Cîndy the Activist

One of the things I had to give up when I came to America was political activism. When I was working and had spare time I quite enjoyed talking to pollies: letting the baddies know that they're voting the wrong way and getting the goodies to table petitions in parliament. But I can't get involved in American politics, not being a citizen and not having the time.

However, Cindy has stepped up to the mark and become involved in campus affairs. For a long time we've both been bothered by the fact that the campus's smoking ban is being flouted regularly. After contacting campus police, various deans and the provost (≈vice-chancellor) Cindy was invited to be on the IU Tobacco- and Smoke-Free Campus Committee. She's been going around taking photos of people smoking in front of signs and asked them questions (it turns out that some international students with poor English just haven't read or haven't understood the little "Tobacco Free Campus" signs on every door).

So when she was at the first committee meeting (in a very formal boardroom, with big high-back chairs) it was Cindy who said, "Let's not wait for reports on the state of things. Let's start talking about what we've already seen on campus and plan a course of action." She's very happy that the provost is enthusiastic about the problem too and not likely to dither. E.g. we've been asked to report any professors seen smoking on campus to the provost!

They're Back!

As promised in their countdown, Pepperidge Farms have brought Tim Tams back to America! Cindy and I went to Target today and bought a couple of packets of Original and Caramel but they didn't have any Dark Chocolate in yet. Still, there was a spot on the shelf for the dark ones so we'll have to check back later.

23rd October
I can now confirm that the port-based Tim Tam Slam works best with dark chocolate ones.

Strangely, it's being reported that Pepperidge Farms employees are not allowed to publicly discuss the Tim Tam Slam. We already told our friends about it (including the Brazilian guy who'd already encountered Tim Tams).

More Hayfever

Last week I had another couple of bad hayfever days so today I went to the doctor to get some advice. I'd been to the university Health Center a few times before but this time I noticed something different - most of the people in the waiting room were wearing masks! The weirdest thing is that this didn't surprise me all that much. Indiana has become a bit paranoid about swine flu, to the extent that they're telling students not to go to the doctor and spread the disease if it's a flu and telling teachers not to demand proof of illness when they miss class. But the people wearing masks didn't seem all that sick, some were playing board games while they waited!

It was only then I discovered that they have a full pharmacy (not just prescriptions) which is run not-for-profit so my anti-histamines and decongestants cost me only $3 all up.

21st October
Those anti-histamines don't actually work that well for me, so I guess it's not such good value.

Mooncake Festival

Yesterday was the Chinese Mooncake Festival. I'd heard about it before in Australia (lots of signs up around UNSW every year) but it was only when I moved to the northern hemisphere that I realised that it's an autumn harvest festival.

So one of our Chinese friends invited us to her place for a little get together. (Actually, being poor penurious students we first went to campus and scored a free Chinese feed courtesy of the Chinese Students Association.) We took along a bottle of French cider (sounds autumny) and a packet of TimTams. Before we even got inside a Brazilian guy who was joining us said, "TimTams! I know what those are. I ate tons of them when I was in Sydney and brought back many packets to share with friends." So he was very pleased to hear that they will be coming to Target in the near future.

But the thing that attracted the most attention was the hat I wore. Yes, I wore the Chinese cap Mum and Dad bought in Hong Kong, the one with a queue. When they gave it to me I had no idea how much Chinese people would love it! I got a great reaction last time I brought it out, photos were taken. And this time we got similar enthusiasm from another couple of Chinese and other assorted international students.

Noise

We've been disturbed by our new neighbours' music for a few weeks now. They must have fantastic subwoofers because we can feel the bass through the floor. Sometimes it continues after midnight when we're just going to bed so I've been meaning to have a talk to the landlord, ask what they think is a reasonable hour.

Then last night we were awoken at 2.30 am by bass coming through the floor. It was enough to wake us both up but I really didn't feel like getting out of bed, so I rolled over and eventually managed to get back to sleep. But then it happened again at 3.30! That was enough to get me up. At first I had trouble believing that anyone would have the audacity to try that in an apartment building so I looked out the windows to see if it was coming from one of the party houses, but the bass was clearly coming through the floor of the bedroom. So I put on some clothes and went downstairs.

I rang the doorbell and heard conversation inside, "Hey, did you hear the doorbell?"
"No, there couldn't be anyone calling." I rang again repeatedly. After more discussion a young guy opens the door and asks, "Is the music loud?"
"No, I'm selling magazine subscriptions!" is what I should have said but I was too tired for sarcasm. I explained to him that I didn't want to call the police because I know that they don't give warnings, just fines, and asked him politely to look at the time in future.

I wonder how long the contrition will last.

Unfair Privileges

Remember when school mothers' and fathers' day stalls sold books of vouchers for kids to give their parents? There would be vouchers for "one free car wash" and "one free massage". I think there might have also been things like "one day of no arguing with siblings".

I recently signed up for a rewards program at our favourite restaurant, TGI Friday's. As a welcome gift they sent me a few vouchers. There were normal ones like "free dessert with purchase" but there was one that struck me as a bit strange -- "One time jump the line pass". (Incidentally, although American computers send documents to be printed to a queue on a server, they never use the word "queue" for people, it's always "line".)

It's true that there is often a wait to get a table there on Friday or Saturday nights, so I understand what motivates this. But there's still something about this offer that strikes me as wrong. It's like saying, "one free evening of inconsiderateness." We won't be using that one; I wouldn't want everyone else staring daggers at me while I eat.

Censorship in America

There's something a little strange about America being a bastion of free speech and simultaneously a nation of prudes. Before getting pay TV here I never realised that this irony plays out in the fact that their movies are full of swearing but TV is censored. (I also see a big problem with the fact that depictions of violence are fine any time but swearing and sex are not. But that's not just America, that's the West in general.)

The thing is, you don't notice how much swearing there is in a movie until you watch it on TV and find that half a sentence is hushed out and you can't follow the plot. (Yes, swear words are sometime key-words in action movies.) Unlike Australia, it has nothing to do with the time it's shown, swearing is hushed even after midnight! I looked into this and what I found was even more surprising: 1. Profanity laws only apply before 9 p.m. and 2. They don't apply at all for pay-TV. So why do (almost) all networks stop swearing all the time? Because apparently the advertisers demand it. (I think the only exception is HBO. Maybe some other premium channels.)

Here comes the funny bit - there are certain words that are ok by themselves but not in longer forms; "damn" is ok but "god-damn" has to be censored, "ass" is ok but "asshole" has to be censored. Guess what they do! They don't bleep or hush the whole word, they make it "***damn" and "ass****"! One word they don't bleep but over-dub comes out as "mother-lover"!

And they blur out raised middle fingers. I kid you not.

13th September
Apparently they even cut out foreign swearing. We're watching Matrix Reloaded and they cut out the best bit. Here it is:

I have sampled every language, French is my favourite - fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculés de ta mère. You see, it's like wiping your arse with silk, I love it.

