I need space to grow and time to think

I have seriously been putting off blogging for a freakishly long time. But then two of my lovely roommates did some super creepy detective work and discovered my blog. I was then slightly chastised for not blogging (although most of the chastisement came from myself).
Since I was slightly outed I've been determined to blog but have always found a reason not to.
"I'll blog when I finish this book."
"I'll blog when I finish a book I like more."
"I'll blog when I have something interesting to say."
"I'll blog when I have ice cream."
And the list goes on and on and on and...
So. I bought myself some ice cream and now here I am. Fake hipster glasses. Unknown band t-shirt. Bandana on my wrist. Side pony tail. I am ready to blog.
But now I just find myself blogging about how I've been trying to blog for so long!
On man, you're lucky. You almost lost me to another distraction just now! (It's about time to clean that fan. All I would need is some paper towels. Do I have to go to the store for that? Maybe I could just take the whole thing apart and really clean it up!)
I keep debating back and forth. Either I have a lot to say and don't know where to start or I really don't have anything to say. I've found myself getting stuck in the motions right now. It's summer, not a whole heck of a lot is going on right now and I've been sucked up in work a lot. To keep myself out of ruts I have to find new ways to entertain myself. Wow. I am four years old. I have to be entertained with new things ALL THE TIME! (I would add more exclamation points for emphasis but that bothers me too much.)
Ergo the blog. Maybe if I can get back into blogging it will keep the summer bummers away. <- Side note! I just came up with the phrase "summer bummers." That's definitely a keeper.
The goal/desire. Blog at least twice a week. Key words for future posts:

• Future plans
• Music (always music)
• Hobbies (but not the boring kind)
• Desires vs. goals (Oh this one is a winner. Lots of words about this. Many rants Yoda say.)

Double side note. Post title comes from "Lonely" by Strange Vacation.

Revamp

It has come to my attention that my blog could desperately use a little TLC. I go in waves of posting a bunch of semi-awesome posts to posting nothing at all. Consider this the beginning of a wave once again. Hopefully I'll post for real sometime soon.

Dear Ernest...

Dear Ernest (I still feel like I don't know you well enough to call you Ernie),

I remember when we first met. I was a young, starry eyed high school sophomore. You were one of the requirements for the curriculum. Our brief encounter was enough to feed my young craving. I put our time together in the back of my mind for quite some time. Then just a few months ago you wound up back in my life.

It was like I saw you with different eyes. I had a whole new perspective on you and that made our relationship stronger. We were never exclusive but I always intended to give you more intention. Finally the time was right and I gave you another chance. I knew this time would be truly special. We've been together for the past two months and I just couldn't stay with you the whole time. I flitted around from Frost to McCormac to some Russian writing about the revolution. But today was the end...I have officially finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Yes, this is my love letter to Ernest Hemingway. It took me two long and painful months to finish the book but it is done now. Four hundred pages of waiting for a man to blow up a bridge. And then you don't even know if he's going to end up doing it or not. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely some parts that I enjoyed. And it wasn't necessarily a slow-moving book. I haven't quite had enough time yet to think about the deeper aspects of all the themes and what not. I need it to soak in a little more. I don't plan on reading FWTBT again or even really recommending it to anyone but it considering that I'm turning into a book snob (it's a love/hate thing), I'm glad I took the time to read it.

Playing Catch Up

Where to begin? It has been quite some time since I last blogged and so much has happened. I actually intended to blog a few weeks ago. However, my charger went kaput and I was rendered laptopless. Quite a bit has happened that I haven't been able to blog about. Examples: my perfect birthday, the two books I've read, a quick trip down to Moscow, spectacle with the kids, last week in St. Pete, and first week in America. So we're going to see if I can knock these suckers out one by one. It will not be possible to do all in one day. But I'll do as much as I can for now. Because I do, after all, have to figure out what the deal is with my background and fix it asap!

Let's make this post a little bit about my birthday. Lucky for me I typed up everything about the day the day it happened. Commence copy and paste now...

First I woke up in the morning and left the room. I came back to find a note on my pillow with some of my favorite Russian cookies. The cookies were from Sarah and the note was from Lauren. the note said that my birthday was about to begin etc. I got all ready and went to the kitchen table to find my usual bowl of cream of wheat and next to it a box of chocolates from Grandma and a note that said, "Nicole, Happy Birthday" in Russian. So cute!

