That was fun, my birthday.

[maeve66]

For some reason, my birthday this year brought out more congratulatory celebration than any of the last ... I don't know how many years. Maybe it's Facebook + Livejournal + more recently made friends? I don't know, but it was nice. It started with my mother calling me at 6:30 AM and singing "Las Mananitas" to me, which is kind of funny, because it's not any kind of a tradition. I think she was honoring my ELL teaching position? Which, by the way, may be ending -- another teacher just told me he was asked to fill this position next year, which means that yet again I have no idea what I will be teaching next year.

Anyway, it was a really nice birthday. M. gave me six classic 1970s (well, five plus one 1980s hit) Bollywood DVDs* (including Mother India, the watching of which will instantly catapult me into Indian classic cinema maven status, or so I am assured). He also gave me Errol Flynn's last film, Cuban Rebel Girls, which is very exciting, as it is both a classic of crap cinema/cult film AND a document of sorts of the Cuban Revolution. He also gave me some books, yay! My younger niece made me a painting at school which is absolutely gorgeous -- I really am going to go get it framed, in fact. It makes me happy just looking at it, a lot like a Kandinsky or Klee painting does. My older niece who loves to act the grown up role, gave me glass beads to make a necklace and then told me that she had contributed $10 of her OWN MONEY to my possible eventual gift of Rosetta Stone. Awwww. My uncle gave me a book card, for Borders, yay! And we had burritos, which I sometimes think are the perfect meal, and cake. And two co-workers who are friends also gave me little presents, which was unexpected and sweet.

The Oakland A's field trip, which was a high stress interruption of my birthday, went okay. No one disappeared forever into a vortex; no one hurled themselves over the railings onto the field; no one got in fights with students from other schools (or with students from their own school). There was one scare when a girl didn't check in with her chaperone group, but it was resolved after a hunt. Lord, it's stressful to do a field trip.

Otherwise, though: yay, birthday!

*Dharmatma, Seeta Aur Geeta, 1942: A Love Story, Mast, Muqaddar ka Sikander, and Mother India.

Comments

[loudestyeller.livejournal.com]

Hurray birthday! That sounds great. Um, except for the baseball game, which only sounds okay. But good not to lose any kids on the birthday! I hope you get the Rosetta Stone. If I were there, I could introduce you to my friend Isaac, who is in love with Sanskrit (am I remembering right that that's what you're going to get?)

[maeve66.livejournal.com]

I'm not as classical as all that: plain Hindi will do me fine, after which Urdu as a stepping stone to Farsi. If I get crazy ambitious after that, someday, Arabic.