A Ray of Light

So here's a news flash for you all - the world isn't ending yet, no matter how much it feels like it.

This morning I got up late for my walk.  I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies.  I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill.  It literally stopped me in my tracks.

One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father.  This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets).  The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.

Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots.  Horde of locusts: check.  Flood: check.  Famine: in the forecast.  Plague: checkity check-check.  And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well.  This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.*  But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows.  One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay.  So not this year.  Not yet.

Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B.  This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ.  I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now.  I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity.  I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other.  Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.

To be fair, I'm probably not the best person to write this post.  I'm cranky and I kind of hate people - for the most part I've loved social isolation because there are far fewer people to annoy me.  But the thing is, we have to take action.  This morning I felt moved to start taking action by writing this post.  If you're wondering what you can do, one colleague suggested donating to an organization that fights against injustice - he specifically linked the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Another friend posted screenshots of a 2014 article about how to protest without going out.  Whatever you can do, do it.  My American readers, we come from a nation that rose from revolution.  If you were educated in the American school system, chances are you learned about the Boston Tea Party, and how this act of destruction helped to forge our country.  Remember that.  And ask yourself if the last line of our pledge of allegiance - with liberty and justice for all - is a fact or a myth.  Because the struggle toward that ideal is what has made our nation great, and the fight is still not won.


*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here

A Blue Day in Delft

There comes a point in every trip when you realize you are ready to go home.  I found myself at that point Thursday in Delft.  For starters, it was raining all day, which I will take over sun just about any day (it's cold and wet but precludes me from worrying about an early death from skin cancer).  Then there was the fact that one of the families in the tile painting workshop I did included two "artists" (a mother who seemed to be a teacher and a daughter who was in college), and I swear the mom was overcompensating for something - like, you're on vacation, stop throwing the elements of art around and just paint the bloody tile!  Nobody needs you to prove that you know what you're talking about.  At the end of the workshop I went to find out about having it shipped to the States, and found out it would cost FORTY-FIVE EUROS. 

Let me take a short breather here to mention the fact that pretty much every museum I went to cost bank.  As in, ten to seventeen euros.  The first couple (Rijks and Van Gogh), I barely sneezed at it.  By the time I paid ten (payable only by card) to get into the Oude Kerk, I was using their facilities to take a huge dump as a way of justifying the cost (which amused me but made me realize - knowing as I did that this little revelation would make it into the blog at some point - that I may have been teaching teenage boys too long.  Or living overseas.  Or both).  By the time I got to Delft, the fact that admission to both the Old and New Churches was only four euros seemed like the best deal ever.  Then I got ahold of my senses, and I remembered that I've almost never paid admission to the Nelson or the Joslyn, and I felt a little horrified, but I guess if you come back from vacation with a lot of money you probably traveled wrong.

One of the Prinsenhof's interactive displays

Anywho, I was happy to get on the train to go back to Amsterdam, but I was also happy to get off the train in Delft.  I took two books with me when I moved to Korea the first time, and Girl With a Pearl Earring was one of them.  Vermeer has been one of my favorite artists since I first learned about him in an issue of Reader's Digest sometime in the 90's.  I loved the clarity of the light in his work, something that I've learned to appreciate even more as I've studied and taught art in the decades since.  Even though most of his works show simple daily scenes, there is something breathtakingly beautiful about them.  And Vermeer was from Delft, so Delft was my #1 place I wanted to see outside of Amsterdam.

Basically everything I knew about Delft comes courtesy of that book, which might be problematic for a history nerd like Time Lady, but since I care more about art and storytelling than history, we're good.  The main character's brother works for one of the tile factories, she goes to church, she shops in the markets and mentions skating on the canals.  All those things are still there to experience, but I was glad to come when I did, because 2016 was declared Delft's Year of Vermeer.  When I went to the Rijksmuseum I was disappointed to see that one of their Vermeer's was out on loan - to the Prinsenhof in Delft, as it turns out.  So I was planning to make that my first stop.

Sadly, when I got to the Prinsenhof at 9 that morning, I discovered that they didn't open until 11.  Luckily most points of interest in Delft are a short walk from each other, and the Oude Kerk was literally next door, so I started there instead.  True to my adventurous spirit of showing up and experiencing shit, I had done minimal research before getting there, so it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Vermeer was actually buried in the Oude Kerk.  His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, purchased a burial vault in the church, and when he died in debt at the age of 43, she had him buried in her vault.  Normally I don't get hung up on famous people's graves, but I admit I got a little teary-eyed, and wished I had flowers to leave.

Since the ticket included admission to the Nieuwe Kerk I figured that was the next logical step.  It's located on the central square, with city hall and the market, so I wandered through the stalls along the way, stopping for a fresh stroopwafel, and let me tell you, warm is really the only way to eat them.

I sat and sketched the nave of the church - I'm trying to do more drawing in my travel journal - but didn't really stay long.  The clock was ticking on toward 1:30, which is when I was told to show up to tour the Royal Delft factory before my tile workshop, so I wound through the marketplace and out the adjacent side of the square to visit the Vermeer Center.

I am a little ashamed to admit it, but the Vermeer Center was actually at the bottom of my list.  My third day in Amsterdam I visited the Rembrandt House Museum, and it blew my mind.  It was incredibly well-curated and had demonstrations in etching and paint mixing, not to mention it was in his ACTUAL HOUSE.  The Vermeer Center, on the other hand, is located in his rebuilt guild house, the St. Lucas Guild.  From what I gather, the actual home Vermeer lived in with his family either can't be pinpointed or no longer exists, but the guildhall makes a great second, and presents things in a distinctly different way than the Rembrandt House.  Rather than seeing the domestic side of his life, the museum focuses on a variety of aspects in his work - his use of light, whether or not he used a camera obscura, his guild mates - the name Fabritius tickled at my brain until I realized he'd painted The Goldfinch, and when I figured out it was up the tracks in the Hague, I started kicking myself for not thinking of him sooner.  It was all very interesting, but not quite on the same level as Rembrandt.

By the time I left, the Prinsenhof was finally open.  The exhibit around The Little Street was very informative and interactive - they even had a small Escape Room set up - and I really didn't give a crap.  I wanted to see the painting, so I kind of noticed what I was walking past, but kept walking.  Honestly, I don't consider myself a great scholar, and I'd be surprised if anyone else did, but I know how to appreciate a painting.

When I was in my IB workshop one of the other teachers mentioned that they didn't think the Prinsenhof was that great, and when you think in the context of the Rijksmuseum and - presumably - the Mauritshuis (which houses Girl with a Pearl Earring, as well as the aforementioned Goldfinch), I suppose it doesn't come out on top.  It doesn't have a collection to compete with them.  Where I think it really shines, though, was in the quality of its presentation.  Since I was going to the Royal Delft factory next, I looked at their exhibit on Delftware, which included technology and multimedia presentations, as well as the giant vase pictured above which you were encouraged to decorate with your own designs, although most people just signed their name.  I enjoyed testing my instincts (because I didn't bother reading most of the labels) about the values of different pieces, and designed a vase with one of their tech presentations.  I honestly don't remember anything that engaging in any of the other museums I went to (other than the Rembrandthuis, because it was seriously my favorite thing. 

