Am Ende der Maifeiertage

Today is the last of the Maifeiertage (May – mostly Easter-related – holidays). Since the first of May, there have been three holidays: Maifest, Himmelfahrt, and Pfingsten (May Day, Ascension, and Pentecost). Since Maifest and Himmelfahrt occurred on a Tuesday and a Thursday, respectively, they also included Brücketage – bridge days between the weekend and the holiday, that, while not officially off, most everyone took off anyway. So, in summary, the month of May had two four-day weekends and one three-day weekend.

Since this is the last official day off in a while, I figure I should stop procrastinating (by now you should know that this is one of my more prominent qualities) and really say something of substance on this forum, instead of the random bits of fluff that I have been posting lately – all of those holidays are hard work, and do not lead to a lot of free time for extensive blogging. Speaking of which, I will eventually get around to uploading the pictures that were taken at Maifest of the burning man, etc, and other random pictures that have been taken, most notably, at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg, where I went on the last holiday weekend. I also hope to get some pictures of the Bootshäuser (Boathauses) and around the city at some point, but it had been scattered thunderstormy for the last couple weeks, so I never get around to getting out to do it…

Just to bring you up to speed on things here: I have just about two months left before I head back to the States. I am just about done with my main project for work, and have a large internal report to look forward to writing in the next month in a half. Crew is going crewingly, last week we were able to get out in an eight and it felt really good to be sweeping again after months of scull (there might still be hope that I will not lose my newly found stroke from last semester). This week is Excursionswoche (Excursions week), hence there is no class and I am off to Paris on Wednesday and then my mother will be coming in on Monday for a week. (I have twenty Urlaubstage – (paid) holiday days – I might as well use them.) Then I am back to the grind, finishing up the last bits of things that need to be done before I leave.

Better than a Ham Sandwich

If any of you are familiar with my novice coach's favourite sentence 'A ham sandwich could row that seat better than you.' (He had some other favourites, but they were not sentences, nor repeatable.) Then you might be interested to know that a Ham Sandwich is running as a write in canidate for Prince William County (Virginia) Commonwealth Attorney. Saying that Hamilton 'Ham' Sandwich, Esq. 'will perform with the same skill and tenacity as the current office holder, and best of all is incapable of engaging in personal vendettas against political enemies.'

Pachelbel

Here is a fabulous rant on Pachelbel's Canon on YouTube.

PS: You would think that I would post more with this four day weekend. Oh well, maybe I will get around to writing something tomorrow.

Boiler Up!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

To the Purdue University Crew Team, for an outstanding preformance at the Dad Vail's Regatta this year! We swept the Varsity Eight Races, and the WJV boat got bronze in their race! I wish I could have been there in person, instead I was here in Deutschland following the results getting posted on the web. Here is an article on row2k.

This is a Technical University you say?

If you are ever wondering what kind of university you have found yourself at, the easiest way to figure it out is to go to the nearest wall with flyers posted on it, and look for something similar to this:

No matter where you are, what country or language you speak, there is one thing that is ubiquitous when a bunch of geeks are in close proximity to each other.

One perspective...

The following excerpt was taken from an article in Slate about an obscure correlation between presidential popularity and the strength of the dollar (both of which, at the moment, are quite weak):

"The dollar today may buy fewer BMWs and Prada shoes than it did in 2002,
but it buys about the same amount of Chinese-made microwaves, T-shirts, and
toys. And yes, Americans who suddenly find travel to Europe prohibitively
expensive might be expected to come home enraged. But most of these
travelers already hated Bush. An August 2004 poll showed that voters with passports preferred John Kerry to Bush by a whopping 23-point margin."

This is another illustration of something that I have noticed for quite a while, and since living in Europe, I have found even more striking: the people more likely to travel abroad are the ones who are the most dissatisfied with America-- be it politics, culture or whatever. You will very rarely find your stereotypical American living in Europe, for any amount of time. Some of them might do a little travelling, but they are still more likely to stay at home. Which is one reason why it is so sad that they are the American stereotype. But, as with all stereotypes, they are the ones that stick out and, hence, are the one that are noticed as opposed to their quiet, respectful, culturally oriented counterparts. All of the Americans that I have met, who are living in Europe, lean strongly to the left and are just as appalled at the state of American politics and foreign policy as the majority of Europe.

In my opinion, this can all be traced to the fact that the people who choose to live abroad are more open to foreign cultures and people, and are not impressed with themselves in the world as American citizens, but find more value in being citizens of the world. Which leads to Europeans saying (as one of my colleagues has complained) that they never get any real Americans, just the ones who do not act like how a lot of Europeans think that Americans should act.

Informationsaufnahmemöglichkeit

The above is a word taken from my Flugmedizinvorlesung (Flight Medicine lecture), and really, in the scheme of things, it is not that long at all. One thing that you must know about Germans, is that they love to make up words. It is quite acceptable German to stick together a bunch of words and make a new word out of them. This is so de rigueur, that they have their own word for ‘made-up words’: das Kunstwort, which itself is a compound word of Kunst ‘art’ and Wort ‘word’. That direct translations just about sums up about how Germans think of making up words: To them, it is an art form.

In case you are wondering, the title word is made up of Information ‘information’, Aufnahme ‘reception’ and Möglichkeit ‘possibility/potential’, which renders it as being a really fancy way of saying the possibility of receiving information. This word could have been taken farther, as the phrase that it came from was Informationsaufnahmemöglichkeit des Menschen ‘the potential for receiving information of people’ when it could easily have been Menschensinformationsaufnahmemöglichkeit ‘the human potential for the reception of information’. All of that, packed into one word. Ah, the power of Deutsch.

PS: Today is Cinco de Mayo (thin’ko day My’o, as opposed to sink’o day Mayo, since I am learning Spanish from a Spaniard and not a Mexican… though it is a Mexican holiday…) and Derby Day (der’by day, as opposed to dar’by day, but, since the Queen is visiting, the latter might be acceptable... though it is Kentucky...).