The Rhythm of Life

The days are getting shorter and everyone in Bloomington is gearing up for a new academic year.

About a week ago people started moving back into town. The streets were filled with moving trucks and the dumpsters overflowed with empty boxes and junk. Yesterday there was something called a "freshman induction" ceremony. (I dunno, I guess it's the opposite of a graduation? I'm not sure why they need it when those students just had a high-school "graduation" with full academic regalia.) The town was so full of parents that the police put out a notice saying that we should treat it like snowy weather and only leave the house if absolutely necessary!

I was a bit worried when I saw someone moving into the apartment below us with a pair of guitars and an amp. I think he set up the bass in the room below our study because my desk trembles when he plays.

Allergies

After four years living in Bloomington, my allergies have finally caught up with me.

When I lived in Sydney I used to get debilitating allergies a few times a year. So bad that most antihistamines would barely make a dent in the sneezing, weeping and runny nose. I think it was some sort of pollen allergy because it was worse in the suburbs than in the city and it was seasonal.

Coming to a town called "Bloomington" worried me a little. There are a lot of blossoming trees here but somehow they never bothered me. Not until this year. A few months ago I had a couple of days of sneezing but was able to chase it away with an antihistamine. But today is worse, two antihistamines and I'm still excreting copious amounts of mucus.

I'm not too sure how allergies work but I suppose I've become sensitised to something here that wasn't around in Australia. What I have to wonder is whether I'm still allergic to whatever it was in Australia or if by not being exposed I've been desensitised. I'd be great if I were now only allergic to North American flora and could just go somewhere my new allergies can't find me. But if my old allergies were still waiting for me where ever I had been, I would soon run out of places to run.

Sometimes abuse does get you places

It seems that someone at Pepperidge Farms read my abusive letter, or at least added my email address to a list. I just received an email telling me that they'll be back as soon as October (but for some reason they'll remain seasonal, available Oct-March every year). I guess this means we'll be able to eat the stash we brought back from Australia.

But we'll have to continue rationing the fancy-schmanzy varieties. This year they're going to introduce a dark chocolate variety to the US (as well as the plain and caramel) but I have to assume that Black Forest and honeycomb flavours will remain scarce for a few years yet.

Humidity

It was hot and muggy when I woke up this morning so the "air conditioning" has being going all day.

I'm just about to step outside so I checked the weather. It's currently 29°C - a bit hot - but the "real feel" is 40! That's how it feels when the humidity is 79%. It's going to get up to 32°, at which point it will feel like 42.

There'll surely be a big thunderstorm this arvo, hopefully not when I'm trying to walk home.

(Still, this doesn't mean that I'm looking forward to winter!)

Satellite TV

We now have over 150 channels. (Most of them are rubbish, but there's about 10 good ones. Much more than I had before!)

Since moving to this apartment we haven't had any TV reception because the little indoor area couldn't pick up anything. But then when we renewed our lease the landlord explained that the rent increase would include cable TV. Being economical uni students we asked if we could just opt out of the TV and save a few bucks. She replied that we don't have to use the TV connection if we don't want it but the price is the same. Well, if I'm paying for it!

So we now have a very fancy digital decoder that gives us hundreds of channels. They wouldn't give me a second box for the bedroom but this one has both RCA and coax outlets so I've set it up so I can watch the little TV in the kitchen while I cook.

I was all excited to be getting BBC America; I had seen it advertised in the intro to various DVDs I'd seen here. But now that I have it I see that, apart from BBC World News, there's just hours and hours of Gordon Ramsay. I did enjoy his shows for a while, it made me reminisce about when I worked in a restaurant, but there's only so much you can watch a chef yelling and swearing at people before it gets boring.

Indianapolis

Cindy wanted to see Harry Potter again in 3D, so yesterday we took a drive up to Indianapolis to see it at the IMAX.

Having gone all that way we had to do a few other things while we were there. There was our usual trip to IHOP:

It was a tropical theme this month. We had a choice between pineapple upside-down, banana macadamia or strawberry passionfruit pancakes.

But we also went to a couple of interesting grocery shops. We had been to Trader Joe's before. They have really good quality food for much cheaper than from a normal supermarket.

This was the first time we had been to Cost Plus World Market. They stock a range of foods from other countries including Australia and the UK. There's still plenty of TimTams left from our recent trip to Australia so we only bought one packet. I was looking forward to getting some Bundaberg Ginger Beer but they had run out (apparently it's quite popular and they run out often). I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had Robertson's Golden Shred marmalade - the same sort that was confiscated from me at Glasgow airport! They also had 250g blocks of Cadbury's but were charging $6 each - not worth it.

Car Troubles

The switch for Fenry's brake lights has broken. Instead of the lights not working, they're on all the time. I guess on is safer than off, but it also discharges the battery.

We got a jump start from AAA at about 6 pm last night but when I thought about getting it fixed today I realised that the battery would just go flat again overnight. So I had to drive the car to charge it, turn it off, then unhook the cable from the terminal. It's not very convenient having to carry a spanner everywhere but it makes a decent kill-switch.

But it seems I got off lightly. Only $40 for the repair and I used one of my $10 oil-change vouchers at the same time.

La vie française

One of the ways I've been spending my summer is continuing my French.

I've been getting together with some other students from HPS and Philosophy to read some philosophical texts in the original French. (We had done something similar last summer but it's a bigger group this year and we're sticking to the task at hand much more this time.) Most of the others are beginners who are just learning to read (not write or speak) French. It's good for me to be forced to go through the text properly, where I might have just skimmed it and misunderstood the tricky bits if I were reading it on my own.

Also, the guy who organised our French table has moved overseas and left me the job of sending out the weekly announcements. (Cindy had done it before in his absence but when he critiqued her verbose messages she told him to give the job to someone else - me.) Last summer there were a few weeks when very few people turned up (maybe only one apart from me and Cindy). So this year I've started advertising through the university's online classifieds. It's been pretty successful, there's be a few new people come as well as enough of the regulars to keep things going.

Potter Madness

Yesterday Cindy and I bought our tickets to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We had heard that there would be a midnight session Tuesday so that we could watch it the day of its release (Wednesday) but when we went to buy our tickets there were none left for the 12.01 am, we had to get tickets for 12.13 am. In fact, that one has since sold out and now we see that the first six sessions are already full and they're selling tickets to a seventh midnight showing.

By the way, don't tell Cindy what happens in the movie, she hasn't read the book yet.

Update 1 - 7 pm, Monday night
The seventh screening is now sold out. They haven't added any more; I suppose they don't have any more prints to show.

Update 2 - Wednesday
The movie earnt $22.2 million in midnight sessions alone! That's a new record for midnight screenings, The Dark Knight only took $18.5M.