After a decently long walk through the drizzle, I made it to my final stop, the Royal Delft factory.  I'm sure most people have seen ceramics painted with shades of blue.  I grew up seeing my grandparents' blue willow china when I went to visit them, and ended up inheriting it when the family got together to clean out the house after my grandma's death.  Although the Blue Willow pattern isn't Dutch, iw was traders from the Netherlands who introduced this aesthetic to the West from China, to the point where I think Delftware is more famous than Ming vases.  What I found most interesting on the tour, though, was their architectural ceramics showroom - it was not Delft blue, because porcelain is not strong enough to use for architecture elements (unless I'm mistaken - I'm not a potter by any means, so I may have that wrong, but from what I remember during my ceramics classes, porcelain is much more fragile than most other clays) but I found it had a lot more variety and creativity in it than the Delftware.

After the tour I was able to start the tile workshop.  I'd already seen a painter at work and realized the way they apply the pattern was very similar to the way we did it for the tiles we'd painted in Istanbul.at Les Arts Turcs - charcoal was applied to the porcelain through a stencil and the design was painted directly over it.  Any remaining charcoal burns off in the kiln.  Every piece of Delftware is created with two small brushes - one that has a couple of long hairs sticking forward to paint lines and a short stubby one to fill in areas of tone.  When you're looking at a single tile or a vase, that's okay, but there were other pieces, like a reproduction of The Night Watch, that were much larger.

Try to imagine painting all of those tiles with two small brushes!  The size is similar to the original, but I'm pretty sure Rembrandt painted parts of his masterpiece with bigger brushes.  Royal Delft does reproductions of Vermeer as well, and The Little Street was available for us to paint, but I went for a more traditional windmill scene.  And after I painted the hell out of that windmill, I painted some badass tulips and a little cat.  I would not have made a very good tile painter - you were definitely supposed to paint ONLY what had been designed and not make any little personal touches.  Since I'm not, I slayed with my personal touches.  And because I'd worked so hard and made it so personal, I had to fight not to cry a little when I realized I wasn't going to get to keep it, since there was no way I could pay 45 euros - more than the workshop and the tour combined - to get it sent to my parents' house.  And I guess that's okay - after all, I broke my Turkish tile.  You don't really get to keep anything but your experiences...even friendships don't come with a guarantee...but all the same, if I were doing the whole trip over again, I'd go to Delft on the first day, so that I could remember Fabritius and go back for him and my tile at the end.

Sunday Best

I was gonna update my blog...until I got high...  Just kidding folks.  I thought the reference to the Afroman song was apropos, being in Amsterdam and all, but I've just been shit at blogging this year (someday I will finish the two posts I wrote about my trip to Chicago in March.  Someday).  Sadly, I can't blame my laziness on any controlled substances, because even though they're easily available here, my contact with them has been purely accidental (you can take the Mormon girl out of church, it turns out, but you can't take the church out of a Mormon girl.  Go figure).  Speaking of church, after finishing up the IB training that brought me to Amsterdam this afternoon, I decided that the way to spend my Sunday was to visit some of the churches I've been walking past for nearly a week now.

So.  Churches.  They're here, and I've heard about them before.  Apparently Anne Frank wrote about the sound of the bells of the Westerkerk in her diary.  I haven't read it since middle school, but I picked that up from somewhere, probably the canal ride I took last Monday.  And I'm pretty sure the professor in my Northern Renaissance art history course quacked...err, lectured...about them, since I know I'd seen images of their interiors.  They seem as ubiquitous as mosques were in the middle east, but since I was up at 5:30 this morning, I can tell you that church bells ringing (and they all seem to have bells, fyi) are not nearly as aggressive (or as eerie, because at 5:30 a.m. the muezzin is truly haunting) as the call to prayer, even if they happen more often.

The first church I visited was the Oude Kerk, the old church.  I came across it on Monday, as I accidentally wandered into the Red Light District for the first time (more about that later).  It's been there for 800-some years, starting out Catholic and converting to Calvinism with the rest of the country after the reformation.

What I remember about whatever Dutch church it was we looked at in art history was how sparse they were inside.  There is a lot of open space and they seem rather austere, if you're used to the sorts of sensory overload altarpieces you typically find in Catholic churches.  That was my impression upon entering the Oude Kerk.  As I walked around though, the perfume of the Divine began to flood my senses.  I caught hints of old wood, the must of dying flowers, lingering traces of candlewax long gone, and well-worn upholstery.  It caught me off guard.  I think scent transports me through time more than any other sense, and thus I found myself in my childhood, in my grandmother's baptist church - another denomination, another continent, a different century.  And yet the scent was the same.

The Oude Kerk is playing host to an art exhibit at the moment called Once in a Lifetime.  It dealt with carpe-ing the fuck out of your diems and the transcendence of life, but also added a fairly creepy vibe, what with all the wilty roses scattered over the graves (aka, the floor of the church).  Also, there was this delightful sculpture, which more than anything reminded me of the mummies in the necropolis south of Nazca, Peru...although Buddhism's mummified monks were a close second.

I moved on to the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church...the Dutch are very creative when it comes to names) next.  They were also hosting an exhibition (who would have thought of using a church as an exhibition space???  Apparently the Dutch, so maybe they're more creative than their naming abilities indicate), in this case of World Press Photos.  I found these artworks actually more compelling than the existential pieces in the Oude Kerk, probably because a great number of them dealt with the Syrian refugee crisis, which is some heavy stuff.

In fact, the photography kind of overpowers the church, which is cool, because it's a pretty impressive church.  I did pick up on the continued theme of dark wood and white, which I think is an interesting architectural combination - the warmth of the wood keeps the white from becoming cold and boring.

I was planning to make it a threesome (I say hey, when in Amsterdam, make all the sex and drug references you can) by visiting the Westerkerk (given their penchant for simplistic names, do I need to translate this one for you?), which is just a little west of my hotel, but I was amazed to find out that they were closed ("Never on Sunday," I guess...).  I also got to see the line for the Anne Frank Museum, which wrapped around the side and almost all the way to where some sort of gay pride event going on in the back (literally - that's not just me making obscene references).  This finally lit a fire under me to see about buying tickets in advance, but I was disappointed to see that they are sold out...for the next two months.  Apparently you can buy advance tickets for the mornings, but starting at 3:30 it's general admission, so I went back and checked the line today at 4.  This time it actually went all the way around the church to the front, so I may not be visiting the Anne Frank museum.  This is a little sad, but I can probably live with it, given the alternative is standing in line, inhaling other peoples' weed, for hours on end.  And speaking of end, this is it.  For today, at any rate.

Take Me To Church

When I travel, there's usually a spiritual element in the works.  I didn't really plan for it in this trip, but I guess at this point, I don't really have to anymore.  Still, Orthodoxy and Catholicism aren't exactly my cup of tea.  I haven't been into that many Orthodox churches, but I remember the Catholic churches I visited in Paris and in Venice on my first go-round, and after the first one or two they kind of blurred together.  Maybe it's the fact that I've never had much of a taste for crucifixes, or the fact that painting the same scenes over and over kind of robs the artists of their creativity and keeps things from being interesting.  Or it could be the fact that they're too close to what I believe myself - so they don't have the exotic appeal of other traditions.

