"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing..." -Helen Keller
 
The smell of September is in the air,
Students shall rush in and begin to stare,
They'll look past their friends to find "The Foreigner."
What do you know? I guess I'm her!
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80 students per class, lined wall to wall,
It will be a wonder if I can teach them all!
18 classes a week, each full as can be,
That's over 1300 students, you see!

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Is it normal to be here, full grown in size,
yet with a tummy raging full of butterflies?
Should a supposed adult feel such apprehension,
such nervousness before teaching a lesson?
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Well, ready or not, it's time to shine.
Starting tomorrow, these students are mine.
I really do love it; my job is so cool.
I just need to get through the first day of school.
 
There's not really a great way to do a before and after on our room. The "before" is best described as burnt orange curtains, orange-themed bedding, red tulip lights, white walls, and for the most part, an absence of decoration.
1. Photo collage.
2. Red (non-functional) tulip lighting.
3. Burnt orange curtains
4. Orange-based sheets. (They're in a bundle because we believe we can save hours of our lives by refusing to make our bed.)
5. Map.
6. White wall.

Nothing you have to die over, but after having orange hues cast all over the white walls for a year, I set my mind to decorating creatively and cheaply.
I'll just be vulnerable and say it-- I really like the "after" of our room. I know it's not TLC worthy, not professional, and that we probably violate a whole bunch of decorating "do's" and "don't's". But it was a really fun project to try to make decorations, find materials locally, and arrange things so it feels warmer and cozier. As far as I'm concerned, the mission is accomplished. More the feel of a college dorm room than that of a bedroom occupied by the mature and rapidly aging, it's perfect for us.

Here's how it went down...
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First, a small snack to keep us going strong while we decorated...
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I had one wall that I had no ideas for, so I chopped up an old cardboard box and wrapped the pieces in different patterns and textures of wrapping paper. Maybe the cheapest way possible to decorate.
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I segmented a wedding picture we had into roughly 4.6" x 5.4" pieces, printed it, and mounted it on... another piece of wrapping paper! (Our walls are concrete and pretty difficult to penetrate with anything more than a thumbtack.)
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I whipped up a "Paper mache" mixture from some flour and water and made some hanging lanterns. The flour and water gave them a marble-y look. We also hung a bamboo/straw mat behind our bed for some texture.
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I picked up a blue basket for holding our electric odds and ends, and covered a mini-lamp with some matching paper.
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Here's our bed with a blue blanket and some pillowcases I made.
Some more bed/desk shots...
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Austin oh-so-gleefully rigging up some pull strings for a bamboo/straw mat we hung as our curtain. This worked really well.
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The view to the left of our bed... I paper mached some boxes to act as "book nooks" and hold our reading and studying materials.
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Here's a little message board made from cardboard, wrapping paper, and some straw/string/ribbon stuff. We hung it above our desk.

And that's a wrap!
 

Introducing... the products that tempt us upon arrival at the local supermarket. How can one resist? Take one look at the descriptions, and you'll be sold!

1.Strawberry Vinegar:
this is an excerpt from the back of the label.
"The drink was made of the high quality strawberry, and with internal advanced technology.  It will be the future fashion drink. This add the XO, also may directly or exchanges the water, with the drinks better."

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2. Loaf of bread:
"YUMMY
Delicious Bread
once you try it you cann't stop it"

Again, how could I resist?
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3. Chocolate snack:
"Julie's... bakes better biscuits."

Better than who? And where are the biscuits?  And look at Julie... Do you really trust a face like that?
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4. Cake box:
Of course, if you want the very best there is to offer, you can always turn to a "Drofeffional Bakery." You have to go to school a long time to work in a place like that. :)
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10. It only costs the equivalent of about $3.50. 9. It’s a great way to practice your aim.

8. Relive your childhood.

7. Give your language tutor a chance to experience the childhood she dreamed of.

6. It’s a great way to make a wife feel save when her husband has to go out during yet another power outage. 5. Some of them have really cool lasers… who wouldn’t want one?

4. Others have really cool clips that make your gun seem super legit.

3. Scare away children.

2. Kill really big spiders who think your home is their playground.

1. Why not, really?

 

Really, though, we bought a pellet gun to protect us from monstrous spiders that appear from time to time. (It’s amazing that after the two huge ones, one slightly larger than a quarter and thick really didn’t seem as scary tonight.)