American Names

No, I don't mean names like Randy, Larry, Grover or all those misspelt Stevens. I mean "How do names work in America?" It seems a silly question as their names would seem to work the same way as ours - they don't have patronymics or surnames first - but by talking to Americans I've come to realise that they think about names differently.

The most common custom, which most people would have noticed:

• Rather than Hillary Clinton née Rodham, Americans prefer Hillary Rodham Clinton

I had assumed that this was a double-barrel surname without a hyphen. But I recently discovered that this is not always the way. Apparently many married women move their maiden name into the middle name field on forms. That's good to know. If that's the case, I guess that means I should put books by Mary Boas Hall next to her husband Rupert Hall in my bibliography. (But where does that leave things she wrote before she was married?) Still, I'm not certain that that's always the case.

Hearing that a friend of mine had two friends have done just that with her name, I started wondering how they can just shift a surname into a given name field. Apparently the distinction is less clear here. I think it might stem from the fact that use of the mother's maiden name as a middle name is more common here. But here's the strange thing, they both gave up their existing middle names in order to make room for her maiden name in the middle name box. I asked why she didn't just keep both but she didn't really understand because:

• Americans don't have given names, they have first name and middle name (and ne'er the twain shall meet)

When I mentioned the given names box on forms, they said they had never seen that. I think most of them have heard of multiple given names but don't really understand it. (Not that I love the idea either; it strikes me as a bit of an affectation but the concept is not foreign to me.)

I think that this is partly the cause of another phenomenon that I noticed early on:

• Americans are rarely interested in the whole middle name but they do want to know your middle initial

It seems a little strange that they don't care about the letters that come after. But this leads to another phenomenon peculiarly American:

• Some Americans have no middle name, just a middle initial

The most famous example being Harry S. Truman; Herman B Wells is another. (This leads to all sorts of debates about whether to use a full stop, as there's nothing to abbreviate. Truman usually added one so the punctuation is considered part of his name.)

Oh, oh and I must say something about ordinals. It's not just Jr and Sr! We've all heard of these Americans with "comma Jr" because they're named after their father. (I don't think I've ever met an Australian who used "Junior" in such a formal way, just one who used it as a nickname. It always seemed to me that most Australians named after their fathers use their middle name, which some Americans do too.) But here's the real difference:

• Junior and Senior can be part of your legal name (will appear on government-issued ID)
• They also use Roman numerals. You can be John Thomas Smith IV in America.

That last one always makes me laugh. "Where are you king of? Or are you a pope?" I'm not sure why they feel the need to give the exact same name or keep a track of how many there have been but forms allow for it so Americans take advantage of the opportunity. (H.L. Mencken already remarked on this but apparently the practice was just starting when he was writing in the '20s.)

Happy 5th of July!

Our plans for an Independence Day BBQ got rained out so we did it today instead.

I've mentioned before that fireworks manufacturers in America try to stir up patriotism for 4th of July celebrations. This results in some of the most ridiculous fireworks, like a tank that rolls (a short distance) and an "Exploding Bin Laden Noggin". Naturally I had to buy these two. My American friends don't buy into the jingoism but seeing me get excited about this made them want to enjoy them ironically. So we used the tank to set off Bin Laden. I didn't capture the moment but here's a video of someone else who bought the exact same sort:

Exploding Bin Laden Noggin Firework - The funniest movie is here. Find it

Minnesota

I spent the last week at a workshop/conference at the University of Minnesota (a Big 10 rival of IU).

All US airlines are charging to check luggage on domestic flights so I travelled light, only taking a cabin bag. That meant I didn't take a camera but here are some photos that I would have taken:
Minneapolis is on the Mississippi River. This is one of the nicer bridges, just for pedestrians and bikes now.

The river was strong enough for mills to be built here. One of the flour companies is still going strong, Pillsbury. This building on campus is named for them:

Folwell Hall is where our sessions were.

Bob Dylan started his musical career in "Dinkytown", the student quarter of Minneapolis before moving to NYC. He lived in this building when the ground floor was a pharmacy and upstairs was flats:

Grand Marnier

Today we went to the Grand Marnier factory. (They don't normally let small groups take the tour but they put the four of us with a bigger group of oldies. So it was enough, and it was free.)

First we heard about their products and the basics of the production process before taking a tour of the factory. We saw the bitter orange rinds they use for the flavour, the machines for processing them and the vats for maceration. They showed us the stills for extracting the orange flavour (and cherry, for their other liqueur) and had us smell the different fractions of the distillation. Apparently the good fraction is 90-92˙C (cooler than that is the orange oil they sell off as cleaning product).

We got to see all the huge oak barrels for first ageing the cognac, then ageing the mixed liqueur. That cellar smelt really good!

And finally they gave us free taste tests! We got to try their Cherry Marnier and vanilla Navarn liqueurs; they were ok but not worth the price. Then they gave us some of the Louis-Alexandre Grand Marnier; it tasted not much different from the standard Cordon Rouge, so not worth the extra money (30€64 /700mL vs 19€21 for Cordon Rouge). But lastly they even let us try the super-expensive Centenaire Grand Marnier (41€41); I could taste the difference with that one but I'm not prepared to pay twice as much for it, I think I'd rather have twice as much of the Cordon Rouge!

The only one we didn't get to try was the hyper-expensive Cent-Cinquantenaire (84€06). Cindy wants to go back next time we're here so maybe they'll offer us one then.

Belgium

We arrived in Brussels Tuesday night where we stayed with Cindy’s aunt.

The next day her cousin took us on a tour of the city. We went first to see the Mannekin Piss, a fountain of a little boy urinating. I had heard about it before but didn’t realise that he’s usually dressed for some occasion. When we saw him he was wearing the uniform of the Barcelona soccer team because of an upcoming match. They must have just dressed him because there was a crowd standing in front, holding a banner, singing something. After lunch Cindy’s other cousin took us to see the lesser-known counterpart to the Mannekin Piss, the Jeannkin Piss -- a more recent fountain of a little girl squatting. Freud would have a field day with Brussels!

We went to the building of the European Parliament but you can’t go into the chamber. There was an info office providing literature on the EU in all its languages so Cindy took a copy of the EU charter of rights in each language.

Cindy insisted on having lunch at Quick, a European version of Maccas, mainly because it’s so famous in France for being Belgian. It was slightly less greasy than Maccas and the burgers came on whole grain buns but it was still fast food. That evening Cindy’s cousin’s boyfriend asked me (in French that sounded like Dutch) if I had tried real Belgian pommes frites yet. He was horrified when I said, “Not really, unless you count Quick,” and proceeded to tell me about his friends who own a friterie and do it all by hand. I asked him about the mayonnaise thing and he replied that you can have ketchup or any number of other sauces and rattled off a list of creamy sauces, “Tartare, andalouse...”