Whatever the case may be, I didn't give too much thought  to the churches I would see, other than St. Basil's, and yet, as it turned out, there was nothing I loved in St. Petersburg more than the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood.  Not only does it have a fantastic name (it was built by Emperor Alexander III as a memorial for his father, who was killed on the site) and a delightfully whimsical exterior, the inside's a knockout as well.  I walked past this thing several times before I went in...not because I didn't want to go in, but because I was savoring it.

I'm not as well-versed in Russian art as I should be.  I'm familiar with icons, and that's about it.  So when I saw the interior of the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood it actually blew me away.  The people were so much more lifelike than I was expecting.  In icons, the saints tend to look more like a symbol than a person.  The mosaics in Spilled Blood - and the entire ceiling and all the walls were covered with them - looked amazingly realistic, considering they are made out of bits of tile.  As a work of art, the smaller depictions of saints were balanced by larger murals, which showed scenes from the life of the Savior, and the artists used patterns as accents and framing motifs, which broke up the space.  And the colors - oh man, they were amazing!  I do love me some color.

I hadn't really intended to visit any other churches in St. Petersburg, but I was wandering past Kazan Cathedral and decided to check it out.  It was free and the sun was finally out, so I appreciated the shelter.

There's a difference between a church that is a museum and one that is not.  The Spilled Blood is now simply a museum.  Kazan Cathedral is not.  The smells of fire and beeswax hovered in the air to meet me at the door.  There were tourists, you can rest assured of that, but there was much more reverence.  And there are places to sit and contemplate the power of God.  It was a nice change.

My first stop in Moscow was the Kremlin, which (amazingly) opened before St. Basil's.  I've seen enough diamonds in my day that I didn't care to spend an extra $14 on the armory, so I just saw Cathedral Square.  Dem onion domes (you might not like onions, but you can't help loving onion domes).  It's possible I've been reading too many of the Dresden Files books in a row.  As I sat in the Assumption Church (and you know I hate to make an ass out of you and umption) I tried to feel the passing of all the people come and gone through here over its history.  It gave me goosebumps.  I also tried to imagine my life without Chinese tourists.  If they hadn't been there, it would have been a much quieter, more reflective visit.

Anyways, so I'm in the cathedrals, and when it's just me I have impulses to check out the acoustics.  I have a decent voice - some have even called it amazing -  although I guess there could be a more appropriate choice than Hozier.  Still, it makes me think about organizing a flash-mob, choir-edition, for our next school trip.

Finally I made my way to St. Basil's (aka Sankt Vasily, which appeals to me because I KNOW a Vasilis!)  Anytime I have thought of Russia, its acid trip onion domes are the image that come to mind.  Sadly, the main chapel was undergoing work and I didn't get to see it, but the smaller chapels and their bits and pieces - the tomb of Vasily among them - were just fine with me.  It is as strange on the inside as it is on the outside - there were passages at elbow-height scattered throughout the chapels on the first floor, and I wasn't sure what they were for.  Air?  Light?

The decorations (frescoes, unless I'm mistaken) on the inside were bright and colorful and patterned to.  As I was exploring the second story a group of male singers performed, and I was right about those acoustics - they're pretty gucci.  However, this is one of those times when I think the sequel was better than the original; the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood was designed with St. Basil's in mind, but I was drawn back to it in a way that its predecessor didn't.  Which is weird, since I really hadn't really known about it before I got to Russia.

Well, that's it for Russia (I think), but I have one more church to talk about.  When I started to plan the final leg of my trip, I told myself that I would only do things here in Venice that I hadn't done before.  I visited a LOT of churches when I was here in 2001, but one that I'd learned about in art history and was really excited about, the Scrovegni Chapel, was under renovation, and we didn't get to see it, so it was definitely on the list this time.

The thing is, the Scrovegni Chapel is in Padua, so it was a little bit of a side journey for me.  Last time I was in Padua we took a boat up the Brenta Canal, visiting Palladio's villas along the way.  I loved that ride, but I took a more straightforward approach this time - six euro and 26 minutes on the train got me to the city of Romeo's exile.  The chapel is not far from the train station, and I remember walking past it on the way to the train station then - I remembered it was set down a little from the sidewalk, and that there was some kind of wall around it - an old Roman arena, as it turned out.  The Scrovegni family built their palazzo (which is long gone) and chapel there.  It was Scrovegni, Jr's work, in order to give a little push in the "right direction" to the soul of Scrovegni, Sr, who was apparently the usurer (money-lender) who inspired Dante to place them in the seventh circle of hell.

I have no pictures of the inside for you; you'll have to visit the website or run a search for them, but they won't do it justice.  The barrel vault is blue, spangled with stars, and there are religious scenes three-deep along both walls.  Here's the thing, though: this is Giotto's masterpiece and it's famous because he does something different.  He makes Mary, the Magdalene, John - all these people, into REAL people.  They're more than just characters in stories.  You can see the anguish and even the tracks of tears on the faces of the women whose children were slaughtered by Herod's troops as Christ and his parents escaped to Egypt.  Before Giotto (and even to a lesser extent after), religious art was lifeless, merely symbolic.  He made the stories relateable.  Standing in that room, experiencing it firsthand, was well-worth a little side trip.

How We Do Siberia on the Steppe

I intended this school year to write about something different in UB every week.  I haven't done too badly, although keeping up with my China trips has slowed me down some.  Still, there are lots of museums and places to check out in UB that I haven't seen yet, and even more I haven't discovered (who the hell knew there was a Black Box theater here???  Not this girl, and some of my favorite plays - Bloody Poetry, Waiting for Godot - have been performed in such spaces!)  Today I get to check one off: the Victims of Political Persecution Museum.

It's housed in an unassuming building down the street (southwards) from the ballet theater, and is not much visited.  There's not a whole lot to see and much of the text is in Mongolian, but this is a part of their history that shouldn't be forgotten.  At the beginning of Mongolia's own cultural revolution the population was about 800,000, according to one of their labels.  On the first floor, there are statistics for each aimag, telling how many people were executed, or imprisoned, and for how long.  If you add them all up, it doesn't look like as many as died during other communist regimes (who need not be named just now), but when most aimags executed 1500-2000 people, and there are 21 of them, that adds up to a significant part of the population.

I'm an art teacher; I notice art.  I truly love the traditional style of painting here, and purchased my own Mongolian painting last fall (you'll get to see it next week if I follow through with my plan to finally write the blog I promised Babysis about my home).  I think my favorite - if that word is appropriate in this instance - artifact in the museum is a painting done in the traditional style, showing scenes from the purges.  It is a jarring contrast between the beauty of the style and composition and the ugliness of the subject matter.

The skulls brought me to tears.  So many of the victims were Buddhist monks (communism being not so big a fan of the opiate of the masses).  Over the years, mass graves have been discovered.  The bullet holes in the skulls are telling.

