Saturday, December 19

Shabu Shabu!

I was invited over to a parent's house this evening. She's Japanese, he's American, I've taught their son for 3 years now and tonight I was invited over for dinner. The son should have been on his way to America. However, due to the snow storm hitting the NE, he was there as well. No matter.

It was a wonderful meal of shabu shabu (meat cooked in boiling broth), then with the left over broth rice and egg was added to make a porridge (sounds better than gruel and way more delicious than gruel sounds also, want not, waste not, right?) all with sake, lots and lots of sake. Then we adjourned to the couch and the student adjourned upstairs and the evening continued with wine. It was great. Of course, now I'm wondering if I'm going to make my flight.

You see, Delt4 has canceled their direct Moscow-Atlanta flight, so I have to connect through JFK. And as we all know, my luck runs either really hot or (especially when coming from Moscow) really cold with air travel. A and I are supposed to arrive within an hour of each other. I really hope it all works out!

PS - I'm really, really annoyed with 1tunes. All the music I purchased under my old AOL screen name on my Mac Mini won't play on my MacBook. The customer service woman I've been working with for TWO days seems to be useless. Give me the music that I paid for, jerk holes.

Wednesday, December 16

3 more days

Still really, really cold. The windows on the bus have been frozen (from the inside!) for the past 2 nights driving home.

It's seriously f*cking cold.

However, in 3 more days I get to go to my parents for Christmas vacation. Here's what that'll be like:

Christmas in Atlanta

Except that we'll get to insert my friend A! Yep, I've got a friend coming from California for a visit. In talking to my parents recently:

Mom: "Now who's A again? Is he the one that you went to visit Aunt Cathy with in his van?"

Me: "Yep, on our way to Death Valley"

Mom: "Oh, right, the hippie." (I have no idea where she got this from except maybe my Aunt thought we were strange for going to Death Valley to sit in the hot springs in the middle of the summer... note: she was right, it was a bad idea)

Me: "Um, mom, you know I'm a hippie too, right?"

Mom: "I prefer to think of you as 'bohemian'"

Me: [involuntary shudder]

Tuesday, December 15

Minus 24 is cold

I know, I know it seems obvious. But really -10 is managable. However, I've discovered that I can't figure out how to layer to keep my thighs warm when it's below minus 20.

Sunday, December 13

Play Write

Every year for the last assembly of December, there has been a Pantomime in which the teachers perform a mostly improve play where each character is based on a senior. It's always been written by a staff member who left last year.

The Student Council took up the slack... supposedly. However, it's a busy time of year, one student dropped the ball and it didn't get written. However, this is one of my favorite things of the year and I really wanted it to happen. As such, I spent all day writing it.

It's based on A Christmas Carol and I hope it will be funny but not offensive. I'll try to get it recorded.

In other news, it's gotten cold, but not horrendously so. And I've been watching season 5 of Angel obsessively. I like it much better than season 4.

Oh, and I got an A in my class (missed an A+ by 1%). It really does make a difference when you like your classes or are freakishly good at writing papers that you don't really care about.

Tuesday, December 8

Winter Wonderland!

It's finally snowed here. I watched it snow all afternoon and then went and took the first shuttle home. It only took me an hour. The people who left later, it took them from 2 to 6 (SIX) hours! But it's beautiful. This was taken by Nat from our apartment windows today.

Sunday, December 6

Executive Thriller


Executive Thriller
Originally uploaded by Traveling Em
Remember when I told you that the Student Council was creating dances to Thriller? Well, I didn't get a video of the final production, but here's a rehearsal. This video is of the executives. Head over to flickr to see the other grades!

More Music

Even though I've yet to write about them, I've been getting out and going to a few concerts recently. On the day before Thanksgiving, 6 of us went to see the Harlem Gospel Choir. I was really hoping for a few hours of gospel, but the fine print was that it was gospel plus a MJ tribute. Now, I really like MJ songs, but a gospel choir has no business singing "The kid is not my son!" At least they didn't do any crotch grabbing.

Our favorite part: "When I say Jesus, you say Christ."
Choir: "JESUS"
Bree and I: "Christ"
The rest of the audience: Silence punctuated by crickets.

This past Tuesday (I just want you to note the above was on a Wednesday and then I went out on another week night! Wild and crazy, that's me), was the Moscow Oratory Society's annual concert. They always do a medley of carols and then part of Handel's Messiah. I really enjoy this every year. This year especially as they were in a church and there is really nothing better than a huge cathedral filled by choir music. The only downside was that it's a church in the middle of renovation. As such, the enjoyment of the music was detracted by the smell of paint fumes and the huge outdoor flood lights on the second floor. You can see what I mean in the video: