Mood lighting

The lamp in our Hoi An hotel room.

christmas carp

the big vats of huge live bottom feeder fish are on the street!  it's christmas in prague!

academic fraud

After an investigation into the academic scandals at UNC, it was found that my professor from my semester in Cape Town, Julius Nyang'oro, was responsible for 'irregularities' dating back to 1997.

I think there weren't any big surprises there; just revealing more frequent problems and not limited to athletes. Because of my semester abroad, plus one more course in the spring, I have a minor in African Studies. I feel funny about announcing that now on my resume.

And also there is this description:

Nyang'oro's practice of getting approval for lecture courses that involved no lectures but a single paper due at the semester's end started in 1997 — just months after AFAM was elevated from a curriculum to a department. Martin said there was no solid motive, but he suggested Nyang'oro could have been trying to boost enrollment in AFAM courses as a way to grow his faculty. The investigation found patterns of faculty no-show classes that peaked in 2005-06 and then dropped precipitously — to near zero by 2009. That's the year that Crowder, who has been implicated in abetting Nyang'oro's fraudulent practices, retired.

My semester abroad was similar to what is described: minimal lecture, and a large single paper due at the semester's end. But we did have interesting guest lectures, and we did each have an internship. That said, I wouldn't describe the experience as rigorous. Did I get a lot out of it? Oh, yes. But was the actual course work very strenuous? Not really.

2 more days

we aren't prepared at all, but our flight to hong kong is on friday!  so excited!

paleo christmas cookies

last weekend i made some paleo-friendly christmas cookies, from this recipe.

because there is no real flour to hold it together, it was ridiculously difficult to get it off the parchment once you used the cookie cutter.  that was a bit sad.  but then for the last round i tried just putting the cookie cutter on the cookie sheet and kind of 'stuffing' the dough into it.  and it worked great!  it's not as fun (i didn't even bother trying to involve lumi in the cutting because both of us would have been very frustrated) but everyone in the family enjoys the shapes.  kimmo has this pig cookie cutter that he loves, so i try to make sure he has a few pig cookies every year.

the author suggests putting the cookies in the freezer and eating them directly from there.  that sounded absurd, but we tried it, and she is totally right -- that is the best way.

lumi doesn't seem to have skin issues or GI issues, so i don't think she is sensitive to gluten.  thus we're not pushing her to do the paleo thing. we still try to minimize the amount of bread she eats, but it's not worth creating an issue at daycare about.  and since i like doing cut-out cookies and normally it's fun for kids, i think i'm going to try to do a non-paleo recipe of heart cookies for valentine's day. lumi can take them to share with daycare, i guess.

santa took them

kimmo's sister had their annual christmas party this past weekend, and santa paid a visit. this is standard procedure, but what is great is that santa took the girls' pacifiers away! so now if the girls ask for their pacifiers, the parents can reply "santa took them away, remember?"

A Dance With Dragons

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

well, i enjoyed this. it's a wonderful story and he does a great job with these characters. if you like fantasy or soap operas or war-related stories or even fiction in general, it would be hard not to love this series.

though i wish i had had access to a paperback or electronic copy because i hated carrying this big hardback book on the bus.

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Food and liquor

I am eating at Lupe Fiasco restaurant!

'big bed' mishaps

last weekend we got a toddler bed for lumi.  it's adorable and she is excited about it.

except when we put her there to sleep at night.

she will happily read a book with me while lying in her bed, all tucked in.  but when i say good night, she starts crying and gets up, asking plaintively for the 'big bed', which means our bed.  we have a good wide bed, so it's not a problem if she sleeps with us, so we have been just putting her in there instead of having a battle of wills every night.  but she sometimes moves around while she sleeps, and last night while we were reading in the living room we heard a sickening crunch followed by very upset crying.  we ran in there to comfort her, but since the crunch sounded bad and she was crying more than normal (yes, she falls out of bed every couple of weeks), i turned on the light to check for injuries.  she looked ok, so when she calmed down i put her back to sleep, and she stayed reasonably calm and in one place most of the night.  but this morning one side of her face is decidedly puffy and there is a bit of a mark.  oops.

