionalism and/or provincialism, especially if s/he can feel at home. Of course, the problem with feeling at home in more than one place in the world is that no matter where you are, you feel a little homesick.

Sailing ship on top of a pole in Hamburg Rathausplatz.  I imagine sailors often suffered homesickness.

I had never been in Berlin in the winter before, and unfortunately, I don’t have any photographs from my few days there, because it was rainy. But the shopping district along the Kurfurstendamm was all decorated with lights for Christmas. (I arrived 2. Jan.) This time I was staying in a different apartment and working in a different archive, but otherwise the city was much the same as when I left it at the end of July 2011. The same yellow subway cars rang the same “doors closing” chime. There were friendly faces at my old church in Kreuzberg. There was even the familiar detritus of Sylvester (New Year’s Eve) here and there on the ground. And yet Berlin was not the same. The library where I spent most of my time that summer, the Staatsbibliothek Haus 1 Unter den Linden, is closed for renovations. (It was already a construction zone when I was there.) Friedrichstraβe, where I used to ride my bike from Kreuzberg up to the library past Check Point Charlie, was all torn up for the installation of a subway line. And I noticed the church had a new intern. (The previous one was very friendly with me.) I had been afraid that I would not find the needles in the haystack of the new archive, but it worked out so splendidly that I wished I had scheduled a whole week instead of just three days. There's always next time...

For the weekend I decided to visit a friend with a post-doc in Hamburg, just under two hours by train to the northwest. Hamburg was an entirely new city for me. Probably on account of the weather being so wet, I don’t have any particularly fond memories of it, but R.E. and I managed to have a good time nonetheless. I got in Friday evening in time for dinner, an episode of “Elementary,” and some internet time to plan our sightseeing.

Saturday we headed across town to BallinStadt, a museum about the immigration that happened through Hamburg’s harbor to other parts of the world, especially the United States. Consider it the reverse of Ellis Island. (Which, by the way, opened twice in 1890; it burned down the day after the first opening. Did you know that?) BallinStadt is named for the Hamburger Albert Ballin who worked with HAPAG in Hamburg and Lloyd in Bremen to make immigration more profitable for shipping companies. (A robber-baron type committed to the monarchy, he was so distraught at the November 9, 1918 revolution, that he committed suicide on the same day.)

The museum is set up in the few surviving buildings of what used to be a large complex (the three U-shaped halls with green roofs, above). The special exhibition hall was closed, but that was all right, because I thought that the main exhibit offered more than enough for a two-hour visit, and that the extra little bit of exhibit in the third building was superfluous. It was a pretty good museum with a variety of interesting things to look at, read, and listen to. The organizers took care to pull out representative characters from different points in immigration history, i.e. a democrat and failed revolutionary from 1848, a Jewish girl from a Russian shtetl in the Pale of Settlement in 1890, a boy from a working-class family who came over before WWI, and so one. They also discussed immigration not only to North America but also to South America. And there were activities for kids. We both noted that the translations to English were not 1:1, meaning not every sign in German was also rendered in English; and when they were, often the English version was shorter. Nevertheless, by reading around we were able to get all the information we needed.

We went to lunch in the Portuguese Quarter, at a little restaurant serving big pieces of quiche (see left). Next we walked down Deichstrasse, which has the city's oldest buildings, despite being the place where the great fire of 1842 broke out (Zum Brandanfang, below). The buildings are so old (back to the late 17th century) that some of them are listing, as you can see here. After that we visited the city center, including the Rathaus Square and a“Winter Wunderland” market that was still open on Epiphany weekend. We looked and smelled but did not buy.
 

