defeat

what a game it was! for some reason, they decided to have one of the IV Nations matches on a Friday night (probably some clash with the use of the stadium), and so last night saw Wales play France in Paris. and it was amazing. i didn't see the whole thing, but Wales was completely in control of the game in the first half until the last minute, when France equalised. the second half, though, was truly French. i don't know why, but the Welsh seemed to lose their cool after France got yet another penalty. but the last 10 mns of the game were amazing! France was leading by 5 points, so all Wales needed was a try and a conversion. when you know that they have a habit of coming back in the last 30mns of the game, it still seemed possible, especially when they nearly scored that try with only 2 mns left. it was great rugby, but unfortunately, the Red Dragons didn't make it. depending on how they play the last 2 games against Italy (easy) and Ireland (the current leader), they can still win the title, but the Grand Slam's definitely out this year...

a fabulous weekend

S. turned 25 the other day, and to celebrate, she invited us all to her friend's chalet, up in the Swiss Alps (where we'd spent new year's). this time, it was only friends of ours, and we had a fabulous time!

the weather was amazing on Saturday. half of us went skiing, while the others went snow-shoeing. and what a hike that was! it took us over an hour and a half to find the sodding path (very poor maps and directions!), but once we finally got that far - and all of us thought about giving up more than once - it was well worth it. there was only us, walking through the forest. it was amazing.

then today, it snowed a lot. some brave souls still went skiing while the rest of us either holed up in front of the fireplace (that was me) or went for a walk. it was great, really relaxing. i'm glad i ended up going (i wasn't supposed to, originally - it's a long story). now all i need is sleep...

the picture (courtesy of T.) below is from the top of the resort, so nowhere near where i went, but it's such a nice view.

Tamil demo

last week, a number of Tamils were demonstrating in front of the UN here in Geneva, to protest against what's currently going on in Sri Lanka that we hear so little about in the news. one guy, a well-educated lawyer, set himself alight right there and died. in memory of this guy, and as further protest, Tamils from all over Switzerland and Europe descended on the UN once more. 20,000, according to the estimates. some streets were partially or even totally closed to traffic all afternoon while a procession marched from the station to the demonstration place. on the way home, i saw the mass of people on the square, and honestly, i had tears in my eyes, seeing that many people in one place, calmly standing for what they believe in.

TGF my students!

yeah, let's just say that morale isn't what it should be these days and that i'm just really grateful i have such great students. they really make my days and pick me up. yesterday and today, i had some really good classes, where i really laughed. it was really great.

solving work issues

right, well, after the whole work issues at the beginning of the week, i've finally clarified what's going on.

i talked to my boss this morning. i wanted to know exactly how he saw this, because obviously, i can't both teach 25 hours and week (and plan!) and take on the account manager position in March. he realised that. but there was no rush, he said. what he envisaged was that i'd only officially start the other position in, say, July. as far as he was concerned, the position was mine and he was flexible about when i'd start. if i felt like starting now, on top of everything else, that'd be fine, but really, things could easily wait till about April, and then it would be a slow start anyway. he'd thought about it and come to the conclusion that i probably wouldn't work more than about 10 hours a week if we kept the same number of customers, so it'd be doable when i had less hours in the summer, and then we'd see how things went.

i'm so relieved! i thought maybe he'd give someone else the job, and that was what really worried me, as i really want to take this opportunity to do something else than teach. so this is good. i've waited this long, i'll get there eventually.

pub quiz

we have a few pubs in Geneva that do pub quizzes. and then, there are pub quizzes and pub quizzes! in this one pub, there are 10 questions on 10 topics. we're generally pretty hopeless, but it's fun. a lesson in humility, says a friend...

anyway, we started going regularly about a month ago. last week, we were dismally bad. i think we scored about 21 points. we were right at the bottom (there are usually around 20 teams). because of this, we were allowed to choose any topic for this week, that only we would know would be on and would thus be able to read up on. we only had about 2 mns to think about this, and we eventually chose dinosaurs. the quiz master seemed dubious. 'are you sure?', she asked. oh well... so off we went and studied. or rather, off i went and studied (turned out i had a book about dinosaurs), as one of the team couldn't make the quiz after all, and the other spent the weekend skiing...

so anyway, we met up on the big day. dinosaurs was the 3rd round, and we played our joker on it, and luckily it paid off! only one mistake, and only because the quiz master wasn't specific enough about what group or subgroup name she wanted ('which dinosaurs did birds evolve from?' well, saurishians, for the main group, but theropods for the subgroup). still, we actually did pretty well this week: 61 points!, 7th out of 30 teams. nice!

work sorrows

yesterday was such a good day in terms of work: after waiting for weeks for my boss to think about the meeting we were supposed to have in January to discuss my future within the school (non-teaching future, that is), he let me know, while talking about something else, that i should think about becoming key account manager. we'd talk about it quite soon and he wanted me to start at the beginning of March. well, that sounded just great! and then this morning...

