Les Hannah, day 43, part final

This morning I was up early and did things that resembled productiveness. I spent a large portion of the morning working on curriculum for my forthcoming classes at NSU. Took me several hours but think I finally planned out the entire semester for the Intro to Folklore class. I also began work on the Cherokee Literature and Texts course. I did not get so far on it as I have not truly settled on the texts yet, but I am making progress. So a good portion of my day was spent at the flat working on curriculum; not quite as exciting as some of the things I have been doing lately, but this is necessary so toil away I did.

In the early afternoon I went for about an hour’s long walk just to get out, refresh my mind and give the other curriculum a fair chance at a fresh review. I walked through the city centre and to the train station, no particular reason other than it seemed to be a place to go and turn around and come back. Along the way I did stop in at the occasional shop. I tried to take a return route that took me through a part of the city I had not or had little been, but by now in my Danish adventures I have covered a good portion of Esbjerg, at least the centre.

I returned to the flat to work for a while longer on the curriculum, which I did. However, it was not long before I had to get ready for a dinner invitation with Pia and her family. She has a daughter who is away at university in Aarhus (pronounced oar-hoos). Her daughter is studying English and has a report coming due on a project of her design. She chose to research the portrayal of American Indians in film, so she wanted to meet and talk with me about this. And of course I was more than happy to help. I gave her lots of information, perhaps to the point of information overload. I kept talking and did not give the poor girl much chance to take notes, so I slowed down some, repeated much of what I had said and gave her time to write on the second go-around.

But before arriving at their home, Pia’s husband picked me up at the flat a little after 4pm and gave me a tour of the harbor. I had been down to the harbor a few times before, and most recently just a week or so ago riding the bike, but he had history of the place that I did not know, and it was interesting to hear this history from a local’s perspective. He told me of how the fishing fleet here used to be twenty to twenty-five times as many vessels as now, and how the harbor has changed because of Denmark joining the European Union and the effect it had on the Esbjerg fishing fleet. I saw a scrap yard where many of the former fishing vessels are being torn apart and recycled.

Once we got to their home the conversations about Natives in movies began, and well it lasted for a while. Following the conversations on Native, which I hope will help the presentation, was dinner. The last time I was here for dinner it was magnificent, and this time was no different. Salmon was on the menu and it was amazing – the entire dinner that is. More conversations followed dinner and lasted a couple of hours afterwards. The conversations were varied and good; we discussed academics a good while. I supposed that what naturally happens when two or more teachers get together. After the conversations slowed I was taken back to my flat where I quickly retired for the evening. In all, not a very active day, at least compared to several of my days thus far, but a good day nonetheless. It was a sunny and relatively warm day; it was a productive day, and it was a good evening.