More Pictures, Finally

I finally took a few minutes to pick out and resize a few pictures to post. You can get a brief sampling here. I'll put the rest on Picasa. Check the slideshow link on the side to get there. Enjoy.

 The Colosseum, of course.  

A fountain outside St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.

 

Mom and I at the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

 

El Duomo in Siena.

Siena.

 

  Siena again.

PS. Dad, if there are any really spectacular ones on my memory card that you think I should share (colosseum maybe, or Pisa?) , could you resize them and send them to me? Thanks and love you. : )

...

Wow. I'm not sure if it's sad or excused how addicted I am to the internet. But I became acutely aware of my condition when I didn't have it. Access was limited on vacation (partly due to sharing my computer, which is fine, but a factor), and then I got back to Dubai to find that I again couldn't get online.

The first thing I found out when I got back was that I had a different car when I left. Michelle was really nice and was going to get the servicing taken care of while I was gone--meaning she would call the car place to pick it up for an oil change and AC repair, then just have them drop it off again before I got back. I would have done so myself, but I couldn't get online before I left, which meant I couldn't get their number. Anyway, she called, they came, but instead of picking my car up and dropping it off again, they just gave me a different. They didn't increase my rates to the current ones, the car is a lighter color, and everything works (except that this one is far past due for an oil change, while my last one actually would have been a bit early. Ironic, no?) Anyway, that was the first thing to greet me, followed by needing to get the battery replaced on Monday because it wouldn't start in the morning for school. It's been fine since, alhamdulillah.

No internet was the second thing I encountered. Michelle's computer was still working, and the computer guy had come by again and changed settings on the network. Now, roommate Rachel's husband, Bryn, had volunteered to look at my computer while I was in Switzerland (oh gosh, I need to finish posting about my trip. Kind of like posting about while Neal was here...) to hopefully fix a few of my crashing issues, and I wasn't sure if he had accidentally altered something necessary. Instead of the old error message I'd gotten before I left, the network just kept timing out or saying that it wouldn't connect. So I fiddled, I fidgeted, and compared every internet and network detail between my computer and Michelle's computer that I could possibly figure out to compare. Finally I restarted it one time and poof! Internet again! That lasted for less than a day I think. The connection went, which meant I had to turn the router off and back on again, after which settings and reset themselves and neither Michelle nor I could get on (except for my ipod. weird.) Aaaaalllllll that is to say that it is now April 22, and I have been without regular internet access for a while. Guess whose phone card bill increased dramatically this month? :o)

Um, other things work mentioning... The rest of Italy was incredible. We saw Rome--you must go see the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel if you ever get the chance. They're amazing. Florence and Michaelangelo's statues were really neat. David was wonderful--much bigger than most people realize, and there were a number of other unfinished statues as well that were particularly striking because they were statues of slaves, and since they were unfinished, they looked like people struggling to free themselves from marble prisons. Unfortunately lots of art places don't let you take pictures. Sad day.

We went to Siena. Good Lord, I'm glad we all survived, and mostly laughing at that. Learn what roadsigns mean before you travel in a foreign country. And don't run over money boxes on the sidewalk. That's all I have to say about that for now.

Pisa was fun. I would have gone up into the leaning tower, unfortunately the wait was just too long. Oh well. I got to see it. I'm happy.

The end of my trip was in Lausanne, Switzerland, current residence of roommate Rachel, husband Bryn and adorable 6 month old daughter Noemi Martin. My family was awesome and headed back a day early, so I actually got to stay over and the Martin B&B. It was so, so nice. I haven't seen Rachel since her wedding day more than a year and a half ago. Needless to say we had a bit of catching up to do. And her daughter was pretty special. I definitely volunteered to cart her around--got me a baby snuggling fix.

The first two weeks back have been fine. I've been sick this week--not fun. It started last Saturday with massive amounts of sneezing and the tap in my nose getting left in the ON position. I haven't had a sneezing cold since I don't know when. From there it moved into my throat, finally settling in nice and comfy into my ears. My poor kids had to deal with cranky, slightly deaf and off-balance Miss Nicole this week. I tried to be good about it though. Honest, I did.

