The Rosebush

I wanted to email everybody I know to say Merry Christmas, but there are loads of people whose email addresses I don’t know by heart and don’t have stored on my pc profile at work, so I am hoping that this will get the message out loud and clear:

 MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’m off to the beach in a couple of days, then trekking round Burma with my parents!  But if anybody wants to catch up, you can call me at my apartment (the Grand Mee Ya Hta in Yangon) on extension nine one zero.  I won’t have any email access for the next 3 weeks, so phone will be the main (only!?!) method of communication.  (Oh and comments on here, of course, I can still access my blog.)

Anyway, have a brilliant holiday and I’ll catch up with you guys in the new year!

I forgot to blog that on Thursday last week 3 people made me smile for the same reason - 2 of them were my brother and his girlfriend who sent me a Christmas card, and the other was KRYS who sent me a card too, completely unexpectedly!  Thank you Krys it was really thoughtful

In other news… in one week, as long as nothing goes wrong (fingers crossed) I’ll be here for 3 amazing nights… Beautiful Ngapali Beach.

Hopefully in the next week or two, I’ll have some good news to blog about as well, but it depends on a few things so we’ll have to see…

Okay, so that’s a lie, but I have been reminded that a year ago, I was in Poland doing my first teaching job.  It was snowing, it was bloody cold, and we were going crazy trying to ‘dictogloss’ the song “Merry Christmas Everyone’ to all our students, because it meant avoiding doing any real work.  By the end of December everybody was sick to death of that song, but it still brings back memories for me!

I wonder how people feel about Christmas.  I know a huge number of people are completely miserable about it and hate the commercialism and the obligation to buy presents for people but no matter how I look at it, I always see it as an all-consuming atmosphere of nothing but jingly noises, familiar themes and songs and miserable weather.  I’m never going to be somebody who dislikes Christmas… that’s just the way it is!  It’s my favourite time of year, probably because of its warm predictability.

This is probably the reason why this Christmas feels so strange.  There is NOTHING predictable about it.  I’m in a tropical country and will probably be spending Christmas day on the beach.  I won’t be seeing my brother at *all* this Christmas and will only see my parents a week afterwards when they fly out to visit me here.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the beach thing and the toasty weather - but it is very strange not being able to pop down the road in my little car for an Egg Nog Latte at Starbucks, and also strange to think that I won’t be spending any time in front of an open [albeit gas!] fire this Christmas!

But to look at it positively, I *am* hoping to spend Christmas day at the beach with Josh which should be really relaxing, and only a week later my parents are flying out to spend some time in me with Yangon, then we’re off to travel around Myanmar for ten days or so before spending a couple of days in Bangkok. 

So what’s happened recently?  Well I appear to have burned one bridge, which wasn’t my intention but I suppose was inevitable.  My car has now been sold, so bye bye Clio.  My friend Sarah has had a little baby boy, which is great.  My timetable for next term has changed so I’ll be teaching KIDS! (ARRRRRGGGGHHH!! :shocked:) This also means no more getting up at 5am for work, cos I’ll be teaching in the afternoons and evenings instead!  I have to admit that I’m looking forward to this change, though I’m mildly terrified of teaching kids - I’m sure it’ll be great though.  Any tips, Dino??

Better get on with some work I suppose!