The World At Large

I have been such a slacker.  Several things have happened recently, although not all of them are very happy things.

First, for Poland, another tragedy to add to their already lengthy list.  Most of their high ranking government officials, including the President and his wife, were killed in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, on their way to a memorial for the Katyn Massacre, in which thousands of Poles were killed by the Soviets 70 years ago.  I followed the story pretty closely, although I didn’t get to watch much of the funeral.  I did see the procession carrying the coffins to the crypt at Wawel Castle.  (I think this is the same crypt we visited?)  There was some controversy about this decision, but they went forward with it.

The funeral for President Kaczynski and his wife was held at St. Mary’s in Krakow, which sits right on the town square.  This was probably my favorite church that we visited the entire time we were in Poland, and we visited many, many, many churches.  St. Mary’s was within walking distance of our hotel in Krakow, and seeing as how we spent a lot of time in the town square, we saw it often. 

While I have nothing really of value to contribute, other than my condolences to the people of Poland, it is extremely sad for them to lose their President in this way.  But Poland has gone through a lot, and the Poles have proven before they are a tough people, and I know they’ll get through this tragedy as they have the many others. 

A personal unfortunate incident occurred a few weeks ago, and I will let this be my final rant about it.  Along with the Germany trip, I applied for a week long seminar in Colorado, at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.  You get to participate in an active excavation, alongside professional archaeologists, and learn about the profession, with the focus of the workshop on the lives on the Pueblo.  Archaeology interests me greatly, and I’ve even gone so far as to research the archaeology MA program at William and Mary. 

I was accepted for this institute.  How exciting.  I received the notice on a Thursday, the Thursday before Spring Break began, which was lucky since I had to submit my acceptance by the Monday of Spring Break.  I flew to speak to my boss. 

He said no.  The seminar was scheduled for August 1-7.  That’s the week I go back to work.  So I will not be given the time off work.  I had to fax in a letter declining the offer. 

Angry doesn’t quite cover it.  I know I shouldn’t be, I’m going to Germany for free after all.  And then being given the opportunity to tack on a very affordable trip to Croatia onto the end of that trip.  So I should be content, and let it go, but I’m not.  I’m very angry and annoyed, and I want to go learn about archaeology first hand.  And what if now I have a black mark next to my name, so that if they were to offer this seminar again and I were to apply, they wouldn’t accept me because I turned it down in the first place?  That possibility frustrates me. 

But I’ll leave it at that.  I can’t change it, so I just try not to think about it.

I focus instead on my trip to Germany.  I got my new camera, it is very lightweight, so it won’t be such a burden this trip.  I haven’t gotten to play with it much yet, but I hope to this weekend if we get any decent weather.  I need to become familiar with the settings before I go of course, and I can’t wait to figure out how to tag the photos and have them automatically upload to various sites.  I’m looking forward to that the most.  I’m hoping it will save me time in the evenings when I’m trying to upload photos and blog before bed. 

Speaking of, that’s where I should be.  We’re down to the last three weeks before SOL testing.  Everyone is in a frenzy and running around like crazy.  The only upside is that I know the next 3 weeks will fly by, and I’ll be that much closer to visitng Deutschland!