Tutoring with Aryslan has been good as well, though another tutoring job just fell into my lap as well. I'm feeling pretty uncertain about it though. It's only two hours a week, it's with a local family (which I think is pretty interesting for a variety of reasons), it's before and on the way to my other tutoring, and it pays nearly $50 an hour, which I would like to put toward something in particular. But it's possible it could make me crazy. If the school day gets shortened by an hour like the school is considering, then I might keep it. If not, and even if so, I might pass it off to Michelle, who is really looking for some extra income. I need to pray about it, that's for sure.

There's lots more I could write, but for now, I'm going to work on getting more pictures on my computer, and posted online somewhere. Don't ask my how, because it's the last thing I did with it, but I managed to not get all of my pictures onto my computer before giving my memory card to my mother (who was taking it home to show my dad). So, those ones will have to be seen some other day.

In the mean time, thanks for stopping by again. I'll try not to go another... three weeks in between posts again.

Vacation!

So, my mother just mentioned to me that I have not said anything in recent posts about what I'm doing for vacation. Well, I imagine the reason is probably because I was just too busy to really be excited about it myself, but this post is coming to you from Florence, Italy! :oD At about 1:00 am Friday morning I flew out of Dubai, headed to Geneva, Switzerland where I met my mom, Aunt Vick and cousin Heather. My flight got in around 9:00 am local time, and from there we took off in the rental car for Venice. Venice was beautiful!  But first we had to drive through the Alps,which was an experience. Absolutely gorgeous, but there was a tunnel that you had to pay to go through, and it was poorly managed. When we saw a sign that said 2km = 60 minutes, we suddenly got less excited about the idea of driving through a looooong mountain tunnel. Anyway, the drive there was nice.

When we got to Venice, it was getting around the twilight hours, so the lighting was stunning. Our little hotel was amazing, and getting to spend a day just wandering all of the little tiny winding passages, crossing bridges and watching the boats and gondolas go by on the canals was fantastic. I loved it.

We're on our way out the door now, so I'll just post a few more pictures, but I hope you enjoy. More updates soon.

Gearing Up

The last week and a half has been pretty good. Aryslan left at the perfect time, which meant I was able to get report cards done without too much stress. First I had to put all of the numbers together, which wasn't too bad this time around. Then I had to go through and do all of the hand written stuff, which means putting tick marks in about 50 different categories, then writing the paragraph of comments for each child on the back. I got the handwritten stuff done in about three days, save for a few exceptions here and there (like the IT or gym teacher forgetting to sign one). Anyway, that was report cards, and enough about that.

There were a few small hiccups along the way, as is to be expected. One involved me waking up to a small tickling feeling running down my arm. After brushing it away, I decided it would be prudent of me to make sure it wasn't the kind that might come back. After turning on the light, my fear was confirmed. My fist was the last thing that went through that cockroach's mind. *shudder*

Then my internet quit working on Thursday night when I desperately needed it. I was trying to get checked in at the airport, figure out what what to pack etc. A computer guy came a little more than a week ago because my flatmate Michelle hasn't had internet since she moved in, so he came and fixed that, but it changed something for my internet as well. It took him about 30 seconds to get mine working again, but when I had to turn the router off and on again on Thursday, suddenly neither Michelle or I had internet again, and the computer guy never showed (after our MANY phone calls) to fix it.

While all of the internet stuff was going on, I quickly had to run to the mall to exchange money, then I had to get back to school to leave things set up for the substitutes on Sunday (I won't be back until Monday). I would have done everything after school, except someone was supposed to come fix our air conditioning (which isn't working, and temps are up in the 90's now. He never came.) I had a feeling that the school might be closed up by the time I got back, so I left my window open slightly. Sure enough, the school was dark and closed up when I returned, so through my window, onto my desk, and feeling my way across the dark room I went. I got all of my stuff finished though, which I felt really good about.

So, none of that is really too exciting for anyone else to read about, but that what what happened between my last post and now. And now, now, I am on my vacation. :oD That, however, will come in my next post.