chilly

it's cold today in prague!  the high is -5.  it's also kind of dry and uncomfortable.  the skin on my knuckles tends to crack when it gets cold like this.

but i am fortunate that i have a warm place to work and a warm place to live.  it's one of the reasons i love apartment living -- they tend to be quite warm!

december book club meeting

last night was our december book club meeting.  most months we meet at a restaurant and discuss the month's book.  the december meeting had a different format -- it was a holiday party at a member's apartment.  her apartment is really fancy, and it was a lovely time.  the host is from the UK, and she supplied 'crackers', which i had never done before.  you pull it open with someone else, and there is a great popping noise, and then you get whatever is inside it.  these crackers had a little paper with a joke and some trivia, and a prize.

my joke:

why is that man standing in the sink?

he is a tap dancer.

(the jokes were all of this terrible quality.)

my trivia:

which animal doesn't have vocal cords, the kangaroo or the giraffe?

the giraffe.

a lot of the trivia was (naturally) UK-based, and there were questions about UK tv series, and things the Queen can do.  our group is about half british, half american, and we americans just followed along as best we could.

also, we each brought a book from our home collection for someone else to read.  then we traded around, and for the january meeting we will each read our different books.  i took 'black swan green' by david mitchell and i got 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time' by mark haddon.

Teradata Christmas Party

Last week we went to the Teradata Czech Republic Christmas party.  It was a costume party and the theme was favorite profession.  People went all-out!  It was impressive, and I was embarrassed about my lack of effort.

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

i enjoyed reading this, though it's not the type of story i normally enjoy. the characters are great, but i got emotionally involved and just got really stressed about it. toward the end i just wanted everything to end.

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bliss at home

we had a *huge* brunch at an argentinian restaurant with some lovely friends, and right now kimmo and lumi are sleeping it off.  the cats are sitting on the sofa where kimmo is napping.

me? i'm doing my weekly organization: planning the dinner menu for the week, sorting through receipts, and crossing things off my task list.

this is as good as it gets!

Book: Little Women

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i finally read little women! i liked the book much better than the movie, which i had seen ages ago. the story seems a little more sensible, and i can understand why the book was so loved by generations.

will i read it again? probably not. but i would probably encourage kids i know to read it.

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i hope it wasn't enchanted and that i'm not going to abandon my family and mr. and mrs. beaver

i did a pretty good job keeping to the primal/paleo diet while we were in the US, especially considering the amount of treats i had access to on a daily basis. kathy even cooked red velvet brownies while we were in florida! but then this week i was completely derailed by an unexpected source. i have a student from ankara, and he brought turkish delight to share with the class. i tried turkish delight when we were in istanbul a couple of years ago, and was not impressed. but then this student comes up in front of the whole class and offers to share his culture with us.  it feels really rude to refuse like that! so i took one. and it was completely different from what i remember having in turkey; it was delicious!  it tastes like a mild marshmallow covered in coconut with a pistachio on top. 

i thought i was in the clear -- it was just a tiny bit of sugar.  but then yesterday he put the box out on our break table, and by the end of the day, i was stuffing them into my face like Edmund when he met the White Queen.

the box is still there today, but i have resolved not to eat any.  let's see.

great day for lumi

yesterday lumi had dry diapers the entire day at daycare (meaning that she consistently used the potty all day, not that she was dehydrated).  i shouldn't be so emotionally involved with this, but it makes me feel terrific.  she really knows what she is doing!  and our daycare people have a great connection with her!

the 5-year diary

my friend nikki gave me a 5-year diary while we were staying at her place in new york.  it has space to write about 1 sentence each day for 5 years. i can't decide whether i want to begin on new years day, or if i want to begin when lumi turns 2 (which is in early february).

now that i'm writing this, i'm thinking it makes more sense to start at the new year.  because it's possible that not every day will be about lumi.

Popular play mat

Nova, Lumi, and Kimmo enjoy Nova's play mat.

jet lag!

we got home yesterday at 19:30 after a wonderful trip in the US.  and today i'm teaching.  lumi did surprisingly well last night with her adjustments.  she woke up a few times crying, but it was much better than her experience in indy when we were adjusting to EST.