Bulgaria! Days 1-2

Hello all! Five days into my Bulgaria trip isn't too late to start a blog, is it? I have 7 more days to go and OODLES of pictures, so I thought I'd share a bit. I'll start with a few days at time until I'm caught up to current.

We headed to O'Hare on Tuesday May 22 for a excruciatingly long day of travel. Over 3 hours to the aiport, followed by the transatlantic flight with a short layover in London. We arrive in Sofia a zillion hours later (1:30 pm on Wednesday in Sofia, 5:30 am in IL, followed by the longest ride ever to our hotel in the center of the city. We then had to unload all our luggage and instruments in the rain, and walk 2 a block to the hotel, since the traffic was so bad our bus couldn't drop us off in front of the hotel itself.

Exceedingly tired, we got to rest for a few hours, shower (in a shower that is not actaully sepearted from the rest of the bathroom - everything gets wet - even the toliet paper), whatnot, until we did a little tour of the city followed by group dinner of tradional Bulgarian cuisine.

Here is where I note that our itinerary is CRAZY packed. We were engaged from the second we got of the plane with classes, lectures, and long rehearsals, without any time to recover from jet lag. It's been 6 days and I still don't think I've recovered. But I'll put a cap on the complaining for now and try to share the better moments of the trip and some pictures...

Thursday morning I think reminded us all why were where there. All complaining, crabbiness and general annoyance was held at bay while we attended a rehearsal of the Macedonian Ensemble "Illinden. Truly remarkable playing and singing...music-making. After some mini-instruction in song and string-playing, we shared some chocolates and went outside for some dancing.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

Not as easy as you may think...

1. Where is your cell phone?
Somewhere
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife?
Couch
3. Your hair?:
ponytail
4. Your mother?
sleeping
5. Your father?:
asshole
6. Your favorite item?
laptop
7. Your dream last night?:
disturbing
8. Your favorite drink?:
juice
9. Your dream car?:
lexxus
10. The room you are in?:
Living
11. Your ex?:
obsolete
12. Your fear?
poverty
13. What do you want to be in 10 years?:
tenured
14. Who did you hang out with last night?:
Bob
15. What you're not?
skinny
16. Muffins?:
meh
17: One of your wish list items?
shoes
18: Time?
12:27
19. The last thing you did?:
blog
20. What are you wearing?:
PJ's
22. Your favorite book?:
eh?
23. The last thing you ate?:
cheese
24. Your life?:
progressing
25. Your mood?:
bored
26. Your friends:
true
27. What are you thinking about right now?:
TV
28. Your car?
dying
29. What are you doing at the moment?:
This
30. Your summer?
average
31. Your relationship status?:
happy
32. What is on your tv?:
movie
33. When is the last time you laughed
earlier
34. Last time you cried?:
Saturday
35. School?:
Illinois

Mom

December 25, aka Christmas day. Christmas festivities were actually held Saturday with mom, sis and hubby, and the bf. A small crowd, yummy food, and very nice loot. Once all was said and done, though, I felt like I didn't have enough presents to give. While at home wrapping Friday night, I was impressed with the amount and quality of my gifts, and I was excited for my recipients to open them. But it al went too quickly Saturday, and I wished I had more to give. My mom loved the comforter set I gave her, going so far as to wrap herself in the comforter for most of the evening. I also got her a set of high thread-count sheets (600!), seeing as the sheet sets that come in those beds-in-a-bags are NEVER very nice. She LOVED that too, and she exclaimed that she never had anything so nice in her entire life. Now that's the best kind of gift - a gift that someone has never or would never get for herself, but so totally deserves it. That's the thing about my mom. All she asked for Christmas was a new ironing board cover. An ironing board cover! Sister got her one and was so excited that she immediately put it on her board and found something to iron. But that's all she asked for! And she deserves so much more. She is the most selfless person I know. If all she had was a penny, she would scourge around to find you a dime. She hasn't had the best life herself, especially with her marriage to my dad. However, she is still a happy, positive person; she understands the plights of her life, and is content with who is she is and, more importantly, with he she has become. She is amazing. I would give her so much more if I had the means, and it is my true intention to do so when I do finally have the means. An ironing board cover... A sign of her modesty and contentment...I hope to live my whole life to show her how much I appreciate her and love her for everything she is and does...

Long time no see!

Well, it's been one crazy week...

Monday: 22 essays to grade.
Tuesday: 21 essays to grade and a lecture on Bach performance practice to prepare.
Wednesday: Lecture on Russian music in the 19th century and specifically Boris Godunov (in the bag, since it's my area, right? Yeah, more on that later.)
Thursday afternoon: lecture on Bach reception history to prepare.

