candle on the water

i added a blog to the list. it's written by dorie greenspan (no relation to alan) and it's all about cooking. she recently took a few cooking classes in vietnam and they were sooo cheeeap. maybe i can talk someone into going to vietnam for chinese new year holidays.

i'm chatting with my friend andy from home and it's making me so excited to go home! the trail of lights, a big christmas lights display in a giant park in the middle of austin, will still be going on, and a bunch of people will be home for christmas. getting excited! will and i were talking this afternoon about how we don't really care about presents anymore. i told him i'll be thrilled just to walk up and down the aisles of the grocery store.

tonight after class, my coteacher jasmine and i went to meet up with a woman, kitty, who's the mom of one of my students. she's studying english at a university and she needed to interview a foreigner for class. we started off at a coffee shop but it was too loud so we ended up at her house. when we were done, she told me i'm the first foreigner she's actually had a conversation with and that she was really nervous. her english was really good though so we had an easy time chatting.
i think jennifer, my student, was a little mortified that her teachers were at her house while she was in her jammies. but it was fun. jennifer's one of the ones who takes my bracelet off every class and wears it for a few minutes, so we're pretty close.

happy december first!

p.s. it's interesting living with people who all do the same job as you. the other day someone made a comment about how their kid insulted them, and their response was 'that was correct grammar! way to go!'