end of january

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88468505@N00/
there. figured id add that link again, for those of you that would like to see. that sight is really annoying and disorganizd, and really difficult to organize, i find, and it takes foreeeeeeeever to load photos. maybe im just not all that internet-inclined and theres some kind of secret i dont know about, but as it stands, i find it frustratingly time-consuming.

so an update on the working life. i think i have discovered the secret! the trick is to make sure that you do something that you think is fun, and then to not care whether or not the students enjoy themselves! the other trick is to realize that its all pretty much a waste of everybodies time,but that that is really ok! i dont know, maybe thats not the secret at all. all i know is that since i got back from christmas ive been preparing the minimum possible, doing as little 'real work' as possible, and ive been having a ball! i think they might actually be learning something, too, which is totally accidental, but totally cool!!!!

anyway, its not all peaches and roses, but its a heck of a lot better than it was at the beginning, thats for sure.

update on other things in life...... hm. we have vacation again soon. the french love their vacations, man, thats for sure. not that im complaining - far from it! Dinan died in January. its was amazing - everythign was closed because everybody (as in, storekeepers) took their yearly vacation. and there arent any tourists this month, so its been an eerily quiet and empty town. what else, what else... thats about it. Im still doing theatre, in fact, we are going to present our play at a festival in April, which is hilarious. tryign to think about what the heck to do next year, adn this summer, actually. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, feel free to pass them on!

oh holy night

So! Morgan was here for three weeks! It was awesome. We spent the first week hanging aroudn Dinan, seeing what sights there were to see here, as well as makign a trip to the Mont St.Michel. One of the sights to see here included the Christmas house, the place where Christmas lives, I think. It was a house that belonged in a fairy tale, adn for me, the tea and cake that we had in that house were my Christmas.

Then we went to Rome! But first we spent two days in Beauvais, waiting for our flight. Funny thing, Beauvais. Its listed as an airport in Paris, but in fact, its nowhere near paris. Or, I supposed its NEAR Paris, buts its certainly its own town! Anyway, I was expecting a boringi little place, but it turned out to be lovely! In fact, our second favourite church of the trip was the Basilica in Beauvais. The first favourite being, of course, St. Peter's, but that shouldnt even count as being in the same category as any other church, in my opinion. Anyway, we spent a lovely day in Beauvais, relaxing, playing hte tourist a bit. I bought a french-italian converstaion guide. haha. And we were both feelign creative so we bought sketchbooks and paints and pastels. another haha.

Rome, in short, was amazing. We saw, I think, just about all the major sights, discovered some great thigns, saw some great sights, ate some great chinese food. That's right, I said Chinese food. our favourite resaurant in Rome, by far, was this amazing Chinese place that served the most delicious pineapple rice....

My favourte parts were just about all in Vatican City. St.Peters.... its an inspiring, breathtaking place. Sistine Chapel - same thing. the square itself - wow. We also really liked this park we found, the Villa Borghese. But that was mostly because by then we were kind of sick of the city life and we liked getting away from teh crowds!

We made it to midnight mass with the pope. we made inside, actually, even thought we were supposed to have tickets to be there. We found the Colosseum to be smaller than expected, and I found, in general, that things were overpriced for what you got. But it was a remarkable city, and a remarkable trip. We met some nice people, at our regular phone and internet place, at the gas station pizza place next to the hostel with the amazingly good pizza, in the villa borghese (best way to make friends quick, getting naked?)...

I've uploaded more photos, as usual, so check out the flickr site if you like! i tried to organize them, but it didnt work, so its a bit of a mess. but anyway, they are there!

home again

ok, for any of you who read this often, I will be back in Dinan on the 5th of january. the flights thing got sorted out, and i have officially seen more than i ever wanted to see of rome! lol.