He seemed to know what he was talking about so when he suggested we have dinner in Leuven we let him lead us there. Leuven is a very beautiful city, reminiscent of Florence with its restaurant-filled piazzas connected by cobbled streets.

Polyglot Families

After leaving Germany we went to stay with Cindy’s cousins in Holland, on the Meuse, near Nijmegen. In fact their house is on a flood plain surrounded by dykes. They have a big gate in the middle of the front dyke so they can drive up to the house so, when they hear that a big flood is coming, they install in that gap huge bars of aluminium with rubber in between, which apparently keeps the water out.

Cindy’s cousin is French but married a Dutchman so the whole family is bilingual. And because both of them work jobs that require some English and the kids also learn English at school, so they’re almost trilingual. Then the eldest daughter (20ish) explained -- in perfect English -- that she’d picked up German by having a German room-mate and spending time with her friends. Then I really started to feel that my language skills pale in comparison to people who grow up in northern Europe.

I found it a bit strange to be in this environment with so many choices of language. It was perfectly normal to hear the kids switching between French and English to talk to me (as this is what happens at French table all the time) but I also had an experience that I had heard bilingual people talk about. At one point Cindy’s cousin came up to me and asked, “Did you succeed in getting your computer onto the network?” I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong with this question. It was obvious what she meant because it was not long before we had been talking about it but then I realised that she’d asked me the question in English whereas I had only ever heard her speak French up to that point!

Aix-la-Chapelle

After leaving Luxembourg we crossed (through a little bit of Belgium) into Germany where we stayed in the town that the Krauts call Aachen and the Frogs call Aix-la-Chapelle. I don't know what to call it but it was a nice town.

I thought we were going to see Charlemagne's grave but it turned out to be his relics. They had a stone sarcophagus where he was originally buried but it was empty. Apparently he was canonised a couple of hundred years after he died (news to me) and so they opened up his tomb and pulled his body to bits. That's reverence for you! His arm and his leg were in special boxes with crystal sides so you could see them. Apparently his skull was inside the big gold bust. And it wasn’t just bits of Charlemagne and his personal effects, they had quite a collection of reliquaries. They had a piece of Jesus’ sweat-rag, Mary’s belt and rib bones from famous saints (Peter, Paul, Stephen). I found the whole thing a bit macabre but that's mediaeval Catholicism.

I was a bit worried about travelling in a country where I didn’t speak a word of the language (except what I’ve learnt from Hogan’s Heroes). Cindy took German in high school for a couple of years (but has forgotten almost all of it) so I had her teach me the numbers at least. She was able to read the days of the week on a few signs but apart from that we were without any knowledge of the language. We found that, even though we were very close to the French border, the Germans of Aachen were not very good at French, most of them preferred to speak English.

After an abortive attempt to get an authentic German meal at a pub with a frazzled barmaid, we found a restaurant that had lots of flags in the window. There we were even able to ask questions about the dishes as the waiter knew the words for most things in English if he didn’t know the French word. I had the Nuremburg sausages with saurkraut and it was pretty good (there were caraway seeds in the saurkraut). I’ve realised that cabbage can be edible if it’s cooked in beer or wine or something nice.

Luxembourg

On the 15th we left Paris and drove to Metz (pronounced "mess") in Lorraine, on the Moselle. We had a walk through the park there and saw their canals.

We then moved on to Luxembourg, where we spent the night. There we saw the grand-ducal palace and some old caves where people would hide in war time. I started off thinking that it would be some tiny micro-state because I had only ever heard of it in conjunction with the BeNeLux confederacy and had heard something about there still being a Grand Duke. (It’s anachronistic enough to still have a king or queen but dukes-regnant are far more exotic!) Yet I found that it’s a bit bigger than it sounds: there are actually a few separate cities there with some space in between and it takes a few hours to drive across the whole country (that’s normal; it is Europe, after all!).

We ate a couple of meals at a fête that seemed semi-permanent; it seems they eat quite a lot of sausages and the Luxembourg speciality is potato pancakes with apple sauce, just like those Ashkenazi ones that I forget the name of.

Summer Travel

Cindy and I are in France visiting her parents again this summer. We arrived yesterday morning and will be here until the 29th.

Our trip here went quite smoothly. A friend drove us up to Indianapolis and we stopped at IHOP for a late lunch. This month's special is strawberries, as you can see from the crêpe.

Our short connection time at Cincinnati was no problem. We had an Air France flight number but it was actually a Delta flight. Cindy complained about the French announcements over the PA but I thought they were lucky to get any announcements in French on a Delta flight. Like most US airlines they don't serve alcohol for free any more, even on international flights. Except, I assume because they were carrying Air France passengers, that you could request wine with dinner for free.

We didn't see anyone wearing surgical masks but there was mention of swine flu. When we got on the plane they explained that the French government wouldn't let anyone disembark until everyone on the flight had filled in a certain form. The strange thing was that the form didn't ask where we'd been, just where we were going, so that they could get in touch with us if someone else came down with swine flu. (And at the airport I noticed that the gendarmes were carrying automatic rifles, presumably to shoot anyone they see cough.)

After a siesta we went shopping and picked up all the things on Cindy's list, including huge quantities of dairy products and some cider to try before we commit to buying a case of anything.

This morning we went to the market at Houilles, the neighbouring suburb. Cindy and her mum left before me because I got up late and was still eating breakfast (French style). I wandered over there, not really remembering the best route but seeing familiar landmarks. I promptly stumbled upon the market and started wandering through. Before long I saw Cindy and her mum walking towards me. They seemed slightly relieved because they didn't know where I'd been, telling me that I should have taken a mobile phone. I had told Cindy's dad where I was going and he had called them to tell them to keep a look out. I wasn't worried because I'd left my trail of bread crumbs but they weren't so confident.

Career Change

So for almost a year now I've been enrolled in a master's program through the Philosophy dept at the same time as the PhD though HPS. I had the opportunity to apply for a teaching position with philosophy this semester but I was already booked to teach my own undergrad class in HPS, so I didn't. But then yesterday I got an unsolicited offer to lead the discussion sections for an ethics class in the fall semester (September – December) this year. Again this time I'm already scheduled to teach my HPS class (for the third time) but for some reason the specific offer got me thinking that I should consider it.

I had a meeting with my committee yesterday afternoon and so I asked them, just at the end, what they thought of the idea. They both immediately yelled, "Take it!" I continued speaking, saying how I had already made a commitment to teach in this dept and they said again, "Take it!" Apparently HPS is very happy whenever anyone gets work somewhere else because it means they'll be able to offer my position to someone else who needs it. The only hurdle was that my class has been advertised because it's about Darwin and the university has been running a "Themester" for his bicentennary/sesquicentennary. But I derived no benefit from it being advertised like that and the Director of Graduate Studies was certain that they'd find a replacement.