 

Then it was home for a nap and dinner before making our last excursion, to Dialog im Dunkel (Dialog in the Dark). Apparently there are dozens of these museums around the world, but this was the first I had seen of the idea. It is a museum designed by blind individuals to give seeing visitors an experience of interacting with their environment with all of their senses except sight. (Incidentally, there’s a crass sort of joke I could make about how difficult it was to the find the building at the night—they need better signage!) Before the guided tour starts, you have to give up your glasses and watches and turn off your cell phones. They don’t want anything that might accidentally produce some light or a reflection. Everybody gets a white cane to use, and the group follows a guide through rooms that are set up as a park (with bridges!), a warehouse (for touching and smelling), a short “boat ride” in the harbor (complete with splashing water), and a sort of underwater musical adventure that involved lying on the floor to feel the vibrations. We practiced crossing the street to the sound of the clicker on the walk sign, and the whole thing ended an hour and a half later in the Dunkel Bar, where we bought drinks or snacks and realized how difficult it is (without experience) to tell coins apart by touch. Some of the Germans expressed surprise that even the Euro bills are different sizes, although any American who’s been over here probably noticed that fact second (first would have been their different colors). I enjoyed the visit, and we weren't "disabled" by our language skills.

Sunday morning I got up early to make my way to Dresden by way of a long layover in Berlin. I wanted to go to church with my friends, two of whom were celebrating their 40^th wedding anniversary. I should have made my reservation for a later train, and didn't have time to get from south of the city back to the Hauptbahnhof, but the man in the couple has most of the time tables for the public transit system memorized, so he was able to tell me when my train would likely be coming through Südkreuz, and I caught it in time. Next stop: Dresden!

"Frau Doktor Doctor hier"

Editor's note: Since this post was first published, I have added material to the last paragraph. It's true what they say, that when you write something it is never really finished, but this time I think I'm happy with the result.

I managed to discipline myself to bring only two physical books for this month-long research trip. (There’s no telling how many I have in part or in whole on my laptop, of course.) One of the two is an award-winning collection of essays by biologist Lewis Thomas (1913-1993), The Lives of a Cell (1974). I came across a reference to him in my work, probably in teaching prep, and decided these essays, originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, would make a nice bit of light reading on the tram or before bed. Although I wonder what new scientific knowledge has been gained in the intervening forty years, I nevertheless find his musings interesting. He writes about the implications of non-human biology for our understandings of human biology and society. The other night I read a chapter about language and music. He contends that all kinds of animals, from beetles to fish to birds to whales, not only communicate necessary information—“thrush here”—but also make noises for the pleasure of it—in other words, music. This got me to thinking about the noises we humans make to communicate with one another, specifically our various languages and dialects. 

My father once told me that when I had reached the point that I could look at a fork and think “der Gabel,” instead of first having to translate the thing into an English word and then into the German word, then I had really learned German. For simple objects I have since reached that point. For more complicated concepts, I still have to think carefully how to get from thought to speech most directly and yet with the vocabulary I possess. It’s definitely easier to say things that I’ve repeated over and over: my name, where I’m from, what I’m doing in Germany. And yet I enjoy the few chances I have for real conversation with Germans. (The archive is a pretty quiet place; the papers don’t talk back, you know.) Listening to a conversation this past week when I joined my old Bible study in Dresden to finish the Sermon on the Mount (die Bergpredigt) I was marveling at how there is an entire people that makes a certain set of sounds different from my native tongue, and they all agree these sounds mean those things, and when I make them, they understand I mean them too. (Mostly.) 

I am happy to note that my spoken German at least hasn’t gotten any worse since the last time I was in the country. Since I use it almost every day at home, my reading German is pretty good, a 4 on a scale of 5. But I have few opportunities to practice speaking at home, so that skill still hovers around a 3, depending on the situation and how nervous I am. Unsurprisingly, my ability to express myself clearly is almost always directly proportional to my confidence about what I need (to say). (The exception is the past subjunctive, such that although in English I know exactly what I mean, in German I have to figure out which of the verbs in the pile at the end of the sentence to conjugate and how. I remember one Bible study at which I was trying to express what King David should have expected, and the sentence came out all durcheinander.) 

