(If I hear that song one more time, I’m going to puke. Why can’t the radio stations play more than the same five Christmas songs over, and over again? There’s a treasure trove of great Christmas songs out there (Bing Crosby, Mitch Miller, Johnny Mathis), you know the oldies, but none of them are getting played. I’m not religious, but I do love me my Christmas songs (the week before and the week after Christmas, not the day after Thanksgiving thank you very much). When I have to constantly channel surf while in the car in order to hear a good one it makes me a little cranky.)

Am in Buffalo for Christmas this year, and without the snow it feels like any other day. I’ve been looking forward to snow since August, and the lack of it, especially for the holidays, I find to be a bit depressing.

So Mother Nature, please send us some snow!

Buffalo saw it’s first real snow of the season today, which was both exciting and terrifying for me.

I love snow. Love. It. I’m a winter girl (except for the lack of sunlight thing); I love how the crisp air makes my cheeks feel. I love layering in sweaters, and other warm, cozy clothes; the postcard picture look the city has from the snow. And snow days, I can’t forget the snow days.

This morning I was a little apprehensive about driving. I hadn’t driven in snow since 1997, I wasn’t sure how our car would handle in it, but it all went well. The biggest annoyance is that the first snow of the season makes drivers act like morons (more than usual) for the first few days after the first snow. It’s something I’ve never understood, most everyone who lives here grew up here and it’s not like snow comes as a surprise every winter. But for some reason or another they’re all “OH MY GOD IT’S SNOWING!!! How DO I drive in it???” Makes me crazy.

I made it through the first snow, and I say BRING IT ON!!

Why hello there! It has been a long time, hasn’t it? In addition to being ridiculously busy, I’ve not felt the writing bug this month. I’ve been relatively quiet over on Facebook, and even more so on Twitter.

What have I been up to you ask? Teaching, gaming, knitting, family, friends, more gaming, and being sick. Hoo boy have I been sick. First tonsillitis, and then bronchitis. I’m having memories of China where I was sick the whole two years we were there. I’m wondering if my return Buffalo’s going to start off the same way. I’m not fully over my bronchitis, and I can feel another cold coming on. Niels and I’ve talked and agree that my delicate constitution makes me an unlikely candidate for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.

I’m hoping that once the college class I’m teaching ends (on Thursday) I’ll have more time for the web things I like to do so much It’s just by the time I get home from one of the many things I’ve going on, I’ve zero motivation to write, which has been making me sad. After all these years of fighting writing, and feeling like it’s a struggle, I actually want to write. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’m teaching a writing course, I don’t know. Who would have ever imagined that I’d actually enjoy writing?! Yeah, me neither.

When we got back from China I didn’t get sick for about a year, and what a glorious year it was. Now I seem to get sick all the time (granted when we were in China I was sick for our two year stint), a hazard of being a teacher.

I’ve been battling a cold for the past two weeks, and today it came to a head. I went to work, but wound up going home after an hour. I was hoping to make it through the day, but my body was telling me that I needed to be in bed. It’s a good thing I left, because I wound up getting a fever and spending most of the day sleeping. I’m not a fan of fevers, but once it broke I felt much better. The body aches are gone, unfortunately, my sore throat and swollen glands are still there. I’m hoping they’ll settle down because I’m tired of being sick.

One of the things I’ve been loving since moving back to Buffalo has been the weather. I know you’re all “Are you crazy?!” or “It snows!” No I’m not crazy, and yes it snows. But we have seasons. DC has winter and humid. Spring lasts about a week, if you’re lucky, and winter doesn’t have much of a personality.

From what I’ve been told, and reminded of, Buffalo gets a lot of snow in winter; I’ve not lived through a winter since 1997 so my memory of it all is foggy. I know I’ll have to buy boots, relearn how to drive in it, and get emergency supplies for the car, but I’d rather deal with snow over hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or floods any day.

Plus, we get some of the best cloud formations. The big pond, otherwise known as Lake Erie, that gives us such spectacular snow also gives us some of the most amazing cloud formations one could ask for.

I love music, I mean let’s face it, who doesn’t? We all have songs or artists whose music just stays with us. It could be years since we’ve heard one of their songs, but as soon as we do it brings us back to a certain memory, and we’re right there singing along remembering all the words.

I’ve a few artists who’ve made it through my ever tasting changes in music: Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Spirit of the West, but most of all Bruce Cockburn.

I got into Bruce Cockburn (pronounced Ko-burn) back in the early 1990s when I received his “Nothing But a Burning Light” album, on cassette, from my sister for my birthday. From the first listen I was hooked on his music, for the next year all I wanted as gifts were any and all past albums of his. I know my siblings thought that I had gone mental, but I just couldn’t stop listening to his music. I loved that no two albums sounded the same, he was always experimenting with sound, his guitar playing, and themes, yet there was always a familiarity hidden underneath the layers.

In 1994, I was given his Dart to the Heart album, now as a CD, for my birthday from my sister or my oldest brother, I can’t remember. To this day it is still my favorite album of his. The songs are all about love, loss, or a combination of the two. It’s the most unconventional romantic album I’ve ever heard. And for a present they took me, a few months later, to go see him at the then Horizontal Boogie Bar, now the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester.

If I loved listening to his albums I loved seeing him live even more. He doesn’t talk much with the audience, but when he does he makes you feel like you’re the only person he’s talking to, he has a knack for creating, in a sea of people, a sense of intimacy. When he performs there is a hush that comes over the crowd, and while you know people are singing along, you can’t hear them.