In one way this other job might seem like a demotion - leading discussion instead of lecturing. But in every other way it'll be better. It will be a good career move to get a little experience teaching something different in another dept, particularly philosophy (I like to teach both philosophical and historical classes but had I done the Darwin class again it would just be more history, when it's philosophy experience I need more of). It will be about the same number of hours work but it'll be less stressful. And it pays about 25% more! In fact, I might even be earning a little more than Cindy next semester!

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

A few months ago Cindy and I were at a used book sale (the annual Monroe County Red Cross book fair) on flat rate per bag day. I noticed a number of textbooks that I recognised from taking French for reading knowledge classes. As it was a flat rate for as many books as I could fit in the bag, I picked up some of these books, thinking it would be worth trying to sell them on to the campus bookstore. They didn't want to buy them a few weeks ago but told me to come back during exam week. When I did they still didn't want one title and another had actually dropped in value. Still, I've managed to sell three to people in my dept. I charged them less than I would other students but I've still made back almost what I paid for all of them. I still have 3 left but I've contacted the instructor for the first half of the summer French class, asking her to tell the students that I'm selling books cheap.

Hopefully the next project will work out even better. Cindy and I were talking about how she loves French cider but not American cider very much. We managed to find some French cider at the international grocers but it was the one she likes less (brut, she prefers doux; I'll drink either) and it was selling for around $12. Cindy's parents found this surprising as there it retails for €1.25 for the cheap brand or €1.40 for the good stuff. So I said something like, "If it's so much cheaper in France, we should bring some back duty free. It's just a shame that we can only bring 2L into the USA between us, which is only two 750mL bottles." But then I started wondering, "What happens if we exceed our duty-free limit? How much would the duty cost?" It's a little complicated because you have to pay a percentage of the value as duty but also federal and state excise taxes on alcohol. But to bring a case of cider back to Indiana should cost less than $5 in duty and taxes. So our plan is to buy a case, check it like a suitcase (with "Fragile" stickers) and pay the duty. If all goes according to plan, we'll get a dozen 750mL bottles of Cindy's favourite cider for about $25. Fingers crossed.

Summer Work

Good news: I've found some work for this summer and next.

June this year I'm going to a workshop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We'll be developing history of science teaching modules for high school science teachers.

Next summer I'll be going to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I've won a fellowship with the Chemical Heritage Foundation and will be working there for two months, using their library and writing a paper (which should also be useful for my thesis).

Update - 7th May
More good news! Along with my Chemical Heritage Fellowship, I've just been offered another fellowship from the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science. In fact, the Chem Heritage Foundation is a member institution, so I'll be spending a little more time as well as visiting libraries at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. They say that this one 'may be held sequentially with fellowships offered separately by PACHS member institutions but may not be held concurrently.' So I guess that means staying in Philadelphia for three months. I've heard that it's a nice city; I hope so.

Serving Sizes

Tonight we had dinner out with a few people from HPS and Philosophy. We took advantage of the nice weather eating outside at a little place without undergrads where the food's not too dear. After dinner someone suggested that we go to an icecream place called the Chocolate Moose, a Bloomington institution. Knowing that it was close, most of us walked and enjoyed the summer evening.

The Chocolate Moose is a small, free-standing kiosk, about 5 meters square with a high pointed roof with a sign with a moose on it. There's always quite a queue because the locals love it. It's not the best ice cream I've ever had but I don't mind going there because it's good value. Because of this I knew I wanted a small but I while waiting looked up at the cups they had on display. I thought that the largest looked like a pretty big soft drink but then I realised that the cup wasn't for soft drinks, it was for sundaes, "blizzards" and milkshakes. I read the sign and it said "32 oz"; that's 950 mL! (For only $4.20 when made with softserve.) And my "small" was 16 oz, 470 mL! I was quite satisfied.

Humble Pie

This week is my week for being told what to do.

Tuesday I had a class inspection for the first time. About a year ago they told the associate instructors that we would have to be observed at some stage. I was proactive and went to the professor who I thought was in charge of the course I was teaching but he said he didn't know anything about it. Then we hear again that we'd have to be inspected before the end of the semester, just two weeks away. I had already passed the fun part of the semester but managed to turn Tuesday's class into a pretty comprehensive lesson. I haven't received the report yet but he seemed happy enough with my performance.

Tomorrow I have to present my qualifying paper in front of the whole department. I've already heard from my two advisors that it has gaps and will need more work before it's accepted; I'm sure I'll get plenty more people wanting to pick holes in it tomorrow. My plan is to go in there describing it as a draft; hopefully that way they'll try to make most of the criticisms constructive.

Taxing Times

I just did my US tax return. Because Australia has a lousy tax treaty with the states I get no special treatment as a student (Cindy, e.g., gets to earn the first $5000 tax free). And worst of all, international students can't claim anything much as deductions (not books, fees or anything; not if you worked for the money).

So I have to send the federal government a cheque for $265.20. (Cindy has to send them 32c!) I'm going to get back $48 from the state of Indiana but that doesn't help much. I suppose it was the US government that paid me in the first place so I can't be too annoyed about having to give some of it back.

Warm Angry Rabbits

You can't get decent hot cross buns in America. They do have a couple of packets at the local supermarket but they've got a strange custard-coloured icing cross on top and they don't look too promising. And they certainly don't have chocolate one like in Australia.

So, last year I found a good recipe and had some success making them myself (having a bread machine helps a lot). Here's the recipe I use:

1 1/3 cups milk
1 egg (beaten)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons yeast
4 tablespoons cocoa
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Put all ingredients except choc chips into bread machine on dough setting. (Add choc chips when machine beeps.) When cycle has finished, shape into buns and allow to rise in warm place. Mix a couple of tablespoons of cornflour with milk. Score buns with serrated knife and drizzle cornflour mix over buns. Bake at 190˙C for 20 min. Serve warm.

That's what I did last year. I'm finding other recipes on line that are telling me to glaze them. I'm not sure that's necessary for chocolate ones but I might try it.

Australia Studies 101

Today I gave a talk to some American student teachers about Australia. They are participating in a Cultural Immersion Project where they travel to another country for eight weeks where they teach in a local school. I knew one of the past participants who got a lot out of it (she wants to go back to Australia eventually) so when I met the coördinator and she asked me I was happy to help.

There were more parents in the audience than students (they're about 21 years old but American university students get babied) and the parents asked at least half of the questions. Maybe the preparatory course the students are taking is working because the only very stupid question I got was from a mother. She asked, "Do you need to get your money exchanged or do they accept US dollars?" As I was picking up my jaw from the floor she continued, "Because they're very happy to accept US dollars in Mexico."

Well, I've got nothing in particular against Mexico but I had thought that Australia was in a better economic relationship with the US than they are.

Bloomington Stinks!

Spring is finally coming to Bloomington. The town does live up to its name - the streets are lined with various flowering trees.

