All you need is a little light.

It's amazing how an ordinary vase of flowers, a broken chair, or a simple meal can be transformed by a little bit of sunlight streaming through a window. Suddenly it looks gourmet even though it was thrown together by three girls in a tiny kitchen with whatever they could find.
And it's beautiful.


How often would a little vision of the light of Christ transform our personal worlds from the ordinary to the extraordinary?

Further adventures of the cockroach...

While visiting some friends Katie and I found another cockroach. She killed it with my shoe. Chacos could come up with a new advertising campaign... "Our shoes can kill cockroaches excellently!" Well, I'm sure that the people they pay to come up with slogans could do better than that, but the concept is there.

Back at the house other roommates put the cockroach spray to good use spraying one that showed up on Molly's bed. That's scary. In bathrooms is bad... but beds? This is too far. Maybe they get a point for that one?

Girls 4
Cockroaches 2

The Score

Girls 2
Cockroaches 2

Coming up with a good scoring system for the cockroach war is a bit difficult. As of right now, we have killed 2. That makes a pretty good score. But as we hardly expect any of them to kill us... Their score is made up of the number of them we have seen since last kill. I realize this probably isn't fair. Their score should be higher as there are probably more that we haven't seen lurking about under our cupboard and in the drain in our bathroom. But since that thought is a little unnerving we'll imagine that only 2 still survive in the toilet room.

Yesterday we decided we needed to increase our technological level as shoes were a bit hit and miss... maybe too much "miss". So Katie bought a large spray can of Roach Killer and it now lives on the back of our toilet, a monument to the genocide we plan to inflict. Living in the shadow of Saddam Hussein's era and the chemical warfare he choreographed has not prevented us from agreeing that there is a time and a place for such things. This should be much easier to employ than a shoe when sometime after midnight, one of us walks bleary eyed into the bathroom and switches on the light to find one of the unwanted guests scuttling across the floor. Look on this, ye roaches, and despair!

Previously our only method of attack was for about four of us girls to each grab a shoe and stand around the bathroom door on our tip-toes. Katie managed to stand on the toilet and cover the drain to cut off its way of escape. Then, we attacked. It ran, there was screaming, but by the end the cockroach was a small pile of brown slime. As I said however, that is not the preferred method.

I look forward to seeing the new chemicals in action. But the war has gone cold since the arrival of the new weapon. Have they gone into permanent hiding? Did they smell the scent of death? We are waiting to find out!

A Great Honor

One of my students wrote a note thanking me for teaching him this year. He gave me one of the best compliments I've ever received. He said, "You taught me how to control my temper." Wow...

Clearing and Cleaning

So, the process begins to pack up to leave... but this time for a whole six months!

I just opened a bag full of my birthday cards and pictures drawn by my kids. I am thankful for each one.

• The pink envelope that says "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YUO" and had Superman stickers holding it closed in the back.
• The ones cut out in the shape of a heart with kisses and "I love you" written all over.
• The ones that play music (very badly out of tune and with a high pitch) when you open them.
• The good wishes, including the most popular "I hope all your wishes come true!"
• The ones with lots and lots of glitter.
  

All have bad spelling, worse grammar... and yet... I'm having trouble throwing them away. I'm going to miss my kids.

Yearbook Awkwardness

We finished the yearbook. Have you ever known 2 people to take on a project like that? It was ridiculous. I'll never do it again. Katie should never do it again. I saw the other side of midnight several times.

Now we laugh hysterically over nonsense. We're all sleep deprived. Kirsten is throwing popcorn at Molly. And we discuss European culture and breaking the awkward social barriers.

Going to the Movies

So I found out today that I really was on the news the other night. My roommate and I, having come to see the opening of Prince of Persia, hadn't counted on the camera crews. We enjoyed the movie... but we're not sure about whether or not we like being celebrities just for being foreigners.

How I sound...

Has anyone ever told you that you sound like your doing well? An e-mail or short phone call... and somehow they think you must be in excellent spirits. Why do people say stuff like that? If they are wrong are you supposed to say, "No actually... life is rough right now, I'm just smiling to keep from making everyone else's lives just as bad." Not that my life is bad right now... I'm just curious about the comment, especially when it is applied to an e-mail. I guess I am sounding good right now... hmm... what is it that spurs people on to make that comment at some times and not others. What specific words or phrases make that come to mind. It is only a question.

Being Thankful

1. That I am not afraid of being stranded on the side of the road in Iraq. (Which is where I was on Saturday.)
2. That I found a bright yellow duplo in my purse that somehow got there from children's church.
3. That the house is quiet right now.
4. That while life is hard, and I'm sick all the time, there is no where else I'd rather be.
5. That our power switches over automatically and I don't have to flip any switches when it does.
6. That friends are coming into town this week and we need the outer society.

Don't begin by assuming you don't understand.

When I'm speaking another language I usually assume that if it doesn't make sense I must not be understanding correctly. So, when a taxi driver turned back and asked me how long my husband had been dead I got a bit confused.

"No, no... I don't have a husband," I protested. Unfortunately that didn't really help explain things.

"Where did he die? Here? America?" the taxi driver persisted.

"No, nothing. No husband; dead or alive..." I struggled to try to say something like this but I made him only more confused. Then he pointed to a ring on the ring finger of my right hand.

Oh. I laughed. "No, this is just to be pretty." He then told me that that wasn't a pretty place for a ring. I guess here if you wear a gold colored ring on that finger then it means you were widowed. Oops.

Another cultural lesson.

It's dark.

I love rainy days. I love to curl up with a blanket and the wet cool smells and read a book. But reading books is hard when the lights go out. And if it is rainy with no electricity then it is also dark... which means it is very dark in the house which then tempts me to take a nap, which isn't the very best use of my time. Hmm....

No, I didn't EAT them!

I've got EYEBALLS!

And they were free!

In which we stand in a line wearing glitter...

It's old...

One of my housemates has a bed that broke the other night. Her bed has broken a few times over the past years. Tonight she told us that the bed was old. Poor bed. Then it was revealed that the bed was a whole six years old. How is that an old bed?

Adventures in the Classroom

Somehow, one of my kids got a hold of a Jesus action figure. If you press a button in his back he speaks random sentences from the Sermon on the Mount. He was the most muscly Jesus I have ever seen.

This is my inventor. This week he came up with a way to have 3 bottles of water all connected by straws. There was another straw that came up near his mouth so that he hardly had to move to take a drink. He's a genius. =)

GM Hopkins

I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day ,
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

One day I was asked...

“Did your parents hit you for saying for example: “I will not eat rabbit’s meat” and things like that?"

School Newroz Party

Dancing and Dancing and Dancing and Dancing....

Flies can be pretty...