Last night he was in Buffalo, and I went to see him. Like when I went to see James at the 9:30 Club last year, I went by myself, which I didn’t mind because once the music starts, it’s not like I’ll be talking to anyone. Right before he started the last song of the evening, he said that he’d be sticking around after the show to meet fans and sign autographs for those interested. What? Did I hear him right? My most favorite musician is going to do a meet and greet? And after almost 17 years of listening to, and loving his music I’m going to get the chance to meet him?! Egads, I hope I don’t make an ass out of myself.

I don’t think I did; he was gracious while I babbled on about how he wrote me a postcard when I was in college in response to a question I asked about one of his songs. He signed my concert ticket, not for me but for someone important to me who couldn’t be there, and I was then able to get my photo taken with him. I’ve always imagined what it’d be like to meet him, and now I know; I just wish I could have asked him for coffee to talk more, but I’m so grateful for the few minutes I had.

I never really liked dogs until Niels and I started dating. I mean I tolerated them, and I thought they were cute, but I never really wanted to own one. Dating someone whose family had five of them made me change my mind. Over the years we’ve been together I’ve grown to love them. I’m still very much a cat person, but I have become a fan of the canine.

We’ve been wanting a dog for the past year or so, but knowing we’d be moving and with our schedules we knew that having one while still in DC wouldn’t be fair to the dog. We just didn’t have the time necessary to be good dog owners. But that didn’t stop us from looking for our future dog, which in retrospect was a bad idea. Don’t look at pets when you know it’s going to be a few months before you can even adopt one.

When we moved to Buffalo we began the search in earnest, with no success. All the dogs we were interested in meeting had “just been adopted.” I was getting frustrated, worried we’d never find our “perfect” dog. I’m a pretty patient person, but for some reason this situation my patience was nowhere to be found.

Niels and I kept looking on Petfinder, and two weeks ago found a dog that might be the one for us. I made an inquiry call, but the foster mom was on vacation (CURSES!!). When we connected she let me know that the dog we were interested may not be the one for us, but she told us about another dog we may be interested in. We made plans to meet, and 10 days ago Niels and I drove up to just outside of Rochester, NY to go meet a dog named Charlie.

Charlie greeted us with lots of barking, but we were warned ahead of time that he was a barker but not a biter, which allowed us to not get stressed out, so he wouldn’t feed off of it and continue barking. After about five minutes of barking he settled down and proceeded to sit in Niels’ lap (I swear that man is the Dog Whisperer, he’s got serious dog mojo). After an hour or so visiting with Charlie and getting to know his history his foster mom, Niels and I decided that we found our dog.

Charlie is a 3 year old Schnauzer/Scottish Terrier mix. He came to live with us this past Friday, and all things considered, his addition to a house with two cats couldn’t have gone smoother. He was being fostered with five or six other dogs, the house also had a couple dogs and two cats, which I think has been helping in the adjustment period. He doesn’t care about the cats, walks right by them without even a blink, and the cats, while not adoring him, aren’t freaked out.

We’re getting the feeling that while he liked the other dogs he was with, he’s enjoying being the only dog much more. I’m not sure who’s luckier, him or us. He has some small barking issues we’re working on, but he’s a fast learner and has, after such a short period made great progress. Now if I could only teach him to use the toilet…

My time loafing around being unemployed has come to an end. I started a part-time teaching gig at a local college, you read that right COLLEGE I be smart, yesterday and once my contract gets executed, I’ll be contracted as an ESL/Reading Specialist for a local charter school from funding via Title I.

When I first lost my job, one of my brothers told me to try not to be consumed with worry about when I’d go back to work but to enjoy it as much as I could, because who knew when I’d get so much free time again. There were many days where it was hard to heed that advice, the frustration of applying for jobs an never receiving any sort of reply was tough. I’m not old, by any means, but I can remember when I was in my late teens and early twenties and I’d apply for a job I’d get some sort of response, but now, nothing. I know people are busy but still!

When I could set aside the worries about money, and wasn’t looking for work, I was able to enjoy the free time I had. I was able to get the apartment in order, I got back into knitting, I’ve been able to spent a ton of time with the cats, have been doing some reading (not enough, tho), and am starting to get back into sewing. I like being domestic,even though it’s not always been that way, and I’m going to miss the large quantities of free time I’ve had to do these things. But I’m looking forward to getting back to teaching. I miss the classroom and the interactions with students. I however, will not miss grading, no teacher enjoys grading.

So, inshallah, I’m going to learn a lot from theses teaching experiences, and become a better teacher for it.

Job hunting in Buffalo has been proving more difficult than I had anticipated. I knew the job market for teachers has been tough the past few years, but I thought with the burgeoning immigrant population (Arab, Latino, SE Asian) plenty of places would be hiring.

I couldn’t have been so wrong.

I’m just surprised by the lack of need for ESL teachers. I wonder if I’ve overestimated the need for teachers in my field, or if I was in DC so long that I got in the mindset that Buffalo’s immigrant population was just as large, and diverse.

Of all the resumes I’ve sent out I’ve had two interviews that, at least I thought, went well, but nothing’s come from them. The first was due to lack of enrollment, so the need to hire any teachers wasn’t there. I believed the second interview went really well, and from the conversation I had with the principal I almost expected I’d get a call back for the second round of interviews, but it didn’t happen.

So the job hunt continues.