And of course, no persecution would be complete without propaganda.  The last couple of years I did a unit on propaganda with my fifth graders during their exhibition.  We talked about the power of words and images, and how artists can use this power for both good and evil.  We talked particularly about the absurdity of Nazi propaganda from WWII, and how the artists of those images parodied racial characteristics and caricatured people, and encouraged them to remember how wrong we know those to be based on our experiences with our own classmates.  As I mentioned, the group most targeted in early communist Mongolia were the Buddhist monks.  So, class, what do you suppose is the message the artist is trying to communicate in this poster?  And based on your experience, do you think this is a true message, or not?

Speaking of religion, it's the 20th anniversary of the Mormon church in Mongolia.  I ran into one of my sisters on Wednesday when I was getting a manicure, and she mentioned a performance at the circus - that it was a Mongolian cultural performance with all the performers being LDS.  Well, I figured a free performance was not something that comes around all the time, so I invited a lot of people to go, but one of my new friends, let's call him Spike, was the only one who took me up on it.  It turned out being more religion than he was up for (there was more choir singing than Mongolian performances), and didn't quite make it halfway.  Also, the seats in the middle have NO legroom.  And whoever was running the lights had them pointed right in our eyes.  But I was glad that I went.  It was really cool to see a Mormon girl doing contortionism, because it's not exactly the most modest art form, and as a sometimes belly dancer I like seeing my sisters do what they're passionate about even if it might cause the Utah contingent to cringe.  It was also interesting to note my own reaction to having Spike along.  I've talked about my religion with non-Mormons a lot, usually - ironically - in bars, and brought people to church with me occasionally, although I make them invite themselves.  And it is always weird for me to think about what they must think of us.  We have some beliefs that are not exactly standard, and I would be lying if I didn't say that there are times when the standards of the church are a battle for me.  But...I BELIEVE THESE THINGS ARE TRUE!  I believe that the hard things I have to do make me a better person, they make me happy, they keep me safe, and - said it before and I'll say it again - I know for a fact that I never could have left my home and family to go wandering the world alone if I hadn't known my Heavenly Father would go with me wherever I go.  It is hard and I struggle but I wouldn't trade it for all the beautiful men-in-tights in the world (the ballet is on the schedule for tomorrow :)

This day has been long and I am exhausted.  This morning began bright and early.  I mean, TRULY bright and early.  Instead of getting up at 6 and puttering around on the internet for an hour and going back to bed, I puttered for 20 minutes then got ready to go HIKING.  Yes, at bloody 6:30 in the morning.  It was WONDERFUL!  This seemed like a particularly good idea this week because I had the wonderful news this week that a lot of the permit restrictions on visiting Tibet have been lifted, and I no longer have to have a group of 4 other Americans to go with.  So my own personal Himalayan expedition is going forward as originally intended!  I don't know if you realize how happy this makes me - going to Tibet this summer was a huge influence on my decision to get the 1-year visa and mop up my China "bucket list."  It's been something I've prayed about and dreamed about and even gnashed my teeth over a little.  Miracles DO come true!  Anyways, Engrish decided to try something new and went with me, and had to agree that it was not a bad way to start your weekend at all.

Also, this morning I just passed 3333 views on this blog.  The crazy thing is that over 1000 of those views have been in 2013, and 2054 since moving to Mongolia.  It was a shock last fall to find out that my colleagues were actually reading what I had to say, and that I had somehow managed to gain myself a loyal Mongolian reader, whom I've bumped into up here on the hill twice (this is unbelievable because my blog has been blocked from search engines since April 2010, when the head of lower primary suggested it might be wise to change the settings so as not to vent my feelings about the school quite so publicly).  In the last month I changed those settings, and I have been amazed to see views from countries where I don't really know anyone...it's easy to guess that it's my Swiss cousins accounting for my Swiss views, or that the Peruvian ones are either the Evil One or her hubby, but I don't think the one person I know in Germany has visited 92 times!  Anyways, it's great to know I'm not just shouting into the void, or rather, that someone besides me and my seven official readers is getting some enjoyment out of my ramblings.  Feel free to drop me a comment if you're reading and ask me questions or tell me what you like, or even what you don't.

In Mother Russia...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Harbin's the most European city in mainland China.  Nowhere is this as apparent as in Santa Sophia Square.  I mean, I expect everyone to break into a rendition of "A Rumor in St. Petersburg" from Anastasia.  Yes, there are probably lots better Russian film references to make, but I teach little kids and love animated movies.  Moving on...

It may have looked like Mother Russia, but this was definitely China.  Know how I could tell?  The crowds of people rudely pushing their way in and out of the church was a pretty big giveaway.  Have I mentioned that, unlike Shanghai, Harbin doesn't empty out for Chinese New Year?  It bears repeating.  That was one of the nice things about Shanghai.

I was also reminded this was China because visiting the church was not the smoothest experience.  I got to the doors, observed this sign (pointing into the church), pushed my way inside, only to be told I had to buy a ticket outside.  I was a little upset.  So I pushed and shoved my way out, bought the ticket, and made my way back in.  Next time, I'll back up and go around the ticket taker - he wouldn't have noticed it in the stream of people going through (ok, I probably wouldn't do that, but it was a tempting thought).

I keep referring to Santa Sophia as a church, but it really isn't anymore - it's been transformed into a museum detailing the history of Harbin.  The pictures were interesting, but I spent most of my time taking pictures of the architecture (I've had architecture on the brain - thinking of how I'm going to integrate it in my classes this semester, because I believe it's something kids should think about).  Someone on tripadvisor (or was it Wikitravel?) wrote that you shouldn't expect the quality of a European church...well, you can't really compare them, because it only looks like a church.  The decorative motifs have had no preservation at all, which is a little sad, but what can you do?

LIES! ALL LIES!!!!

This afternoon I was going to write about the song and dance show we went to on Thursday. Or maybe possibly the beauty - and deep night chill - of Hustain National Park. Or maybe both. Instead, you get to hear me bitch a little about my second attempt to get to church. Last week, my first attempt, I walked down to the bus stop (a ten minute walk) in the pouring rain. I didn't have an umbrella, so I got soaked, but I just had a FEELING that something monumental was going to happen, and I have been trying to be a better Mormon girl, so I was happy to get wet. That is, until I'd been standing at the bus stop waiting for 25 minutes, in the freezing cold. It is August, and I know this is Mongolia, but COME ON!!! So I decided it would be bad to go to church freezing cold and miserable, so I had lunch instead (ostensibly to dry off) and then slogged back to the apartment.

This morning was warm and sunny, so I didn't foresee that being a problem. I walked to the bus stop, where I saw a couple of cows wandering around. These are the same cows that were in the parking lot last week, and wandering cows seemed like such a bizarre thing to see (outside of India, at any rate). I took a couple of pictures of them, and was still waiting for the bus, so I gave the number listed on the meetinghouse locator a call. Presumably the bishop answered, and in answer to my question said that yes, it was right there where the website said it was. He mentioned something about the Chinggis Hotel, which I had NOT seen when I went on my reconnaissance mission last Saturday, but I hadn't looked that closely. Also, I had no way, at that point of figuring out what the hell he was talking about, so I went ahead and got on the bus. Which did not go exactly as planned.

