The bags are packed, save for the couple of last-minute toiletries and pajamas. A cab is ordered. Our final souvenir gifts (think consumables) have been purchased and safely stowed. We’ve done the top-to-bottom cleaning of the apartment, and otherwise put our affairs in order. It’s time to head back.
We had a nice last Czech dinner [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Last night in Prague
Posted in possible homes in exile, send in the Slavs, tagged Bratislava, Prague on 31 July 2008 | 2 Comments »
Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party
Posted in diversion, procrastination, video games, tagged DDR, video games on 29 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party
This was a game C really wanted. I might not have been so keen at it, just because I think she often bested me when we went head to head (though I totally scored the upset when we squared off at the arcade in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a couple of years [...]
LitRC 4 Dummyz
Posted in book learnin', dissertation, diversion, procrastination, the Internet is a series of tubes, tagged book learnin', Internet on 27 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
Nadia said she wanted to major in English at college and someday hopes to be published. She does not see a problem with reading few books. “No one’s ever said you should read more books to get into college,” she said.
Hmm. Technically, that might be true. I don’t recall anyone ever saying to read more [...]
The lighter side of Stalinism
Posted in dissertation, tagged Clementis, jokes, gallows humor on 26 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
And now for something completely different, selected jokes I found to use in my dissertation.
Everyone knows how well Communist economic planning worked, with notoriously unproductive five-year plans and perpetual consumer shortages. Unsurprisingly, these were a source of humor for those who could laugh at the situation.
Czechoslovakia had a provisional two-year economic plan from 1946 to [...]
Stalinism, Slovak style
Posted in dissertation, tagged dissertation, Stalinism on 26 July 2008 | Leave a Comment »
With a bit of effort, and some fortuitous discoveries, I’ve made considerable headway on Chapter 2. It’s still a bear of a chapter to write, and I’m not certain yet if I’ll be satisfied with the final product, at least in the current iteration. But I am now creeping onto Page 25, probably a bit [...]
Last week in Prague
Posted in send in the Slavs, tagged Prague on 24 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
Hard to believe, but we go back in just one week. In some ways it’s not that strange to me, since I was in Pittsburgh ever so briefly at the end of March, but it’s still a bit odd to think we’ll be pulling the plug on our European adventures.
I can’t say there’s a ton [...]
Slogging
Posted in dissertation, tagged Chapter 2, slogging on 23 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
Well, after feeling catatonic at mid-afternoon, I finally pulled myself together (fueled by almost two liters of cola) and got cracking again on Chapter 2. It’s still a slog, but I managed to make it through the first section, then realized I really needed at least a brief introduction and overview of the chapter. Essentially, [...]
Three words
Posted in news, tagged ex-Yugoslavia, war crimes on 22 July 2008 | Leave a Comment »
About damn time.
Radovan Karadzic arrested on war crimes charge.
Back in the saddle
Posted in dissertation, tagged Chapter 2, dissertating, slogging on 22 July 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I resumed writing this afternoon. I had planned to get started on Chapter 2 about a week or so ago, but then I felt like I needed to put in some library work before I could write it, so I spent most of last week sitting in the National Library reading journal articles and the [...]
Czechoslovakia: The Original Bennifer
Posted in possible homes in exile, send in the Slavs, tagged Czechoslovakia?, no country for old men on 20 July 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of the popular stories this week in both the Slovak and Czech media was a report from the U.S. campaign trail, where John McCain spoke of Czechoslovakia in the present tense, even though the country ceased to exist at the dawn of 1993, or more than fifteen years ago.
In a week-in-review piece, Sme spotlighted [...]
