Last year, it was cold on the 4th. Come to think of it, it stayed in the 70s most of my stay in Seattle. This year, however, we've had two weeks of really, really sunny weather. The first one was...

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We moved to our new apartment (our final destination for the next 12 to however many more months) on Friday. It's in a complex in lower Queen Anne with a view of the Sound. I'll probably spend the next week...

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Me neither. But I suppose every once in a while, I am nudged out of my contemplative cat-watching induced zen state. The other day I was watching Comedy Central in the morning (Bored, so shut up), and saw an ad...

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Here. I promise someday I'll stop being lazy and post impressions of Budapest. It's all written out, it just needs to be pared down because it's huge, and it'll probably bore you all to death. Interview/guest teaching appearance went so-so....

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Some day, I will get around to posting photos and impressions of Budapest. There might even be a small movie or two. But right now I'm in Bellevue, I am kind of sleepy, and I am desperately wracking my brain...

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Is it bad news when your eyes are twitching and your ears are stuffy, and you can't for the life of you rest while you are sleeping? It's been three days since I've come back from Paris, and I wake...

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We are having our stuff packed up for the move. The kitties are extremely freaked out, but are expressing that in different ways. Boris is perched atop the cat tree with a "my thingses! they're taking them!" expression, whereas Gracie...

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Not sure how long it will take me to post impressions of Budapest. In the U.S. and quite busy petting the cats for reassurance right now. In case I don't get around to it, Budapest was awesome!

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Sorry, no photos yet. It's kind of a pain in the ass to post on Flick'r for the time being. Check back in a week, and maybe I will have put up some sort of visual to go with this. Part 1 is <a href="http://turandot.vox.com/library/post/travel-log-part-1.html"> here

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Red eyes are such cruel flights. I don't think I've ever been able to sleep on a flight, except for the last flight I took to Hawaii, and that was an accident whereas I could sleep or obsess about all the ways Boris (then still a kitten) might hurt himself while we were gone. I pretty much did the latter, until my brain short-circuited into the first.

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Sorry, had to get that out somehow. Crazy month up ahead. I've been slowly making rounds of phone calls, and taking care of various business (must tell American Express not to panic about "strange" charges, must get international minutes activated...)....

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I bet you didn't even know it was a veritable saga. So here's the timeline:March 2 - I call the embassy. They tell me they will need a marriage certificate, translated and notarized and all that. Sighing, I send away...

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I blame this on Saturday's edition of the Statesman, but all of a sudden, I was in a barbecue mood. Specifically, in a Kreutz's barbecue mood. Let me preface: I hate most barbecue places. They almost always use a liberal...

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Sometimes I question my commitment to staying an Italian citizen. I mean, partly it's laziness, but partly it's the whole "no, I don't really want to travel with an American passport". Like, what's the big deal? People relinquish their citizenships...

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Yesterday, I belatedly received my class picture. Apparently, when AISD takes class pictures, teaching personnel received a copy, and since I am listed as an Apprentice Teacher for my mentor's class, they made a copy available to me. As with...

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Aside for today, I didn't work at all this week. This sometimes happens with substitute teachers. It's known as the spring break slump. Basically a lot of teachers either have already used up too many personal/sick days, or they are...

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So today I subbed 4th grade for half a day. It was three hours of practicing for the TAKS test. Three hours of forcing kids to write to a boring prompt, and do no less than two drafts. I don't...

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When we watched 30 Rock last week, I told Chris "You know, Jon Hamm's Dr. Baird is like the Clark Kent to Don Draper's Superman".So of course this week, the same character wears square glasses in his first scene. LOL.I...

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