Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Ignite Your Light- Baby, You're a Firework

So I got back from Armenia. I went there for a weekend vacation! My friend, BPRSII, invited me to go. My mission was to get candy for our lovely Safety and Security Officer, but I couldn't find it anywhere! My opinion of Yerevan was that it was awesome! Of course, there were the Soviet-style buildings, but our hostel was awesome. It was filled with Americans, one Canadian, one Slovenian (who liked to take pictures), and one other guy (Hungarian?). The Americans were pretty much all different walks of the Georgian Ministry of Education's Teach and Learn in Georgia (TLG) Program.

note: the Geo. Ministry of Education's goal is to put a native speaker in every school in Georgia, starting off with 1000 volunteers and then going from there. It's sustainability for funding is questionable, but the aim of the program is decent, and the Americans I've met have been pretty cool folks!

One TLG'er in particular, I'll call Crime, has been such a blast to hang out with. We are working on a facebook friend's page together, but facebook doesn't seem to update these pages too regularly... Her and BPRSII have really broken me out of my shell. It's not that I'm a different person, but just that it's really good to find people that are amazing to hang out with. I haven't forgotten about Punishment, who had a scheisty Thanksgiving, for which I am sorry and will make it up to her. Also, I appreciate everyone else who has been sending packages and letters, providing support, visiting my site and/or just reading the ol' blog.

Through some facebook stalking, I discovered christwire.org, a hilarious satire site on radical Christianity (at first I didn't know it was satire: thank you, Johnny-in-5-Years; AND I must say that Katy Perry's new(ish) video "Firework" is pretty awesome. Well done!

I taught my students the lyrics to Wham!'s "Last Christmas" along with the meanings to try and show Georgians that it is NOT a happy song! I went through this discussion many times last year and failed. I wasn't going to be had again this year. Well.... despite knowing the lyrics, the history, and even seeing the music video, my students are CONVINCED it is, in fact, a happy song....

I made Broccoli Casserole for Thanksgiving. Not gonna lie, before I made my first casserole I thought they were a kind of trashy, but after crumbling the last potato chip on top of that glorious glob of thanksgiving goodness, I'm a believer. It was delicious!

In other news, my kitchen runs on natural gas. It had been out for 3 days until this afternoon! I just made a huge bowl of pasta to celebrate.

Last night, to celebrate my day (kind of) off today, I watched "How to Train Your Dragon." It was a lovely Dreamworks film I'd recommend. Tonight I think I'll tackle "Ninja Assassin." In just a few minutes I'll be heading to some festivities for "World AIDS Day." Get out there! Get tested! Use a condom!