« June 2007 | Main | August 2007 »

July 16, 2007

Labouring in vain?

‘Every marriage is different.’ That’s true in a lot of ways. Some couples go out dancing on their free evenings, others go out to discover new restaurants. Others sit quietly at home and read aloud stories about a mid-century vet in the Yorkshire dales…. Bryonie and I just finished a book by James Herriot (If Only they Could Talk), just such a vet who writes wittily about his first year on the job. I was struck by how different a life this man leads than I do. Take foaling a mare, for instance. Our poor hero is forced to stay up into the wee hours of night (or the wee-er hours of the morning) to go and wrestle with a foal that for whatever reason is refusing to emerge and take its first breath. He has to strip off his shirt and wrench his arms to pull the poor thing out, using ropes, hooks and levers to try and grab just one of the dangling legs and get the process started. First one of those long legs comes out, then the other, then pretty soon he’s wrestling with this gangly creature in a mess on the floor, not knowing which way is up – or even if the newborn creature is going to be able to take more than that one breath.
Actually, that feels rather familiar: staying up (too) late and getting up (too) early, wrestling hard with something that just won’t come out right, desperate for just one piece to come out, then another. All the while hoping the thesis will one day see the light of day – and that its first breath won’t be its last. Most days I feel like my sleeve is rolled up and I’m feeling around trying to find a way to just pull the thing out. Either that or I’m rolling around in a mess on the floor needing to go at it again. I suppose the vet has an advantage in seeing the fruit of his labours more readily. But I’m glad I don’t have to worry about the clean-up.

Posted by j and b at 09:44 PM | Comments (2)

July 07, 2007

Remembering Heidelberg...

My hubby's back and life is good again. I'm glad his month was so profitable (see below to hear from the horse's mouth) and I'm glad his German advanced. But I'm gladder he's home with me.
I got to go visit him right in the middle of our month apart which was a blast. Heidelberg is beautiful! And it was sunny and hot which was a real change from the rain and hail of a St Andrews summer (no, I'm not joking).
Some highlights:
Good food! One evening I devoured a huge plate of bratwurst, sauerkraut and fried potatoes.
My friend Charity and her husband, Andy, happened to arrive in Frankfurt one of the days I was in Heidelberg so they drove south to meet us for the evening. Our guys got to meet for the first time and we had a chance to catch up - the first since she got married two years ago.
Just hanging with Josh - it was so fun to listen to him speak German and watch him maneuver his way around the German culture with an impressive savoir-faire...
Basking in the sun, licking ice cream, strolling around the city, day dreaming by the Neckar River...
It was the perfect holiday. Good thing I took some pics - with the weather we've been having it's hard to believe there's a place in the world where it doesn't rain.

Posted by j and b at 08:23 PM | Comments (6)

July 04, 2007

Ich bin kein Deutscher...

When I first set foot in Heidelberg, over a month ago now, everything around me was in German - the sounds, signs, directions - and I was a bit intimidated. I spent the first two days wandering around and ended the second day frustrated to no end because I had no clue what was going on around me. When I landed back in Edinburgh on Saturday and saw and heard only English, my first feeling was disappointment. I missed German, already! I suppose that meant it was a good month.
Heidelberg itself is quite a pretty city, entirely untouched by WWII. It's a touristy place, which was somewhat disappointing; but I suppose most pretty places in most countries now are touristy. I loved being there for the month, in spite of the world's most poorly organized library.... What library organizes their books by the order they buy their books? So I'm picking up a book on Jeremiah sitting in between "Migration Laws for Canadian Geese" and "Molecular Biology and the Neurological You". Needless to say, browsing the shelves was a pointless activity.
But in the end I was there to bump up my German, and on that note the trip was an unqualified success. There is a point in learning a language where it no longer feels really foreign: you're still not fluent by any means, and still have to look up lots of things, but you feel comfortable hearing and reading it. That's about where I am now, which is perfect. Just a one-year post-doc and I'll be set... (don't tell Bryonie I said that).

Posted by j and b at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)