Wow, it seems like the New Year just started and already, the first twelfth of 2010 has flown by.
Its been a crazy month. We started the year in Boston (or more specifically Needham), where we conducted a highly scientific experiment intended to determine whether or not cable television executives had planned their presentation of Pearl Harbor on December 31st such that the attack sequence would coincide with the ball drop and the beginning of 2010... Sadly they did not.
From there, we headed to Switzerland, where we sledded down a mountain and attempted to cook a pizza using only a stove-top grill-pan and the top of a Raclette stove (yes, this one definitely belongs in the crazy kitchen incidents file--unfortunately, there are once again no pictures... But maybe a description of the event to come).
Finally, we returned to Munich, where we managed to score free tickets to "see" the Bavarian State Opera's presentation of Madama Butterfly from the standing room in the back of the third level of the far right of the Bavarian National Theater (the tickets were actually rejected by some other starving students before we got our hands on them...).
In the meantime, I am planning a research trip to the thrilling town of Karlsruhe, future home of the Karlsruhe Insitute of Technology, an institution intended to rival its trans-Atlantic competitor MIT. Jamie is directing an English language book club, working on her plans for next fall, preparing to travel to fabulous Miami, Florida, meeting with her language partners, teaching English, and babysitting. One of us is clearly busy...
Due to my lack of a schedule, I've had plenty of time to slam my head against the wall and feel like my dissertation isn't much closer to happening now than it was eight months ago when I defended my prospectus. Luckily, I've been enjoying the winter weather (its nice to get back to it, and also amazing how much colder everything feels after three winters in Chapel Hill--that is, until you hear from a friend in Russia who is excited that the temperature has recently jumped ten degrees...to -28.).
Anyway, aside from the fact that it has snowed pretty much everyday since we returned to Germany (although there are only a few inches of accumulation and no sign that more snow will ever stick here), the thing I like most about getting back to winter is having real seasons again--now that the big Christmas excitement is over, and there isn't Gluehwein flowing on every street corner, winter has really settled in. Its time to eat soups, drink hot beverages, and understand why people in Switzerland eat nothing but cheese and chocolate half of the year. At the same time, as winter wears on, its time to start looking forward to spring, which for the first time in three years, sounds wonderful, because it doesn't just mean that its time to brace myself for the heat wave of horrific proportions called known as summer in North Carolina...
Anyway, to put all of this rambling (and not working on my dissertation) to an end, I wanted to note one other important (and extremely sad) event of the new year. Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States and really, in my opinion at least, the embodiment of everything good that historians can be and do, passed away at the age of 87 on Wednesday.
Zinn's work is inspirational to me because he wrote history in a way that challenges the status-quo, was read by the general public, and eventually was even used as a text book in all kinds of high school and college courses--not the sort of thing that many professional historians can put on their cv's. Much more importantly, though, I think Zinn used his status as a Professor to do so much in the community--another thing that most professors seem to shy away from. His credentials were at least a small part of the reason that people took notice when he spoke out against three different wars and participated in all kinds of strikes, protests, and movements. And Zinn used his research and his academic training to inform his activism. He also pushed the limits of what historians are supposed to do and how they are supposed to write, and inspired just about everyone I remember working with on political causes in Massachusetts. He was a historian who made a difference. He will definitely be sorely missed.
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