High and Low

Last nite, I went to the Anteneul and saw the Belcea (string) Quartet. The program included Haydn - pretty good, Beethoven - pretty awesome. Then came the break. Afterwards, it became pretty clear that I should have left. They finished with Brahms - mmm okay but my bladder was feeling a little nervous. I was doing all the clapping and stuff and the players left the stage and came back on. Okay, so I clap some more. Then, THEY SAT DOWN AGAIN!. This aint a rock concert! What's up with the encore!. To top it all, they encored with Mozart - torturous. Another 20 minutes of listening to a composure that either annoys or bores me or both. All in all it was really good though.

After dinner, we hooked up with some friends at a club/bar called control. it was a refreshing change from the Russian club that another one of my friends likes so much - no circle dancing, no bad, and i do mean BAD techno, and no half naked girls dancing on the pole on the bar (last time they were all festive, looking like Santa's hookers). This was an alterna club - lots of music from bands with nerdy/emaciated white boys talking about feelings and stuff. I must say that I enjoyed it - I do listen to alot of this stuff at home. The music was pretty much anything that was Indie today. and Indie of yesteryore. I do not understand the love of the Smiths quite so much. Much of the music came out before these kids were even born - totally making me feel old.

This club brought back fond memories of old wave nights when I was a youngun'. The dance floor was crowded with people looking like were in the midst of epileptic seizures, rhythm was not a word that many had a passing acquaintance with. It was kinda cool, people dancing, not worried about being sexy to catch the eye of . . . crawled home about 4am.

best pick-up line ever

so tonite. . . was a friend's birthday. met some new people, re-met some old ones. some (including me) are dancing, having a good time.

am dancing with this one dude, been sending the vibes all night long and previously. things are looking kinda okay. well. . . song is playing, he's at my back. He leans in (he's very tall which is pretty rare in Romania) to whisper (in reality, yell as the music is blaring and beverages have been imbibed) sweet nothings in my ear. He says, "I play bass so I have rhythm like a nigger". Wow, the brakes go on so fast I have whiplash.

The sad thing is that he had no idea he said something wrong. 'Though he tries to wrap his head around it after I explain, it didn't take.

doubly sad, he had no rhythm.

catching up

yeah i know its been a crazy long time since updating but here goes.

had a week of holiday. meant to go to turkey, but too lazy. meant to go to bulgaria, but too lazy. i had just about enough energy to stay at home and hang out in my bed. sometimes i moved to the couch. and as a real show of strength, i left my house 3 times in 9 days. time well spent - okay just read and read. theres a bit more to it but thats the gist.

tonite i had another parents evening. really like the kids i teach and it was kinda nice to see the parents. i said something positive about each one. parents really like to hear that you like their kids. but . . . i was 4 hours without a break. my bladder was wanting a divorce afterwards

Friday, i went to the Underworld concert. it was really really good. they make super good dance music and was able to sing and dance and dance and make a friend. its a little disconcerting when the people hitting on you are so young. esp. when i think back and realize he could have been my student a few years ago. i forgot my camera but the concert people got me (look exotic here) here is a pic with me and caroline and greg trying to act like he doesnt know us. the show was in an airplane hanger, with awesome lights, and it was coooold but warmed up once we got to dance.

election fever

as said did all my voting before. one of the most interesting things to me about htis election has been how many people here have been involved in it. my neighbor asked me last year about whether i would support obama over clinton. my homeroom students who are 12/13 years old were all talking about it. asking me how i felt and who did i vote for. some were just like, "obama won, mccain sucks". people were congratulating me on the victory and how things would be better and different now. one wanted to go and have a celebration beer (though i think that was just hte excuse for the beer) of course when people were disparaging bush, i never said anything, kinda like you can talk crap about your family but no one else can. i dont think that people talked this much about the elections here earlier this year. kinda stresses how involved the world is with the US even if her people dont think about the rest of the world much.

I voted!!!

for the first time i voted. whoohooo. got my absentee ballot and mailed it off. i laos had to vote for some local seminole country stuff and it took me forever to send that mess on cause i had to do research and stuff, you know, to try to make an informed decision.. really wanted to vote a teacher onto the county school board but not if she doesnt believe in evolution and that creationism should be taught. found out that seminole county schools are among the top in the state. yay!!! for seminole.

there were some constitutional amendments that i also got to vote on. the funny thing is that i dont think they really want people to make an informed decision. like, i think am a reasonably intelligent and educated person, and i had difficulty wading my way through the legalese to really understand what they were saying. i had to read a couple of them 2/3 times and break it down. makes me think that lots of people may have difficulty knowing exactly what their voting on.

chihuahua

chihuahua hate me. i odnt like them either but i am now convinced (as part of my persecution complex) that i must have done something in my past life. normally, dogs are okay with me and i am okay with them, but not these little accidents of creation. i have never met a chihuahua that has been nice to me.

