new address

Hi All,
So I have moved. I am sending out an email with my new address, but just in case you check the blog more than your email - yeah........
It was a good couple days of chaos b/c of stupid lease timing we had to move everything to my parent's garage first and then to the new apartment, even though my old and new apartments are only 3 blocks apart. But the new apartment is nice and it is almost completely unpacked.
I hope you are all still doing well. Also I updated my 'back from the ice' post and included two pictures.
e.

Wowee Zowee

Hi everyone! Emily here. What exciting adventures you have all been up to! I love the pictures and the stories:so cool. I have been bogged down in correcting papers and surviving the intense land of inner city middle schoolers. I ended up teaching 6th(going into 7th) grade reading at WA MS in Beacon Hill. All of my kids were there because they flunked at least 2 classes during the year. Because my class was added on at the last minute, my 2 classes were made up of the kids that the other teachers "gave to me" because they didn't want to deal with them. In one class there were only 4 girls, fights everyday and a lot of apathetic, self-concious namecalling. Not to mention being spit at. It was quite a learning experience. My first partner teacher quit after 2 days, the second one after a week and then we had subs. They didn't give us the curriculum until the second week, so I made up a lot of stuff. We analyzed song lyrics and did readers theatre with Agust WIlson and Romeo and Juliet. I had to fail people which was hard, some kids wouldn't do anything but sit, tap their pencils and glare. I think most of them liked me though. I've learned some new slang! It made me feel kinda old to have to ask, "what does that mean?" Anyway, now it is done, and I am moving! Phil and I and our friend Jorden have moved into a cute 3 bedroom in Shoreline, just north of Seattle. We have a great yard and fireplace! I still have lots to move in, but it is great and now we just have to get our cats to get along. WE ARE HAVING A HOUSE WARMING PARTY ON OCTOBER 28th AND YOU ARE ALL INVITED. So, if you should find yourself in the northwest, you know you've got halloween plans availiable. We are planning it now because then we can hope to get as many people to come as possible. AND WE WANT YOU. Ofcourse, I agree with Lex that Seattle is a great place to visit anytime, and please do. I really want to go to Disneyland sometime soon. Well, this overdue message is long, Mostly I want you all to know that I am thinking about you, and lookingforward to when we can be all together again. Can you believe summer is almost over?! AH! ok, by now, love Emily

Images of China

sorry, I have over 500 pictures, so I tried providing a limited assortment.

just in case you wanted to see the others. go crazy
http://www.kodakgallery.com/AlbumMenu.jsp?

China is the new Prague

Knee-How (Hello) from China. ok, actually I am back. After a flight from Shanghai to Beijing to JFK to having the 3rd flight of the day cancelled, so a night in New York, I finally arrived in Washington DC about 36 hours after I left the wonderful land of China. China looks so much like Eastern Europe, from the buildings to the transport, to people's little stores, fruit stands, clothing, advertising, etc. I had a great stay, almost 2 weeks, we did 2-3 days in Beijing (the Great Wall, Tiannamen Square, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple, Pearl Market, etc)Xi'an (the Terracotta Warriots, Big Wild Goose Pagoda)Guilian (river cruise, markets, crazy night life, and yes this is the city where we ate dog) and finally Shanghai (awesome bars, Chinease acrobat show). Ok, so I could go on and on, but basically it was amazing, friendly people, beautiful country and yes I ate Chinese food every day, which was surprising similar to American Chinese food (but I did try goose foot, chicken feet, duck cheecks, and dog, otherwise it was a lot of pork, chicken, rabbit, celery and watermelon) and yes I was very glad to have a burger upon my return home.

much love and peace,
kasia

Back from the Ice

Hi All,
I am back from Greenland now, and returned to a pretty intense week of heat and humidity here in Madison which has just subsided in the past day or two. It was quite the change to go from almost zero humidity and below freezing temperatures to close to 100% humidity and hundred degree heat.

I had an excellent time at Summit (named so b/c it is at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet). I learned a whole bunch and met a lot of really cool people. I also got to eat so much really excellent food. There are two cooks on staff over summer which make very yummy food for all of us at the camp to eat, and you get to eat so much b/c you burn so many calories up there digging and all, in the cold climate. The research station there was about 30 people while I was there, 10 of which are summer over staff that run the camp. The 'winter' conditions are great however because unlike winters here it is really sunny all the time (b/c the sun doesn't set), and b/c you are always dressed for the cold it doesn't seem so bad. All in all I really enjoyed it and I would definitely go back.

(The first picture is an overview of the camp from the plane on the flight in, the dots in rows are the 'arctic oven' tents, aka tent city, and the second picture is me in one of the snow pits we dug)
Love you all.
Erika.

Is anyone feeling like they need to come to seattle? Bumpershoot is coming up and this is the year to go. Kanye, Atmosphere, Steve Miller, Yellowcard, AFI, Blondie, New Pornographers, Matt Costa, Blue Scholars, and MOST importantly, Macha Monkey. We are doing a staging of the songs from our last play. It'll be fun!
If Bumbershoot ain't your cup of tea, there is always late/early Sept/Oct when MM's next show is. It's gonna be awesome too. Anne Marie is working with us, and hopefully we'll get Raz and Ellie in on it too. PS-If any of you (leah, andi, or em) know of any guys that want to audition for a play in SEattle let me know. All the guys that have audition suck...well all but one. Just a side note.
Case in point, Seattle is great place to visit! And I would love to get you guys to see some of my work. This time I'm only assistant directing (not doing both ass.dir AND stage managing) so the director is giving me scenes to direct and running some rehearsals. It's cool to know that people are going to see (and HOPEFULLY LIKE) some of my work. I'm ready to get out of the stage managing booth and work with actors more. I'm very excited :)
Hope everyone is great and call me some time.
Love Lex