Although my broad American accent gives me away when I speak, when Germans cannot understand me, the fault usually lies in my word choice; however, when I cannot understand them, it is more often because of their accent! I’m spending most of this month in Saxony, which is notorious for the difficulty in understanding its native pronunciation. Especially my first trip here, in 2006, I had a hard time. For example, the archivist who helped me at the Hygiene Museum—a true font of knowledge about that institution—was going on and on about something. I thought she said “Schue” (shoes) but then I realized she meant “Schule” (school)!

I am less likely to encounter a true Saxon accent while I’m working than I am outside the archive. One of the members of my old Bible study and several of the working-class members of my old church have it. I’m sure there are scholarly articles and books on the subject, but from my own pedestrian observation, I note the change of the sound “ei” (aye) into “ai” (ay) and the dropping of the end sounds “ch” and “cht.” So “oh nein” becomes “oh nay” (oh no) and “keine Ahnung” becomes “kay-nuh Ahnung” (no idea). My favorite saying in Sächsisch is “I(ch) vais au’ nee,” or in Hochdeutsch “Ich weiβ auch nicht” (I don’t know either). Most of my German friends seem also to have borrowed from southern Germany/Austria the phrase “ein bissel” for “ein biβchen” (a little).

One of the suppositions Thomas makes is that animals (including humans) make music because of Harold Morowitz’s (1927- ) theory that the universe has an organizing function that counteracts entropy and that allowed living creatures to come into existence. This contravenes the theory that the universe is expanding under the influence of entropy; but that’s okay. DH would probably say that there are some things that are worth expressing—even existential sentiments—that cannot be communicated in spoken or written language that the language(s) of music can express. Well, my medium is the written/spoken word. Thanks for reading these musings of mine. Maybe you can imagine me speaking the words aloud. They're the shapes and sounds I make to indicate "Frau Doktor Doctor hier." As to where "here" is, I'm still writing those posts. Stay tuned!

Germany: There and Back Again

Editor's note: After I posted this, I couldn't believe I had left out the most obvious similarity between me and hobbits. See * for the corrected paragraph.

Dear Husband’s concert schedule allowed us to have New Year’s Eve 2012 to ourselves, and because I was flying out of Chicago to Berlin already on January 1, we decided to spend the day/night in the Windy City. Amazingly we had no weather problems and arrived in time to catch Charlie Brown and the Great Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry with some friends. We also visited the trains (see below). The friends bailed on us to go to a NYE party, so we drove forty minutes across town to check into our hotel. I know the point of a city (relative to a rural area) is to concentrate services and amenities, but I don’t think I could live in Chicago. Maybe there are cohesive neighborhoods amid the sprawl, but I’ll probably just cross it off my “potential residencies” list and look for something smaller. DH is relieved! Who knew when we moved from the East Coast to a Midwest college town that we would like it so much?

Suddenly without plans for the evening, I used the slooow hotel internet to find a steakhouse 15 minutes away that would “squeeze [us] in” if we arrived by 6:15, which we did. (They weren’t busy when we arrived, but they were when we left an hour later.) Steak for him, seafood pasta for me—and a Strawberry Blonde that tasted a little less like cough syrup when I squeezed the garnish lemon into it. We justified the pricey meal with the thought of eating our leftovers for lunch the next day, thereby sparing us the cost of lunch at O’Hare.

Chicago! Trains! Nighttime! (Those are airplanes hanging from the ceiling.)

On our way back to the hotel, I noticed a small movie theater offering The Hobbit. On a whim, we parked the car and walked in to check the next showing—7:25pm! To our chagrin, this theater actually begins the feature film at the time stated on the marquee, but we seem to only have missed 15 minutes of back story on Smaug, which we both knew from reading the books and seeing the animated film. It’s been 15 years since I read The Hobbit, so I had a harder time noticing what Peter Jackson changed, but DH had re-read it just a couple years ago and shifted uncomfortably in his seat more and more toward the end of the movie. In the car afterward he listed off the minor and major details that had been altered, some for the sake of creating a more cohesive film, and others that in his opinion altered the tenor of the story. (Ask him if you want to know the specifics; I don't want to spoil it here.)

