Thanksgiving was nice. Actually it was really nice because I dodged all the snow that the North got while I was down South. I flew back up here on Sunday and was greeted by snow everywhere on the ground in Hartford. But it was all melted by the time I got south enough into New Haven.

I got some GREAT news yesterday: my Danish language fellowship has been renewed for another semester! This basically means Yale will fork out another few thousand bucks for me to keep learning Danish. I'm so happy about this...I'm having such a great time learning Danish.

I got some more GREAT news today: I got a job at the Manuscripts Unit at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library here at Yale. Basically, the Beinecke (as we call it) is one of the largest, if not the largest, buildings in the world dedicated solely to rare materials. We have everything from ancient Egyptian papyrus scrolls, first edition Shakespeare first folios, Gutenberg Bible, first edition Dante's Divine Comedy, James Madison's diary of the Constitutional Convention, and so so so much more. And I now get to work with all of the Western European manuscripts that are in the library, which are mostly from the pre-printing press era (pre-1450). This is my thing...if any subject I study 'gets me out of bed in the morning,' it would be medieval Western European history. So this is definitely a dream job for me. It requires an extensive background check since I'll be handling some materials worth well upwards of $10,000,000. I really can't express how happy I am to get this job, even it is my 3rd job I'll have (like third job as in I am now working three different jobs at the same time). I'll be busy next semester, but it'll be worth it.

I had my Italian oral exam, which is a part of my final exam, today and it went really well. It was with a grad student from Italy and it went much more like a fun conversation than an oral exam, which is the point.

Tonight I came back to my room from Rite Aid to find everyone evacuated from my building where I live and firemen everywhere rushing up the stairs of my entryway as smoke billowed out all windows in huge white plumes. As luck would have it, two girls who live a floor below me were doing an art project and set the room on fire. This wasn't a small fire; it was a big fire...like their rooms are basically destroyed. But everybody is okay. The sprinklers went off everywhere, but luckily not in my suite. There was so much smoke in my room when I was able to come up here again, and I had to sneak back in through an old attic crawlspace that spans the entire building since firemen were still trying to get the sprinklers off in my entryway. So I've been airing out my suite for the past hour. Like, since when do residential fires actually happen? I know we always prepare for them, but it's kind of strange when it actually happens.

I've been getting lots of work done lately...the idea is to spend a LOT of time working now, so when I go home for Thanksgiving my stress levels are low and I don't have to spend all my time working. I've made great progress.

My Danish classes have been going great lately... I honestly think I'm better at Danish now than I am at Spanish or Italian. And that's really exciting for me, because I honestly enjoy the Danish language a bit more...it's so much fun to speak. And Danes are fun people to talk to anyways...they're usually really fun and happy! When speaking Danish to a Dane, there will inevitably be lots of laughing, because the non-native speaker(me) will have difficulty pronouncing a word, and then it sounds even sillier than it does when pronounced correctly.

Every Monday and Friday, the days I have my Danish class, my teacher, my classmate and I probably laugh just as much as we speak. Good times are had by all.

I'm a coordinator for NLVS, New Live Volunteering Society, an organization at Yale solely dedicated to working with veterans in the community. I am in the process of spearheading a new program with the West Haven VA Hospital/ psychiatric ward that would pair students up with veterans in a monitored environment (not by themselves) as workout accountability buddies. I've had quite a bit of interest from lots of students and from the West Haven VA Hospital. There are lots of young male and female veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq that would love to have a workout partner, and same with students here. It's a win-win...it helps the veterans re-integrate into society, and both parties have a bit more accountability when it comes to exercising.
I'm really excited about the prospects of this program.

I was going to head into New York City this past weekend to get away for a day, but I was just so bogged down with work. Maybe I'll be able to take some time and head down there for a day once I'm back up here in January.

It won't be long until I'm back home for Thanksgiving!

Lately I have become more and more obsessed with this research  of mine. I suppose there's a certain allure to researching and writing about something that just hasn't been researched before. It's a good problem to have --- much better than not caring enough about my term papers.

On a bright note, I'm in the middle of listening to Jackson Browne's new album...Yep, he released a new album this year. I really like his older stuff, and so far I like this new album. It's actually not too far from his old stuff, and he still sounds like himself (as opposed to an older man with a noticeably aged voice).

Other than that, things are rocking along really smoothly I suppose. I do lots of language studying between Danish and Italian.

It's still surprising how beautiful the Fall is up here in New England... I will be honest and say that rural New England, not urban areas like New Haven, is probably the most beautiful place in America in the Fall.

