Hawaiian Haystacks with Thailand, Lebanon and India

Well, most of my week was spent at this computer. For three online classes to prepare and present an online chat and to correct 200 papers it took me 55 hours this week. I'm rather burned out. I've got to find another job....quickly. I really miss people too, I find myself having facial ticks, talking to myself, having delusions of owning a horse in Wyoming and hanging out with country girls who talk about "green broke". Mark comes home and I'm so happy to see him and so alone, I say things like "I'll watch the world series with you, we don't have to go to the ballet". I am really loosing it. There was a bright spot in my week. The nurses at church and the elders came over for dinner.

The Amazing Thai Dinner

Sunday, October 21, 2007
It snowed! And we were out in the hot tub with Kizzy’s nurses, Nagham from Lebanon, Mem from Thailand and Tosh from Jamaica. They had never sat in a hot tub and they had never seen snow like Colorado Snow. They kept going outside and taking pictures. It was cute. Nagham had a steam burn on her neck so I gave her some snow to put on it and oops some went down her shirt.
The nurses told us that all they serve at the college cafeteria is potatoes and turkey—processed in several ways: turkey sausage in the morning and turkey slices with more potatoes at night. So, they are rather tired of it. On Sunday, after church Mem cooked us the most amazing Thai dinner. The elders pressed the garlic. There was coconut milk lemon grass soup and this chicken curry and some hot shrimp that was to die for. Dad and I SO went off our diet. The White chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich didn’t help either.

The Bright and Beautiful in my fall quarter 2007

You are looking at a px of my new Nissan Z convertible. 320 HP 6 speed. Here's my schedule. Monday, Wednesday prepare all day for 3 online classes. Two in Art appreciation and one on Ethics. Tuesday Thursday, prepare all day to teach Business and Psychology. OK. So I'm so thankful I get to teach. But it it is pretty lonely at this computer. Still....I can have a totally crappy day sitting all alone preparing and delivering the online chats. But, then I take a break and just drive up the street to the post office I'm very happy again. The other thing is our tree out front. It's really beautiful. Look how much it changed in just a week. Sometimes there is so much pressure to get prepared, I have to reflect on the 2 hours I spend with Danica when I went up to see Lily. You know how Danica has the reputation for being a tom-boy. I was so shocked when she suggested this. We went for my first ever pedicure at a beauty school in Rexburg. They put your feet in warm water and rub them with lotion and I sat in a massage chair! Oh, it was relaxing. I was transported to an other worldly plane of existence.

Don's Px and Nagham's Baptism

I found my camera and there were these px of Don the day before he went to Iraq. We took them at the temple. They are very serious.

Nagham is an incredible Lebanese girl who always felt she was searching for something. Her mom saw a website for nurses to come to the USA to get licensed and work here. Kizzy in our ward told the nurses to come to LDS services as a cultural experience. Nagham decided to take the lessons and she read the Book of Mormon and felt it was true. She reminds me of Tiana and I've adopted her. We went shopping last night for her birthday and I made her a quilt because it's getting cold. Yesterday we went to visit Nagham with the missionaries to take her some baptism clothes and practice how to be baptized. She was staying at Kizzy’s mom Pricilla’s house. Pricilla mostly speaks Ebo, but she was going on and on about how she was reincarnated and Kizzy was her dad and she was his reincarnated daughter. I was watching Nagham’s face and here she is going to be a brand new member today and false doctrine already. You can barely understand her but finally I said, “Oh so those are Ebo (Nigerian) beliefs right! To our relief she said yes.
We got to take the missionaries and Nagham to eat Lebanese food. Elder Bowen did not eat much of his lamb. I got to give the talk on Baptism for her tonight. She so sweet, I told her that while we were giving her the lesson on commandments, I felt impressed not to study on Sunday, so she said she is also not going to study! She has a ton of homework!