Old friends

I spent the weekend up in Orono with my oldest and dearest friend, her husband, and their new baby boy, who I have to say is quite possibly the cutest baby ever born. Sooooo sweet. Add to his beauty the fact that he is the mellowest baby around; he can just chill in your arms for hours. Paris came with me to hang out with their two dogs, Stella and Cassidy. These pups have been friends for years as well. It was nice to get away. I've been working so much lately, which I've been enjoying, but it's always nice to take a break every once in a while as well.

 Look at those baby blues!














BIG yawn.


















Paris, looking pretty satisfied.

Bad blogger, bad blogger

Nearly a month has passed since I bothered to post anything. School has ended and my other job has taken over in full force. But more than anything, I've been hunkering down and reflecting on my motivations for doing what I'm doing. Needless to say, it's been an exhausting exercise, but one that I've learned a lot from. Growth is painful I've decided.

I finally picked up my camera today after a long hiatus. Every day when I go to work I think, "There's some interesting stuff to photograph down here," on the Portland waterfront. And so finally, here it is. The working waterfront is a fascinating thing, but I think I like it best at the end of the day, when everything sits dormant, waiting for the next day to roll around.

What time is it??

A rainbow appears after the storm on Sunday.

Today has been the weirdest day in terms of time. We lost power yesterday and I reset my clock with what I thought was the right time, according to my computer, but which turned out to be about 45 minutes slow. So my morning was all off. Then this afternoon my cell phone was saying it was about 25 minutes ahead of the actual time. What is going on??

And speaking of time, at this moment I ought to be doing some planning, but have less than zero motivation for doing so. It's that whole end-of-the-year thing. I think teachers check out even more than students, especially the burnt out ones. Three and a half days... I can do it!

Rain, rain, go away

It feels like a rainy day today... maybe because it is. The skies just got super dark and it poured down rain. Bleh. Poor Paris is a wee bit bored. Right now she is being entertained by my mom, who is tossing her pieces of popcorn.

It's definitely a day for reading a good book or watching a movie in bed. The weathermen are particularly animated today because there's a chance of tornadoes, very odd for this part of the country. Hopefully it will be baseball weather again soon.

Five years

Today was my oldest nephew's birthday party. He's five. There's nothing like measuring time by the age of a child. To think back to where you were five years ago, what has changed, what has not. Today was super fun - spending time with family, great food, and a game of baseball with my nephews. It's amazing to watch them grow and learn. I'm so grateful for them. :)

Acha!

It's Friday! Who doesn't love Fridays? Maybe the same folks who don't love chocolate. Life is pretty groovy at the moment. I've booked my ticket back to India, leaving in July. It promises to be incredibly hot there at that time, perhaps hotter than I've ever experienced. My website is well underway, although it still needs some polishing to be sure. I've started talking to some local shops about carrying my stuff and so it feels like I'm finally getting some things done. More than anything, I'm having a great time and learning a lot. I have two new students from Africa and while I thought it would be a lot harder than just having two, in some ways it's easier. There are more opportunities to pair them together and they can all learn from one another.

Speaking of learning languages, I've completely fallen off the cliff on the Hindi front. I bought a book while I was in Thailand and studied some while I was traveling. When I get back there I'm hoping to sign up for some lessons. I should probably learn some Tibetan while I'm at it, since those are the folks I'm hoping to work with. So much to learn, so little time.

I kind of feel like I'm floating today. I know part of the reason is because it's Friday and I have a pretty fun weekend planned, but I think the overall reason is because I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. I have a million part-time jobs (OK, only 4), my mind is stimulated, and the pen is in my hand so to speak. Of course, I'm fully prepared to get to India and end up veering in a completely different direction from what I'm envisioning, and that would be OK too. The point is, life is full of possibilities, and while that blank slate can be pretty scary sometimes, it's also pretty exciting.

So life is pretty "acha," which is one of the coolest and most versatile Hindi words ever. Depending on how you say it, it can mean, "good," "OK," "I see," or "really!" I'm sure there are other uses, these are just the contexts in which I have heard it said. And this is one of the funniest signs I saw on my trip there, using the word.

I don't know about you, but this massage doesn't look very "acha" to me! Maybe if you're in Cirque du Soleil.

The aftermath

On Thursday the now-empty Jordan's meat factory caught on fire as they were in the process of demolishing it. There was a huge dark grey cloud of smoke pouring from the building. On that day I didn't have my camera with me, but I went back to Portland on Friday and took some pictures. It's weird to see a building reduced to twisted metal. The adjacent buildings were fortunate in that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction that day, saving them from destruction as well.