The first to bloom are tall trees covered in little white blossoms. The only problem is that these blossoms stink, really bad! Apparently they're called Bradford pears and they smell putrid, like something between rotting flesh and bodily secretions. If you're ever considering a tree to plant for blossoms, go for a prunus or a cherry, avoid the Bradford pear at all costs!

Success!

I read a review saying that the American ones aren't as good but apparently they're imported from Australia. I won't be able to do proper comparisons because I only have original ones from Australia and caramel ones from America - incommensurable.

At least they are giving Australia full credit for the recipe, which should lend it some cachet with an American audience. (Nevertheless, Cindy and I both strongly disapprove of their use of the word "crème". Yes, accents make words look prettier and more exotic. But if you're going to put the accent there, you can't pronounce it like "cream"; crème is pronounced "crem".)

An Open Letter to Pepperidge Farms

I was so excited to hear that your company had decided to market TIm Tams here in the US that I immediately told everyone I knew who had any connection to Australia, posted news on my Facebook profile for all the world to see and then rushed out to buy some from my nearest Target. But when I arrived there I was greeted with only an empty shelf where Tim Tams had been and apologetic staff. They told me that they had sold out and there would be no more shipments of Tim Tams to replace them. But it's only the 16th March, you're not meant to stop making them until the end of March!

Where are my Tim Tams, you bastards!?

I asked the stockist to ask his distributor again for Tim Tams and he said he would but he didn't sound too hopeful. Now I'm thinking of driving an hour to Indianapolis to buy out the supply of the nearest SuperTarget.

I think your promotion was a bit too focussed. I only heard about them at the end of the promotional period. If only you'd released them to normal supermarkets I would have noticed them (Target is not the first place people think of when they want cookies). A word of mouth campaign will only work if you give people longer than a few months to learn where they are or if you distribute the product more widely. Still, my Target sold out their supply quite early so I guess you could call that a success.

Please keep Tim Tams as a permanent item! Once Australians have realised that there is a steady supply and that they don't have to hoard them, there'll be no more secrets and they'll start telling their American friends to go out and buy Tim Tams too, then you'll see the sales shoot up. I'm sure they'll end up more popular than plenty of your current niche cookies.

Update - 18th March, 2009
Good news! The grocery manager at Target asked the distributor and will be getting me a few packets of "car-mel" TimTams this Friday (there's no plain chocolate ones left). With the double-pack from Xmas that I still haven't opened, this should last me a while. I won't be driving to Indianapolis for biscuits, although Cindy thought it was a good idea.

Better news! The distributor said that TimTams will be coming back to America in November. Mark your calendars!

My present's not present

Cindy thought it would be fun to hide my birthday present. She knows how bad I am at finding things but apparently she doesn't care if I receive it on my actual birthday. Hopefully I'll find it before Easter.

No ear horn for me just yet!

Created by Train Horns

Erin can use this as evidence when she tries to tell Dad to turn off the speakers and he thinks she's hallucinating.

Medicines

Last night at French Table we talked about some of the medicinal products that you can't get here in the US. For example, I stocked up on butter menthols, Irish moss and Betadine gargle, after being frustrated not to have them during my last bout of tonsillitis.

Cindy said she was quite content with Canada Dry brand ginger-ale flavoured lozenges. But one Frenchwoman said that she misses a certain product for sore throats. But you only take this one when it's really bad, deep down in the throat, because it's not a lozenge or a syrup but a suppository!

Krazy Kookie Kapers

I figure it must have been Cindy who bought these biscuits, I can't remember them going in the trolley. I noticed before we opened them the words "double stuffed" on the packet but didn't think much of it until we opened them.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

Today is Darwin's birthday, he'd be 200 years old.

To commemorate the occasion, I went to uni and taught my class on the history of evolution. (Of course I do this every Thursday but it's nice that it fell on this date.) I didn't bake a cake; there's 33 students in my class so I thought it'd be too hard.

Snow Day!

Last night we didn't go to the Runcible Spoon (as we do most Tuesdays) because there had been snow and there was a lot of slush on the roads.

This morning I received this email:

Indiana University's Bloomington campus is closed until noon today (Jan. 28) because of icy roads creating hazardous travel conditions. A decision on whether to reopen after 12:00 p.m. will be made late in the morning based on updated road conditions.

Here's why:That's the view from our bedroom window.


That's the carpark of our building.

And this is Fess Ave facing north, the way I walk to get to campus.

A new record - the most snow I've ever seen in one place.

Addendum - Noon
Classes have been cancelled for the whole day. I just received an automated phone call explaining that the only people expected to turn up are those whose jobs involve moving snow or cooking in the residence halls. Even then, it's only if they're able to make it.

Even more surprising, Monroe county has declared a snow emergency! Only essential emergency and public safety travel is permitted. Luckily we have enough food for a few days.

Bitching about the weather again

A week or so ago we had a record cold snap - the record broken was "the coldest it's been in Bloomington since I moved here": And it's not just that it hits a low overnight, that -21˙ above was after 9 a.m., the lowest temperature recorded that day was -23˙C!

And it wasn't much warmer in the middle of the day, when the wind-chill took it down to -28!

And now I'm having students ask if I'm going to cancel class because there's a winter storm forecast. They're predicting a lot of snow!It's the ice I really hate; you can walk on snow ok but when the asphalt get icy you just slip straight over.

Happy Birthday Rabbie Burns!

Robert Burns was born 250 years ago today,

Last night Cindy and I went to a Burns supper where we ate haggis, drank scotch and heard some poetry. I was asked to give a speech "long-winded enough to remind the guests that this isn't the office Christmas party, yet not so long as to induce cramping, dry-mouth, or ringing in the ears". This gave me a good excuse to wear the Henderson tartan tie I bought in Edinburgh last summer.

It was a good night. The haggis was surprisingly edible; there was enough oatmeal and the meat was cut finely enough that it didn't feel too offally.

Back

We arrived back in Bloomington without incident. We made all our flights, the only delay was the flight from Chicago to Indy. I had phone the friend who was picking us up to tell him we were running on time, then United promptly made a liar out of me, forcing him to wait for us for an hour.

A Literary Meme

I've been tagged by Lara.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4) Reprint this list in your blog. The premise of this exercise is that the (American) National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare. Well, quite a few during and since high school. No one needs to read them all!
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams. The first one was hilarious, the second quite amusing, but the third just got too silly.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens..
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis. Wait, wasn't #33 the whole Narnia series?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare. But #14 asked us if we'd read his complete works!
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I'm not going to tag anyone. Most people I know are too lazy with their blogs. But if you want to do it, knock yourself out.

The Travel Saga

So, our trip to Sydney did not go quite according to the original itinerary. Flying in late December is not good in the northern hemisphere, not only is everyone else doing it too, but there's also a lot of snow around. They really should move Xmas to July here!