Then I went over to meet up with Lauren and Allison so we could go to the Dostoevsky Apartment museum. I had been saying for a while that I wanted to go there and made a special request that we do it on my birthday because I honestly wasn't expecting too much. I just didn't want people to go out of their way for anything...but alas! When they met me at the metro they gave me gift number two...two metro tokens to get to and from the museum! How thoughtful! What I didn't know was that they had 21 different gifts for me throughout the day. We got to the museum and another present for me (this time from the city) - turns out that with our Russian student cards the museum was free! A good thing considering it was pretty small and only took us about half an hour to go through. But it was still really cool and I'm glad we went. It definitely gave me more motivation to read Crime and Punishment. Or at least try again to read it.

Lauren and I in the Dostoevsky Museum. I think the only picture we took that day.

After the museum, while we were exploring that part of the city, I got a couple more gifts - chupa chups, a delicious pastry, and beer bottle caps. I've been trying to collect the coolest Russian beer bottle caps I can find because they are all over the streets. Then we went over to the kindergarten for lunch and then to Areil's apartment where I found some delicious browned butter chocolate chip cookies for gift seven and then some extra dough for gift eight! Of course they had gotten my favorite coconut siroks for gift nine (which I put in the freezer and was so stoked about). Other presents, in no particular order because I honestly can't really remember, were a free back popping coupon from Lauren, a special youtube video from Allison of the famous Russian birthday song, cookies, candies, Mountain Dew, my own map of Kiev, and a little book I can write poems in. When we got to school I was honored with a choir of children singing Happy Birthday. Then I was honored with a choir of pre-teen boys singing Happy Birthday (quite a feat so double kudos to Lauren for that). Gift nineteen was a Jonas Brothers bag (a bit of an inside joke with Lauren). The final two gifts were fantastic cards from two of the best people I have ever met. It was arguably one of the best birthdays I have ever had. But it didn't end there!

Lauren, Allison, and I. No, this was not on my birthday. But it's the three of us and I quite fancy this picture. Compliments of Lauren.

I got home and Grandma sang me the Russian birthday song all on her own. She made an extra special and extra tasty dinner of chicken and such then she busted out a cake she bought for her, Sarah, and I to eat. I ended off the night with skyping with my family. An overall amazing day. But don't worry, no vodka was involved in the creating of this fantastic 21st birthday!

A New Addiction

My friend Allison and I have a bit of an addiction here in Russia. Actually we have a lot of addictions. These include but are not limited to eating soroks, making awkward noises, acting like old men commenting from a balcony, and doing tattoos. This past is about that last addiction I mentioned. Allison is a freaking good artist. It scares me sometimes how good she is. One day she drew WallE on my hand and since then we've enjoyed giving/getting tattoos. And we've been smart enough to document all of them! However, I don't have pictures of all of them because Allison has many of the pictures. But you can see as many as I have access to right now...

This was one of the first that I got. Mufasa saying, "You have forgotten who you are" but half of the word "forgotten" got cut off.

Another early one. Inspired by Lady and the Tramp

Sometimes other people want in on the action too. This was an owl for Lauren.

This is what you get when you don't know what you want...an Allison on your foot for Kristen.

Sometimes we would keep it pretty simple

Just a basic robot. Right?

Wrong! Don't worry. We did this on a Saturday and it all washed off before church

A little more of a close-up of the random but awesome tattoo sleeve

We really like to personify animals

It's a Modest Mouse. Get it? (I know Steph, you're probably the only one this time)

This one's hot off the press today. Lauren was sick so Allison drew her (on the far left) on one hand and then Allison and I being sad on the other hand. Allison has a hat that's an owl head, in case you were wondering.

This one's still one of my favorites. Good ol' Winnie the Pooh!

I have to say thanks to Allison for always finding new ways to entertain me and being willing to share her skills with everyone. I hope she's okay with me posting all of this since I didn't ask or anything. And if you're interested in seeing more of her coolness, wander over to her blog which I have a link to over on the right side there.

