Day Three

Day Three was my birthday, and while I did write, I didn't take the time to post it. So here it is.


Birthday dinner: Mexican food, which is always disappointing. But this place was new, and seemed to know how to make margaritas. They had poppers!!!!! And they were good poppers. The chili con carne was spicy, but they used it as a staple. I had a beef burrito. Inside was the chili con carne. Stephen had chicken tacos. The sauce on the chicken was the sauce from the chili con carne. The margarita... well, it didn't suck, but it also wasn't wonderful. I spoke to the barman afterwards who said it was made with some random silver tequila. Tell me I have champagne tastes, but I like my margaritas with Jose Curevo - gold. Silver has such a delicate flavour that it is lost in the frozen margarita. The barman said that he makes margaritas on the rocks with Cuervo gold - so I might have to try that another day. So all in all - birthday dinner: didn't suck. I guess that it pretty good for Mexican food in England.

The Good and the Bad.

I'm tired of making excuses for myself and the fact that it has been so long since the last post. I know that everyone loves to read this. I love to know that I have posted and I love that I have people who care enough about me to read. I am really not good at being consistent about keeping up with the blog. I suppose I get tired. I suppose I get busy and it takes low priority. I suppose, if I am going to be really honest with everyone, that I get lazy. So I'm apologising, but I'm not making excuses.

Lately, it has been all about adjusting to the weather change (It's SPRING! There are flowers and it is not so bitter cold and the trees are growing leaves! There are nettles, which is the not-quite-so-good.) and the change from being in a classroom everyday for the past however long to being back at University and settling into working. I have minimal motivation for that as well. I have 2 large research projects that are due on the same day. I suspect that1 will get the majority of my time and attention, and the other will just get by. I have come to terms with that. I can't seem to split my attention well enough to focus on both at the same time. Overall, I do not think that it will affect my marks that much, as I still intent to pass. I think I'm to the point that I am content with scraping by. (can anyone say senior-itis?)

We re-arranged the house a few weeks ago, and I am enjoying the results. I was feeling a little like we were just staying here. Not everything had a home. Not everything was "moved in" after almost a year. And I confess to having a moment in which I just couldn't stand living here and not being settled. So we re-arranged and it has helped a lot. The living room, which is small to start with, was piled with the table behind the desk, so we were using only half the space and it was crowded and uncomfortable. Now it is more spread out and feels less crowded. We still don't have enough seats for everyone, but it is much better and a whole lot more bearable. We also found a new-to-us set of chairs at a second-hand shop. They are not great, and won't last long, but they are a lot better than the chairs that we had that didn't survive the overseas trip well. Those had fallen apart. There was 1 left, and it was wobbly. The new chairs are green, which I like.

I am actively job hunting at the same time as all the other things. This is actually a very hard thing. There is an expectation that everyone who applies for a position will go for a tour of the school. These are scheduled at specific times convenient for the school. Most of the schools are not bus or walking distance from us, so this means that I need to rent a car. Sometimes for 1 school visit. Then I apply, but the competition is fierce. I didn't even get an interview at the school that I did my placement at. I feel a bit disheartened. I'm not sure if there is a problem with my application, my cover letter, or my CV. I don't know if my Visa is an issue or if it is just bad luck of the draw. But I am starting to worry that I won't be able to find a job, won't be able to finally do my part in keeping our family afloat. We have such big plans: buying a house, the potentiality of future children, and none of it can happen if I continue to be a less-contributive member of the family.

*sigh* I feel like this post is a lot of whining, and that is not exactly what I intended to do when I started it. There are good things. Ashley is 17 now. (Ok - good and bad thing. I have very mixed emotions about her birthday. One one hand, yay for her, and on the other, my time with her as a child is almost over and that makes me sad.) We have solved the fungus gnat problem with the handy help of a pesticide spray and some silver sand. I have new house plants. I am well loved and cared for. Mostly, I am happy. I miss you all a lot, though. I feel a bit lonely without my friends even close enough to talk to.

No more now, or I'll do something silly like cry.

The Post-Trip Update (A Long Time Coming...)

Well, it is about time that I catch you all up on what is going on in my neck of the woods.

The trip to the States was nice. I enjoyed seeing my family. I enjoyed spending time with Tristan. I enjoyed the weather and driving on the right side of the road. Tristan’s birthday was wonderful, and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that he is 7 years old. That is practically grown up.

Boo had a bit of a hard time with the amount of time he was with me. It is so hard for kids to transition back and forth, and he was very homesick. I understood: I was homesick too. I didn’t expect to be, but I was.