Well we started out ok, we got to the airport nice and early. We were so proud of ourselves for checking in our bags on time when all the people queueing with us were running late. Our flight was a bit slow taking off but we landed at Chicago with enough time to make our connection. Or so we thought - the real delay was getting off that plane and onto the next. It had been snowing at Chicago (the tarmac was covered and planes were guided by lights) and the plane at the gate needed to be de-iced before it would get out of our way. By the time we got into the terminal and found the right gate we'd missed out flight by about five minutes!

Just getting an answer was hell, there was no-one staffing the info desk so we had to go out of security and get a new flight from the ticketing counter. We were hoping to get the next flight to LA to make our connection but the woman there informed us in no uncertain terms, "You won't be flying out of Chicago tonight." She put us on a plane for the next afternoon (via San Francisco AND Auckland!) but refused to pay for a hotel for the night. They blamed air traffic control.

They offered us a voucher but we found another motel cheaply enough and waited for their airport shuttle to pick us up. It was freezing cold and snowing heavily but we had to keep going outside to check if it had arrived. When we got to the motel we saw that the only food was a Maccas. It was only next door but we had to walk over snowdrifts to get there and we were only wearing summer clothes!

The next day we went back to O'Hare airport well before our departure time only to find that they were already predicting delays for our flight to San Francisco. We saw that we would miss our connection so we went to the help desk to ask whether we should even bother getting on that plane and to hopefully get a third itinerary. That's when I realised just how many people are travelling that time of year. The queue stretched about 100m and it took over an hour to get to the front. Behind us were a middle aged Kiwi couple who heard that we were going to Auckland and told us they would be missing the same flight. But that wait actually paid off, after much checking and fiddling, the woman at the desk managed to get us on a flight leaving San Fran later that night and going straight to Sydney. (Cindy was disappointed that she wouldn't get to see Hobbits but I was glad that it would be a shorter flight.) I wondered why we hadn't been put on that flight the night before and then I realised that we were only confirmed for that flight, not checked in yet. I wondered what that meant and we got a bit worried.

When we arrived at San Fran, we had to check in with all the others who had just rocked up at the airport. The queue wasn't long but it moved very slowly with just one person serving. When we were being checked in I enquired about my suitcase, as I had realised that the first woman at Chicago had stolen my claim check, which was stuck to an itinerary I handed her. When she looked it up in San Fran, she saw that our bags had actually made the connection from Chicago to LA on the first day. She explained that they couldn't fly with us and would only come after I had filled in the form explaining that they were missing. I said, "Well give me the form now and they can start moving them while we're on our way there." She replied that that was impossible, I had to request them from the final destination. So for 14 hours while we were in the air, our bags were at LAX with no one doing anything about it.

The stress didn't end there, even. For some reason we couldn't get a seat allocation at check-in so we had to go through with just boarding passes and get seats at the gate. Right up to the last minute we thought something else was going to happen to keep us off that flight but luckily they had seats for us. I can only assume that someone else must not have made the connection and we benefited from their misfortune!

And that's about it. We requested our bags upon arrival in Sydney and they only took a day and a half to deliver them to Penrith. In the mean time we had to go shopping for summer clothes and underwear but you can never have too many of those!

World Tour of Australia, 2008

Here are our tour dates:

20th December - Depart Indianapolis 5.32 pm
Miss plane in Chicago, stay in Chicago until 21st
Miss second plane
Lose suitcases
23rd December - Arrive Sydney, 8 am; pm go shopping for clothes
25th December - Xmas dinner chez Best
27th December - EtOH sampling with UNSW chemists
28th December - Picnic at Euroka Clearing
30th December - pm Visit Lisa
31st December - 4pm-Midnight, Fireworks on Sydney Harbour
1st January - Canberra
2nd-4th January - Mollymook
6th January - City
7th January - Bushwalk at Wentworth Falls; dinner at Aunty Kath's
10th January - Depart Sydney 3.15 pm (via LA and Chicago); Arrive Indianapolis 11.36 pm

I'll keep updating this post, so leave a message to book an appearance at your venue.

Thanksgiving 2008

This year, was my 4th Thanksgiving and the 3rd that I cooked myself. And this Thanksgiving had a "when in Rome..." theme.

That is to say I relented. Not only did I make the stuffing in a casserole dish, I also made that abominable mashed sweet-potato and marshmallow casserole. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. The nutmeg goes as well with sweet potato as it does with pumpkin. It just doesn't belong with the main course. After some umming and erring I decided to serve it with the turkey, à l'americain, but I wished I'd saved it for dessert. But I think the pumpkin pie my Canadian friend brought was better.

Apart from my own Thanksgiving Dinner at lunchtime, I was invited for a pot-luck Thanksgiving Dinner that night with various students from the HPS dept. When I saw that there was no time overlap I was sorely tempted to try to make both but then I remembered how it worked out for the Vicar of Dibley and I thought better of it. (This is a whole episode, don't click if you have download limits to worry about.)

Thanksgiving Traditions

I know I've mentioned some American Thanksgiving traditions before but I keep learning more.

I did describe in some detail the combination of sweet potatoes and marshmallows. It's common enough here in Indiana that the supermarkets put out marshmallows and brown sugar in the vege section next to the sweet potatoes for everyone's convenience. A friend of mine who's lived in LA and Boston assures me that this in not just a Mid-West novelty dish, it can be found all over the states. I'm considering making that recipe this year, just to see what it's like. We'll have people over so if it's disgusting, Cindy and I won't have to eat it all ourselves.

I've also mentioned turduckens. Looking back to my first Thanksgiving, what's more interesting is Cameron's comment:

I want to try some turducken! If and when I come over to Indiana, I have to try it out. It's like baconated grapefruit or some other 'antichrist' of vegetarians. I can see them crossing themselves right now.

I might just hold him to that! (Cameron, the rule is that vegans are allowed to eat meat if they're in a different area code.)

But I don't think I've ever mentioned just how Americans cook their turkeys. This photo was taken at our local K-Mart but turkey deep-friers can also be bought in supermarkets along with 4 US gallon (15 L) bottles of oil. They put them out a few weeks before, next to the turkeys.

Now the New York Times is reporting that this might not be such a good idea. If the fat doesn't kill you through a heart-attack, it might just burn you to death:

The turkey fryers — which combine gallons of boiling oil, open propane gas fires and often unstable frames — can easily become flame throwers, fire safety experts say.

Because of the number of fires and burns, national fire safety groups essentially urge people not to fry turkeys. The city’s Fire Department has issued a warning about turkey fryers. And Underwriters Laboratories, a nonprofit group that gives safety certifications for everything from hair dryers to space heaters, has refused to put its UL safety mark on any turkey deep fryer.

I think I'll stick to the oven when I cook mine this Thursday.