See, after the bus went a slightly different route than I was expecting (which took me past one of the Korean restaurants my kyobo predecessor mentioned as being one of her favorites - see, I'm still seeing rainbows, baby!) this father and son got on the bus, and the kid was really cute, and I was trying to take his picture and sort of forgot to pay attention to where I was going (or, as my father would say, "My head was up my ass.") And so I didn't get off the bus where I meant to. A less adventurous individual would have gotten off at the next stop and gone back, but since Adventure is my middle name (or would be, if I added a few letters and changed my second "n" to an "r") I decided to ride it to the end and see where I ended up.

Which, as it turned out, was the 4th khoroo - a ger district in the far northwest of the city. I know this because I was tracking my movement on the map on my phone. I was not exactly thrilled when the bus driver made me get off and left me there with no idea where the next bus would pick me up, but a nice Mongolian man with a tall beer who spoke not a lick of English was trying to help me figure that out when another 12 bus (the one I'd come out on) pulled up, and - thanking him profusely - I got on the bus, which took me back to the place I'd meant to get off at in the first place, and I was only an hour an a fifteen minutes late. So I looked around for the building. And it was. Not. There. &#*@&^$&*#&$^*#YUY^*&^&*!!!!!!! The church's meetinghouse locator lied to me. I'm feeling very hurt and betrayed - now, instead of an easy walk and one bus ride to get to church I have no bloody idea how to get to effing Sansar. WHY THE HELL IS IT I NEVER ONCE IN MY LIFE AS AN EXPAT GET TO HAVE AN EASY TIME GETTING TO CHURCH!?! *#*$(%(*&#$!!! On the other end of the equation, I went back to Fire King (the Korean restaurant) and had a pretty good kimchi jjiggae for lunch, so it wasn't a total waste. Rainbows, people, rainbows.

Huzzah for the Weekend

Monday always comes as a bit of a letdown. It's not just the fact that it's a work day (for several years Thursday was my favorite day of the week), and in fact, I should be relieved that it's not worse - I don't have that Sunday night panic that plagued me so severely in Korea and, to a lesser extent, in RAK - and that my life is such that there's never enough weekend for me, but the fact remains. Mondays suck.

This weekend started with a bang. The Roomie and I had a housewarming party Friday night, with all my favorite locals. There was music and conversation and things didn't wrap up til 2 in the morning. Fantastic. There was also the point where one of our company (who shall remain nameless due to the fact that I suspect she will murder me if I reveal her identity), went to pour a drink and ended up setting a bag on fire (I had a candle on the table, and someone had brought wine which came in one of those nice, tall, top heavy bags, and let me tell you, it went up like a torch). Luckily, whether she'd been drinking or not, Siobhan (the black girl with an Irish name who has been included in the group description as white twice in the last week - once by me...errrrr...so all Westerners are equal in my eyes. This is a step forward, right???) was quick thinking and miraculously got it to the sink and doused it before damage could be done. (Later, this same nameless friend got on top of a chair to determine the height of our ceiling in beer cans, and as the chair started to wobble, my memory hearkened back to a time when a drunken Bronte climbed up on top of someone's shoulders and then fell off, almost cracking her head open in front of the movie theater in Samsung Plaza. I heard her screeching, "Where the f*** were you? WHERE THE F*** were you, and came out of my revery in time to clutch Nameless' leg and stabilized the chair. Otherwise there could have been blood to go with our fire, which REALLY would have made for a kickin' party!)

So that was Friday night. Saturday morning the glass man was due to come at 7. Urgh. Luckily (if you want to look at it that way) I have been waking up early anyways, and so when he arrived - for the second time - at 6:50 I was already awake and skyping with Glamwhore. And was still skyping with her when I got an invite from a teacher I met from another school to go to Anting with her. I extended the invite to Shermeen, and 11 (an ungodly enough hour if you had company over til 2 a.m. the previous morning) saw us on the train to Anting. It was a bit of a trek, but well-worth it. Anting's old town is scenic and makes you feel like you really are in China after all (up to and including the the men's underwear hanging to dry in the historic woodwork...wish I'd taken a picture when I first saw it, but it was gone by the time I got back, so you'll just have to imagine). We went to a Chinese restaurant there after strolling up and down the street, and it was pretty delicious, even if you have a hard time ignoring the fact that the chicken's head is actually on the platter with it's delicious meat. Shermeen has been my saving grace when it comes to Chinese food - I have no idea what I'm ordering and I've been too chicken to walk into a restaurant and order on a wing and a prayer. If you knew me when I first went to Korea, it's pretty much the same as I was then...except now I have even fewer reasons to be adventurous, since my global palate has expanded dramatically since then and Hongqiao alone has more options than Bundang did back in those days. On the other hand, nearly everything I've eaten, I've liked, so I suppose there's hope for me yet.

That evening Shermeen, her colleague Janice, and I went back to the flower market. I was kneeling down making a decision about which goldfish to get when I finally figured out where the muscle pain I'd felt twinging at me all day had come from. One of the topics we got onto Friday night was belly dance, and the different styles, and I went into the difference between how the styles do floorwork, descending to the floor twice without warming up. I haven't actually danced in many many moons, and it made me realize exactly how out of shape I am. When I got home that night I sat down and opened up youtube to look at some of the combinations I wanted to incorporate into...well, I WAS going to do Kashmir, but....well, hell, why shouldn't I do Kashmir. I wanted to do it. I was going to do it. So I got out my veil poi and started working on it. It was therapeutic. It also resulted in the quite spectacular destruction of one of the cheap plastic cups the Roomie bought. It also got me to think seriously about what I was going to do here as far as dance lessons go, and I think I've got a plan: I'm going to get the 8-lesson, 880 kuai membership to SoulDance, use those lessons to decide which - if any - of their belly dance teachers I'd like to study privately with, and then get their 20 private lessons for 6,000 kuai (the more you sign up for, the cheaper they get, so the 20 lessons ought to last me five months and get fairly close to what I used to pay Azhaar, even if I can't imaging any teacher being as good as she is).

And then it was Sunday. I went to church, and actually stayed the whole 3 hours (I had plenty of sewing to keep me awake), and actually actually bore my testimony in Relief Society. I'm not the best Mormon in the world, I've even been called a hypocrite once, and I guess I can understand why. I do badmouth the members some. When the person responsible for getting you to church has basically become inactive because other Mormons expressed opinions over something that was NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS, when you have been called out over the pulpit in all but name for being happy and living your life rather than pining away on your hope chest waiting for Prince Charming to ride up and whisk you away, I would think it's a little bit understandable. They say "Love the sinner, hate the sin;" I would add, "Love the church, hate the culture." The gospel has made me who I am today (at least, in all the good ways...I'll take most of the responsibility for the negative aspects, although my Dark Lord and Master did play his part, bless his blackened little heart), and I do love it, even when it's hard. And that's why I got up and bore my testimony...in spite of everything, I DO still have one.

So yeah. Good weekend. And now it's Monday night and my ass is officially kicked by my busiest day of the week, but it was a good one, and I like the kids, and I have every reason to believe all the wrinkles will work themselves out. Plus, I'm (excuse the phrase, but I have to use it, it's a time-honored tradition) popping some jjimjjilbang cherries on Thursday night...ahssah-byo!

