Merry (belated) Christmas

Christmas was pretty great. its been a long time since I celebrated christmas with people and family. Heather's parents had 30+ people over for xmas dinner. I helped with the slicing and dicing. the whole process was warm fuzzy. since i havent really celebrated xmas in years, it had sorta become just another day. This experience just kinda brought it all back. sometimes the process and preparations really do help make it grand.

Ispoke and joked with people and ate crazy amounts of food. overstuffed myself with the deserts and was pretty much ready to pass out before the guests left from my food coma. was a very successful holiday.

lots of love to all
j.

left behind

this is what I left behind in Romania to go to the bootishously warm UAE. this is the view outside my window. pretty but a bit cold.

Subaitha Oasis

on thursday (I have pretty much lost track of time already) i went with heather's dad Gerry and the natural history group on a hike/walk to an oasis. It was pretty awesome. I had forgotten how much i enjoyed the desert landscape and kind of how beautiful it is. the oasis had an abandoned village and date palms farm. We walked basically on the edge of a cliff on the irrigation channel to pools where some swam and I just dangled the feet in.

touch down

will be posting from the UAE for the meanwhile. am here for xmas, leaving behind the cold and ice of bucharest to wonderful winter sun of uae. will be staying with friends and hopefully doing all the touristy stuff I didnt do while i lived here.

caught a direct flight from bucharest and tarom (romania's airline) tried to starve me by not giving me a veggie meal despite confirmation that yes it was veggie. finally i got some bread cheese cucumber and tomato. i made a sandwich. i was almost ready to beat up other passengers for their food. I know that I couldnt eat it and that was all that saved them. but their was this tasty-looking cake thingy. one of the flight atttendants was over me asking for food I could eat that she basically rolled her eyes and moved on. I guess even the flight attendants arent taught to smile.

today we did cool stuff. more to come as soon as i sort out my camera.

christmas market

last weekend i went to Christmas market at the museum of the Romanian Peasant ( i know they could come up with a better name) there were people there from all over Romania with their traditional handicrafts and stuff from their ethnic groups. my little avaricious heart beat a steady tattoo. there were even people there with these gigantor copper stills - you know to make that plum brandy that'll put hair on your chest. there was some music and dance and food. crazy good stuff. here some pics. my dorkiness is much in evidence as i had to take pics with people. afterwards we went to enjoy some nice hot drinks.

i wonder . . .

if cats get embarrassed.

Ziggy - she of the stardust - is not a very successful cat. i think it may be because her tail is too long. Maybe she will grow into it.

the thing is she's always trying to leap on things and be all agile and graceful. sadly, graceful she is not. she just attempted a leap from the counter to the top of the fridge, only the went splat against the side of the fridge. it was like one of those roadrunner cartoons and the coyote just hits the side of the cliff and slides off. i laughed. she didnt try it again right then.

she does this alot. this usually leads to the breaking of things. but its still funny. maybe she doesnt appreciate me laughing at her. she's still crazy cute though

so so wrong

while we were on the fieldtrip . ..

the mall is gaily decorated for the xmas season. and lo and behold he comes santa walking around the food court. we see him take a picture with someone and thought "awesome, he can take one with me too!!"

when he comes near us, one of the students called him over. Santa shakes his head no and turns back the way he came.

i was shocked. shocked to be dissed by santa. what kind of goodwill is this? i tried to call the santa's union but the number is disconnected.

it was appalling. especially since it was me who wanted to take a pic with him. we never believed in santa growing sup, so i never got to take a picture with santa. looks like it aint gonna happen soon.

field trip

this is my job. dont think anyone really cares but took the year 11's on a field trip today. it was pretty good. sometimes am amazed at how nice they can actually be. they were considerate, offering to pay for their own public transport fares when they thought i was paying for it. from my pocket

we've been studying towns and one of the purposes of the trip was to contrast different areas of the city. through data collection (am not gonna bore you with the details) and observation, explain all manner of things. one of the interesting things is how sheltered they are. they are pretty wealthy and really have no idea how the majority of people live and were a little shocked by what they saw in the part of town away from the embassies, gov't buildings, and wealthy houses.

also included was a trip to the mall to study blah blah blah . . . they seemed to enjoy that part.

25 years old

yep . . . not me but thriller. so here i commemorate one of the most important albums in my life. Michael jackson touched me as a child (get your mind out of the gutter) and therefore has a special place in my heart - or at least this album does.

"beat it" were the first words of english i learned. cant even tell you how i wore them out. singing REPEATEDLY. here's a little something on how he has touched people the world over. obviously an inspiration to many . I find the pelvic thrusts in this one particularly scary.


oh and lets not forget this one from the Philippines. if you gotta go to jail this seems like the one to go to. oh and i love how our female lead has a serious case of male patterned baldness.