And my anecdote for this week isn't picking on United Statesians (for a change) but a different breed of North American. I was discussing Thanksgiving with a pair of Canadians. They have an earlier date for their Thanksgiving up there, because the climate is colder so the harvest comes earlier but everything else is the same. So one of them asked me, 'What do you do for Thanksgiving in Australia?'
'We cook an emu,' I replied, straight-faced. And they believed me!

But when I mentioned this to Cindy, she asked, 'Well, why don't you?' In France they always eat exotic birds at Xmas (pheasant, goose, capon etc.) and everyone knows about emu farming, so it just seemed logical to her that we should at least eat emus at Xmas. I prefer the light meat of the turkey so I think I'd rather stick to tradition than eat patriotically.

Addendum
Tonight at French table I asked a couple of Americans what their favourite Thanksgiving dishes were.
One (West Virginia) replied that she loves stuffing, particularly with lots of dried fruit. So I checked and she confirmed that her stuffing never actually goes in the bird. (It's not sheer laziness, apparently they're all terrified of salmonella poisoning.) In fact, I think I'm yet to meet an American who does stuff their stuffing; in another generation no one will know why it's called "stuffing"!

The other (Michigan) said it was sweet potatoes. So I asked her about the marshmallow abomination. She said she didn't like them with marshmallows herself because she doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. Instead, she likes them sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon! No, that's not a sweet tooth at all! On the other hand, this same girl told us that her grandmother's recipe for apple pie called for a cheddar crust. At first I thought I had misheard but, no, in that family at least they really put cheese in the crusts of their apple pies.

Snow

It's definitely cold here now. On Monday I put on my big coat before leaving for class and when I got outside I realised it was snowing. Just a few grains, which melted as soon as they hit the ground. But it was definitely snow. I phoned Cindy to tell her to look out the window, so she'd think to take a beanie, as I hadn't. That wasn't really necessary as she puts on mittens and a warm hat at the drop of one.

I'm about to leave for class now. I see that it's snowing again today. Lighter feathery flakes today. I guess they'll be prettier to walk through but I doubt they'll be any less cold.

Labyrinthitis

Monday I woke up feeling strange. The night before I felt a bit dizzy before going to bed. I assumed it was over-tiredness but I woke up still dizzy. Assuming it was a middle ear infection I went to the doctor. He couldn't see anything and my eustation tubes were clear so apparently it was a mild case of labyrinthitis. (He also tested to see if I'd had a stroke, which I hadn't, and the nurse said I had excellent blood pressure.)

It went away completely later that afternoon so I wasn't too worried. But then it came back again for a few hours today. It's not serious (nothing like what Erin had) but I'm hoping that it's not going to keep recurring because it's difficult to teach when every turn of the head makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster.

Pushing the Envelope

Not as many interesting interesting misunderstandings from the Americans in my French class this week. We were translating a play from English into French. First they read through it in awful English accents while our English lecturer grinned and bore the mockery. When we got to translating the word "bloody" the American presenting said, "And I know from talking to English people that that's a very strong swear-word."
I contradicted him, "Not really. It is a swear word - unlike "damn" - but it's not a strong one."
The lecturer half backed me up, "Well my brother once got his mouth washed out with soap for saying 'bloody' but it's not the worst of words."
I can't wait to tell them about how Australians use the word "bugger"!

Then later in the class I noticed that the lecturer was disagreeing with all the students' ideas on how to translate "quite". Seeing the problem I gently explained to her why she wasn't getting through to them, "In American, 'quite' is always as an intensifier, even if in normal English we use it to tone down a claim."
People started muttering and the teacher chuckled at my choice of words. I just said, "Sorry, Standard English."
To which she cautioned, "We need to be a little careful here."
I don't think any Americans heard me ask, "What, I'm not supposed to call it patois americain?"

The only other thing of note was the use of a French word - chiant. I was a little proud of being able to incorporate some slang that I had learnt in passing, without having to look it up. But when it came time to discuss the translation in class, the teacher said, "You definitely couldn't use chiant there. It's far too vulgar."
I felt like exclaiming, "Then why does my girlfriend always say it to me?"

Itinerary

Cindy and I bought our tickets for Australia a few months ago. We wanted to get in early before prices shot up too much further (we've been stung a couple of times in the past, buying our tickets too late). We managed to find some for a not too horrendous price (from STA) and we stopped thinking about it.

Then we received emails from the travel agent telling us that there had been schedule changes for our flights, could we please phone to confirm. But when we looked at the new itinerary, we saw that one of the changes had us getting to Chicago at 12.04 am and leaving for Indianapolis at 9.30 pm the day before! It took about a week for them to sort it out with the airline (United). We now have a temporally possible itinerary; we're just hoping they won't change it again!

Here 'tis:

20th December: Depart Indianapolis 5.32 pm (via Chicago and LA)
22nd December: Arrive Sydney

10th January: Depart Sydney 3.15 pm (via LA and Chicago)
Arrive Indianapolis 11.36 pm

So start marking your calendars!

Knowing one's own language

For the first week of my French class the teacher gave us a number of sentences to translate from English into French. One of them struck us all as a little strange and poetic: "The house smelt of size and new paint." When we were all suggesting French words like grandeur for "size", she asked us, 'Who looked up "size" in an English dictionary?' Of course none of us had, but apparently we should have because here it referred to sizing glue.

Despite having learnt my lesson, I still felt a bit sorry for the two American girls presenting their translations in French class this week. They made a big dialectical mistake with the word "semi".

The phrase was, "The houses were much larger than Wilt's semi." The first thing that came to their American minds was a semi-trailer. I must admit, that thought occurred to me too, but I dismissed it when I realised that it had to be a type of house and inferred that "semi" must be slang for semi-detached. (Thanks, Richard Thompson!) Not these two. They had the word "trailer" stuck in their heads and - because Americans call caravans "trailers" - they inferred that the character in question lived in a caravan park.

I must admit, "semi-detached" is not a term I would use, I'd probably use "duplex" in the broader (apparently American) sense. But seeing their embarrassing mistake has reminded me to keep looking beyond my own natural vocabulary.

Translating Foodstuffs

Today the Americans in my French class learnt another thing that I was surprised they couldn't work out for themselves. The text we were translating from English mentioned "bread and butter pudding". All the Americans were asking, 'What's that? Is it like bread pudding?'
So I asked, 'Does bread pudding have butter in it?'
'Yes'
'Voilà!'

The Frenchies in the class got to speculating on how one might translate the word pudding by itself. 'Crème,' one suggested.
So I had to explain that this was not one of those American puddings, those pseudo-mousses. That it was was starchy etc. 'C'est un gâteau, en fait,' the teacher interjected.
'Oh,' one of the Americans suddenly realised, 'Like a Christmas pudding?' Yes, bravo, it's a very enlightened American who knows what a Christmas pudding is.

Then we continued translating and got to "cheese and chutney sandwich". So an American girl had to ask, 'What's chutney?' These people have been living in caves!!