I'm finding it easier to do the blog in the early morning while Jim and Sharon are here. In the evenings everyone wants to be online and it takes too much time to write this and upload all the photos. Not that you care about such a minor detail, but it explains why I'm talking about "yesterday" in the posting.

I had the Comparative class yesterday morning. A major development: a Greek student came. As I've previously mentioned, the class has been just three students from other countries. In the 4th week of the class, we were finally joined by a Greek student. Stelios told me later that he had been the one to tell her to attend. She had sepnt a semester in Germany and approached him about the prospects of grad school in either the UK or US. He told her she ought to be in my class.

After class Stelios asked me if I would be willing to copyedit the revised book introduction and chapter outline, which I agreed to do. I also met a professor in the department who teaches conflict resolution and group psychology. The "department" probably might be better characterized a college because it is made up of three separate units, but together there are only about 26 full time faculty. Students get a liberal arts education but most of it comes from the department. Firts semester courses in the "department" are: Social Theory; Modern Greek, Language and Literature; Intro to Comm Theory; Intro to New Technologies; Contemporary European History, and; Intro to the Psychology of Communication.

I got back to the apartment in the early afternoon. The three of them hadn't been out and pretty much decided to spend the day inside. It was a good choice for the evening as we got a spring storm, complete with lightning and thunder.

Since they were unable to get onto the 4-day cruise, they can be more leisurely about doing things. They have a good attitude about traveling. When their kids were little, they always programmed in a "rest day" every third day or so. They never got back from vacation needing a vacation. Sounds pretty sensible to me, but I know I always feel like I should be moving.

They are also exceedingly attentive to each other's needs. They will tease each other and insult each other all the time, but when they're not in the room together, Jim is always talking about what Sharon would like and Sharon is always saying how Jim needs this or that. I know they'll read this blog, and if they're in the same room when they read it they'll probably make some joke about it. Jim's whole reason for coming to Greece was because Sharon wanted to, and Sharon will forego doing things when she thinks Jim has had enough.

In case it isn't obvious, I'm still uploading pictures from Nicole's visit.

In terms of a news story, I wanted to provide something out of China. There was a story in the International Herald Tribune about the Bird's Nest and how it is being used after the Olympics. I find it interesting because here in Athens it seems there are so many venues being under-utilized. That's just the observation of a non-professional, but I can't help but believe many of these structures that got built to host thousands of international guests, just 5 years later, are looking pretty run down.