last nite, i was having people over and i ran to the little store up the way for a couple of last minute ingredients. on the way back, walking through the childrens park by my house, i saw one out for a walk with its owner without a leash. it must have been a trick of the light - dark with the shifting shadows of the trees as the wind blew, but i thought that chihuahua wasnt that ugly.
well, as soon as i got near the little bugeyed monster, it went crazy chasing me and barking. it even continued to follow me down the path. the little old lady who owned it just kept on instructing me to not be afraid but my foot was itching to have a tourettes moment. the people in the park started laughing.

i was beaten by a two pound psychotic pooch.

birthday curse

i was going to call this birthday blues, but am not blue cause its my birthday. i dont mind growing older (i may have a different response in 10 years) but am not freaking out cause i've turned 30. but ever since i was 12 the universe has conspired against me and something emotionally jarring has happened around my birthday. i cant say if it was every year but it sure does feel like it.

on thursday, i and a couple of friends found an abanandoned kitten and i took her home. she was so cute, mostly white with tabby markings on her face and tail, and well behaved. i wasnt sure if i could keep her but . . . on saturday i woke up and there was blood on the blanket from baby kitty. i thought that ziggy had attacked and hurt her. i took them both to the vet, who said that Bertha (baby kitty) had some teeth problems and it would bleed a bit more but she would be okay. i took her home and it didnt stop bleeding and i decided to take her to the vet the next day.

well we didnt make that. my vet wouldnt answer the phone and i had to call a friend to get a 24 hour vet. Bertha had started having convulsions and crying. She was a really quiet kitten. and then i couldnt get a taxi since it was saturday nite. By the time I got her to the vet, she had slipped into a coma and he said there was nothing he could do for her.

i cried when my fish died (as an adult). so there was me weeping uncontrollably at 1 am sunday morning at the vets office while my kitten continued to have convulsions and died.

She was kinda a birthday present to myself, hence her name - Bertha Day. but the universe gave me another one. am of the opinion that it sucked. so have decided that my birthday doesnt exist or is now April 22.

iftar dinner

just came back from iftar dinner - the meal breaking the daily fast during ramadan.

one of the things i like about this school is the small size. its a bit more like a community and i know virtually all the students since i either teach them now or have in the past.

earlier i wrote about being tortured by the family of kids with a genetic sugar high, now i write something a bit more positive. we have a lot of turkish (and other moslem) kids at the school and every year some parent invites some of the teachers for dinner. this year it was a couple of kids who are really wonderful. i feel like i'm channeling my mom when i say things like 'good kids come from good parents' but these kids are just great so it was quite pleasant going to their house. i was showed their bedroom (which was crazy neat) and we had a wonderful meal which mom had started cooking the night before. dessert was chocolate cake, baklava, and candied pumpkin!! homemade turkish food is pretty awesome. and the she gave us a gift of turkish coffee when we left.

all in all a lovely evening - my stomach is bursting and my brain has shut off - i had actually intended to do some work tonite. alas, it will have to wait til the morning.

sad passing

sadly and this is truly sad, richard wright pianist/keyboardist of pink floyd has died. he wrote some of my faves from the catalog. great gig in the sky is one of those totally awesome and beautiful songs that i pretty much butcher and make the ears of anyone in the vicinity bleed anytime i try to sing. no words but great vocals evocative. this of course ends a long held dream of mine of seeing pink floyd in concert.

the imagery for the video for learning to fly haunted me from the time i was 8 until i saw it almost a decade later though i didnt then know it was pink floyd. i went through a massive pink floyd period, listening to it non stop. it was like a whole world opened up to me when i got the wish you were here album. so much of my thinking and life at that point involved pink floyd. whether i was listening to them while contemplating an important decision (important for then) or easing my sorrow over something. it was/is music that fueled my imagination or soothed my emotions (kinda like those chicken soup books but way way better and less hokey). a lot of the songs spoke to the loneliness and isolation of my teenage self allowing me to acknowledge it and providing an outlet for angst. cocooned by the music - definitely best listened to loud or headphones - i and everything was okay. it definitely is part of the soundtrack of my young adulthood and life. listening to a song now evokes memories of my then.

time, wish you were here, wearing the inside out, welcome to the machine, shine on you crazy diamond, high hopes, us and them, great gig in the sky, hey you, goodbye cruel world, vera, comfortably numb, run like hell, on the turning away - some of the best

teacher nightmare

i guess my subconscious is still fighting the return to work

i dont remember all of it, but i woke up at like 5am this morning from this dream.

a student, dont know who, in passing gave me chewing gum. i chewed it and later couldnt breathe. i was gasping for breath while by throat closed up and i was trying to give instructions on what to do in my absence.

i was laying on the lunchroom floor in a skirt that had flown up - not wearing my prettiest underwear and students were all about. it was later found that poison had been injected into the gum.

probably has nothing to do with school. but i seriously woke up with trouble breathing. maybe the cat had been messing with me, half suffocating me, giggling, before moving off my face.(i think shes a little mean).