2008 Blogs

No, I haven't left yet...

11/11/2008

These days, when people see me, they give me a funny look and say "What are you doing here?"  No, I haven't left yet.  Actually, I will be going to the airport 2 months from election day, on January 4.  And believe me, the days between now and then are going to fly by.  Tomorrow I'm going to Chicago to apply for my Chinese visa.  I've got to step up the Vietnamese language study (which isn't going very well, mainly because I'm not spending enough time on it), and prepare workshops for faculty and classes for students.  I keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking of things I need to take, but the reality is that my suitcase will only hold so much!

Currently I'm reading Linda Van DeVanter's Home Before Morning (1983), the story of a surgical nurse in Vietnam during the war.  An idealistic young Catholic woman, she joined the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, South Vietnam, but quickly became disillusioned by what she saw and experienced.   Some nurses later objected to her portrayal of medical staff in Vietnam, but DeVanter defended her autobiography, saying that in Vietnam people sometimes did things that they were not proud of because of the insanity of the conditions in which they served.   More after I finish the book!