Digenis.org

BBC News: 100 things we didn’t know this time last year.

A bunch of temporary flower kiosks have sprouted up around my metro station as International Women’s Day is approaching. It’s been an expensive holiday for me (there are a lot of female teachers at my schools, all expecting to be congratulated with flowers), but seeing as it’s a national holiday here in Russia and I get two days off from work, I’m fine with a slightly thinner wallet and a bit more rest than usual.

So, I’d like to take this moment to wish all my female readers a happy International Women’s Day!

PS: I still haven’t got my DSL connection back up and running, so updates will continue to be sparse.

I almost feel guilty for the bag of loot I brought home from work today: champagne, a wide assortment of chocolates, and some fancy tea. Tomorrow (February 23rd) is Den’ Zaschitnika Otechestva (Defender of the Fatherland Day), and I’m not a war veteran, nor is this my homeland. Still, even though this holiday has always been associated with military service (it used to be Red Army Day), it’s taken on the form of Men’s Day. The cards that accompanied my gifts said things like, “pozdravlyaem s dnem vsekh muzhin!”

What I don’t feel guilty for is a day off tomorrow. I’ve worked hard and I’m ready to relax a bit. I’d planned on messing around with WP 1.5 to learn all the cool new features and plug-ins, but, wouldn’t you know it, my Stream ADSL connection has decided to go on the fritz. It disconnects after about 30 seconds, making small tasks, like reading e-mail and posting to my blog, possible, but a pain in the neck. I don’t expect to receive any tech support from Stream tomorrow, so I guess I’ll spend the day on the monumental undertaking of catching up on my reading.

S prazdnikom!

After an incredibly relaxing holiday in the States, I’m back in Moscow. I padded the trip with a few extra days in order to make the transition from US to Russia, my mom’s super cooking to lapsha doshirak, driving to walking, and no work to long, grueling days.

Still, it’s good to be back. Andrei and I have hung out a bit and last night we made it to Otkrytaya Dver’s one year anniversary. Today I start back at work. Ughhh.

It’s surprisingly warm for January. A lot of the snow in my courtyard has melted while I was gone, but a dusting this morning has somewhat restored a slight resemblence to winter.

Friday was Orthodox Christmas here in Russia. Dasha just wrote about it, so if you want a basic primer on it be sure to check out her January 7th post. Next we’ll have Old New Year and then it’s back to normalcy.

I decided to roll out a new design with 2005, but since I’m not sure what my internet situation will be like around January 1st, it’s going live on Christmas instead.

Nothing terribly new or exciting with this redeisgn. As far as web standards are concerned, both the XHTML and CSS coding are strictly compliant down to the very last tag.

Some new additions:

• The ‘masthead’ photo at the top of the page was taken in Vilnius, Lithuania last Autumn.
• Six new mp3’s for you to enjoy in the sidebar.
• On the Misc page, you’ll find a link to some photos from my August 2003 trip to Duluth, MN.
• I’ve also decided to put two mp3’s from the Nine Volt Sessions at the bottom of the Misc page.

Let me know if you spot any bugs or if things look a little fishy in your browser. Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

I’m back in America for the holidays and so far things are going quite well.

On Monday I flew into New York City and it worked out that I got to meet up with my old roommate, Peterio. We only had a few hours that evening, but we techinically made it through three of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens) and saw Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, and Rockefeller Center. It was windy and below zero, so we ducked into a diner for some supper and caught up on where our lives have brought us over the last two years.

Right now I’m in Salt Lake City spending some time with my parents and sisters. Thankfully, it’s not as cold here as it was in NYC. The light dusting of snow that we’re getting each day, however, is making me more and more thankful for the Tajik dvorniki who clean the snow from the sidewalks in my courtyard in Moscow. The scraping of their brooms and shovels at ungodly hours of the morning is better than having to do it myself.

On Sunday I’ll be jumping on a plane and flying to Duluth, Minnesota to spend the New Years with some friends and extended family, none of whom I’ve seen in the last year and a half. The Christmas cards prove that all my little cousins are growing up faster than I could imagine, and I suppose that the same holds true with my friends.

If anyone else happens to be in Utah or the Northern Woods of Minnesota and wants to meet up, send me an e-mail and we’ll make it happen.

Some undeserving Muscovite is the new owner of my mobile. I accidentally fell asleep on the bus to Odintsovo yesterday afternoon and it was gone when I woke up. By the time I had the opportunity to call the phone it was already ‘out of coverage’ or had the SIM chip removed. Luckily, it was just one of the most standard, simplistic models on the market.

That being said, you won’t be able to reach me on my mobile number any time soon. I’ll probably get a new phone (and try to get back my old number) in early January, when I get back from the States.