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Happy "LAST DAY OF NOVEMBER" everyone!!

Today I had the first of eight exams in the next three weeks. It went alright, though I definitely did some fancy guess work for a couple of questions. . . .OOPS! Oh well no time to think about it, I'm on to studying for the next one (tomorrow morning). Did everyone remember that yesterday (as in November 29, Sunday) was the first day of Advent. Did you remember to light the candle of Hope? I must admit that I am now listening to Christmas music (Micheal W. Smith's Christmas album to be exact!), even though we still don't have snow on the ground and it doesn't really feel like the Christmas season.

What are you guys doing to celebrate Advent?

Picnic

Hey family!

here are some pics

I will try to explain them as we go! I went on two picnics. One with Eunha and Tracey and one with people from the church! We had a great time!!

Eunha, Tracey and I went for a bit of a coffee picnic one day but the mossies were hungry!
This is where we had our picnic was, the sun was going down! Really nice!
This is our Korean leader's bosses daughter, you can tell that they are Korean by how she is dressed like an eskimo!
the trees were all changing colour!!! So beautiful, not as vivid as home but still beautiful! And where we had a picnic with people from the church!!
The monastery where the guy who freed Albania got married. We didn't get to actually see inside but only from the distance!!

Visa Run

Hi all

I finally made it with all my documents to Trieste to apply for my permanent residency it only took me about a month to get everything together but I can finally breath a sigh of relief all I now have to do is wait. I actually only spent a day in Trieste because of obligations here in Ljubljana, so that made the trip a little difficult as I had to be up by 3:00 to get on the train for 4:30 and from there it was a combination of two train switches and two buses before I finally reached Trieste 3.5 hours later. Anyways it didn't take me much time to get all my documents all sorted out so seeing as the next train was not leaving until 14:40 this gave me some time to wander around. After having a coffee and delicious dainty I set off to do something a little more constructive, as I was not really in the mood to go shopping and I was by myself (and there is only so much coffee one can consume without consequences) I decided to do a little exploring. These are pictures from my exploits.

Notice all the Christmas trees, Italy is already in full Christmas mode. In the Cafe that I went for coffee and then the Cafe that I went for lunch there were Christmas Carols already playing.

The weather was overcast the entire time but the temperature was nice, I am guessing about 12 or 13 degrees with a nice breeze.

I know that you have already seem this area before in my other pictures however it was just too nice to pass up an opportunity to take another pic.

Anyways I have to run but I will talk to you all later.

Ciao

Have you Heard?

Here is the gossip from the grapevine.

1. Lynnette had a date last week. She didn't give all the details but we heard that he is a self-employed man in the wool industry.

2. Wes has a couple of women on the side. He claims that he's not dating but he seems to be spending a lot of time and energy going for "coffee".

3. George is spending time on an Online Dating website. He claims that this was a computer virus but he certainly spent lots of time there.

Stay tuned for more gossip.

posting

I admit I was under the mindset that you needed to post pictures but we can post without pics about our daily lives so lets all focus on posting more often.

Inspiration

Check out this site. Aimee is a double amputee and is a long distance runner. There are 2 videos for her.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/aimee_mullins.html

Soccer

Hi All

I first want to apologize because I don't have any particular pictures for this event. I wish that this was not the case as it was really quite the sight. Anyways on Wednesday there was a big game between Slovenia and Russia to determine who would be going to the World Cup (Soccer championship held every 4 years), this was really a big deal as Slovenia has traditionally never had a strong team and beating Russia was really a big deal. I met up with some other guys from class and we headed down to the university to watch the game with about 100 other students. It was really an awesome sigh to watch as everyone was really excited about the game and you certainly could feel the electricity of excitement in the air. The game started off to a good start and just before half-time Slovenia scored the first and only goal. Seriously the crowd went wild and everyone went even more crazy when the game finished with the final score 1 - 0 for Slovenia. Now I have never been a really big fan of soccer but it was hard not to get excited as everyone was really into the game. After the game finished everyone headed downtown to celebrate all together, we found ourself in the main street which had been cordoned off by the police there honestly must have been a few thousand people all yelling, shooting off fireworks (I am certainly glad that I was not trying to sleep or living downtown) and singing (Slovenians love singing) it was certainly a sight to behold. All in all it was a great night.

What are you reading or listening to today?

I'm interesting in knowing what you are reading or listening to these days.

I am currently reading ET Essential Teacher magazine - March 2009 and October 2009 issue. There is an intersting article in the March 2009 issue on the culture in Greece which I found insightful. I am very intersting in reading more about teaching writing to 2nd language learners. This semester I was teaching a writing course and did not like the way the class has been going. I want to figure out a better way.

As for listening, on my MP3 are the songs that Rebekah downloaded when I was in Germany. It has a nice mixture of music - classic, praise music, and jazz. Now that Dad and I are going to the gym several times a week it's nice to have some good music to listen to. The university has a separate gym for men and women. The equipment is older but still works. It's great to have my MP3 to listen to the music while on the treadmill.

So, how about you? What are you reading and listening to?

Sketchy train and Durres

So at 7:45 I was on a sketchy train on my way to Duress with 3 of my teammates. The train had holes in almost every window. Some looked like bullet holes like the pic! We had to walk across a small bridge between the two wagons. While it was moving!!! We went for hotchocolate. this one is not as thick as they usually are. But Beck notice the spoon. Then we went to the amfiteater (Albanian spelling) it is like the one in Rome but smaller and it is not as well kept. Here is a pic, but there is actually more to it that is still burried.

We then went for pizza, notice the pizza with potatoes and carrots on it!!!!

We came home and because our wagon did not have any lights, a train worker gave us a single candle to light our cabin. So romantic. We came back around 7pm. A really great day!!!

Trip to Bulguksa

There was hundreds of these prayer pyramids all around the temple, on the fences, in the trees and on the wall. This is a stone lantern. It dates back to 700 a.d.

Beautiful colors in the trees.

Bulguksa Temple and some old funny looking stange couple. The old geezer kind of looks like Indiana Jones.

Bulguksa Temple. This temple was built in 700 ad. Really beautiful.