God Save the Queen

On Friday, December 14, I'm heading home to Minnesota and I'm not coming back until January 5. That is basically three full weeks of vacation, or what the average American earns after 20 years of work for a company. Now, since September I've also had a full week off for "half-term break" and I've had two four day vacation weekends.

The beautiful thing about this three week vacation is that I'm only taking one of my actual vacation days. Since I work for the Catholic Church I get a full week off for Christmas, a bank holiday for New Years Day, and the rest of the time my work is giving back to me as days they owe me for overtime I've worked since October (I didn't track my September hours, but if I did I probably won't have to use any of my vacation for my three weeks of vacation.)

Now, beginning in March, after I've worked this job for 6 months, I'm automatically upgraded to 3 weeks of vacation. This means that I need to use my 2 weeks - minus one day - before March because they become void after that. So it looks like I may end up being the "typical American" and not using all my vacation days. I suppose I'll just have to settle for the 5 weeks of vacation I've had since starting here in September.

Same Difference

I watched the tv show The X-Factor tonight (basically Britain's American Idol) and I discovered the group "Same Difference." Same Difference is a brother and sister singing pair who are two of the most annoying people you will ever see. They make bubble gum pop look depressing, and in a year every American who earns babysitting money will own their CD.

Needless to say I love them because they love everything.

A Bridge Under Troubled Water

Some things in life you can't understand. One of them happened to me last week.

I was crossing the Chunnel, listening to the 59th Street Bridge Song, and I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that I need to have Art Garfunkel's solo album. I am positive that this album has all the answers to any problem in my life, but I can't name a singe track on it. If there was a record store deep below the earth that you could access by riding in a bus that was loaded on a train halfway between England and France, then I would already own every track that Art ever recorded, but as it is, I'll have to wait to find out what Art's wisdom entails.