Game night

Today my roommate will teach two conversation classes (one going on right now) and tonight we will have game night. On Wednesday and Thursday nights we invite the students from our classes to come to our flat and hang out. This is a great time to get to know the students better. Each week we teach them a new game. Last week we played Mafia and the students really enjoyed it. It is fun to see a different side of the students come out. Some talk more during game night than in class, others are more reserved around people they don't know. We never know who will show up, and how it will turn out.

If anyone has any suggestion of a group game that is interactive, and not too complicated, let me know. Our ideas here will probably run out soon....so we need your help.

40 days

For the next 40 days I will be spending more time lifting up the people here. I ask that you would join me in this time, if you feel led in that direction. If you would like a copy of the list of what I will be lifting up each day, please email me and I will send it to you. I will also be trying to keep this site updated with our daily activities, so you will know how to lift up these people.

I enter this time with excitement and fear at the same time. I have set some fairly high goals for this time, and I hope that I can remain diligent in attaining them. I know that with His strength all is possible. At the same time I know that a structured time as this draws me closer to Him and can be really incredible. I anxiously await what He will do in the next 40 days.

Today we have a conversational English class that is made up of fourth year students studying to be English teachers. This is a new group of students that I have not known before. They are very talkative and eager to be involved in our activities. I have enjoyed getting to know them so far.

Oscars

Its 3:20am and I am sitting in my living room watching the Oscar Awards...and I am not sure why. Did I always watch them when I was in America, no... maybe, but for sure it wasn't a must.

Yea, Little Miss Sunshine just got its first award. I really liked that film...thanks to my brother for showing it to me. I hope maybe now they will have it for sale here. I want to watch it again, but have not been able to find it.

It is strange that the local tv channel here isn't playing commercials during the scheduled commercial breaks, so we just keep hearing music and seeing the Oscar statue. Not very exciting.
I wish it could go faster because of no commercials, but then it wouldn't be live.

But to continue with my thoughts about why I am watching the Oscars...its because I can. And because I miss so much of American pop-culture I feel this helps me catch up a bit. While reading the list of nominated movies, I realized I have not heard of most of them, and those only because I saw a few movies when I was just home for Christmas. But now I have a list of new movies to look for and watch. I predict a few movie nights on the projector in the near future.

Okay, well I am going to be productive and get ready for bed during the boring non-commercial commercial breaks. And a random positive note...the water came back on already. That was a nice surprise. I was upset when I realized I didn't wash my face before it went out earlier....and now its already back on.

update

Well, I am finally feeling better and therefore busy again and keep running out of time to write on here. I just want to write a quick update to let you all know (in case anyone was concerned) I am doing better and all is well. I have had some really enjoyable days lately, and even some interesting stories to tell...but again and again my time is spent in other places.

I am still getting used to having a roommate again, and I find I am much more distracted and it is hard to keep focused on what I am doing when I sit down at my computer. It is nice having someone here to share my random comments with (although I am still in question if she enjoys hearing all my random comments) ...but my roommate talks back (unlike this website) so one random comment leads to a whole conversation...and then I forget what I was originally doing. Many times recently I have been closing down my computer to go out and find many started emails or work projects that never got completed. Ooops. So if you have emailed me recently and haven't received a response...I probably started it...and will finish it and actually send it some day...hopefully.

Also my Vonage phone is up and running again, so that is another added distraction. Its amazing how much easier it is to be here, half way across the globe from my friends and family, when at any time I can pick up the phone and call them...and they can call me. Its makes the distance much smaller.

Okay the sun is shining outside and its calling my name.

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.