Oi! Not a spare minute anywhere in there. Happily, Monday and Tuesday nights were spent at my favorite cafe and I was pretty productive. Cafe Kopi, downtown Champaign. I spent pretty much my entire life there for the past two years working on (or procrastinating) my thesis. Yes, practically ever single night, even some afternoons too (especially during the last few weeks of editing), I was there, latte in hand, or some Naked Juice too, and usually a yum-tacular cocoa white-chocolate chip cookie. Mmm. I've said it before, but cafes are just the most perfect places on earth. Lighting, some oddly interesting choice of music by the baristas, little lamps on each table. Whether I'm reading or laptopping, it's always a very comfortable and productive place. WAAAY more productive than my couch or office. Why is that....? Ha! One of my professors would always find me there and inquire whether it was my real office... But yes, I haven't been there very much at all these days. Partly because I've tried to cut down on coffee (and the money spent on coffee), partly because I don't have a thesis to write (which I could never write anywhere else, by the way), I just haven't had much opportunity to head over there. Oh, and I'm one big HUGE home-body lately.

Well, anyway, no more work is to be done this week, and since Thanksgiving break is NEXT week, I have no more work to be done for the next week too! How sweet the sound! I've also been house/cat-sitting for my advisor, so here I am in this big, clean, well-furnished house, doing months of laundry for free... I'm sitting at the breakfast bar with the laptop, in just the right position where I can still see the flat-screen TV in the other room on which Sleepless in Seattle is playing. Why am I not just on the big comfy leather couch with my laptop, you ask? Cuz this is better for my neck and shoulders... And yes of course I have some Honey Vanilla White Chai Tea with splash of milk in hand...!

Meh, I think I'm blogged out for the night. Or at least for now. Latz.

notsogood

Not a good week at all. Not at all. I've been eating so very poorly all week. After the wedding this past weekend, where I did NOT utilize good eating methods, I had vowed to work really hard to make up for it. I was working out, trying to eat better...but something else about this week has just not been good. Since Monday, I've been less than eager to do anything, go anywhere. I've had a dull headache or sore throat for most of the week; right now that dull headache is just kicking my ass. Today I was very ill prepared for teaching my class, and hacked through something resembling a lecture, leaving my students pretty damn clueless about improvisation and ornamentation in the Baroque. Part of my lack of preparation was due to the trip up to Chicago last night, from which we returned quite late. I figured I would have all day today to prepare, since I didn't have class this morning. But between totally going about my research and lesson planning the wrong way and being totally freaked out about how much information there was, I could not get it together. Now I consider my teaching responsibilities to be my number one priority this semester (the first time ever, since I no longer have thesis writing to tie me down), so this whole fiasco really got me. (This is item number 17 thousand on my list of issues this week...) In my post-"lecture" disarray, I decided not to go to Russian (that's yet another issue) and find a WW meeting to go to instead. Because I was trying make up for a bad weekend, I'd been postponing my weigh-in (I usually go Mondays) to optimize results. Well, today I went...and I've actually gained 1.6... I can't say I'm surprised...while a part of me was hoping, I knew I was not doing well, and pretty much expected to gain. Hell, I was practically eating everything in the apartment (which isn't much). True, most of it, if consumed in appropriate portions, would have been harmless, I was certainly NOT consuming any of it in appropriate portions...

WTF, this headache is really getting to me...boarding on migraine, methinks. All this typing and bad posture is surely not helping, nor is the beau in the other room practically screaming into his cell phone (why do ppl talk to damn loud on cell phones??!)...nor is reflecting on this craptacular week. So I'm ending this, for what's it's worth.

RAAAAR!

Procrastination or Relaxation?

Well, I was going to begin writing my lecture on Russia for the Music in the 19th century class, but I think I'll blog about it instead...

Yeah, no pressure for this lecture, or anything. This class is an advanced undergrad/grad class, which I happen to be auditing in order to brush up on my 19th century music skillz in preparation for my prelims next year. The TA, bless his heart, is also a good friend of mine in my department, and he is given the Russia day to lecture on. (We TAs usually get a day to do our own lecture for the entire class - always nerve-wracking, but it's great experience.) Now, why HE gets Russia is beyond me - he's a late 19th cen. German buff - Strauss, especially; it's beyond him, too, of course. Well, he and I have a long-standing tradition of tag-team teaching for various gen-ed music courses for which we've TA-ed together, AND, of course, Russia is my area....so he doesn't waste a breath to ask me to have a little Russian tag-team for old time's sake. Oh, and did I mention that one of the country's most well-known 19th century scholars, who teaches the class, will be there too that day?! Yeah, no pressure. All my knowledge of anything Russian seems to just evaporate from my brain. The lecture's next Thursday, and that I've already started to prepare should speak volumes... I can put "Guest Lecturer" on my CV with this, right?

