April 7, 2013

Although I got to stay home all day it didn’t mean it was going to be a day at the beach. I had a long list of tasks to accomplish before the end of the day as I was contemplating a full of week of activities and no rest in between.

Damira’s cousin fulfilled his promise and brought the window pane needed to replace the broken window. I created a receipt on my computer and paid him 600 soms for the both materials and labor. He had been unable to find the oven knob, so baking anything is definitely out of the question now. I emailed my landlady letting her know about the work being done and asking if she still planned on coming by with the A/C unit, but she chose not to reply.

I sent a message to Elvira asking for materials for the newsletter, resized one of the photos and sent it to Willoughby and placed a notice on the Forum FB page about the book club meeting on Wednesday. I heard from a Couch Surfer who had contacted me about finding work teaching English in Bishkek and sent it to Gulnara at Lingua for a reply.

I added more slides to my presentation on critical thinking, both versions of them, and created more collocation tiles for the presentation tomorrow and more proverb matching cards for Thursday so I could get them laminated tomorrow after my work at Lingua.

I cooked one of those packages of rice and dehydrated vegetables I had found at the Food Plus store, but even after adding half of a chicken bouillon, it lacked flavor or even much salt. I ate it with the potato salad I had in the fridge and it was barely edible.

In the meantime, I got two loads of laundry done, the dishes washed and the fridge cleaned up and even colored my hair. I took a break in the late afternoon and watched an old film, “Gung Ho”, the colors a bit washed out, but still watchable, that full of stereotypes about Americans and Japanese. There were a few funny lines, but not enough to sustain the film.

When all my chores were done, I sat down to enjoy a fabulous documentary, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, about the life of a sushi master in Japan who had dedicated his entire life to perfecting that art to the point of earning a three-star from the Michelin guide. The colors were fantastic and made my mouth water thinking of how long it’ll be before I can enjoy some fresh sushi with tuna, yellow tail, shrimp or octopus.