Almost done...

It seems that I've been nearly done with work for the past few weeks, but I just one more paper to grade. However, it's a physics paper, which means that I have to familiarize myself with the conventions. What was I just doing instead (before blogging)? Looking up articles for a new class I'll be teaching next semester (in Chemistry).

Over the weekend, I cooked a bunch (including turkey meatball soup and beef/onion/beer stew) to Christmas music (specifically the Motown Christmas CD). Igor and I also picked a Christmas tree. It is the biggest we ever had: it wouldn't fit in our Christmas tree stand. So, Igor secured it with rope and our metal fishtank stand (lying on its side). Vanya was babbling a storm (dya-dya, plus lots of spittle) and crawling all over the place, supporting himself while standing, or mouthing some toy (and strumming it with his fingers like an instrument - it's really funny).

Nikita meanwhile is getting pretty darn good at assembling tangrams. We also rediscovered the Classic Arts Showcase channel this weekend. He particularly liked the orchestra and ballet clips, but not the opera clips. Adding to the culture, as a Christmas present, I picked up a book of postcards of masterpieces from the Hermitage. I figure playing with the cards (sorting, discussing them) would complement his trips to the art museum with Igor.

Didn't get much sleep last night because Vanya had difficulty falling back to sleep in the middle of the night. It doesn't help when Nikita is sleeping with us: Vanya sees him in the dark, and tries to climb over me in order to play with Nikita.

But at least I finished One Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (my previous book, The Blue Flower, was just okay). The book didn't make me cry as much as his other book, The Kite Runner, but the first 10 pages of the book reminded me that Hosseini is simply a good storyteller. Unlike many modern writers. Other random things that struck me about the book were the numerous mentions of food and the inclusion of lovely passages from the Koran and Persian poetry. In fact, the book has inspired me to read The Koran (which I've been meaning to, anyway). As I said, Hosseini is a fantastic storyteller, but he has a thing for playing with time conventions (e.g., quick snapshots into the future). It's getting to be predictable.

Sorry for the disjointedness of this post, but if I didn't post now, I don't know when I would do so.