These Guys are Amazing

i don't know what it is recently, but i have been craving good new music and a good new book. i think that part of it is because i have not had either for a while and i don't have the money for either so that is part of it also; you always want what you can't have. well, if you have seen keith's blog recently then you have already seen a bit of these guy. i am really into them all of a sudden and it was one of those great accidental discoveries, like perhaps you are the first to ever hear them; i am not. here are a couple more songs; i love bookstores.

Feel Good Teacher Stuff

i am not usually a fan of feel good teacher stuff. there is really not that much to feel great about, my students don't do their homework, my parents believe that they teach better than i do, i never have enough materials, there are always more things to do that have nothing to do with my teaching than there are things that have to do with my teaching, but just when this is all getting me down the students walk into the classroom and i can no longer remember what it was i was complaining about and i can not imagine doing anything else. here are a couple of videos that give some insight.

**WARNING THESE ARE A BIT CHEESY, BUT I LIKE THEM AND THINK THAT THEY ARE CLEVER.**

Out of Order Spain Pictures

for new years eve we had a huge paella at the hostel that we stayed at; calamari, chicken, and prawns all combined with seasoning, rice, peppers, onions, tomato, the whole shi-bang. it was great and we then went downtown with everyone for a ridiculous concert. it was all very cool and fun.
there were a lot of street performers in malaga and this guy was pretty cool. there were also a lot of people pretending to be statues, some pretty impressive. super cool.
here is adam cranking away with his crazy spinal column muscles. makes the girls go wild. no seriously this is 8a+ and he did it wet. sick
wow. kinda big.
artsy fartsy.
pretty sweet we gave a euro to a statue guy got suckers and a little show (he moved).
leanna's tentative first steps.
in hindsight that was a bit scary.
awe.
real life star trek
adam's hair giving him a hand
a beautiful house and a beautiful picture
chocolata con chorros in downtown madrid. eleftheria had a six hour layover, so we decided to escape downtown. it was pretty sweet and my spanish actually did a pretty good job.
another street performer. cool pic.
one of the few climbs i actually made it up. super wonderful and one of the great days.

sorry that these are out of order, but whatever. oh, and here are the following breakthroughs i made while in spain:

1: the saying, "the rain in spain falls mainly on the plains," is b.s.
2: also "costa del sol" change to "costa del llueve"

have a good day and i will check in soon.

Happy Holidays

merry christmas and happy new year everybody. i hope that everything is going well and you are all having a wonderful holiday season. no real post yet, eleftheria and i are headed to spain to meet adam and leanna. we are very excited and are hoping for good weather and an even better trip.

miss you all, love
ian

Just Some Cool Graffiti

graffiti is pretty popular here, and even-though some of it is horrendous and stupid, some of it is pretty interesting. thanks for your help keith, worked like a charm; wish you were around more to talk to, it has been forever.

Commenting on Pictures is a Pain

commenting on the pictures in my blog is a pain because i cannot see the actual picture, i just see the code for the picture; so, i will comment on them here. From top to bottom:
1: Petrini under the moonlight. i went on my first big trip, 2 hours, to petropigi to climb. it was pretty fun if not a little nerve racking. the bike ran well and handled the dirt road approach very well.
2: baby scorpion. i did not know that we had those here; crazy cool and non-lethal.
3: it is very small. that is a snail shell for comparison
4: paper beats rock: a large portion of rock fell at the climbing area because a tree root was growing in a crevice. this bolt plus the anchors of the climb were among the casualties
5: i love clouds
6: leaf veins are interesting, i like to think that if my skin vanished i would look something like this.
7: how many species of snails can you identify?

Cool Pics and Lack of News

hey all, no real good news just the normal. i have had a very nice long weekend, flu day + thanksgiving; there is also a chance we may have an extra week at christmas due to the flu as well. it is crazy how hard the flew has hit here, a bit scary i might add. well at any rate things are well with my students and my classroom; they are busy, i am busy, and we are all working very hard. the whole MUN thing is moving forward, and, if everything goes well, we will have two more conferences this year, plenty for me.