64 Days

Danielle tagged me and I'm sucker so.....
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I still have a baby tooth.

2. I have to limit my peanut butter intake (i only eat natural btw) because i have a tendency to eat an entire jar with a spoon in a matter of days

3. I hate when people run their windshield wipers too fast.

4. I've never done a single illegal drug. I took my DARE pledge very seriously.

5. I like holiday themed socks and underwear A LOT

6. I can't spell. The only reason I don't have documents chock full of misspellings is because i read a lot and when i misspell something it just "looks wrong" and then i can figure it out.

7. I applied to NYU as a microbiology major and Pepperdine as an English major (ya i applied to two schools and thats it.) I ended up with the degree I have today because my parents thought NYU was really far away and I was happy to go to a school on the beach.

8. I don't like donuts, ranch dressing, mayonaise, or sour cream

9. Seriously this is only number 9? when i get married i only want a wedding band, no diamond, emerald, or anything else

10. I get scared easily. Scary movies scare me, i get scared in the car when my arm is out the window cause i imagine the car flipping over and then i'll only have one arm, I imagine falling off my bike and into the Niger when i cross the bridges, i think about planes crashing as soon as i get on one.....i think the root of all this fear is an extremely over active imagination. I deal though, and it generally doesn't affect me unless i'm sleeping in a house by myself....then i have nights when i can't sleep because along with the imagination comes a lot of dreams, some scary.

11. I really love disneyland/disneyworld. I know i shouldn't, but they make me really happy. I hate the "princess" thing and girls should not want to be flippin snow white they should want to be astronauts but there is nothing like main street holding hands with thomas. the place really is magic

12. speaking of holding hands, i love farmer's markets. holding hands and fruit go together.

13. I don't believe God has a "plan for my life" uh oh, i just scared my mom and made several people uncomfortable...sorry! hehe

14. I love traveling. not the kind where you go for a week and be a tourist, the kind where you are "in it" and live the culture. whether it's mali, italy, honduras, wyoming, maine, DC, mexico...etc. i don't just want to visit i want to live there....

15. I really really really wish i believed in reincarnation. i wanna be reincarnated.

16. I listen to This American Life every week ( i can podcast it)

17. Peace Corps is by far the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

18. If i won the lottery i would go to school and get like 30 Bachelors degrees. Probaby a couple masters and MAYBE a PhD....mostly i like broad spectrum education though.

19. I don't like my belly button touched. I don't even touch it. Isn't that weird?

20. I "know" (i use the term loosely) seven languages. English, Spanish, Italian, Portugease, French, Hebrew, Bambara. Again....i use the word know, but it's more like I'm FAMILIAR with seven languages

21. I'm really ridiculously in love with thomas.

22. My favorite UFC fighter is George St. Pierre.

23. I love to cook and i love wearing aprons.

24. I love the zoo but i have inner conflict because i dont' think they should exist....going to the zoo is one of my vices.

25. I love to read philosophy, LOVE. Like nerdy would-rather-read-philosophy-than-go-party kind of love.

If you have a blog and you read this consider yourself tagged since i'm pretty sure less than 25 people read this lol

66 Days

66 Days til I meet my Mom, Dad, and Thomas in AMSTERDAM! WOOT! ya you heard it here first i'm actually going to see that handsome man i call mine AND my awesome parents. I'm so excited!

Classes are going well, except there are still no freshmen. But all the same my British Studies class is plowing through the material. The major problem i'm running into is that they refuse to ask questions when they don't understand. I will say

"do you know what an ox is?"
--blank stares-
"okay if you don't know a word in the text be sure and ask. An ox is similar to a cow"
-oooooo nodding heads but blank stares--
I get suspicious here and say - "Do you know what a cow is?"
--blank stares--
"I don't know the word in french, but in bambara it is Misi"
--finally they get it, and they laugh cause their white american professor knows bambara-

First they don't ask when they don't understand originally, then they don't ask when they don't understand the answer....it's an uphill battle. But it's still a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying my time with my students.

The kittens are getting big and soon at least one will be leaving the house :( I've got to call the vet and get their shots and get Phoebe fixed and maybe Gizmo (i want to keep her....) They are a lot of fun and have a grand time playing in my room every morning and evening.

