Gratitude - Tuesday March 1st

I feel like today is important and auspicious.  So I'm going to write down some things I'm thankful for:

1. We have replacements for the two teachers that quit Boise Elementary Spanish - and they're both great with kids and speak Spanish perfectly.
2. My sense of self-determination that made me go to the gym today, in the morning.
3. I didn't exactly eat the healthiest food today, but I did put some cottage cheese with jam on Wasa crackers and it was delicious.
4. Annie and Teresa helped me ASKO in finishing my Euskara homework.  I feel great about the paragraph we cranked out together.  I'm learning Euskara, poliki-poliki.
5. Got to watch Jeopardy.
6. My black 3/4 length shirt worked its charm to be slimming, despite my best efforts to stuff my belly full of clam chowder.
7. I have people around me that love me, and enough food to eat and a place to live.
8. I have a great travel opportunity coming up in a few months.
9. I have a gym date to work out with Annie tomorrow.
10. I'm going out to dinner with my mom tomorrow, and part of our bill is going to help elementary spanish.

Nor da?

Nire pertsonaia sekretua artista oso famatua da.  Bere obrak oso koloretsu dira eta Mexikoko jatorrizko kulturaren adibide onak dira.  Jaio zinen Coyoacanan, Mexikon, 1907.  1928en Diego Rivera ezagutu zuen eta urte bat gero, ezkondu zuten.  Kotxe-istripuan egon zen. Istripuan gero, tripan min asko eduki zuen eta umetik ezin zuen (she couldn’t have children).  Horregatik (because of this?), asko min, irrits, eta hiltze bere artean dira (da?).  Nor da?

What We Remember About Our China Trip

1. JUMP ZAZZ!!!
2. cafe con leche with Rafael and Estephania
3. Executive floor breakfast in the hotel
4. Sichuan dinner, sticky gummy desserts
5. blueberry fried muffin desserts
6. McDonald's rat
7. wine with gold flakes sprinkled in it
8. "muuuuuuy guaaapo"
9. little boy on bus with long braid (signifies health)
10. "plea for help" hands sticking out of top of truck
11. Miguelin, the big damn confusing baby
12. Miao-miao part of program
13. getting mauled by photographers in the expo while we were in costume
14. congee was awesome (boiled rice porridge) with croutons, green onions, boiled egg, some weird kind of gelatin, and black fungus
15. Barfers on the trip: Caitlyn (during trip), Erik (his own fault), Jeremiah (3 times!), Miren, and Bryan
16. horrible makila disaster
17. Nick A. peeing next to security guard on street
18. WORST LUNCH BREAK EVER!  Basque Gov't snafu, food was cold, I accidentally ordered chicken feet.... terrible
19. Indian food pavilion was awesome
20. "This had better come out of me within the next day"... Miren loking at her plate of paella, after not having gone kak in 4 days
21. little kid taking a kak on a newspaper, mom rubbing his head and telling him it's okay
22. Shanghai is like Christmas, with all its light shows!
23. the happy slap game
24. Walking from Africa to India - which is a longer trek at the World's Fair than in real life!
25. Walk to Saudi Arabia, and find out we can't eat at the restaurant
26. "Mendi-tiki-tiki-tiki-ko Jaialdia!"
27. Shangkari
28. Miao-Miao's obsession with "Little Nick"
29. "Damn you, Myron!"
30. Falling at the performances (Izar, others?) slipping on the wet pavement
31. breaking 2 glasses at Kuluska
32. taxi driver singing
33. John! our tour guide (Anna get back on that)
34. blind Chinese men rubbing our feet and singing to us
35. Angry Irishman at Irish pub in Expo
36. Belgian Waffles

FLIGHT: Boise -->SLC-->Tokyo-->Shanghai

• Jill was late
• Nick  was cranky
• Caitlyn got sick
• Andoni's first flight EVER
• Twinners' first sushi was in Tokyo
• beer on flight was free
• energy supplements didn't work for Lael and Izar
• Jackets helped unite us...."what team do you play for?"  (PJ was assumed to be the coach)
• Arrived Sunday night (Shanghai time) and 9pm ish
• Fairy, our guide, greeted us
• Crammed into tiny van (see pics)
• Checked into the Golden Tulip hotel
• Beds were shockingly small, and pretty hard
• Room 2322 - Andoni, Bergs, Nickolas A. watched Chinese TV until 3 in the morning.  Hilarious!

DAY 1 Monday:

• 7am, met at the bus
• bus took us to World's Fair - Expo park
• Met Iber at the Spanish Pavilion
• practiced on tiny stage - re-arranged dance list accordingly
• at 9:30 Nick B. did Agurra for lehendakari and friends
• we planned performance in the big windowed conference room upstairs
• danced 3 performances that afternoon
• reception with delish tapas - croquetas, paella, chocolates in Spanish pavilion
• Had authentic Chinese dinner - sticky rice dessert, fried sweet potato, carp soup

DAY 2 Tuesday:

• Basque delegation reception at a fancy hotel downtown Shanghai
• Arzai, Berozategui, Zubijana (sp?), tapas and golden wine
• food wasn't actually cooked by the Basque chefs, just "inspired" by them

DAY 3 Wednesday:

• stayed late at Expo - ate Indian food for dinner

DAY 4 Thursday:

• Bilbao pavilion "visit"/trick
• met Pei-pei, Miao-miao's boyfriend
• ate Yunan chinese cuisine with John, Anna Bender's friend that's living in Shanghai
• taxis to the Bund waterfront

DAY 5 Friday:

• Izar, Maite, Lael, Caitlyn, Jill, Anna and Miao-miao went to Yu Gardens and got blind massages
• "Gua Chi Qua Le" Happy National China Day!

