what i've been meaning to blog about but never got around to ...

so much for my time off work: of course, me being me, i had to come down with a bad cold and a fever for a few days. i am sure it had nothing to do with me standing around in the chilly morning air last sunday ... duh. :)

monday: farewell to the loveliest bunch of students ever. i was almost embarrassed by all the wonderful feedback. and one student told me that she was particuarly impressed with me as a person, even more than me as a teacher. does feedback get any better than this? we went for lunch and ice-cream after class. unfortunately, not everyone could come, but ... i am sure they were there in spirit.


apples make a girl happy - nadine



andy and "his" martha



werner, doro, marianne



the wild teacher and the crazy bunch

* * * * *
tuesday, i went to one of my favourite haunts again, the central cemetery. i spent several hours in the new jewish section, where i had never been before, and took lots of photos. later that afternoon, ronnie joined me, and we walked around some other parts of that beautiful place for a while longer. here are some pictures - for more, please visit my flickr page.











* * * * *
wednesday, there were people to see, but i was feeling blah - and when i got home around eight, i knew why: 38C, my thermometer said. so, off to bed, and i guess i sweated most of it out. i was supposed to be working thursday afternoon and evening, but that had to be cancelled. :(

the good thing about thursday was that i received the ten author's copies of small confessions & pebbles of regret, as well as loch raven review 2007, and carolyn guinzio's west pullman.

friday, i felt up to going to the open mic at night, but i will blog more about that later, when i have edited the tons of photos!

another week i did not make it to the movies - but i got to watch into the wild with my students last week, it is fantastic. very beautiful, and my students found it as moving as i did.

song of the day: ask the mountains (extended version) by vangelis & stina nordenstam.

teaching girl & party girl

i am not looking forward to tomorrow - time to say goodbye to my current students. they gave me some health food (ie chocolates) and lovely flowers on friday, and in return i took photos of them working hard.

andy's notoriously strange dress sense
("i want to be a bunny!")

hard-working students:
andi, nadine, irene (front left) - claudia, werner (front right) - martha, doro (back left) - margaret, robert, mahmoud (back right)

team-working: margaret, mahmoud, robert (aka rüdiger)

of course, on weekends respectable teachers turn into party girls ...

i had sort of accepted the fact that nothing was happening on the weekend, but then my delightfully weird friend ronnie emailed me around six on saturday to ask whether i was "going to ruth & bruno's party at andino" as he and alina (an open mic friend) were going. the obvious question was: "who are ruth and bruno?" turns out they are open mic people, and i never knew their names. to cut a long story - involving several highly philosophical digressions, discovery of ronnie's make-up problems and musings about female suicide bombers' sweet hereafter - short: we got to the party around nine, were surprised it was a wedding party (r&b had gotten married on friday) but were obviously very welcome. everyone was lovely.

we met three very dangerous italians - daniele, paolo and fabrizio, bumped into harold who is also an open-mic-er, were happy to see alina around 10.30, laughed a lot and enjoyed music by goran bregovic and such. ronnie left around midnight, and at about half past midnight, the dancing began. and boy, did we dance! it was absolutely great, and such fun! we were asked to call it a day around five or whatever time it was ... but upstairs they were still playing music, so we hung out there until after six. not that we went home at that point. instead we spent over an hour standing in the chilly morning air under a perfect blue sky, passing a bottle of red wine, eating leftover cake, taking silly photos, listening to music and almost-dancing. the police stopped to tell us not to be too noisy, and we did our best.

isn't it funny how those nights when you don't have any expectations turn out to be the best? i cannot remember the last time i came home from a party at eight in the morning! and i was not even tired until about 40 minutes later as i found myself sitting down for more than ten minutes for the first time in ages.

here are some pics - not great quality, because they were taken with my mobile, but i guess you can see we were enjoying ourselves.

crazy party people: bruno-the-groom, nicolas, paolo, daniele, and me

two very dangerous italian brothers: fabrizio and daniele

bruno & paolo

breakfast!

paolo - a penny for his thoughts ...

song of the day: bella ciao by goran bregovic.