holiday paranoia

YaY!!! was great. we had 3 random days off to make a 5 day weekend. the government decided to close schools since there was a big french conference thing happening. who am i to argue about the randomness of it all? though the school was not very nice and made the support staff work til five everyday. doing what i ask? dont know what that is all about other than torturing them.

vegged for one day, then spent two days in Transylvania. I am Dracula. (gotta say it with a rolling r) from one of the best Keanu movies ever.

anyway. i get stared at a lot. i think they have never seen a black person before. kids are staring. i was visiting a castle when there was a school group there. I swear there were hundreds of eyes pointed at me. one asked the teacher what i was and the teacher just kinda looked at me with this totally confused look on her face.

I always feel like, somebodies watching ( lovely little ditty and only hit of motown founders son with mike jackson providing vocals)

have loads of pics - gotta put them up.

we are the world

i saw the video for 'we are the world' today. i was amazed at the fact that i could identify all of the singers. especially since some - havent done anything in a while, i.e. james ingram. was kinda cool cause what could be a totally crappy song is not. i mean the lyrics are kinda repetitive, but all of those different voices and singing styles add interest. still had my favorites. Just remembered kenny rogers

have gotten out of the habit of watching t.v. i dont even know why i pay for cable here. htere are lots of stations but em. . . a little odd. when i do watch t.v., its VH1 and MTV. VH1 here is great. if they subtitled that, i would be fluent already. today i saw the 40 greatest heavy metal songs of all time. was very educational.

everything is subtitled here. is good cause i guess it helps romanians learn other languages. there are t.v. stations from france, germany, and spain. gotta say spanish soaps are as bad as the mexican ones.

one of the worst things is when i see a t.v. show that i like. the characters speak and my brain seems to have trouble processing it. only to realize that its an american show, dubbed in german, subtitled in romanian. so i am totally excluded from watching it. unless i make my own stuff up.

thank god for the internet and the new fall season. have started my downloading. today i saw the first episode of CSI: New York. let me know if there is anything else on t.v. i should download. always up for the new stuff.

went ot the peasant museum and had interesting transport experiences. will get to that

loves ya

rain rain go away

yeah so its raining. i know that i should really appreciate it since coming from the desert and all but em, am thinking it can go away. havent rained much since i've been here and i guess i kinda got used to it.

told myself yesterday to buy an umbrella so i didnt and today it rained.

luckily i've a ginormous 'fro. it totally protected me from the evil rain. my head didnt get wet at all. glad to know that i grow it for something.

am also expecting anti-cold super afro powers

evil bells, evil bells, evil all the way

the bell at my school is an instrument of evil. you don't get a normal bell sound but these ding ding dings. if that were all, it would be okay. but noooooo. they are ding ding ding nursery rhymes.

the bell goes every 45 minutes -- then there is the warning bell 3 minutes later, then the final one 2 minutes after that. so i hear that bell a - lot!.

the recently i was singing a barney song for two days. oh and whenever the song came up i felt the urge to do the dance too.

' do your ears hang low? do they wobble to and fro? can you tie them in a knot? can you tie them in a bow? . . .

evil!!! plus people look at me funny when i sing and dance this down the street.

my disfigured nose-less face

oh and the tissue here is like sandpaper. even kleenex sold out when it came to romania and makes crap. my nose may be sanded off before i die. so be prepared for the horror of my disfigured nose-less face.

maybe you could find prosthetic noses for me. do they make them cute?

tea and sympathy

am sick. am miserable. and i have no idea what the stuff on the medicine boxes say. i have a horrible cold thing with a headache and am unable to breathe. i may suffocate to death.

have loads to put up but you know how i get. have pics and descriptions of the wedding and i went to the black sea coast. saw a dead dolphin and other yummy surprises. i didnt know that the black sea had dolphins - was wrong.

will post when i am a bit better.

laters

meat and taxi drivers

since the whole food thang . . .

i went to Cora which is a french Walmart - but not as good - to do some house and grocery shopping. its a freaking madhouse. walmart seems to be a bit more sedate.

i saw like the most meat i had every seen in one place - well aside from a cow farm. i mean they have all these different sections and like a whole isle of cured meats. i guess there is more than one way to skin a cat - or em cure it.

there was also alot of cheese which is good and bad for me. and yay! of yays! i found tofu. i wouldnt have thought it. the weird thing is that its kinda just like cheese. imagine pepper jack cheese but with tofu. i also found some dried stuff. so i gots some protein.

we went home with a taxi driver who was like this massively old dude. he sang our address as he drove us home. LOUDLY. then he decided he needed to make a pit stop at a bakery to buy some bread. he kept on extolling the virtues of the bread and shaking it at us.

oh and he asked me if i was from nigeria or guatamala - a weird combo. i told hime guatamala. i like this - am totally picking up nationalities, from places i have never been to.

laters

the anti atkins

one of the nice bits about the job is that htye provide lucnh. YAY!!! gone are the days when i had to make and pack a lunch or starve if i wa too lazy. consequently i am on an anti atkins diet.

its pretty decent food. way better that whatever i had in the high school lunch room. cooked fresh everyday. but dear lord! romanians are totally people after atkins heart. lots of meat in varying forms. i eat a lot of rice, barley, and pasta. every day i have a lot of that. at luch they always serve two of the three. plus veggies and stuff.

am sure am gonna tire of it quickly but then again, i dont have to make my own lunch!

tight pants and camel toes

Ahh! the joys of tight pants and camel toes. i myself have yet to experience it but am pretty sure that there must be some. that is the fashion statement of choice for the ladies here.

am a bit afraid that i too shall succumb to this dangerous fashion trend. just like i started liking sequins from living in the uae, the camel toes may seem to be the height of fashion in a year or so.

the funny thing is that there is an equivalent for me. i dont know if pants are made specially here but i find it amazing that men and women are able to partake of the same fashion trend.

will be going to a romanian wedding tomorrow. more joy to come.

Settling in

have just finished my first full week of classes. the kids seem nice enough though they are still on vacation.

am adjusting to life here. i have an apt and am sharing for someone for the first time in many years. i am gonna try and not make her hate me for a while. i figure xmas is a good goal. the apt is pretty nice - recently redone, so its nice and clean. only problem is the issue of furnishings. they are coming to put our kitchen sink in this afternoon. apts go so fast here that we had to say yes to it as soon as we saw it or we would have nothing. this happened a few times. my roommate and i got the reputation at the school as being a little picky apt wise cause saw so many things that we decided not to take. consequently, we got the apt before it was totally ready.

also - we have brand new furnishings but they are somewhat scary. they are this weird mix of modern and old. dont know - maybe all the communist years have destroyed something. all of the apt blocks are ugly. all cement thrown up during the communist era and the ones built afterward still look the same. but they are much nicer on the inside.

we live really close to this lovely, large park and can walk to work. will do until the weather turns nasty. its still quite nice out - sunny and warm. i think that when the weather turns, it will be quick and very painful for me. am hoping that global warming does its thing and kicks in for this winter.

laters