Me and the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

I’m feeling a bit like a hobbit.* For one, I am accustomed to eating every two-three hours, including second breakfast almost every day. For two, it would be easiest for me to stay at home, where everything is comfortable and familiar, put my head down, and write. However, I can enjoy an adventure, and this one should even be good for me. In just four and a half weeks, I’m hoping to do necessary follow-up research for two chapters I have already drafted and one I will write this spring that needs better sources. I even left my pocket handkerchief dictionary at home! I didn’t realize it until I was at the airport. Although I frequently read with an internet dictionary open just in case, and I have one on my computer for archives without internet, when I was here on my big research grant I liked having my little yellow Langenscheidt to look words up on the tram or what-not. My German has gotten better, so maybe it is more of a security blanket than a necessity. (By the way, Linus from Peanuts is responsible for introducing the term “security blanket” into our vernacular!)

Despite a lazy morning and having chosen a hotel near the airport, we ended up rushing there, making several wrong turns, and nearly getting me there too late to check my bags. Nevertheless, I had time to eat my leftovers for lunch before waiting in the plane, still at the gate, for an hour for mechanical repairs before we finally took off. The flight was long enough to get uncomfortable but too short to get much sleep. I zombied my way through a day at the archive and am posting this from the apartment of a departmental colleague. I’m staying with friends in three of the four cities I’m visiting on this trip, so like the intrepid band of 14 in J.R.R. Tolkein’s book, I will enjoy a lot of luck on my journey and don’t have to be entirely self-sufficient.

With blessings for the new year,

Frau Doktor Doctor and Dr. Dear Husband

Blurry holiday greetings from us to you!

An Alternative Christmas

Merry Christmas, y'all!

It occurs to me that among holidays, Christmas requires even more advanced preparation in order to be able to celebrate as we are accustomed to on the day itself than some of the others. One could come home from work on October 31 and ransack one's closet for a costume to wear to a Halloween party that night. As long as the turkey isn't frozen, one could pick it up from the grocery store the day-of, along with some fixin's, and enjoy the day with friends and football with a minimum of fuss. (Generally speaking, fuss is directly proportional to the length of the guest list and the size of the meal.) But Christmas? To carry on as usual and then drop everything for 1-2.5 days (or 12, depending on country and tradition) would be...weird. Insufficient. Sudden. I guess that's why Advent is the season of waiting and preparation, huh? Christmas seems to require a holiday meal and baked goodies, presents that have to purchased and wrapped (and sometimes shipped) ahead of time, greeting cards with a newsletter to family and friends we may have been ignoring the rest of the year, and of course decorations around the house: fresh-chopped fir tree and nativity scenes inside, lights on the eaves and bushes outside. It wouldn't be Christmas without those things--would it?

I find myself particularly crunched for time this year, because I am trying to finish a semester of teaching (that means grading), and a dissertation chapter (personal deadline: Dec. 31), and a lot of paperwork. The paperwork is for various financial aid and fellowships for next academic year (August 2012-May 2013) and is due to my department by Feb. 1, but instead of using January for a "break" (and applications), I'm flying to Germany for research instead. That has required quite of a bit of preparation, too! Thankfully I have been able to make time for "Christmas" this Advent season. Here are some of the slightly... "alternative" ways I've been celebrating.

If Rainbow Brite celebrated Christmas, this is what the lights
on the bushes in her front yard would look like. Also: snow!

Seculo-Religious Party
At my department's annual holiday party, it has recently become a tradition, once most of the guests have left, for Dear Husband to play the host's piano while the rest of us sing. My one adviser is German by extraction and not otherwise religious but insists that we only sing proper Christmas songs. However, he left early this year with his young children, so the rest of us mixed "O Come All Ye Faithful" with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." And ended the night belting out Beatles tunes and "Born to Be Wild."

