Random Thoughts:

Did you know that Alfred Vail is the true inventor of Morse Code? Samuel Morse had the idea and the patent, but created a clunky machine and a cumbersome code (number per word! Can you imagine??). It was actually his assistant, Vail, who invented the telegraph and the code (using the alphabet and "dit" "dahs") that we think of as Morse Code. Interesting, huh?

So these are the kinds of things I learn as I struggle to make English interesting. ;) The truth is, I love it. I love learning random things that might some day help me to win a round of trivial pursuit, or impress someone at a cocktail party.

Can you imagine how revolutionary the telegraph was in its day? I mean, it's as world-changing as internet, at least. Really, messages that took days to send, suddenly took minutes! I can't even imagine being present in Congress in 1844 when the first telegraph was sent: "What God hath wrought". How mind blowing must that have been?

And speaking of technology, can I just say what a miracle the internet is! I am so dependent on the internet for everything, from communication to a resource for work to an answer to my most trivial questions--I can't imagine life without it; yet there was a time, in my lifetime, that it didn't exist! It's one of those things that has so quickly become part of my daily life that I can't imagine functioning without it. In fact, the threat of NOT having internet lead me (the cheapskate) to cough up 70 euros a month for the service when our hacking went haywire.

Something like the telephone is different. It's difficult to imagine life without a telephone, but because legitimately I have never existed as person without the telephone. That's not true with internet. There was a time, even if I was only five, that the internet didn't exist. That's crazy to me.

Can you believe technology? Wow. That's all I can say, when I really sit and think about it--wow!

On another subject completely, I thought I should announce to you all that I'm making a power point on "Easter" for the school and I've decided that in the face of so much one-sided Christianity I should represent the other major holiday this time of year: Passover.

Did you know that Pesach (the Hebrew name for the holiday) is the root for the word Pascua, which is the Spanish word for Easter? I'll bet most of the kids at school don't know that. So when Spaniards talk about Passover, they say: Pascua judia. Really that's about like saying "Snowy Sierra Nevada mountains"-- it's repetitive (sierra nevada means snowy mountains in Spanish). So along with the Easter bunny, not Christian either, I'll be saying a bit about matzo.

That's all I've got for today.

besos from Spain