I sent Vinko fifteen edited pages of his dissertation to see if the format I am using will work. If so, I will send him some more. His English is quite good -- he is Croatian and a professor in Rome -- but he is tripped up by things like the proper usage of "the" and "a/an". It is not always easy to tell him why the way he does it is wrong, either, because proper usage is second nature to native speakers. I remember when I taught English as a second language in Washington, DC that I sometimes had to look up the rules to explain to my students why I did something the way I did. I did it correctly, but I didn't know why. Somehow just saying, "Because that's the way it's done" was not always that helpful. I was amazed to discover that there was a rule that I followed, even when I didn't know I was following it at all.
I also have been working on writing introductions for the speakers at the Carmelite Institutes's conference in Rhode Island this summer. One of the saddest to write is for Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His area of expertise is war and peace and the list of his publications is more than twelve single-spaced pages. A retired Army lieutenant colonel, a veteran of Vietnam and the first Gulf War, he is a graduate of West Point and taught there for several years. He has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq. One son was a political aide to Mitt Romney when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts. That twenty-seven year old son, First Lieutenant Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr. joined the Army in 2004 and was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. He had been serving in Iraq since last October, but he died on Mother's Day, May 13, from wounds suffered in a bomb explosion. That is his photo, and I am sure his Catholic family would appreciate your prayers at this time.About midafternoon, I decided to get out the house by taking Vinko's dissertation to Starbuck's, get an overpriced cup of coffee and work on it there. When I went to check that all the doors were locked before I left, I saw Cassidy jump up from where she lay on the deck and run over to the side, stand perfectly still and peer out into the edge of the woods. Fearing she had spotted another snake to play with, I looked over and saw a doe. Then behind the doe came a tiny fawn, barely taller than the weeds. They wandered around near the tree line for about five minutes, with Cassidy crouched down behind a post on the deck and staring at them intently the whole time. I don't know if she thought the fawn was small enough for her to attempt or what. At any rate, the doe left and the fawn jumped over weeds to follow her. Then on the way to Starbuck's, I passed two doe grazing along Berry Road.
The house is built over an old deer path, and although we often see tracks, deer don't come close to the house very much. We see lots of deer alongside the road and in the fields across from us, but it is more rare to have them in the yard itself. I wish I had had a camera! I have been thinking of getting a digital one that I can download easily to the computer, but I'm basically too cheap. I'll probably break down before summer's over, though.
