Hello faithful readers!
I am arrived in Miami, living in a condo near Florida International University where I am spending the next 6 weeks studying Haitian Creole.
* * *
February 2019
Wow, i seemed so positive and upbeat at the outset here.
On my first night in Miami, i broke the bed. I was sub-renting an apartment off West Flagler Street near 97th, and staying inamongst the stuff of a Chinese professor who'd left for the summer. It was minimally furnished, and the bed was a cheaper-than-IKEA structure. When i first lay down on the bed uncarefully, it cracked, but didn't break. The rest of the summer i slept sorta spread-eagle hoping to balance the weight so it wouldn't fully collapse.
That summer i saw every movie in theatres. I ate Papa John's pizza so often that the crew knew me by name. I ate at Denny's, because they had free wifi. I had Netflix DVDs delivered to me in Miami nearly every day - because i was on a 3-Disc plan and i was finishing one or more almost every day. I took the bus (and waited for the bus in the heat, my god, the heat) and got a used bike cheap, which i eventually abandoned for broken next to a gas station.
But i didn't know all of this when i started this post. I spent a summer learning Haitian Creole - and learned it well. To this day i can read and write and understand and speak Haitian. On my return to Milwaukee, i was asked to return to Mahler, almost magically, and things began, slowly, to turn around.
This was an important summer in my life i think - i still think. I wrote my dissertation in my head over the course of this summer. It's every bit as good as it was when i first came across it in the ether.
I am arrived in Miami, living in a condo near Florida International University where I am spending the next 6 weeks studying Haitian Creole.
* * *
February 2019
Wow, i seemed so positive and upbeat at the outset here.
On my first night in Miami, i broke the bed. I was sub-renting an apartment off West Flagler Street near 97th, and staying inamongst the stuff of a Chinese professor who'd left for the summer. It was minimally furnished, and the bed was a cheaper-than-IKEA structure. When i first lay down on the bed uncarefully, it cracked, but didn't break. The rest of the summer i slept sorta spread-eagle hoping to balance the weight so it wouldn't fully collapse.
That summer i saw every movie in theatres. I ate Papa John's pizza so often that the crew knew me by name. I ate at Denny's, because they had free wifi. I had Netflix DVDs delivered to me in Miami nearly every day - because i was on a 3-Disc plan and i was finishing one or more almost every day. I took the bus (and waited for the bus in the heat, my god, the heat) and got a used bike cheap, which i eventually abandoned for broken next to a gas station.
But i didn't know all of this when i started this post. I spent a summer learning Haitian Creole - and learned it well. To this day i can read and write and understand and speak Haitian. On my return to Milwaukee, i was asked to return to Mahler, almost magically, and things began, slowly, to turn around.
This was an important summer in my life i think - i still think. I wrote my dissertation in my head over the course of this summer. It's every bit as good as it was when i first came across it in the ether.