this morning he asked to see me urgently. so i went in. he didn't seem too happy, so i thought maybe i'd done something wrong. while i was relieved to know that i hadn't, i wasn't overjoyed with what came up, namely, a new teacher was going to start a course next week and everything had been set up, but this person had yesterday decided not to teach after all and the only person who had those times available was me. yes. he knew, of course, that i'd specifically told everyone i wouldn't be taking on any new courses cos i had my hands full as it was, and that under no circumstances would i take a course i wasn't already preparing a book for. so he spent 15 mns explaining the situation to me, with the end result being that he basically made it impossible for me to refuse. and he didn't want to hear about me taking on the course just until they'd found someone else. to help me, he told me how one of my colleagues had already taught that course, so i'd just have to get his lesson plans off him, which would seriously help me. i explained that, no matter how good those lesson plans were, i'd most probably be redoing the whole thing anyway - what with me refusing to do bad work. yes, but it would still help, he said. yeah. right. i asked said colleague to forward me all his plans - turns out he doesn't write any. but he could tell me what extra books he used to plan his lessons. just great. so, more teaching, more preparing, less social life (that i was finally getting back!). yes, i know, more money, but compared to the amount of extra work i'll have to put in in terms of planning and losing some free time, a pittance. and i know i should be grateful to have work in these troubled times, but still.

on top of everything else, if i have this many hours, how exactly does he see me becoming key account manager on the side? i can't possibly do both. i couldn't have yesterday, so i was already thinking about what classes would have to be replaced... but now, i don't even know if that option (the job) is even on the table anymore, and that really pisses me off.

signs of spring

you wouldn't be able to tell from the weather, but spring is on its way. since last week, spring birds have been chirping - the nicest sound in the world. and i saw a huge dragonfly on my way home. it might be cold, it might have snowed yesterday, but life is coming back.

a. in M - the palace

after getting lost a few times, we finally made it to the palace! one of my favourite places in Marrakech.

laser game

my first laser game... i don't know why, but i was actually quite nervous. i think it was the lack of projection: the guy explained it all, but it all seemed very vague to me until i got into the labyrinth. and then, things got serious.

i think i did pretty well for my first time. i didn't shoot any of my teammates and was only shot 16 times. i only shot 10 people, i think, but that's because i didn't realise that simply aiming and shooting didn't mean hitting. that only happened when the vest buzzed, as i eventually found out halfway through the game, by which time i was pretty beat anyway, as i didn't just sit around and wait for people to walk into my line of fire, but actually ran around most of the time. it was quite a workout, when you're used to soft ones like swimming or badminton!

the dream green cream

the best way to explain this is to say that my face is always red. especially if it's not summer and i have no tan. from the moment i wake up and all the way through the day, i'm red. add a little sport, heat or nervousness, and i turn a nice shade of tomato. until recently, i didn't think much about it, cos that's how it had been for ages, but either it started getting worse or i was told it was actually a medical condition (probably both), but suddenly, i wished there was something i could do about it.

2 weeks ago, there was a show on tv where a girl had a similar problem. they explained to her that a bit of green cream would make the redness go away (red and green apparently cancel each other out), and they put the cream on half of her face to show her the difference, and the effect was pretty good. so off i went in search of the dream green cream. and found it quite esaily, actually. after talking to the woman in charge (ever noticed how they tell you all about skin care etc but they slap on tons of make-up etc on their own faces and thus look like hell?), i bought my one tub, not the three pre-/mid-/post- whatever she was trying to sell me and waited till the next day to try it. and it works! it really does. at first, i thought it wasn't so good, cos i could still see some redness, but then i went to a laser game and while my face felt the way it does when i turn tomato red, i still looked nicely normal. victory!

still clueless

so, i'm once again at a loss and will obviously never get it. this guy spends hours talking to me, just me (i mean, there was just us for the longest time), and flirting, all the way, big time, three days in a row. i'm not kidding: when we were in public, S. and Mr. J. felt quite left out, apparently. and how many times did i want to kiss him? ...many. but then we were not alone and i chickened out. and then, when i was all ready to go, while still lovely and charming and apparently no different, he suddenly seemed...well, uninterested. it was weird. i gave him loads of opportunities, the kinds that he was probably expecting on saturday night, but nothing. just a smile every time i made my point. so, on our way up to pool from the bar, i had to mention it. he confirmed that he'd realised i liked him. when i asked him if this was good or bad, he said both. good cos it was great to be liked but... 'damn!', said i, smiling but very disappointed inside. i asked him, if that was the case, why had he been flirting with me all this time? had he?, was his question. anyway, he surely hoped this wouldn't change anything: and we'd still be able to talk till 5am. what do guys think? does he really believe it'll happen again? i was dead, and the only reason i stayed up all that time, was because i was interested. i mean, our conversation was really great, and to be honest, i told him things i'd never said out loud before, but i'd have gone to bed at 2 when everyone else left if i hadn't liked him.

why don't men get it? they think it's all fun and games, but somewhere, some people get hurt. i could have. i'll admit he had me charmed. completely. and it was really nice. and now i wonder how long he would have strung me along - without meaning to, we've agreed with S., who was nice enough to say that he was obviously a terrible flirt but didn't realise it. it made me feel vindicated.

relief!

i got an email from an old friend this morning. it was a very nice surprise. i'd had no direct news from him since Sept, so i'd been wondering a) what was up and b) whether i'd done something wrong. i am now reassured on both counts. it's good.

33!

i turned 33 yesterday. and what fun i had! my first guests arrived just in time for dinner. the following ones arrived in time for dessert. it was great. i had so much fun. and i certainly didn't expect people to stay that long. at 1am, we were still four people and at 2am, there were just 2 of us left: A. thought he could get a taxi back into town at that hour! so i offered him my spare room. but before we got that far, we spent hours talking. it was great. but at 5, i was absolutely shattered, and i wish i could have spent more time sleeping, but when you suddenly have a guest, you also have to take care of them! still, it was as great night.