Les Hannah, day 8, part final

Finally showered and dressed for the day I sat in the sun room for a while longer, this time watching television instead of strange birds. I found a few English language programs, but of course most were Danish or German language. I know enough German to follow some of the dialogues in the shows, but could not keep up. Had the TV on mostly for company I suppose.

However, the company was not the best, nothing good on TV here either, so I decided to go for a walk. There are several trails around the house here; I decided to follow one or two. I must have walked for two miles (I guess I should really try thinking in kilometers). While walking I followed that little creek that flows just behind the house. The trail parallels the creek for about a half kilometer (see, it’s not that difficult) before it forks, and I found myself in a real Robert Frost moment, so I did what he did; I took the one that looked like it was less travelled, and yes it made a difference. I ended up in the middle of a field in what appeared to be a marsh. Water, water everywhere, but I didn’t want a drink. OK, enough of the literary allusions. I turned around and went back, then followed the more traveled path. It came out on the road about a kilometer from the house. So then I turned around and walked back.

Once back at the house I checked emails and watched a bit of television. I checked the scores from yesterday’s college football games and found my beloved Oklahoma Sooners victorious over those pesky Texas Longhorns. (Here you must imagine me doing the inverted Longhorns hand gesture.)

After my crimson and cream settled back down some I watched a bit of the movie Krull, in the German language. The movie is odd enough any way without trying to do rapid translation with elementary languages skills, so I decided to go for another walk – this time on the beach. My house is only about three minutes walk from the beach.

So I walked. And then I walked on the beach. I found where the little creek that runs behind the house melts into the North Sea. I stood there for a while watching the two waters come together. In all the times so far that I have gone to the water behind the house I have yet to see any fish in it. Yet, in the brackish area where the two waters merged there were lots of little fish, crabs too. I actually caught one of the small crabs, smaller around than a dime but about as thick as four dimes stacked atop one another. It was a feisty little critter, trying to pinch me but its pincers were too small to do any damage. I got the hint though and let it go.

I continued my walk on the beach, heading southeast down the shore toward Esbjerg city center. Along the way I stopped from time to time to pick up sea shells for Lexi. I tend to do that when I go places where there is a beach. She has been asking me for a couple of years now to take her to the ocean, and I have promised to do so and will when I can, but in the mean time I bring her shells every times I can. Not sure if she likes, understands, or appreciates them or not, but I do it anyway.

Anyway, I ended up with a pocket full of sea shells, and sand. And before I realized it I had walked two kilometers. WOW! Didn’t feel like it, but the walk back to the house sure did. That’s odd; the walk on the beach was in sand and against the wind and it seemed almost effortless, but walking back I was on a sidewalk and with the wind at my back, and I grew tired. Whatever; I made it.

So I sat and flipped through the offerings of the Danish/German television and once again found there is nothing good on TV here either. I began to review and plan for tomorrow, what would be my first actual day on the Fulbright job. I am eager to get started. Oddly enough I feel I have been away from academics for too long already, and it has been but a week. I find it odd that I feel so overwhelmed at times in my position at NSU: so many instant decisions to be made, so many small fires to be put out, and so many issues that need handled, and I say to myself, “I need a break,” but when I get that break I begin to miss the pace of the action at NSU. I miss the classroom and students. I love to teach and find it challenging beyond anything else I have ever done. I once took a summer off, thinking then I needed a break. I was bored out of my head by the third week. I thought surely I would lapse into coma if the Fall semester did not arrive soon. I made it, but that was the longest summer of my life, and I swore I would never do that again. And I have not. This week away from a classroom has reminded me once again why I do what I do.