Deconstructed Christmas
Every year one of the pastors at church writes "an alternative" Christmas play. This isn't your traditional pageant with the oldest boy and girl playing Joseph and Mary, three kings, some shepherds, and a gaggle of kindergartners as angels. Rather, it's a "deconstructed" drama set some time in modern history (usually "the present," but last year it was set in the 1950s). And it grapples with "the true meaning of Christmas," what Joseph might have said to Mary, or how Christians can best practice discipleship in the world today. It's an all-church production involving the praise band, chancel choir, children's choirs, teen band, and youth and adult actors. Of all the Christmas dramas I've seen here, I thought this year's was the best. "Stealing Christmas" tackled church hospitality, pastoral burn-out, vandalism, homelessness, and illegal immigration.

Road-Trip Christmas, Part 1
A member of our congregation is living 1.5 hours away at a facility with the nursing staff to accommodate her respirator, which she uses because of advanced ALS. One of her friends organized a bunch of us to go caroling there last Sunday afternoon. We caravaned over, sang for her and some of the other residents, and then drove on back. I'd like to think that the elderly woman who held my hand and cried was moved to tears by the gesture rather than the poor quality of our singing, as our renditions of "Joy to the World" and "Frosty the Snowman" were more heartfelt than tuneful.

Christmas by Proxy
Our Bible study group has a tradition of shopping at the local Toys R Us for the Marines' Toys For Tots charity. We get to wander around the store, reliving our childhoods and critiquing the current taste in playthings. After purchasing some Legos, board games, stuffed animals, outdoor toys, and plastic dinosaurs, we go next door to the Barnes & Noble for Starbucks hot drinks and conversation until they kick us out at closing time. One of my brothers requested a donation to charity this year instead of presents, so DE, these are "for you"!

DIY Christmas
Dear Husband recorded a Christmas CD of organ music earlier this year. I recently created the cover art for the jewel cases by cutting down old Christmas cards. This was a waaay more satisfying way to spend a morning than slogging through some dull scientific text in German. (Yes, those exist!) Some of these CDs are gifts for family, and the rest are going to elderly churchfolk for whom the holiday will be especially tough. I like the orange one on the far right, the only one we haven't given away yet.

Road-Trip Christmas, Part 2
DH and I live away from family, so the second part of our road-trip Christmas will be driving to his parents' house on Christmas Day. We will eat a family dinner and open presents with the kids that night. I hear there's also a trip to the aquarium in the works. We'll drive back home in time to go to the big city for New Year's Eve--I'll try to post an entry about that quick trip before I fly off to Germany. Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Twelve Days of Christmas Tree Ornaments

For my first but hopefully not only Advent/Christmas post this year, I decided to do a holiday mash-up: Advent calendar meets Catholic catechism disguised as the second-most-annoying Christmas song.* Each "window" on the Christmas tree opens to reveal a story about that ornament. You can sing along to the final verse at the bottom.

1--This clear glass ball filled with orange confetti and adorned with an Orioles logo is one of several tokens harkening back to our years in Charm City. (Another is the metal silhouette of the downtown skyline you can see next to the number "1" on the tree.) Both were gifts my father picked out.

2--When DH and I got married, good friends JS and DS gave us a beautiful boxed set of wedding-themed glass ornaments. Every year I make sure at least the bride and groom make it onto the tree.

3--Cookies, crafts, camping, songs--all things I associate with Girl Scouts. As a small reminder of those experiences, here is a beaded wreath I made in Juniors.

4--Wanting to do something different than the stereotypical angel tree topper (and secretly knowing I would not be able to find an angel I liked better than the one my parents have), I purchased this beaten-aluminum star made in Mexico from our local Ten Thousand Villages shop the first year we got a tree for our apartment.

5--Last Christmas DH's parents gave him a Klingon Bird of Prey ornament. You plug it into the socket of one of the lights on the tree, and it shoots photon torpedoes. Or at least that's what the manual that came with it claims.

