• WONDERFUL time
• in Mexico
• in which
• NOTHING bad happened
• and EVERYTHING GOOD happened
• I don't know why 
• i was kind of anxious about this trip
• maybe it was feeling guilty
• leaving all the children
• and the way too many animals behind
• for such a long time
• 8 days!
• but
• it was
• REALLY REALLY
• NICE
• =)
• beautiful places, excellent food, lovely people

• a very busy week with students having to do last minute make-up tests to see if they can pass the year
• not MY students
• other people's students
• and me trying to help them to pass
• also with some new students of my own
• I never have tests
• in my utopian teaching world
• =)

• Jujubee had a puppy!
• fortunately we were home for the great event
• mother and baby healthy and happy
• =)

So here we are in Mexico, Mexico.

It is fabulous, wonderful, and very lovely indeed.

The people are very similar to Ticos;  less show-off and extroverted perhaps, and somewhat less coquettish, but so very friendly, helpful, kind to strangers.

We are staying right in the middle of the Historic Centre, which is very beautiful, full of gorgeous old buildings. Many of them are sinking, slowly slowly, in this enormous city built on a swamp.

we have travelled on about every conceivable means of transport; the metro, 'peseras' - the little buses, 'camiones' bug buses, taxis, by foot, and by canoe!

the food is fabulous. not hot at all, as we expected - well, at least the chile dishes that we've had - including mango and chile icecream - have been very mild and pleasant.

we've seen churches and markets, the pyramids of Teotihuacan, and the floating gardens of Xochimilco, and many many many people.

photos to follow.!

• FINALLY
• i finished Lord of the Rings
• (which i loved)
• (and was surprised by, having been so long since i read it)
• (and noting how true they were to so much of it in the movies)
• (really the only parts they embellished significantly was increasing the role of Arwen and the Arwen/Aragon romance)
• (and decreasing significantly the gayish overtones of the Sam/Frodo Pippin/Merry)
• anyway, much as i enjoyed it,
• I truly am
• DELIGHTED
• to be able to return to reading about
• SHIPS
• and
• the
• AGE OF SAIL
• at last!
• 
  
• I'm going to re-read THE BOUNTY
• and take notes this time
• and try to memorize IT ALL

• and in other news
• we leave for mexico in exactly one week
• 
  

• so in the end
• the relative prices was the clincher

• we can fly to Mexico FREE
• well - using frequent flyer points -

• whereas

• tickets to Australia in the next few months are very expensive
• $2600 US was the cheapest I could find
• so better to save money
• for the bureaucracy trip
• and save for a bigger more family trip HOME
• as soon as possible

• very sad though because I very much want to go home
• however

• AM very excited to be going to
• MEXICO!

• WHEEEE!!!!

• LOTS of rain
• non-stop, for days and days
• and it's COLD
• well cold for here
• i am thinking about putting socks on!
• tossing up options
• wondering wheter to go, very cheaply and quickly to mexico to get the kids passports renewed
• (there is no australian embassy in costa rica,and kids' passports require a personal interview)
• for a later trip to australia
• or just go
• more expensively,
• and alone,
• to australia to do it
• hmmm
• i have to work it out, TODAY
• we were going to go to the beach
• this weekend
• but too much rain and the roads are too unstable
• i am planning to do NANOWRIMO this year.
• will put my progress HERE

here is the website:

in other developments

• i am re-reading the Lord of the Rings. Haven't read it all since i was a child.
• I was in grade 3 when i read the Hobbit. Can't really remember when I read the rest, but not long after. I remember my secret crush on the geek boy in grade 3 who used to wear a gray cardigan and had already read all the series, and liked mostly to read about dinosaurs.
• I have always been attracted to geeks, strange I never wound up with one.
• Surprised by really how childish LOTR is in terms of character development - minimal, characters basically come in types, and then play true to character. And the innocense of a clear-cut GOOD vs EVIL world.
• But still, the classic of classics, the first, truest and best of its kind. Beautiful in it's childishness.

• hmmm But I truly miss reading about ships. Next I shall re-read The Bounty. Now I know so much more about the era, and especially SHIPS OF THE LINE of the regency era, and all, I expect to get more out of it - EVEN MORE! - and hopefully to retain some of what I read.
• I have a sieve for a brain, and I appear to be becoming much more stupid with age. 
• I have always deeply disliked talk of aging, find it depressing and defeatist when people start citing aging as an excuse for their peculiarities and frailties. And yet I begin to wonder, with horror, about my possibly aging brain, becoming stupider and stupider by the minute. 
• Perhaps it is working at home for myself that is bad for my self-esteem in a way. I have nobody to prove myself to, so find myself unproved, and unproved, feel useless and hopeless.
• But that sounds like one of my sad excuses for myself really.
• Perhaps it is not afterall becoming stupider, it is realizing I am not, an never was, as smart as I thought.

• I am trying to be less arrogant and big-headed. By even my humility is arrogance. *sigh*
• I still believe a strong self-esteem is the best gift my parents bestowed on me, and the best gift you can give your child. One can never fail: it is rather LIFE that has failed to recognise how fabulous one is.
• But recognise also this has a horrible, obnoxious side.
• I am trying to be less obnoxious.
• oh dear.

• if you can't be self-indulgent on your own self-indulgency blog, where can you be?
• anyway, I know it's just me, and my miniscule circle of deeply kind readers.
• who will forgive me

• wilson is in panama, helping his cousin to buy a car
• i am teaching right NOW, believe it or not!
• students are working out a problem
• rarely, but sometimes this happens
• wheeee!

• wil just tried to call, but couldnt get through
• can't talk while i teach anyway
• they are working on filling out all the past tense from the excerable Celine Dion song, "Because you loved me"
• can't stand Celine Dion
• but many of these older adult students seem to like her
• gotta give em what they want
• *sigh*
• i'd REALLY like to be teaching them old sea shanties and all about age of sail SHIPS!

• hmmmm

i forgot to mention it.

i have become obsessed by the age of sail.

I realise now that I have always been captivated by the 'boaty' bits of books, and disappointed when they go back to land. it took reading "the bounty" for the full-fledged fully-aware obsession to bloom.

and now I am reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series - on which the movie MASTER and COMMANDER was based  - and of which - oh joy! - there are 21 tomes.

I have read the first three books twice (the second time I actually understood better what was going on in all that boaty-ness) and then read book 4, and am about a third of the way through book 5.and only have book 6 on standby......

HMS Surprise - used for the movie "Master and Commander"

not very wet this year

hmmm

also, i have barely written.

or done many of the things i like to keep busy doing

must try to change, write more, post more, visit xanga, my first and truest internet love

*

lily is finishing up her last year of school. how amazing is that? amazingly amazing.

bela and elias are becoming brooding teenagers.

heaven help us as they all three move that way!

we hoped to go home to australia for christmas, elias and I, but doesn't look like it will work out. =(