December 30, 2010

Winter has been nice to me.  I thought that I would be braving snow storms with a frozen face.  I thought that my fingers would turn blue and as documented in “March of the Penguins” that my eggs would freeze as soon as they touched cold snow.  I, did, however, manage to break a glass plate that I was told could be just as old as I am.  I ignorantly put a boiling pot on it while it was in the veranda that had reached freezing temperatures.  It cracked soon after I ran back into the warmth of the main house.  Other than that little incident, nothing has really hit me hard.  this is not to say that winter here has been really really pretty.  I have taken many walks after a good snow and some good sun and it has been just beautiful outside that just really begs me to know take pictures.  So I did.  Everything was white and just beautiful.  The ground was white, the trees, faces, streets, cars, clothes, sometimes the sky was white, the fortress, rooftops, smoking chimneys were white and even the dogs' faces were white.  One of my walk I took a series of pictures for your viewing pleasure and on my journey through the center of town I found many such 3 foot strips of frozen water that had made a slick surface for kids and adults alike to slide across.  It's sort of like finding a lollipop on your desk or getting one from the dentist.  It's like a little bit of childhood.  Winter here is just really really pretty.  However…,

Christmas 'season' is another story.  This is where I felt the burn the most.  I have spent so much time here and have thought myself lucky that when I had read this would be the ‘hardest job’ I ever loved, I was not really sure that I was feeling the burn that my peers in other nations were feeling.  However, I tell you, I was having one heck of a difficult time with this past Christmas season.  It was truly one of the hardest times here.  The two weeks leading up to the Western (pagan) Christmas is usually met with tinsel  and spiced pumpkin candles, but this season was, ironically, a bit colder.  It doesn’t usually happen that I find myself lonely or even sad at this time.  I always have family or friends that I have to warm myself up.   However, these two weeks have been a bit tough.  No trips to Macy’s to get gifts, Barnes & Noble visits or even Salvation Army soldiers doing their service.  It was just different and without too much self-pity, I am sort of glad that it is almost over.  I miss my family dearly.

School-life has been my saving grace.  Though different, the spirit of happiness and vacation waiting is still alive and kicking here.  The last two weeks at school have been a little crazy.  Sometimes a class won’t be there at all due to their holiday duties, such as travelling to almost each of the some-80 classrooms in the school and singing one of the many traditional “colinz” or carols.  I really hope that I spelt or spelled that correctly.  Last thing about school, British English is really tearing me up, but I am constantly improving my grammar.   Such as “spelt” being the British perfect participle for ‘to spell’ or even as far as spelling, “catalogue” is the British for ‘catalog.’  Maybe this is common knowledge, but it was new to me.