Losing Control

The good news is, I've got the remote con back for my projector. The bad news is, it took me all evening to check the last place I would look...

Today was a bit of a wash. My partner in crime was in Dubai trawling for jobs, so I really didn't have anything exciting to do today. I went to church for the first time this week in the Mormonmobile. Yes, that's right: the Mormonmobile. One of the plethora of Mormon RAKESS teachers decided it would be a GREAT idea for us to engage one of the school vans to take us to church and back every Friday. I'll admit it has its good sides - like the fact that we leave (approximately) a half hour after the meetings end, rather than, oh, two hours, and it only costs 15 dirhams each. But on the other hand, I'm enclosed with even more people but less legroom. Oh, and I spent the entire ride back entertaining the Heusners' three year-old. Sometimes the fact that every child loves me can be a burden. However, since I had to teach Sunday School this week and didn't have the money to rent a car or take a taxi, I took - for the first time in my life - the church bus.

I should have started reading my next lesson when I got home. Socrates once told me that the elder Vigliotti girl is too smart to be Mormon, and while I disagree because I've known some fricking smart Mormon kids, she is definitely going to keep me on my toes. But no - I got home and went to the computer, where I'd downloaded the first episode of the last season of Lost, got it on the memory stick, and plugged it into the projector, only to realize I had no idea where my remote con was. I started to turn the living room upside down, but I was lethargic in spite of the fact that I slept through sacrament meeting. Also, I was fasting, and as the locals will tell you, sleep is a great way to make the experience more pleasant! So I slept about two hours this afternoon, and woke up to look around for the remote again, and, failing to find it, went in search of food and a few things from Carrefour.

One of the things was alternatives to "fizzy drinks." I keep failing to give them up, but I'm going to try again. Don't ask why. I like coke. Maybe I'll just become a social drinker - I'll go on my Thursday night binges once a week. I kind of like that idea. In the meantime, I've got Tang. Orange tang for the nostalgia of it and fresh baked crybabies in my great-mom's house as a child, although I was pleasantly surprised to find that it comes in mango and pineapple and I think one other flavor, as well.

The other thing was ice cream, which seems to have survived in spite of the fact that I forgot to put it away for...uhmmmm...two hours after I got home. I finally gave up on finding the remote and managed to manually load Lost. Five minutes before the end, Socrates called me back and so I had to restart it since I haven't figured out how to pause or fast-forward the damn thing manually, and let it play through again until it got to the right spot. Then I started looking for the remote again, incidentally finding the ice cream was sitting on the counter. I was upending furniture, which apparently involves me tripping backwards over my upside-down end table (again, I found myself cursing the fact that no one was there to be amused by it and/or be in awe of the fact that I managed to do so gracefully and with a minimum of self-damage - MAD NINJA SKILLS!!!) when my eye landed on the bag of cheetos I munched on throughout my sick day, and I thought, "Surely not." Surely so. There on top of the cheetos was my remote con, a little cheesy but none the worse for wear. Yeah. That's what my day has been like.

Yesterday I had my first sick day in five years. I probably could have toughed it out, but I didn't. Sometimes you just need to stay home and take care of yourself. So I did, and it was good.

Get Gone

One more sleep, teachah. That's right, guys - tomorrow I fly out to India! It's only been three weeks since the last vacation, but I didn't really go anywhere (Dubai doesn't count), so I'm pretty excited. It will be a warm Christmas - the first one ever. It's funny - the Evil One is more family to me than anyone I spent my other away season with, but that Christmas in Korea felt more like it because of the barren trees and sharp Siberian winds. Here's hoping the similarities stop there - that was the year I trekked up to Seoraksan and got nasty food poisoning, and I realize that there's a very real possibility of me getting some sort of bug whilst there.

I think it will be really good for me to get out of the country. There are a few points on which I need to get my head straight. I got asked to give a talk and serve as a youth Sunday school teacher two weeks ago - me, bad attitude Mormon girl. The talk went well enough...I didn't quote scripture, but for the record, I did look for articles on the church's website. What can I say, it was a tough topic: staying close to the family as a single adult away from home. Yeah, that's right. I was not impressed, and one of my fellow singletons, when she saw my topic, thought it was a crap subject. Apparently it was pick on the Great One week. Anyways, I gave the talk, and it was a manic-depressive sort of talk, because I'm kind of manic-depressive when it comes to my family, and afterwards this sort-of batty old lady comes to me and suggests I take Vitamin B, that it will help even me out.

(Hey you, you old bag! Why don't YOU try giving a talk about being away from your family at Christmas time without being a little emotional?)

And I accepted the calling, too, because that's what we do, and I miss working with high schoolers, and our high schoolers are pretty cool. When I was set apart, I was promised that the Lord is "poised to bring forth miracles." Let it be the one miracle in all the world that concerns me right now - that's all I want. Maybe it would cure me of my bad attitude...maybe not, since I don't have a problem with my Heavenly Father or the church in general, but rather with the congregations I've been in in the past year. And maybe that's not what miracles are for...maybe that's what the youth is for. I don't know. But it will be good to get away and sort out how I really feel about it and other things. Catch you on the flip side.

City of Gold

I've been back in the salt mine for a week now. I'm not going to lie about it - there was NOTHING in me that wanted to come in last Sunday, and I pretty much didn't want to again today. I felt the sort of panic I had five years ago on Sunday nights in Korea when I would linger at dinners with friends after church, putting off the moment when I hit the road to Bundang and it would become all too clear that before I was ready, I would be back in front of eight adorable Korean children that I was utterly unprepared to teach.

I spent a lot of time thinking about teaching over the week off, mostly because I didn't want to come in and put any work towards it. Don't get me wrong. I love children, but sometimes I wish I could just scrap the lesson plan and let us go wild, and who cares if we get paint all over ourselves and the school?

So I thought about it a lot and talked about it a little, and the mirage, the dream job of someday making my living by illustrating, is still wavering in the distance, and if I can just break out of my inertia, if I can build up that portfolio, I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it wouldn't be a mirage, it would be as real as that city of gold down the coast there that I've now beaten footpaths down. Really.

Speaking of which, it really, TRULY was amazing. Some of y'all (hi Christa), have heard me boast on countless occasions about my navigational skills (in the dark, one hand tied behind my back, etc...) and it is good to know that they haven't suffered any in the last three months. Driving in, I missed our exit (the roads veer off at inopportune moments, and could be signed better), and yet I managed, with just one quick glance at the map to get turned around and find the way into Mankhool. There were moments in which I may have been approaching the state of "lost," but these came as a result of listening to my menfolk. Yeah, I should know better. At least Socrates actually knew where we were and was able to get me unlost when he was the responsible party...Tony, on the other hand, was pretty hopeless. Of my three objectives for going to Dubai (belly dancing, Korean food, and shopping), I only achieved one (but you should see how kick ass my bed looks with the red bedspread and new pillowcases.