Lately I have been spending quite a bit of time at our Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading and analyzing the book I mentioned before, Relationi Universali by Giovanni Botero. The good thing is, I don't necessarily even need my roommate to help me translate...the book is a description of the world (including the New World), which is easy to read! I mean, describing places and people is basically lesson #1 of any language course, and combining that with my background in Spanish gets me somewhere to around an 85% comprehension rate for this book. The even cooler thing is that we have multiple editions of this book...one from 1601, one from 1617, and one from 1623. Each version is updated with the new information the conquistadors learned in the New World. 

This is why I love studying history here so much... the history classes here require term papers to be done using primary documents. So instead of reading articles about the New World, I'm able to head on over to the Rare Book library and read a book printed in 1601 about the New World. It is a window into exactly what they thought of the New World at the time. It takes away the middlemen academics from the equation... I don't have to rely on anyone but myself to interpret the primary sources. Also, being able to apply language skills is incredibly helpful when researching Europe; if I only had English to rely on, I'd be cutting out a lot of research options. 

This is a map foldout from the book from 1623 of the New World. Sorry, I didn't feel like re-editing the photo to make it upright.

The page below discusses "In which ways our World is superior to the New one"

I think it's so cool to read books from old printing presses hundreds of years ago. I love to woodcut print art.

The "v" and "u" were the same back then in some cases...they still used the Latin alphabet more strictly at that time and hadn't quite made the complete transition to using the "u"

We have to be really careful with old books like this...You are given two foam blocks to rest the book on, and a cloth sack filled with small marbles to hold the page open.

The note below was written in the front of book. I can't understand a bit of it. I can only read the "Io" at the beginning, which means "I" in Italian...as in "I am..." But it's still cool to see notes like this.

Oh yeah, fall colors are all around campus!

So I'm enjoying this term paper on the American West and the implications of the globally expanding Catholic Church in the New World. It's the kind of thing I don't mind doing on a Saturday afternoon. 

On a sad note, Alan the Sumatran orangutan died yesterday at the Atlanta Zoo. RIP Alan. He was 43 years old. 

Well, Thanksgiving break is in two weeks. The goal is to finish my 25 page research paper on Southern Labor History in the Fulton Cotton Mills of Atlanta, to finish my 10 page research paper on the New World, and to study Econ a good bit (that class isn't going too well). 

Wow I haven't posted in a long time. For those of you that may actually still check this page, here's an update:

My classes are going well this semester... I'm actually doing really well in Italian, The American West, and The American South. Econ is a different story, but life goes on. :-)
My Danish studies are also really starting to pay off. My teacher is really starting to push me to the limits during our sessions by making me speak as sophisticated as possible. Instead of asking simple questions, he'll have a conversation with me about complex issues that in turn require an in-depth usage of the language. It's hard work and tiring, but really helpful.

I guess my Italian studies are about to pay off in a small way - Thursday I am going to Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library to do research on a series of volumes published by an Italian thinker in the late 1500's. He made some pretty ridiculous (and intellectually stimulating) drawings of what he thought native americans in the New World would look like. My roommate, who is from Milan, Italy is also going with me to help translate since this is complex 16th century Italian (not exactly something in level 1 Italian is fully up to reading). Check one of the pictures out:

I'm really excited to head home for Thanksgiving in a couple weeks. I'm also knee-deep in research for a 25 page term paper for my American South class in which I am writing on the post-World War II economic globalization and technological progress as it pertained to the Atlanta Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills and their decline then ultimately the shut-down in the 1970's. It's a mix of economics and history, and it's really neat because nobody has ever really written on the Southern textile industry in the post-war years. I'm using mostly primary documents too, so it's original research. 

I promise to post more often!

Today I wrote my first essay (it's a small one) in Danish, which is definitely a step in the right direction! It's pretty simple, but the mere fact that Danish grammar is so difficult to learn makes me happy that I was able to type this out:

I dag jeg har eksamen af økonomi og det var svært. Efter det, jeg går gik til italiensk klasse. Jeg studere italiensk ofte, og  jeg taler italiansk godt. Det italiensk sprog er svarende til spansk, og jeg taler spansk meget godt. Så, italiensk er nem for mig, fordi jeg taler spansk meget godt.

I sommer jeg rejste til Danmark på mit første rejse til Danmark. Jeg har mange familiemedlemmer i Danmark, og det mest bor i København. Én kusine bor i Vanløse og arbejder nær rådhuspladsen. Én mere kusine bor i Christianshavn og arbejder på et Palace Hotel i rådhuspladsen. Min grandonkel Svend bor i Ballerup og ikke arbejder. Han er pensioneret. Svend er det bror af min farmor. Han har en hyggeligt lejlighed og laver hans mad hver dag.

