Buckwheat

Happy New Year to you too, RB! How did you survive the holidays? How is going back to reality going for you?

The holiday is exciting. We are doing a day trip to the neighbouring country tomorrow. I also have a lot of tests and essays to grade, but I think I am staying relatively on top of it. I wish the holiday was longer!

And to you, KiD! Rhae. I am sorry you are not enjoying yourself this time of the year. I have surprisingly a lot going on these days, so I am enjoying the holiday, even though I don't really care for Christmas itself. I much prefer New Year, bit sadl the boyfriend and I have no plams for the evening. The holiday is too short in any case.

Thank you! Happy Hamoulimepp, all. :p

@RhaenysBee Did you manage to celebrate your bithday then? In any case, belated happy birthday! It was the last day of school today. Tonight is the staff party and then I am off for a week or so (except for all the grading I have to do, and all the new tests I have to put together). The teenagers are still the best, though some are ... a little moody lately. I suppose this is what teenagers are like. They still surprise me in good ways. I had my hair cut recently and everybody says shorter hair looks good on me.

Well, you can't expect RB and I pull all the weight! :p Weekend is starting, yay!

Aaaaaaand it is ... right here. Come join in the decorating! In other news, 1st December is also AIDS awareness day, which teenagers think is a lot of fun because they can distribute red ribbons and, of course, condoms at school, or get some of them at the school hall. Then they are totally embarrassed when you talk to them about it, but the other students have a lot of funny comments about it. For example: Me: What are you doing, waving a condom around in class? Student: (doesn't answer) His desk neighbour: He is too embarrassed to pick them up, so I went and picked up one for him!

It is December! There should be a Christmas tree somewhere around here.

Yes. 27th April is public holiday, as well as 1st and 2nd May (Labour Day), so usually the days between that are off for schools. Easter doesn't mean much in terms of school holidays. But, well, these are two Hungarian words I learned right now ... which I will probably soon forget too. Although I did hear a lot of Hungarian in the last two days. In know that "boldog" somethingsomethingdsomething means happy birthday, too. I am up to ... half a class of graded essays. Still have one and a half classes to go. I had a lot of time to do it today, because I didn't have many lessons, but tomorrow I will be teaching the whole day, so less time to do it.

Hot chocolate and mulled wine sound great. I am glad you had a good time. We don't have Easter holidays, just Easter Monday off. But there are usually between 6 and 9 days off at the end of April/beginning of May (depending on how the public holidays fall). I was! Now ... other people involved ... not hearing from them ... grumble grumble. It was a nice week all together. Now I am very much back at home again. Belat es? Is that food or something? Slovene people generally celebrate St. Martin's Day by ... you guessed it, getting drunk. Also eating a goose, I suppose, but mostly getting drunk. Just one day and then it's weekend! I am going to be left with two classes' worth of tests to grade, though.

Do people not wear wrist watches anymore? I still have an analog one. As well as a battery-powered alarm clock that wakes me up in the morning (as it has for probably close to 15-20 years now; now that I think of it, it has proved very durable and survived many moves). And the flat I am renting has a wall clock that needs to be reset twice a year too, people don't have these on walls anymore? Huh. (Both my alarm clock and the wall clock tick very loudly and have been called annoying to go to sleep to by people visiting me, but I honestly don't notice the ticking anymore ... as I said, I have been going to sleep listening to my alarm clock for a very long time now.) In Europe, we got an extra hour of sleep a bit more than a week ago. Now it is not dark when I go to work in the morning, but becomes dark way too soon in the afternoons.

I hope you are better by now and will be in perfect health tomorrow. I don't know what the weather is like in your town, but if anybody is getting married today here, they are having a rainy wedding. No idea about 18 C, but online classes are ... not a good idea. If they are so exhausted, then they should better have a week or two completely off (online school is such a weird thing, it is not completely free time, but also not "serious school") and then come back to actual school. I have until Sunday off ... kind of. Still have a bunch of work to be done for work, even if it is technically free time. And additional projects, because I cannot seem to be able to say no to anything.

Oh, there are plenty of reasons why online school is a terrible idea. Covid taught us that. Don't give people ideas. Yikes. Be careful and rest. So they are pretending there is no covid anywhere anymore? Good luck with the vaccination.

Here it is 7 days, provided you test negative after 7. If you still test positive after 7 days (which most people do, including me), you need to stay for 3 additional days. They messed with this year's school holidays here too, but the one in February. They made it much earlier in this school year, which is ridiculous. We are going to visit relatives for two days, I have a doctoral candidates' session on Wednesday, and the rest of the days I want to spend mostly with the gentleman. What are you going to do?

I had to isolate for 10 days. But it wasn't that bad because my whole family had covid, so we could still be together at home. I still cough now and talking a lot - like one does when one is, you know, a teacher - tires my voice quickly. But at least I have the next week off! Because autumn holiday (which includes two public holidays). Soooo ... happy Reformation Day and All Saints!

I am still getting much better, I am looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Although getting up early won't be pleasant. I became used to going to sleep very late and getting up late as well. I need to do better tonight. How is everybody?

First day off the isolation! I feel much better, I just still cough and have stuffed nose occasionally. I am going back to work on Monday.

Thank you. I feel a lot better today already. Aaaaaand just watched the episode with the high school reunion. I started almost dancing on my couch at the song "What you missed while you were popular", which must be a sure sign that I am getting better. Then I teared up at the talk between

I am rewatching CXG because this is obviously what one does when sick and now I find myself tearing up all the time. Who knew it was such an emotional show? I just started crying at and also the whole storyline that ends with this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-H-qzqQJsw. This song must be one of the most beautiful ones in the whole series.

I am sure jam making is a very useful hobby. Still feel pretty crappy, am trying to beat my fever and air out the flat as much as possible.

Thank you. I was vaccinated three times and had a sucky day today. I imagine the vaccinations worked until now, but this sneaky virus finally caught up to me ...

Thank you. It hasn't been bad until now, but it is only the first day. I don't know how this thing will develop for me. I trust you are better after your sickness by now?

Soooooo ... the plague finally caught up with me too. I had the test done today and ... well, it is the first day of my isolation. I have to stay home for at least a week, then I can have another test done.

If this were to take place this year, I could and probably would actually join.

Definitelx not! Anyway, great to hear you had a good trip and luck with the weather. I also hope you managed to spend all the kuna you had, as Croatians are apparently going to accept the euro soon, so you probably won't get an oportunity to use whatever you have left. This sounds like a great living situation for you. I am renting a teeny tiny studio flat close to where I live (it is not very nice either). But I mostly spend only the working week there, as I am usually with the boyfriend or at my parents' during the weekend. I want to move for a few reasons, but I just don't know what option would be the best right now. I only visited a few (or, quite many actually) places in Croatia out of the former Yugo republics. We drove through a narrow strip of Bosnia on the way to Dubrovnik, but that doesn't really count. Maybe I should visit other countries as well. Congratulations on graduating!