Entertaining myself since returning to RAK hasn't proven too challenging. I cooked twice last week, chili on Monday for the lot of us, and curry on Tuesday because Socrates and I were both bitching about how we didn't have anything to eat...well, it turned out that I had everything I needed to make curry except chicken, and I knew that he had a ton of meat sitting unused in his freezer, so we collaborated. However, my last week's amusement also came at a cost paid out by others. Particularly...well, I have a bad habit of baiting people, particularly those who kind of annoy me (yes, I should know better, but what can I say, it entertains me). So when a certain friend sent out an email about doing a secret santa amongst our "friendship circle," there's a very good chance I might have hit "reply all" and got up on my soapbox about socially coerced gift giving (something which, as you may know, I feel quite passionately about). Which pissed the person in question off - they called me melodramatic (well, duh. that's one of my more endearing qualities) and questioned whether or not they were right in the first place about Americans. Christa, the two of you would have a lot to talk about, I think...but then, you always managed to maintain a good sense of humor about my quirks, so maybe not.

We actually had a little Christmas barbecue over at Dean and Michelle's new palace that night - it was lovely! Well, up until the part when I got stuck in the corner behind two people who had eyes for only one another. When they started sucking face I lost my patience and, when they came up for air, I told one of them to trade me spots so I could enjoy the conversation on the other side of the porch. In the process, that individual managed to miss the chair entirely and almost became the next round of barbecue. I won't spell out exactly why, but there may have been one glass bottle lying around that he was directly responsible for emptying.

The next morning found me up early if not bright for a grueling 6 hour marathon of church (8 if you count the ride to Sharjah and back). I call myself bad attitude girl and don't particularly like the fact that I have a sort of confrontational relationship with Mormon culture right now, but really? Sitting around for two hours afterwards doesn't make me want to be there. But I accepted the assignment to speak this Friday, anyways, and I accepted the calling to teach the youth Sunday school. The funny thing (well, not funny "ha ha" funny) is that after sacrament at 11:30 I gave a lot of thought to leaving, catching a taxi, and going home. After the fact, I wished I would have...but I was planning on going to Quiz Night at the Golf Club, and I thought the fact that I stayed the extra two (excuse me, four) hours when I wanted to leave might cancel out the fact that I was breaking the Sabbath. I guess that's what I get for justifying.

Quiz Night = EPIC WIN! For denizens of RAK that are Quiz Night fans, I just have to say this: don't take on a Mormon girl and her back-up (Socrates, John, and Melissa) on a Christmassy quiz, cause we will BEAT YOU DOWN. The end.

That said, I was in a good enough mood to put up with our Professional Development Super Saturday, which, as it turns out, was not as painful as I was expecting. A little shopping and lunch at Manar Mall, and a bit of beach time...but not too long, because I got a text from Trish asking if I was interested in going to the Dubai Film festival at Madinat Jumeirah. Can I get a "Hell, yeah!"??? Dude, the place was unreal, and don't even get me started on the view of the Burj al Arab looming up behind in the dark, I should have spent one of my afternoons there during the vacation, but I digress. We saw Mother and Child, which was one of those twisty movies that takes three storylines and weaves them together. It was good, but it made for a late night, and was followed by another late night, in which I attempted to be a good little trooper and go to a PD seminar on reading in Dubai, that we never actually made it to, and I'll spare you the recounted misery and tell you that at least I got to buy myself a book and found a Godiva chocolatier at which I bought one person's Christmas gift, so not a total loss, but I was definitely glad to spend the night at home (more or less) last night.

The Birth of Home Entertainment

Have I ever told you about my great plan? I don't think I have. When I accepted my mom's generous gift of her "gun" (the laptop she splurged out on when my Dad bought himself a new gun last year), complete with cd/dvd burner, I decided that the days of big clunky televisions were at an end. Also, because RAKESS doesn't provide them for teachers, so I didn't want to spend money on something that I was just going to end up leaving behind. No, I was going to be advanced in one aspect for once and think about getting a projector, about setting up a home theater, and this plan was confirmed when I got to my apartment and saw my beautiful, tall, blank wall. On Saturday, I went to the GITex Expo (chingus: think of Yongsan or Techno Mart, but put it all on one level and clean it up a little. Also, no ahjjusshis) in Dubai with Poonam (whose idea it was - she needed a laptop), Melissa, and Rakesh. I was really going because I wanted to spend time with Poonam, but I figured as long as I was there, I should see what I could do about a projector. And so I went ahead and seized the day, because the projector came with speakers and a 500GB hard drive, a carrying case, and - ooooohh! - a portable screen.

Yeah, seriously, what am I supposed to do with THAT??? But all in all it was a good deal, and let me tell you, watching movies on it ROCKS. My current plan for my next soiree is a bit of a potluck party on Halloween and we'll all watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Classic.

What else did I do this weekend? Stayed up WAY too late on Thursday night (or woke up way too early Friday morn) - but karaoke was on the table, so I went for it, and it was great. Friday morning saw me on my way to church with Tamsin and her son (Rick stayed home to take care of their daughter), and in spite of the fact that my lungs were a little tarry from the previous night's atmosphere and I was very tired, it was probably the most spiritual I've felt in a long time; I was actually happy to be there. Here I am, finally about able to get myself a license and car and the freedom to attend church in Dubai, and I'm thinking that I might just stay in Sharjah. As long as I don't end up with the kind of calling I have to be there for EVERY Friday (which would give me the chance to visit Dubai every once in a while and make contact with the singles there), I think I could live with it. And I'd feel guilty abandoning my friend Kellie there, now that she's been called as the youth Sunday school teacher. So yeah.

On the way home Melissa called in a panic trying to locate her camera. In answering her questions in the car I had to implicate myself a bit more than I would have wanted to in front of Tamsin and John. I told them on the way in that I was really tired from being up too late the night before, but I didn't want to go into the gory details. Mind you, I didn't actually do anything wrong. But there is this thing Mormons talk about every little once in a while called the appearance of evil. Oh, and people have a tendency to justify. See, even though you and I know I didn't do anything wrong, the kid doesn't know that, and I don't want him using my bad behavior to justify his own. Heck, even if he did, he might think, "Well, if Ms. Becky (Sister Becky? I don't know what these guys should call me) can go out with her friends and happily coexist with their choices, then so can I." Except Ms. Becky's had a lot of practice at politely declining and fairly supportive friends who've never pressured her to join in, and I don't know many high schoolers that mature.

When she started to recount her escapades of the night before I hurried her off the phone...not only did I know I was going to be hearing about them the remainder of the night, but there was no way either of them needed to overhear any of that, not to mention I was only five minutes from home. When I got there the two of us decided to call off our outing to Dubai that night (because her crush changed his mind about coming, because I'd only slept two hours the night before, and because we haven't really seen much of Poonam lately, due to the fact that she's a workaholic, and there was just no WAY I was going to be able to go along for GITex if we were out late the night before. I felt really at peace about the decision to call off a night of what passes for debauchery in my world for a friend.

Home Again (if you wanna call it that)

I am, once again, settled into RAK, and the long month is over. Now we are free during daylight hours to eat, drink, smoke, or...okay, well, I guess we still can't do THAT in public, and it's not like I was, or am, anyways, being a good little Mormon girl and all, but...yeah, we'll leave it at that.

