still sick

I thought I was getting better yesterday...but today I am feeling horrible again. I tried to go out today, but that wore me out. Two long coffee visits and I am wiped out. Maybe I really am getting better, but the fact that I am exerting energy today makes me feel worse. I don't know.
Tomorrow is another slow day...so hopefully I can get some more rest and fully recuperate. But then I start aerobics tomorrow night and start up my village kids club on Saturday. I hope I am ready!

Last night, on Valentines day, I found myself out for coffee with three guys. My roommate was with me, so I wasn't the only girl, but still it was interesting. We had class at 6, and at 6:25 the power went out. That ended class early. So then one of my students invited us out for coffee. He wanted to celebrate with us, as he had just received a new job (for which I interviewed him). Initially we went out with a few other students, but in the end it was my roommate and myself with three guys. One of the guys had just gotten married on Sunday, so he also was celebrating with us. To me it didn't make sense to celebrate with us, on valentine's day, leaving his new wife at home...but many things don't make sense to me here.

As we were walking home I just laughed at my evening out with the guys...on Valentines Day....but then I realized this has become natural for me here. Most of my students are guys, and usually I start out for coffee with some girls and some guys...but in the end its me and the guys.

sick

Its official... I have caught the flu/cold that has been traveling around this country. I don't like being sick. Thankfully I don't have much scheduled for today. Its raining outside, so I will stay home and rest. Hopefully that will help and I will feel better by tomorrow.

Now any other day I would be happy at this excuse to stay home and watch movies all day...but my head hurts so bad that doesn't even sound enjoyable. No fair!

winter?

It is interesting how sometimes I will remember to write on here every day, and then sometimes I go a whole week and forget I even have a blog. I can not even say that my week was very busy. I think partly its because I now have a person, my roommate, who I can share my random thoughts with (even though doing this makes her think I am crazy), and before I sometimes used this blog as an outlet to my random thoughts.

So the weather here has been wonderful the last couple days. I don't know what happened to winter, but it forgot to come here. Now although I am enjoying the fact that I don't have to wear long underwear every day and freeze when walking anywhere, it is not good for the land here. The winter crops are not able to grow, some crops are beginning to bud that aren't supposed to, and we will surely not have water in the summer. Ok, I am just praying that we at least get more precipitation in one form or another. I do like having water in the summer. I already don't have it at night....so I fear what is to come in the summer.

My roommate started her conversation classes today. She did a great job and the students enjoyed it. It was strange for me to sit in the back of the class and stay quiet, but I enjoyed listening to the students without having to think what to say next. This way I could purely just watch the students interact with each other and the teacher. It was interesting and good.

a great day

The last 24 hours were very enjoyable for me...enough so that I turned my computer back on to write this. Now don't get too excited, nothing out of ordinary happened today, but it was good. For some reason I don't want to go to sleep right now, so I will tell you all about my day.

Last night was the first time in the four years I have been here that I was able to watch the Superbowl live. Now I can't say I am a big football (American or European) fan...but there is something about not being able to do something that makes you want it more. And I believe the longer I am away from America the more I miss American pastimes...even ones I didn't like in America. So although at 10pm last night I was falling asleep, I stayed awake until 12 to see if the superbowl might be shown live on a cable channel here. Well I was lucky. I found it. And thankfully the first quarter of the game was fairly interesting, so it woke me up and I watched. I faded in and out of sleep during the second quarter, watched the half time, talked to a friend on the phone during the third quarter, and fell asleep sometime during the fourth quarter. I woke up with the game over, disappointed the bears didn't win (not that I really cared which team won, but from the start of the game I decided to cheer for the Bears because I have lived in Illinois and the Cubs beat the Patriots. Based solely on those two reasons I rooted for the Bears during the game...and they lost...can you tell I am really sad.)

Well I moved to my bedroom at 4am and continued sleeping. Amazingly I woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off at 10am and was awake when someone called following up on a project. I got some work done in the morning, went out to eat for lunch and for 1 euro had a wonderful sandwich. Then I bought some groceries and rested for a few minutes back at my flat before heading out for some coffee visits. At 3pm I met a friend for coffee. Although it wasn't so in the morning when I made plans for coffee with this person, she was having a really bad day at work, and I was a much enjoyed break from her day. I left there encouraged and happy.

As I was walking another friend called and I met her for coffee...this without plan. I hadn't seen this friend for a few days, and I am used to seeing her often, so again it was a welcome and enjoyable visit. I convinced this friend to come back to my flat, and we hung out with my roommate and watched a movie.

So that was my day...as I said in the beginning...nothing special...nothing out of the ordinary...but very good. I can not specifically pinpoint why I enjoyed this day so much, but I did. Now if I can just get rid of my constant chocolate craving all will be well. Why is it that I have a desire to eat chocolate 24 hours a day? This isn't normal for me...what happened???

Recipe

So awhile ago I talked about making this wonderful chicken poppyseed casserole....I think its time to make it again too. A few people had asked me for the recipe. I don't actually use a recipe, but I just tried to write something up for an email recipe exchange, so I thought I would post it on here also. Here you go...I hope it works. The measurements are really just guestimates...I don't like to measure.

Chicken Poppyseed Casserole

Ingredients:

Chicken (4 breasts)
Sour cream (sm container)
Cream of mushroom soup (1 can)
Poppyseeds
Ritz crackers
Butter

Directions:

1. Cut chicken into bite size pieces and cook in frying pan.

2. In large bowl combine sour cream, entire can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, poppyseeds (2-4 tbsp), and chicken. Cut some small pieces of butter and place in bottom of 9x12 glass dish. Pour chicken mixture into the glass dish.

3. Crush 1 sleeve of Ritz crackers into crumbs. Add 1/4 c. melted butter and 1 tbsp poppyseeds. Mix together. Spread on top of chicken mixture.

4. Bake in preheated oven at 350 F for 30 – 45 minutes.

5. Serve over white rice.

snow

It snowed last Saturday...this was the only picture I had time to take...while walking out the door to go to the airport. My landlord's kids were eager to play in the snow. I am hoping we get more snow this weekend...and maybe I will have time to play in it also.

February

Its hard to believe its February already. The first month of 2007 passed quickly. And I have had a roommate now for a week and have been free from classes for a week. Somehow I have stayed fairly busy. It was nice that I had a lot of free time this past week to show my roommate around and introduce her to many people here. I enjoy the days where I can do whatever comes up, in whatever time it takes, and not have to stress over a schedule. Next week I have to start planning a bit more, so hopefully I won't be so busy once classes start again...but we'll see if that really happens.

My phone is working again and I am happy. There is just something about being able to pick up the phone and call America (for free practically) that makes me happy. But of course I am never here to answer the phone or make phone calls...but just that its possible is nice.

Well I think its time to sleep again. I feel like I am sleeping so much lately...but its not true...its just that I am sleeping late in the day...but then I go to sleep late...so in the end its hardly 7 hours of sleep. I always try to go to bed early, but it never really works. I might make it in bed by 1am tonight, that will be good.