Hope you are all well, go eat something good and American today and dedicate it to me :)

Gypsy on!

I drew a Viking helmet for my class

Classes are off and running....as long as you aren't a freshman. Freshman are apparently still registering and that's why I no one has shown up to my freshmen classes.

My British Studies class met for the fourth time today and is going just swimmingly. We are studying the Anglo Saxons and their role in British history. Our piece of literature for the period is Beowulf. We are reading a modern translation since the language is quite difficult in the normal translations.

My student's seem to be enjoying it and have asked several good questions prompting me to draw swords, helmets with bull horns on them, and maps of europe on the blackboard. Although my artistry is poor, it seems they are really learning the material.

I love teaching :)

As for Obama's inauguration, we watched in style at the American Club and toasted the president with pizza and soft drinks (and some had beer).

I don't know if I believe in Obama's Messianic qualities espoused by the devout left, but i do know that "Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things" and America has some serious collective hope right now. That kind of hope can create change all by itself. I hope.

Gypsy On!

SCHOOLS IN! Woot!

It's been a ROUGH couple months. I was feeling really really useless over here. But school has finally started, and I'm so excited.

Classes began on Monday, but my first class met Wednesday. Usually I will have about 135 students per class (I have 5 classes). I was a little depressed when half my classes didn't show up and the other half only had about 15 people in them each. BUT...apparently this is fairly normal for the first week and I expect attendance to be up next week.

I have 3 American Studies classes, 1 British Studies class, and 1 Conversation class.

My American Studies classes will begin with exploration and end around Western Expansion. We will look at history through the lense of literature...or so is my plan.

British Studies is still kind of in the air. We were originally told to begin with the middle ages-renaissance....but that may have been a mistake, still waiting to hear. In the meantime my class has not read Beowulf, so we'll begin there.

Conversation is a wide open class. I can talk about anything at all. I may use this venue to get students talking about civil rights, women's rights, religion and government, and development.

I really hope we don't strike anytime soon......but I've already heard there are some problems on the horizon........we'll wait and see :)

In the meantime, i'm lesson planning!

Gypsy On!

I've got the most serious craving ever for Marrakesh in Portland.

When I get home I'm making a beeline for this.

ya ya i'm teaching, i'll tell you about it tomorrow when my first week is "officially" over ;)

gypsy on

6 months on the nose

Can you stinking believe it? I start teaching this week. Classes start tomorrow and my first class is wednesday. I teach wed-sat, American Studies, British Lit, and Conversation.

Holy smokes i better write a lesson plan!!!!!!!!!!!

;) wish me luck.

ps if you have 2500 lying around looking for something to do....thomas needs a ticket to africa. it's not a noble cause, but it would make me very happy...wait in princess bride true love is the most noble cause of all. ;) hehe...for real though 2500 dollars to come to this hole? lame. we're working on it...

True...very very true

Holiday Weight?

Thomas is training on the web now. It's pretty cool...he has me on a program too. It's super affordable and he's an amazing trainer....not just cause i love him, he helped me lose 10% of my body fat BEFORE we even dated. Check it out here

Happy New Years

The cats are getting huge! So cute. New Years Pics here

New Years was fun...for New Years. It's one of my least favorite holidays of the year. It ends the holiday "season" and it's so anti-climactic. But it was as good as I could ask for. I went with my pilot friends to their boss' house for good south african sausage (to die for) and champagne. We lit some fireworks and just had a nice relaxing evening.

In other news, Thomas sent me the BEST PACKAGE EVER! Okay sorry to everyone else that sent me one, I'm fairly biased being I'm in love with him, but still it was great. I got whipped honey, my favorite cookies, jelly beans, gummy bears, and the BEST CD EVER. It's a movie cd of his trip to portland and a few of my favorite people starred. I got to see Andrew running around the pumpkin patch, my mom laughing with thomas, and my dad wondering about with goats. Not to mention my Nathan and Kristi's beautiful shining happy faces :)

It really made my day. My month, actually...possibly even more than that. Thanks sweetheart, love you.

In other news, school might actually start. They've started registering students and I was told that perhaps in 2 weeks we'd actually begin. I'm translating that to within the month. I'm really hoping. I love climbing, playing sports, cooking and hanging out with my friends....but life seems to lack much meaning lately. Could really use a purpose.

Gypsy on!