 

We really do love our gun. And Austin’s a good shot. He's a keeper, alright!


 
Last week we invited some friends... somewhere between friends and acquaintances, really... to our home for dinner on Friday night. They called a few days before Friday to let us know they'd forgotten that it would be their daughter's birthday on Friday and they were having a party at 6:30 pm. They invited us to the party instead, and we rescheduled the dinner at our place for Saturday evening.

Friday evening. 6:38 pm. We were strolling in, fashionably late. (Is there any other way, really, when fashion is just bursting out the seams of your being?) We knocked on the door and it opened several seconds later. Expecting to find a party of screaming six-year-olds, we were met with silence, and a host who may or may not have forgotten we were coming... They just smiled and went to the kitchen to start cooking. We sat on the couch and watched TV with the birthday girl. Later we were told we were the only ones who would be at the party that night. So interesting... so slightly awkward... did they know we were coming to the party to which we were invited?

Finally, around 8:00, they started calling a bunch of people, and slowly, the six-year-olds trickled in, just in time for cake. I applaud them on their impeccable timing. 

Now this country isn't really rockin' it on the birthday cake front. In fact, we didn't know if they knew what real cake was, so we decided to make some cake for dessert the following night. All of our normal desires for health were replaced with a drive to introduce this family to some real cake. I found a great little recipe for cake, and another for icing, and went for it. I baked it in two circles, then assembled and frosted them to make this little ladybug cake. For a cake that took only 3 minutes to decorate, it was really cute and well loved.
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The cake in its early stages of ladybug-ship.
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The completed ladybug. I left the head unfrosted, frosted the body pink, added some Oreos* as spots, and some chocolate sprinkles (thanks, Austin's family) to divide the wings. We had a thin pink candle I rounded for its smile and some white foam circles that I designed as eyes last-minute. So fun!

*I raced to the supermarket last-minute for these Oreos, one of the few western food products existing in our town. They were out of regular flavor, so I grabbed these ones called "Double Delight," assuming they were just like Double Stuffs or something... Turns out, they were half chocolate filling, half peanut butter. Do they have that in America? They're super amazing... A dangerous discovery!
 
So our internet has had a major attitude lately... and I've been working on a re-decorate-our-room project (burnt orange is totally not working, bu I'm not sure if I'm ready to part with the bright red tulip lamps hung proudly above our bed...) Anyway, though the makeover is still in progress, I'm back to blogging...

I've had a request for a blog about the many hairstyles that have graced our heads in the past year. You might have seen some here or there in other spots, but here they are all in one place.
The beard trimmer ran out of battery just seconds into the process... so I was summoned to finish the job the old fashioned way... I think it looks kind of like a cheetah...
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Austin, however, being a little more talented across the board, picked up the scissors for the several-ith time in our relationship and gave me another successful haircut. (This one is kind of old news... my hair is quite a bit longer now.)
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Austin's new doo. The world's next top model.
Bangs. Those often-cursed pieces of hair that graced my forehead as a child, looked so cute on days they cooperated, but curled and frizzed at the most inopportune times. While I believe there had to have been some form of a silent vow made between my sisters and me to never return to the days of bangs, both of them have broken the vow and turned back to the evil ways of our youth... After getting their approval, I decided to give it a try... I'm not sure what I think, but it's something different, and change is good. (If our hairstyles were part of one of Aesop's fables, anyway, that would be the moral: change is good.)
 
Last weekend, our friends Black Bear and Gemini took us around our town to visit some beautiful places and have a little fun, including a swimming pool (which was more like a Speedo festival!), a beautiful mountain, and a little restaurant with some great food!
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Me and Austin-o-saurus.
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As you can see, this was a very intense event. This kid looks like skin and bones, but he was super strong. We still won a couple of times.
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A fun picture of feet. Gemini is quite the photographer.
 
Austin had a soccer game last week and I decided to take a break in my spectatorship and do some wandering. I turned off my camera's flash and assumed the role of undercover photographer. Here's what I found; I was certainly amused...
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Playboy... Just another brand of clothing.
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I found these randomly placed really nice couches... VIP seating anyone?
I like to call this guy "Diaperman." When he wears that thing, he doesn't need a bathroom break for the whole game...
Another shout out to the fanny pack. It doesn't matter how you wear it; just don't leave home without it!