6--Candy canes. Because every multi-media collage should have an edible component, and the apples the local farmers market sells are too big to tie onto the branches. Plus, I would eat all the apples. Every year DH says he will eat the candy canes, but he always forgets. So I will try to pawn half of these off on friends and end up throwing away the rest, since I discovered the hard way that rodents can smell pure sugary goodness through a sealed plastic bag. The year I tried to store a perfectly good box of unopened candy canes in the garage for the next Christmas I came back to a pure, sugary mess.

7--A German tradition is to hang a green glass pickle among the branches of the Christmas tree. Whoever finds it first will receive good luck (and an extra present!). With just the two of us, we take turns hiding the pickle. DH didn't do a very good job this time...

8--This is a ceramic snow hare perched on a long icicle. My grandparents brought me and my brothers one each as a souvenir after their cruise along the coast of Alaska. DH--channeling one of our pastors!--told me it looked like "a bunny sh*tting an icicle." I...I got nuthin' on that.

9--Being a musician and a music teacher, DH frequently receives music-themed gifts. Our tree boasts two of them this year: the metal eighth note you see here and an O-gauge wooden grand piano deeper in the branches. (On a related note, DH probably owns enough music-themed neckties to open his own kiosk at the mall. Our future children will be prohibited from taking this easy way out on Father's Day!)

10--I made this ornament out of a clam shell I found at the beach when we got engaged. It hangs from a rustic-looking piece of hemp with the tag "I can see what is important." TheKnot has taken down our website, or I would link you to that to read our story. Basically, in the morning DH lost his glasses in the surf, and while walking on the beach as the sun set that night, he proposed. While discussing our future together he uttered that line. Thankfully, I believed him.

11--This is a hand-made, cross-stitched Chrismon like the ones used to decorate the Christmas trees in the sanctuary of the church where I grew up (and met DH). The ladies of the church made them. Each one had a different symbol, like a crown, a sheep and shepherd's crook, or a fish. This one is a Star of David. I would guess it was purchased at the annual bazaar (or "bizarre," as the signs read one year).

12--This is a bear sitting in a wreath cross-stitched into an oval and fringed with white lace. My name and "1990" are written on the back, so I suspect it was a gift from my next-door neighbor or another of the elderly women who acted as "in-town grandparents" while we were growing up.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for,

"On the twelfth day of Christmas we decorate the tree (with) twelve kinds of cross-stitch, eleven cryptic Chrismons, ten smelly sea shells, nine nods to music, eight souvenirs, seven green glass pickles, six candy canes, fiiiiive Klingon birds-of-preeeeey, fo-ur metal stars, three beaded wreaths, two sparkly lovers, a-and o-one Or-i-oles ball!" Plus three strands of plastic beads and a string of white lights. Apologies about the scansion--I numbered the rectangles before I got around to writing the lyrics.

What's on your tree?


* Dear Husband is of the opinion that "Sleigh Ride" is the most annoying Christmas song. You are welcome to disagree with him in the comments.

Real Housewife of Champaign County

Chatting with Dear Husband from the ladder while installing aluminum covers over the gutters of our house on Saturday afternoon, I jokingly asked whether he thought my life would be worth a reality television show. The last week had been momentous, and with my needle-nosed pliers in hand, I was feeling particularly accomplished. He replied that we may have been to two parties in as many days, but I would have to bad-mouth the neighbors while hanging out the laundry if I expected to be (in)famous. So my turn on the celebrity D-list seems to have ended before it ever began. Nevertheless, I would like to remember what happened over the last week of November 2012--when the TA and GA union managed to avoid a second strike in as many contract cycles--so I present it here to you in sketch form.