              

and since virtually nobody reads Danish except for Danish people, here's the translation:

"Today I had an economics exam and it was difficult. After that, I went to italian class. I study Italian often, and I speak it well. The italian language is similar to spanish, and I speak spanish very well. So, italian is easy for me, since I speak spanish so well. 

This summer I travelled to Denmark for my first trip there. I have a lot of family members in Denmark, and most of them live in Copenhagen. One cousin lives in Vanloese and works near the town square. Another cousin lives in Christianhavn and works at the Palace Hotel in the town square. My Great-Uncle Svend lives in Ballerup and doesn't work because he is retired. Svend is my grandmother's (dad's mom's) brother. He has a cozy apartment and cooks his own meals every day."

I'm very pleased with that little essay. 

On Friday i went to the Jewish center to celebrate the end of the jewish year with my roommates.  It was actually a really nice dinner,  and am interesting experience!  I think we're going to do this dinner every Friday night as a "family dinner." Although my roommates and I stay very busy,  we always try to have at least two dinners per week where we all eat together. 

As I'm sitting here listening to my 1980's hits playlist on the computer, I remembered that I should blog. I'm busier academically than I ever have been.

This year I have so many languages rolling around in my head... For my language credits at Yale, I'm studying Italian, and that's 5 days every week, only taught in Italian (no English allowed...even to ask a question in class). In a matter of three and a half weeks, I have gone from knowing nothing in Italian to writing three different essays in Italian, and being able to talk and understand my roommate who is from Milan when we talk. The language program here is really rigorous, but it teaches the languages phenomenally well.

On top of that, I'm incredibly afraid of losing my ability to speak Spanish fluently because  I am learning Italian and the two are so similar. So, I end up trying to read the news and watch a couple short news programs in Spanish every day or two.

And then on top of that, I am also taking Danish language classes privately taught through a language fellowship I won. I meet with my teacher twice per week, and he is already making me write an essay in Danish. That is incredibly difficult...I can understand the spoken language pretty well, but I have a really hard time writing my thoughts out in the language... so I suppose writing in Danish regularly is a good thing to do.

So it's a daily battle to continually hone my language skills, and switch from thinking in english to Danish to Italian to Spanish. My roommates and I speak Spanish in the suite so that we don't forget it, so that helps.

I also wanna post a sunset I took from my bedroom window last week.

Last night I commuted into  New York City to meet two of my cousins from Denmark, and it was a great time! I also was happy to spot one of the diesel locomotives of Amtrak at the New Haven train station. I took the train into Grand Central and then we went out to dinner.

And today, I got two packages from home! How great?!
I'm tired right now, but I'll post more details tomorrow evening.

I've really gotta get this whole regular blogging schedule down. I am now going to shoot for twice per week, but I'll see if I can do more. I'm less busy and more busy all at the same time this year. But anyways, here's some pictures of my last week.

I got my Georgia flag up on my wall, and I like it. I think it looks nice over the fireplace.

Yesterday I walked with my roommate to get some good fresh doughnuts...square doughnuts. I ate them before I could get pictures, so I have no pictures of the square doughnuts. Rest assured that Krispy Kreme is much better than this though. 

And then for lunch we went to Louis' Lunch...the first hamburger joint in America. It's still just as it was back when it opened over 100 years ago. Really good hamburgers too! 

The blog is BACK!

There wasn't anything to post about the last week or two in Cambridge since I was basically just writing final papers and taking exams. Either way, I had a great final week or two in Cmabridge, and then a good flight back to the US. It's neat to be able to fly into New York, because nothing welcomes you into America like the Statue of Liberty and the One World Trade Center (the new Freedom Tower) along with the Empire State Building and the rest of the New York skyline. 

I also had a short little layover in Iceland on the way back, and for what little I saw of the land, it looked beautiful - definitely worth a trip back sometime soon. I had never actually seen ice in the ocean...like ice and icebergs and stuff, but they actually had that up in the Icelandic waters off the coast. 

 One last picture in Cambridge...

I caught the plane's shadow in the cloud!  

Look at the exotic volcanic ash beach in Iceland.

And the two pictures below is the ice in the ocean. I made sure that they weren't just white caps from rough seas. 

Unfortunately, when I got back to Yale I went to bed, woke up and got my stuff out of storage, then fell very ill. I was too weak to get down my stairs to get to the medical center, but finally around Tuesday morning I mustered the strength to get down the stairs and meet a shuttle that took me to the Yale medical center. Once I got there they hospitalized me for like a day and a half, so I was pretty sick. The good thing is, now I'm feeling better. 