We did quite a bit of shopping, and Ashley should be all set up with new clothes and new glasses for the year. Tristan got a lot of new clothes too, and I even splurged and ended up with some new work clothes and a few tops. I stocked up on things I can’t get in the United Kingdom; things like Malt o’Meal, corn syrup, and green chiles. To be honest, I didn’t foresee that packing two empty suitcases wouldn’t be enough, but after I left Ashley 3 boxes of Malt o’Meal to bring back with her, I only had ½ lb. to spare in 1 suitcase. The other was packed up tight and exactly as heavy as it was allowed to be without paying extra.

There is a story to go along with the topic of suitcases: in London before I left Stephen and I discovered that one of the wheels on my large suitcase was almost broken. We readjusted the packing, and the plan was for me to have it repaired in El Paso. Well, El Paso does have a repair shop that does not service my type of luggage under warranty, so I had to pay for it myself. Plus, they couldn’t give me a time line because they had never worked with that company before and were not sure how it all was going to happen. 3 days before my flight home I called them to find that they had sent a wheel, and it was the wrong side, then sent another one that did not fit. The put a different brand's wheel on it as a stopgap for me.That wheel didn’t even make it to my landing in London, for when I got the luggage off the luggage rack, the wheel was completely gone. So the 2 hour trip home from Gatwick airport involved a 50 pound huge suitcase with an essential wheel missing, and another 50 pound suitcase, plus a backpack and a laptop bag. By the time Stephen met me in Canterbury, 2/3 of the way home, I was exhausted and sore, and the wheel on the smaller bag was broken. By the time we actually got home, it was trashed. There is a lesson here:Pierre Cardin luggage is rubbish.I hope Ashley does not have the problems getting back that I did.

There is an ending to the computer story from an earlier post also. My computer did not arrive back in time, though it was en route. (A few more days and it would have made it back in time.) They allowed me to exchange it, and I had the amount of money that I originally paid for the old laptop. Since laptop prices have gone down significantly in the last few years,I have a new high-end laptop, and I only had to pay the amount of the 3 year extended warranty that even covers accidents.It was a small investment for a new laptop. I ended up with a Sony Vaio, which apparently Sarah and some other family members also have. Stephen approved, and is happy with the choice.He occasionally putters on it and seems content.

Let’s see… what else. For my birthday, Dan and Christie gave me a Palm Pilot, and it is being put to good use. Stephen was quite happy to find 300 or so games to put on it. It is synched with our home computer, and he is still looking into ways to connect it with my Google calendar. There is time yet to figure it out. The airline didn’t care at all about my birthday, and actually didn’t even look closely enough at my passport to discover that I was flying on my actual birthday. The man at airport security noticed, though, and told me to have a nice day because of it. I got lucky in sitting on the plane, too. The first short flight from El Paso to Houston, the man who was sitting in MY aisle seat told me that he was ‘packing heat’ and then showed me his gun. He was a federal marshal. He didn’t give up my aisle seat, so I sat in the window. Thank goodness for scopolamine, because otherwise I would not have been able to get to the toilet. The flight from Houston to London I was sitting next to a very nice gentleman flying to Dubai for a skiing trip. He was very friendly… but took off his shoes thus releasing intense foot smell, had severe body odor, and snored emphatically the entire flight. He must have slept very well. I didn’t.

Jet lag has been kicking my tush. I am still having a hard time falling asleep at night and waking up in the morning.

The house unpacking thing is coming along, slowly but surely. Poor Stephen must have been just drowning in boxes. I am not yet comfortable posting pictures of the new house, but I intend to eventually.

Ashley should be getting her A-level results in the next few days. I’ll let you know how she did.

I cut my hair. It ended up being between 8 and 10 inches chopped off. To be honest, no one has noticed.

Stephen left yesterday for his 10 day family holiday in Austria. I have to be honest and state that the biggest reason I didn’t prioritise an ‘I’m home’ post was because of wanting to cram in as much time as possible in the 5 days that we were both home together. Being in the house completely alone is a little nerve wracking, but I am surviving. I know things will get done around the house because there is just nothing else to do. And work is nice because it means that I have something to do during the day rather than just sit at home and mope. I have been invited to a BBQ this weekend, and may go. Plus, as of today there is a first aid class I am being sent on in another city.

So Stephen comes home on the 25th or so, Ashley comes home a few days after that, and then we all gear up for school again. Fun fun, I tell you. But being my last year of school for a little while, I can suck it up.