Monday: Having finished drafting her fourth dissertation chapter (of six) more than a month ahead of schedule, Frau Doktor Doctor went back to Chapter 1 to begin the editing process. She spent the early afternoon observing contract negotiations at the University and the late afternoon teaching her undergraduate students about NGOs engaged in treating and curing tuberculosis in countries like South Africa and Peru. Fell asleep reading a colleague's diss chapter after dinner and therefore had the energy to join a minor act of civil disobedience on campus: a "work-in" at the Union that lasted all night (the building officially closed at midnight). Did some committee work while others played cards, edited the union's history for its webpage,  "slept" on a couch.

Graduate students "occupy the union" to demand a fair contract.

Tuesday: Worked from home until early afternoon when it became evident that major decisions were being made in caucus, so took the bus to campus to participate. Witnessed the tentative agreement signing that forestalled a possible strike. Ran the sound board for the union meeting. Kept a Skype date with a friend. Fell asleep during Bible Study.

Wednesday: Dissertated all morning, taught in the afternoon, joined the colloquium to discuss her colleague's chapter (which she had since finished reading). Had drinks briefly before attending a teaching seminar on "how to hold effective group discussions." Went to choir practice to rehearse Sunday's liturgical dance.

Thursday: Dissertated an impressive 8 hours in and around chatting up the neighbor who decided to hire a tree-removal service to cut down all the branches of the two large trees growing in our yard that extend over the property line into her yard. Apparently she had discussed this with the previous home owners (i.e. at least 5 years ago) and had recently decided something absolutely had to be done about it and as soon as possible so she never got around to asking/telling us about it. Hung wet laundry on her lines because the arborists were working in our yard.

Help out! Donate for
tuberculosis
(Switzerland, 1956)

Friday: More dissertating in the morning, financial aid meeting at noon, and then teaching prep. Frau Doktor Doctor considered the day's lesson a complete success: two pairs of teams debated whether it was ethical, socially responsible, cost-effective, and/or medically necessary to (in)voluntarily isolate individuals infected with either active tuberculosis or with HIV. The two cases are not entirely equivalent, but that was the point: does it matter whether the infection is curable or life-long? The students seemed really taken with utilitarian arguments about the good of the many out-weighing the good of the few. Even though the current international standard of public health practice is community-base, out-patient care of TB (via DOTS)--because most patients are not infectious after two weeks of treatment--the students in the audience voted unanimously that the team arguing for (in)voluntary isolation had made the better arguments. This may be because the team fudged a little on the length of treatment in closing statements (leaning toward 2 weeks instead of the 6 months required for treatment and outlined in the debate guidelines). The second vote was much closer: 5 to 4 in favor of allowing individuals infected with HIV their freedom. This may be because the student delivering the closing statement for the "con" team made a slippery-slope argument about human rights and even played the "Hitler" card. Frau Doktor Doctor tried not to laugh at the audaciousness of the move but did not disqualify it.

She was able to slip in to hear most of the job talk by a fellow historian of medicine before taking the bus home and prepping for a potluck dinner. After some mulled wine that was strong enough to get someone drunk just from the smell of it, she and Dear Husband slipped out early to go home but fell asleep before getting around to the movie they were going to watch (GATTACA).

After seven years of marriage and four Christmases in this house, we decided we were ready to graduate to nets of colored lights on the bushes out front. Because we're running out of replacement bulbs, half of each strand of white lights blinks, as the photo demonstrates. Don't the gutter covers look nice?

Saturday: After a trip to the farmers/holiday market, Frau Doktor Doctor decided to make the most of the unseasonably warm weather to hang another load of laundry, the Christmas lights, and some new gutter covers. No one was bad-mouthed. The evening was spent at another holiday party: she attended as a "sexy elf" (green dress, red scarf, and fishnets); DH went as a "sexy dreidel" (navy Dockers, blue-striped sweater, and blue sports coat).

Sunday: Attended the contemporary worship service to practice sign language. Danced with the children at the main service to an inspiring rendition of "Kumbaya" (really!). Did committee work all afternoon and evening while "watching" football at a friend's place. Much sleep. Being a real housewife of Champaign County is exhausting! But sometimes satisfying.