DAY 6 Saturday"

• Dressed up Miao-miao, until the costumes were too hot for her and she changed back
• presented Iber with poster and shirt
• played with Txalaparte (Ttukuna) sisters
• talked with Jesus, director of protocol at Spanish Pavilion
• Miren's wound is swelling!
• Miao-Miao replied on email (?)

Events and are missing days to go with them:

• one day we got rained out and only performed once, at 4pm
• Lael left her badge at the changing room in the Spanish pavilion, group went to Italy and she couldn't get in
• Olaia was shoe-less, money-less; one of the Spanish Pavilion staff let her borrow a pair of Crocs for her to walk around in

pelotas

Lo que pésame más en mi vivo es la conocimiento de no haber aprovechado de ciertas oportunidades.  No estoy completamente segura como expresar esta palabra en castellano... si es pesadumbre, o remordimiento, ¿cual es?  Pero es un sentimiento terrible. 

Recuerdo que empezó listando mis pesadumbres en el colegio, y mis primeros especificos eran: lamenté que no jugó fútbol hasta que era niña, y lamenté que no tomé clases de debate.  Debate a mi no me importa mucho todavía, pero fútbol todavía habría sido excelente. 

Después, mi lamento era mi viaje a Australia y como no trabajé tanto duro que debió.
Entonces era no asistir bastante clases en la universidad, (porque ei, puedo dormir cuando me morir).  Ahora es esta oportunidad para publicidad para los Oinkaris mientras en China.  Supongo que es mi trabajo como PR persona que yo hago esto, pero soy nueva a esta posición y no creo que supe mis responsabilidades.  uhhhh..... sigh.

on favorite colors

Lael's response to James Mulder's post An Orange and an Allegory Walk into a Bar:

This is really nerdy, but I don’t have a favorite color, so much as I have “color combinations that are aesthetically pleasing.” When I see a dark red, deep gold yellow, and forest green schema, I feel happy. Or a bold magenta, teal and eggplant. I appreciate a complementary sampling of the rainbow in three or four colors.  Don't give me the Fisher-Price-children's-toys combo of standard red, yellow, green and blue.  This is not primary school, these are the visual buttresses of creativity and style.  This is important, people.

I’ve always liked, not one particular color, but COLORS!! eee!!! (as a 10 year-old girl would scream when she found the 64-crayon Crayola behemoth box). Instead of stealing one marker and hoarding it from my classmates to practice writing my name, I used to take three or four, then carefully write out my full name in alternating colors.  I’m greedy with them,  my colors. I don’t want one special color for my very own—no, I want ALL of them, and I want all their shades and hues, and I want them now and I want them in rainbow order.

yard work

On rationalizing putting money into my house, even though I'm renting it and will lose all the work when I move away, my mom noted that "it doesn't matter if you're just renting a house; it's good to leave a place nicer than you found it." So we made this garden today.  Where before there was a hard-packed, semi gravel-filled patch of barren nothingness, now there's a nice green space.  And green spaces are good for the soul.

I was motivated my finishing this project, so I took a shovel to my back yard and laid waste to the dandelion population.  After doing yard for for five hours, I had to finally stop, fan my face with some junk mail like a southern lady at church, and contemplate recipes for mint juleps.

Notes on the Stanley Characters, summer 2009

Just as Phil D said, everyone in Stanley has a story. “We’re all broken toys,” he mysteriously explains. Amidst the backdrop of a beautiful, touristy mountain town, there are only about 40-60 people that winter over or live year-round. It would absolutely suck to winter here, and so it only makes sense that the people that do are either a little bit crazy, or running from something.

Big Phil is so named because there's another, smaller Phil that works as a cook at MV as well. More than anything, I feel deep sadness for this man. Phil’s dark story begins with his profession as a town sheriff and ends with a semi-scandalous affair/relationship with a girl here in Stanley. I don’t know all the details, but according to the Stanley rumor mill, one right there was a scuffle involving his girlfriend and the girl’s husband (or ex-husband, I don’t know exactly).

 Phil somehow showed up at the girl’s house in full sheriff uniform (off-duty) and pulled a gun on the guy. This may not have been as big a deal, but Phil was off-duty and dressed up in a uniform and went to a house with no probable cause, without the police being called. So, he was fired from that job, and apparently his demeanor is such that he has been kicked out of every other job besides MV.

Toward the end of my job contract (early August), Phil inexplicably somehow got a bit nicer. I'm not sure how much of it was me getting used to him and how much of it was the fact that a cute 20-year-old Mountain Village hostess from Turkey had a fatty crush on him. Not sure if he figured out or not, but I'm really hoping his sufferable demeanor wasn't because he was getting some. Ewww.