Probably going off on a jaunt five weeks after getting into RAK was not my best decision. If this had been my first time out, I don't know if I would have come back. It was so nice to see the Evil One, and I haven't quite worked out my social equilibrium here. Also, payday is STILL a day away, and the dirhams I had left in my knockoff Coach wallet as I disembarked at Dubai International Airport were rapidly cut in half by the taxi ride to get to the church in Sharjah (okay, to tell the truth, it should have cost 20dhs less, but someone gets his jollies by driving in a slightly different way each week, and although I got to the general vicinity just fine, we proceeded to spend 15 minutes blundering around and having to take long loops to get back to where we started so I could try a second time. Aish). And I had some trepidations about beginning school again, with full days, and a project I hadn't quite worked out how to complete looming over me. Five years ago...I was much weaker than I was now. I actually took sick days back then, would occasionally sneak in the bathroom to cry a little from homesickness, and don't even get me started on the parents (suffice it to say that there were days when I wanted to hide under my desk). I'm not that girl anymore. I took a flying leap back into RAK!
...
...
...

but only after a full day of reading, napping, reading, more napping, swimming at the beach, watching the end of Buffy's second season, and - once more, with FEELING! - pasta for dinner. Friday I was not a very pleasant person to talk to. One well-meaning lady asked me, as I was walking into church, about my vacation, and I told her not to talk to me. I alternated between snappy and soppy and sleepy, and I was NOT impressed by our 1.5 hour long visiting teaching workshop that didn't start til 30 minutes after it should have and the people that kept trying to take pictures with ME in them for the bulletin boards to show what a great workshop it was, because
I'm sorry...
but I have been crammed in a little seat for 8 of the last 24 hours...
and 11 more of those hours I have been stuck in the Mumbai airport, which, my friends I must warn you, does NOT have free wifi, although it does have a sort of uncomfortable "slumber room," and the flight attendants will occasionally come by and wake you up to be sure you're not supposed to be on their flight...
and I just spent 100 dirhams getting here from the airport...
and I have not had a shower since I woke up yesterday...
and I am not dressed well enough, by my standards, for church...
SO DON'T TRY TO INVOLVE ME IN YOUR WORKSHOP. DON'T MAKE ME PLAY PAPARAZZI WITH YOU BY TRYING TO TAKE PICTURES OF ME LOOKING LIKE A SKANK. SINCE I HAVE TO BE HERE AND THERE AREN'T COUCHES IN THE FOYER, LET ME SIT IN THE BACK, LEAVE ME ALONE, AND LET ME NAP IN PEACE!

Also on my mind, strangely enough...whether or not I'm an uber-bitch, but I'll leave the pondering of that for another day.

Going Pro

Sometimes - okay, a lot of times - my life as a teacher has not seemed all that professional (I know...hard to believe someone that's traded, "F*** you!"s across a crowded staffroom with Evil Incarnate could be anything less than stringently professional, but it's true). Since graduating five years ago, I have spent only one year actually teaching art (more or less unsupervised and making up the curriculum as I went along), and a trio of years in the fast paced world of human trafficking...aka, the hagwon (private ESL school) industry...in South Korea. I have worked hard. I have lived through hell. But basically, if the kids were happy and getting good grades that they may or may not deserve, I was doing alright. That comfortability was probably one of the great deciding factors for me in staying at GDA as long as I did. But someday, kids, you've got to grow up.

Before I got to the Emirates, I sometimes found myself wondering exactly how I got myself into this. RAKESS is a good, well-established IB school, and when I leave, I'm going to be well-situated to move into an even better school. But that means getting my shit together. I'm not the art department anymore; I am a part of the art department, and the art department is an integral part of something bigger. I'm exceedingly blessed to be working with Casey - she is the epitome of professionalism, very experienced and knowledgeable...in short, exactly the sort of mentor I should have had five years ago when I first started teaching. Of course that (and the fact that she could be cast as Murphy if they made the Dresden Files into a tv show...oh, wait....never mind) is a little intimidating, and I actually find myself missing the John Lee style of management (in which, on my first day at GDA, I was threatened that, "If you piss these parents off, not only do they have the resources to destroy you, I WILL PERSONALLY >content edited by author due to graphic nature< UP YOUR >ditto< TIL THE >ditto< SHOOTS OUT YOUR MOUTH SO HARD IT KNOCKS YOUR TEETH OUT!") Of course, the John Lee style of management didn't do anything to make me a better teacher. Actually, it's probably his fault that I got that first parent complaint, about how I didn't smile enough - I was pretty terrified that first month. On the other hand, trust me when I say he provides one hell of a reference.

Birdwalk complete.

This was not the most productive weekend of my life. I had good intentions (which make great paving stones, from what I hear) of working on school stuff, and took a lot of heavy books and papers home with me for this express purpose, only to decide napping and watching X-Files was much more necessary (who says you have to be professional on the weekend?). But it wasn't a waste. I went ahead and invited five of my fellow teachers over on Thursday night for dinner, cooked vegetarian fajitas (that I was not altogether satisfied with). Several hours, dirty dishes, and a broken glass later, I rolled into bed, as late as I have since leaving America. It was not the best dinner party I have ever hosted (that would be the night we taught John how to play canasta, and I melted my rice cooker - good food, great company, and the destruction of a household appliance...how much more memorable can an evening get???), but at least I'm trying to be social, right?

Friday (the new Sunday) I spent an hour trying to convince myself to call the Sailors and tell them I wasn't coming to church. I was tired. I had...issues you'd probably prefer I left out of my blog. There was nothing in me that wanted to ride with them an hour into Sharjah, spend three hours fighting sleep through church, Sunday school (Friday school???), and Relief Society, followed by the better part of an hour waiting to leave while they chit-chatted...

...p.s. Mormon friends: how have I been a member of this church for going on thirteen years without discovering that my fellow Saints seem incapable of just leaving, that they have to linger, and chit chat, and chit chat some more. I mean, good grief, Charlie Brown...

...and finally drive ANOTHER hour back to RAK. Nothing. But I'm a good little Mormon girl and going to church is what I do, besides which, there's not a whole lot else to do with my whole, empty Friday, and so, fifteen minutes before the Sailors' arrival, decided that I was, in fact, going to church. Aaaaaaaaaand, the rest of the day I watched X-Files.

Saturday began with what is turning into a ritual ride up to the Net Club Cafe where I skyped with Tori. This has been the highlight of my last three weeks. It's nice to know at the end of the week I can catch up on True Blood and the B&N gossip and just shoot the shit with someone without having to pretend I'm interested in what they have to say. Much of the rest of Saturday passed in the same way as Sunday ("David Duchovny, why don't you love me??"), and then that night Serena and I we went to see Drag Me to Hell. Yes, I know it came out about six months ago back home...that's how it works a lot of the time. It wasn't a bad movie, but they seemed to get a little caught up in the scatological aspects of the genre, gushing blood and vomiting kittens and whatnot. Also, as appalling as I find the premise, it didn't cause me any loss of sleep, due to the fact that my belief in the justice of God overrode the belief that one mortal could curse another into hell for anything, trivial or not. Sustainability of belief aside, I really enjoyed wandering the mall and talking to Serena, and I didn't really have to pretend to be interested in what she had to say, either. And that's a start, at least.