My noble plans to blog regularly during my weeks home in America bore little fruit in the end. It turned out that I spent practically no time connected to the tubes while I was away, and it turned out that that was exactly what I wanted. I needed a break in the physical sense; a clean partition between me and the past. The winter is unkind to me, spiritually and emotionally, and this winter was no exception. My vacation had its desired impact, though, and I feel recharged and again ready to face the world with the vivacity for which I am known the other nine months of the year.
The last two days I've made very solid headway on my thesis. My intention still stands to bring my pontifications on the subject of my studies to this blog from time to time. At the moment, however, I am mostly focused on my literature review and the history of the senmin. The former being of little interest to anyone not researching the same topic as I and the latter already having been discussed here, I'm left with no option but to beg patience of any of you who are interested in that part of this blog.
Re-reading what I've just written, I realize that my voice is a bit different than usual. The reason is that I've read three Isaac Asimov books in the last week (Foundation, Prelude to Foundation and Robots and Empire), and the rather professorial rhythm of his writing has, I've discovered, imprinted itself on my brain. This happens to me whenever I read an author for a long stretch. Or watch him, for that matter - I suspect I drive my poor wife to distraction with my wise-cracking when I've been watching Aaron Sorkin for long stretches. Fortunately, the style of prose that I've been infected with suits my thesis perfectly, so I'll just let it be for the time being.
This rambling post has little if any point. America was grand; thank you for your company if you were there to share it with me, and my apologies to those of my friends who were missed. I had intended more extensive travels, but the weather simply refused to cooperate. I fully intend to throw a party to celebrate my wedding on my next trip home, though (what with the average marriage lasting some seven years, I figure we're good for at least twenty-one if we celebrate three times), and I hope that this will give me the chance to catch up with everyone I've missed.
Look forward to my further ramblings and thoughts at a later date.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
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Glad you're back, Benni. Are you coming to visit once you're back in DE?
ReplyDeleteI like "Benni" :). I usually spell it "Benny" in English and "Beni" in Japanese, but I suppose "Benni" would actually be how you'd spell it in German.
ReplyDeleteI imagine I'll drop by at least once to say goodbye to everyone. We had that pizza party, but at the time everyone thought I'd be coming back to work in February. Maybe I can guilt our bosses into a box of doughnuts ;).