Welcome to America - Where Violence Starts Young.

Tristan's birthday party was yesterday, and much fun was had by all. As in every birthday party he has ever had, the crowning glory of the party (besides the awesome bubble-wrap party game: and whoever thought of THAT was absolutely brilliant) was the piñata.

I have never given piñatas much thought. Everyone has them. They are standard fare in the borderlands at birthday parties and other special occasions. But, holy cow, they really teach kids how to be violent.

Child approaches effigy of choice.


Child is handed a baseball bat or a stick.


Crowd screams in what can only be called blood lust, "Hit it! Kill it! Knock it around! Harder! Hit it harder!"

Parents and adults comment on the ability of the child to destruct the effigy. The more powerful the blows, the better. You hear things like, "She's a little spitfire, she is" or "Look at how he hits it, he will be strong when he grows up."

To challenge older children, they can be blindfolded and spun around, thus ensuring that they are capable of violence in difficult situations.

Children take turns hitting until said effigy is in bad enough shape to let out its insides, which happens to be some sort of sweet or toy. There is the mad rush of children to fill bags with goodies fallen to the ground, and a real 'each to his own' mentality. Those who get the most win. Those who don't, cry.

Upon thinking about it, this innate violence is not limited to this culture and the occurrences of piñatas (which may have originated in China and traveled across the world to Spain, and by extensions, Mexican culture.) The world has many types of similar things.

The ancient concept of the sacred king, who is sacrificed for the fertility of the fields at the end of his reign, transmuted into the sacrifice of an effigy. England's Bonfire Night sees children throwing effigies of the traitor Guy Fawkes they have been carrying around onto the bonfire and screaming in delight as it burns.

Historically effigies have represented powerful figures, and even today the destruction of an effigy may be a political statement of discontent.

It is not that I am against piñatas. I have grown up with them, as have my children. But it interests me that there is such a violent undercurrent to them that we don't even really notice. Perhaps violence is in our nature the world over.

References:

Sacred King:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_king

The Piñata:
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/wdevlin/wdpinatahistory.html

Bonfire Night:
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/guy/history.htm

Political Effigies:
http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Political_Effigies

Effigies as political statements:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/sep/16/catholicism.religion
http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/12225

Captain Bubbles. Topic: Birthday on Mars

April sixth, 2008: First mission, wake up. It is a difficult task, but the Captain can handle it. Oops, she fell back asleep.... OH NO! The base has been infiltrated by aliens! They're approaching the bed, AND THE CAPTAIN IS STILL ASLEEP!!!! They've climbed aboard the bed, it looks like a tag-team attack, and... whats this? They're CUDDLING THE CAPTAIN! She's not going to be sleeping on the job anymore, I can tell you that much! Alien M has decided the situation looks Under control for Alien S, She goes off to cook, oh watzitcalled... Ah yes! Breakfast! Some strange alien custom that is quite wierd but very appealing. Captain Bubbles thinks she might get a few more minutes of shut-eye, but guess what??!! It's snowing!!!! Snowing? It's never snowed on the Captain's birthday, she really is on an Alien planet! [Dum dum DUM]






Strange ways in the Alien Homebase. Breakfast included Quail Eggs... They tasted fine, the Captain didn't detect any poison.... So far, so good. No assasination attempts, and a hot yummy breakfast in the tummy. The aliens brought over recruites... The Alien Crew is what I'll call them. They were watching the Captain.... she could feel it. They did bring peace offerings though, Books, the Captains' soft spot. Even Alien M and Alien S gave Captain Bubbles this strange offering... she soon found out it was because she was getting OLD! Well, Older.

Bubbles sat with the Aliens for a communal dinner, they were quite nice to have around. They had Spaghetti, With Asparagus! 'They must be buttering me up for something', she thought. 'How could they know my favorite dish?? Oh ya, I told them. Now it's time for Cake?' It was a marvelous cake, with Ducks and Frogs and Trees and a giant river, there were flowers and little penguin decorations for the Captain to eat. Yay for the Captain, she should do this getting older stuff more often. It pays well! It was a magic cake, after eating it, everyones mouths turned GREEN! and Blue, and it was so strange! Thankfully nothing was toxic, the Captian checked. The books were addicting, it's only two days later and Captain Bubbles has finished two of them!





















Overall the Captain was pleased, besides being older, she's still alive, in good health (maybe a little fat from all the food there was) and has come to the conclusion that maybe she should have birthdays with Aliens more often!



















Alien S.



















Alien M.


Captain Bubbles!