The campus, although hot, is really nice right now (as nice as a city campus can be) and I've been enjoying just walking around and actively enjoying the campus surroundings. The two pictures below are where I live, and the third picture (although shaky) is of our main library, Sterling Memorial Library, and it just finished a complete refurbishment and just reopened. I like it.

Last night, one of my best friends from high school back in Georgia who also goes to Yale went with me to GuitarCenter and then we went to Texas Roadhouse - and they had good sweet tea! 

And here are the classes I'm taking this semester:

The History of the American South Since 1870

Elementary Italian

Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis

The History of the American West

I know I haven't blogged for a while...things are just a bit boring around here. I'm generally not inclined to blogging about my assignments and readings in my financial markets class, and nothing has really happened.
Cambridge is small. Actually, Cambridge is really small. Once you do everything in Cambridge (which may take only a day or two) you just kind of get used to not doing so much. My days normally consist of going to class, eating and then working on the computer (or video-chatting back home).

I will say that I have began to toy with the idea of taking the train home from Yale for Christmas break with a friend that is also from my area. It's a long trip (18 hours from New York Penn Station to Atlanta Peachtree Station) but I think there's a certain nostalgia regarding long-distance train travel, and I have to try it at some point.
The reviews are actually amazing for the trip. There's a daily train that runs from New York City to New Orleans (I'd obviously be getting off in New Orleans) and it's called the Crescent line on Amtrak. I think it'd be kinda fun...all meals included along with unlimited beverages and snacks. Bring a book and some cards and then just hop up in my own bed when I get tired. I'd only do the trip if I got a roomette, which is a small room with two beds and a toilet and sink. It's not too bad if you book with another person, so I may see if I can convince my friend to make the trip with me. How fun - traverse the eastern seaboard along the spine of Appalachia to get home for Christmas by train travel.

And unfortunately, things have been so droll around here that I haven't even taken any new pictures. Sorry. :-)

I guess one of my favorite things about Europe that I have noticed everywhere I have been, whether in Italy, Denmark, Scotland or England is the abundance of flowers everywhere...I mean the flowers seem to grow without any attention being given to them. Back home in Georgia it seems like a full-time job just to get a rose bush to look nice and grow pretty roses. Over here, nice roses are everywhere...along with plenty of other interesting little plants, like the one below. So I guess this blog post has lots of flowers and vegetation pictures. 

The few pictures below are of a church courtyard in Cambridge that is basically overgrown and unkempt. 

I think it's a shame they even had to put up the sign (see below) in a church courtyard/cemetery.

Most of the epitaphs on the headstones are almost illegible by this point.

Last night while walking through the grocery store we found the little chocolate eggs that have toys inside...the ones that are illegal in the states. I think they're illegal because the government thinks that everything should be edible, and it poses a choking hazard to store an inedible toy inside a chocolate egg. But I think they're neat!

Tonight we walked up to the highest point in Cambridge... "Castle Hill." It's hardly a hill...it's more like a knoll. Seriously, it looks like a place I  would have built a fort as a young boy. This hill is small, and it's hard to believe somebody was able to fit a castle on it hundreds of years ago. The castle must have been a very modest place. Check out how small this place is, even though it offers a fairly nice view of Cambridge. I found it kind of funny, but at least they don't call it "Castle Mount" or anything. :-) 

See below...what you see in the entire size of Castle hill. It is about the size of most living rooms in houses today. 

And below is the full height of the hill.

And below is the hill, as seen from the street. 

And then on the way back I saw an old church behind the trees and wanted to go look. It turns out that it is St. Giles Church, and it's early gothic in style. One way you can tell it is early gothic is by the simple windows with no stone tracery. 

Below is the statue of St. Gile, I suppose.

See the windows below and how narrow they are and how the come to a point in a fairly sharp manner...those are "lancet arches" and that's another big characteristic of early gothic buildings. Also, see the shaft/pillar in between the two windows? See the band/ring just below the top where the pillar meets the capital? That band is also characteristic of early gothic buildings, because the masons would hide the joinery of the stones with those bands so the joints wouldn't be so obvious. But there is one thing that points to the building's actual origins: the statue of St. Giles above the door.  A statue like that cannot be original. All statues with very few exceptions were completely demolished when Henry VII created the church of England. Along with the fact that bricks were used in the construction instead of cut stone, it is clear that the building is actually a neo-gothic building from the 1800s. And I actually looked it up on the internet, and it was completely rebuilt in 1878. So yeah...some more useless facts about english gothic churches. 

The River Cam looked nice tonight as well:

And by the time I walked back to King's College the sun was setting...so I took some pictures.

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