Back home again
I dropped Ruth off at Smith yesterday, then drove back to Bradley airport and flew home. The picture shows my daughter in front of a bulletin board with student photos, including one (the blue one) that shows her in the same pose).
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year in the U.S. I’d hoped to be able to catch an earlier flight to O’Hare, but it was full. When we got to O’Hare, the flight to Champaign was delayed quite a bit because the crew was delayed on the flight they were coming in on. I finally got home about 12:15 in the morning, but it could have been worse. It was great to see my relatives over Thanksgiving, since I haven’t seen my parents or siblings since last Thanksgiving.
On the flight I finished reading a copy of Ivanhoe that I’d picked up in China. It’s a very nice story, and it was interesting to realize how oppressive the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066 AD was to the Saxon population. Some of this is reflected in the language (i.e., the book points out that the names ofr animals tend to come from the Anglo-Saxon of the Saxons who herded them (i.e., cow), though the name of the processed food comes from the French of the people who ate it (i.e., beef)).