In the meantime (read: for further procrastination), I'm hanging out in the bedroom, fending off a cold I feel coming on, watching Scrubs...Scrubs is definitely one of my favorite TV shows right now. When it first came on, I totally loved it...and I think that it first aired on Thursdays, when Friends was still going on. Loved the show, died in my seat laughing at all the randomness jam-packed into every episode...but then they moved it! I had a hard enough time watching TV on Thursdays, so I don't even remember where they moved it to. Tuesdays? Sundays? Whatever. I was just pissed they moved it, and that for whatever reason it didn't seem to be doing very well. I guess they've bowled over viewers everywhere, though, cuz it is now going into its 6th season, I think, and is going to be back on Good Ol' Thursdays. YAY! But, these days, it's hard to watch TV before 10 since I usually TRY to do work... That's why I've been to so happy to see Scrubs in syndication EVERY night from 10:30-12 - that's three episodes! Guess where you can find me after night before midnight... But oh I have so much catching up to do. Time to visit my local library for some free rentals...

OMG scarily right...

I stole this quiz from post from a friend of mine...had to do it...so correct it is scary!!! But I DO call carbonated drinks "soda," so there.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

"a journal wrapped in an email..."

Well, I worked out. I feel a little better having done so, since for the past 4 hours or so I've been rather down in the dumps for some reason. It might have been induced by the mood of the movie I had on (Broken Flowers) or perhaps it was just the general malaise of an otherwise uneventful Sunday. At 4pm it already felt so very late, thank you end of daylight savings. The growing darkness of winter is always a depressing feature of this time of year. I'm very much a sun person. Need the sun. Love the sun. Now that it gets dark at 5pm, I just want to crawl into bed and wake up in the morning!

I dunno, maybe it's not even that. But probably.

I'm looking out to my patio at the happy little lights I'd strung up in the spring. Green/blue and yellows. Soon it will be time to decorate for the holidays, with even more colors. I never go crazy with decor, but I do love it. I love the colors of the holidays. So bright with reds and greens. It's a rather warm time of year, in spite of the cold outside. I think that's exactly what I love about it...speaking of which, I think it's time for some chai.

Another reason I think I'm a little sub-par is that I didn't get to spend very much time with my family this weekend. While in WI for the wedding, we stayed at my mom's, which was just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away. But because of our work schedules, Bob and I couldn't leave for WI until Saturday morning, heading straight to the church for the 3pm ceremony. Then a few weeks ago, Bob was finally asked to assist with the youth orchestra again here, which is great for him - especially since he now has a title! But, this meant that we were going to have leave early Sunday morning to get him to the rehearsal, allowing for barely 12 hours to be at my mom's! Not to mention that my newly married sister and hubby were going to be gone for the evening Saturday, so we weren't going to be able to hang out with them, either. Ah well, Thanksgiving, right? Incidently, sister and new hubby arrived just 15 minutes before we needed to leave, just in time for a quick family breakfast! As always, mom pulled out a tasty scrambled egg and hashbrown meal (WW? what WW?) and, as always, Bob and I left a little later than intended. But it was good to see the sis, for whom married life seems too look very well on her. =) Seriously, she was glowing! But in the end, it was far too little time spent. I love my mom and sister so much, and I wish I lived closer so I could spend more quality time with them, to be a larger part in the their everyday lives. Of course, living closer to them means living closer to other members of my family, which I could do without... But they mean so much to me, and they are two of the most important people in my life. I just hope they know it.

Well, now THIS is depressing! I have to say this about blogging, though...I like it. It's a journal wrapped in an email...to anyone who wishes to read it. I have not kept a journal in AGES and I'm pretty damn bad at email (my apologies to all my friends out there), so it's interesting (read: convenient) how this kills two birds with one stone. I find that I've been elaborating on a lot of things that I normally wouldn't take the time to put into words...this is both good and bad, I'm sure. But on nights like this, in a quiet and semi-clean apartment, freshly showered and warmed by chai, one's thoughts and a laptop can be good companions.

Mr. Thousand Dollar Oolong: Something Like a Blog (07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004)

In response to my previous post about my low tea standards, here is my boyfriend's long-ago post about his experience with the stuff...