Week Vacation Part 2: Kiev

I realized today that I never got around to blogging about part two of our vacation...Kiev! I didn't get a lot of pictures there but we sure got a lot of experiences!

It started with a bit of misery as we were leaving Tallinn. Our flight was delayed about five hours so we were pretty trapped in a little portion of the airport. We got a little stir crazy but we did make it to Kiev finally around 8 at night. Then we went to our hostel...let's just say that we were pretty much always singing that song from School of Rock, "No you're not hardcore unless you live hardcore" (and we added "in a hostel in Kiev"). It turned out to be cool though and not too traumatizing for the most part. I'll spare you the nitty gritty details right now. On our first day there a head teacher for ILP showed us around the city and helped us buy ballet tickets. We got a good feel for our bearings that day and what we would do in the days to come. We hit up the souvenir market one day and I got some sweet stuff that I can not disclose in this public location. And bartering is quite the experience. You know you just got ripped off when they throw in a free magnet. Anyway, the next day we hit up a monastery with some catacombs that would be a claustrophobic's worst nightmare as well as the coolest WWII memorial/museum I have ever been to. Overall it was a fantastic trip and I loved almost every minute of it!

In front of the Riga Airport (aka proof I have been to Latvia).

A really big monument down the street from our hostel. Unfortunately, I have no clue what it signifies.

I'm going to be honest here. There are two really amazing and famous cathedrals in Kiev that are right by each other and I'm always getting them mixed up. But I'm pretty sure this is St. Michael's.

And I'm nearly certain now that this is St. Sophia's. But I could definitely be wrong.

The tile park! There was this great area that was completely clear of buildings behind some apartments and the government wanted to come in and build something there. So the people in the apartments were not going to have that ruining their view of the city and they decided to work together and build this amazing tile park so the government couldn't build anything there.

My second favorite part of Kiev was surprisingly going to the ballet. It was Romeo and Juliet so that made it easier. This is the view from our seats that cost $2.50!

Still looking good at the ballet, even after five days of traveling!

We had a clear view of the orchestra which was actually really cool

After an hour bus ride and a half hour walk along a freeway in the dusty wind we made it to the recently dedicated Kiev Temple. It was well worth the trek.

I was rather cold but happy all the same! What you can't see is the slightly noisy freeway right to the left of this picture. Surprising, right?

A bird lady at the Monastery. I had to change it to black and white for dramatic effect of course.

A beautiful view from a lower portion of the monastery.

Me with my all time favorite person in Ukraine. Big MAMA!!!

My favorite Ukrainian woman looking over two of my other favorite people (who are actually not made of stone)

I started reading All Quiet on the Western Front on this vacation so I found this especially relevant. However the book is about WWI and this memorial is WWII. A bit of a let down but oh well. Same thoughts I suppose.

Can you see why I love her so much?

We strolled along the river as we walked back to the metro. It was a lovely day and an even lovelier stroll.

Just walking under the over pass. No big deal.

I had a fantastic time in Kiev. We went through a lot of Russian ramen, maps of the city, patience, and pictures. And it was worth every single minute.

Happy Birthday Stephanie!

Today is little Stephy's birthday! She's 18 and I can't believe it! She's getting to be so grown up and blossoming into a beautiful young woman (sorry, I couldn't resist saying that). So in her honor I thought I'd do a post all about style in Russia...

Don't be afraid to go for the gusto!

Matching is overrated!

Nothing wrong with wearing a red Spongebob shirt and black and green pipe cleaner glasses...

...and the same goes for pink striped shirts and those fantastic glasses!

Always be true to who you really are!

Keeping warm is number one!

And apparently drawing attention to yourself is number two...

Uh...yeah, no words for this one actually (dog and reindeer, for real)

Even animals deserve to look good.

And humans can use animals to look good too!

Even those gone before us have a sense of humor.

Being a superhero never goes out of style though!

Okay, it's not style necessarily but it's still cool!

Star Wars boots. That's all I have to say about that!

And it doesn't matter how you look as long as you have good friends on your side!

I hope your birthday has been great Steph! I love you so much and I can't wait to come back home and give you a big, awkward hug!

PS: Credit to my fellow ILP teachers for some of these pictures!