Tea

Being a Korean Buddhist, drinking tea has always been part of my life. Tap water in Korea wasn't drinkable but the easiest way to make it drinkable was making a barley tea call boricha. It's not surprising that we drank this stuff everyday in Korea. We continued to do so several years into living in America. Our family always had a love for oolong tea, especially the top grade, hand picked stuff from Lake Tung Ting. On sick days, my mom would brew pot after pot of this amazing stuff which would do wonders in both making me feel better physically from the medicinal properties of the tea and spiritually as I savored every drop of this stuff. Because this tea was expensive, we would only drink it when we were sick or when we had guests over.

The prototypical nice gift for Buddhists are nice tea sets and premium grade teas, some costing as much as $150/pound. Ten years ago, when my mom became more religious and therefore, more active at our temple, she naturally started receiving a lot of tea as gifts. We started drinking it on a regular basis.

When I moved to Maryland, I had a craving for oolong so I went to a Korean grocery store, Lotte Plaza(This was pre-Han Ah Reum). I picked out a box of bagged Korean oolong. I told my mom about it and she was horrified that I was drinking such crap. She said that she would bring some good tea for me to have the next time she visited. Lo and behold, she brought two kinds of Taiwanese oolong, including one from Lake Tung Ting. She had to show me how to brew the tea since in all these years, it was always my parents who brewed it for me. She didn't bring any green tea because the process for brewing was a little more complicated and the margin of error was much smaller. She didn't want me to ruin good stuff yet. Even brewing the oolong took some pratice: If you don't steep it for long enough, it tastes like grass. If you brew it for too long, it tastes like bad black tea.

Now, I'm more well versed in the tea world, but still kind of lost. The best stuff almost always has no english on the label and more often than not, the label is in a script that I cannot read. With Korean teas I fare a little better, but I still don't know tea terminology in order to be a knowledgeable buyer. With wines, at least the label will always be written using the roman alphabet and at this point, I know most of the terms in French, Italian and German in order to make an informed purchase. Through a close friend of mine, I found a tea distributor(Ten Ren) who caters to English speakers. I now have someone to turn to when my mom can't help me out. I went in there a few monthes ago with two of my best friends. It was an amazing experience. It got to the point where I had to tell my friends, "Get me the fuck out of here before I do something really stupid!" I've been contemplating going back until my mom found out about my plans and gave me two Korean green teas and two Taiwanese oolongs. And now that I've tried them all, I can safely say that they are unbelievable.

In all, I have many positive associations with tea - family, religion, ethnicity. Of course there is the most immediate gratification - the taste. The teas I'm into are like everything else in my life that I'm into - they demand a certain degree of attention and contemplation in order for them to be appreciated.

From Something Like a Blog

Sunday? Really?

Oi. My apartment is SUCH a mess. B and I just returned from WI for yet another wedding - this time an old college friend - and left the place in quite a bit of disarray yesterday. He had to run off to a rehearsal as soon as we got home (I had to drop him off, actually), leaving me to fend off the mess on my own. And after the rehearsal, he'll be heading over to a friend's house to watch the Patriots game. "Why don't you come over with me and we can watch it together?" he said. "Because I have no interest in watching," I replied. "Don't you have any interest in me??" Man! He's honed guilt-trips better than any woman I know. ; ) (Love you, honey!) But I MUST clean, and truth be told I get more done when he's not here anyway. Cleaning has always been a form of relaxation for me, believe it or not. And when I'm done I'll glory in my triumph over chaos. Our apartment is so darn cute and cozy when clean...we've lately been trying to be neater people, so we could spend more time enjoying the place rather than cleaning it. This lasted 5 out of 7 days...I guess that's a start.

I MUST also work out tonight. I engorged myself over the weekend, pretty much ruining all my fabulous weight-loss progress from the week before. I'm very afraid to be weighed this week!! But I have realized that I need to allow for some natural give and take. I must not punish myself for mistakes like these, but learn from them, learn how to better deal with wedding food and cake and alcohol and long car rides with Doritos. (I don't even really like Doritos!!!!) I will just keep going, work out more, eat better this week, and be ready for the next challenge. That I can say that without freaking out, without totally giving up on the whole thing is proof that I've really changed my outlook on my weight-loss efforts and my overall attitude towards my health. But there is something built into the WW program that prevents that kind of immediate self-destruction. It's a process, not instant make-over. It's the rest of my life, not my life already lived! No, I'm far too committed, far to invested in this now....! So this is a new week, and I'll recover.

Off to clean, will probably return later...