New direction, new blog

I'm starting an all new direction in my life: I have accepted a full-time position here in Florida, and my goal is going to be to remain here as long as possible. I certainly still intend to take international vacations whenever possible, but I'm planning to work in the US from here on out. This has been my plan for some time, but it wasn't until today - when I was actually offered a job - that this plan became reality. Since I'll be [mostly] in the US from here on out, International Cat Lady isn't exactly appropriate. As such, I've decided to continue blogging at American Cat Lady. I hope you'll follow me over there.

Rocky Horror! Halloween! Grammar! The Inhumane Society!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here, mainly because it was Halloween season - which, in my opinion, is the best time of the year. This year I was able to rock three different costumes, which made me incredibly happy. I do love a good opportunity to dress up.

On Friday, October 25th, a group of us went to go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show film and interactive performance put on by The Rich Weirdoes. 

Security made M. take off his "FBI" jacket, because "someone might think he was a real agent." Um, OK. The show itself was pretty fantastic though. I've seen RHPS put on in smaller venues, but this was definitely the largest and most interactive version I've ever been to.

Saturday one of my classmates threw a kickass Halloween party.

I went as a flapper.

Mr. Green and Miss Scarlet from Clue, if you were wondering.

And then of course, I taught class on Thursday dressed as a Dalek. As you do. I'd say about half of my students knew what I was immediately. The others were like, "What's a Dalek?"

ED-U-CATE!

Thursday I also finished up my fifth and final lesson to my students on teaching English grammar to EFL/ESL students. Yes, we spent five days on grammar. You want someone to talk for six and a half hours (thirteen if you consider that I teach two sections) on English grammar, I am apparently your girl. The PowerPoint by itself isn't quite as great. For one thing, SlideShare has mucked up my formatting, and you can't see my animations. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I do NOT write every word I say on my slides - I hate it when teachers do that. As a result, reading the slides won't give you as much information as sitting through my class would have. However, if you're an EFL/ESL teacher new to teaching grammar, it should give you some useful pointers.

And lastly, due to the combination of some really horrific animal-shelter related news that I read on Facebook and all these people posting about NaNoWriMo, I've become inspired to get back to work on The Inhumane Society. I started by editing the existing 140 pages - you can read the edited first part here - and by finally picking up where I left off. Once you're all caught up, you can read the latest installment of The Inhumane Society here.

Oh, and you know I'm still posting about my summer's adventures over at Cat Lady in Kyrgyzstan, right?

I'm back!

I am back in Orlando, and thoroughly jetlagged. How I'm going to recover in time to write a syllabus and plan a course in the next two and a half weeks is beyond me. Oi. Anyway, for those of you interested in Kyrgyzstan and the time I spent there, please check the Cat Lady in Kyrgyzstan site every day, as I have tons of blog-posts from my travel journal that will be going online. The first post, Back in Bishkek, is already online, and more will be coming. I won't be linking them all here, so for those of you interested in my K-stan adventures, be sure to bookmark that site and check it regularly. I'll try to start blogging back here fairly regularly as soon as the jetlag wears off and I catch up on everything, haha.

A dreary sort of day

I am back in Orlando, ready to get the new semester started... although that doesn't kick off for a few more days. Ideally I'd be enjoying my few days in limbo before the work kicks back in, but as it's unpleasantly dreary outside, I've done little more than get dressed and work on some of my computer-related projects. (I hate to complain too much about the weather, as it got up to 66F today, which is not cold at all - but with the omnipresent clouds and the continual drizzle, it just isn't the sort of day for doing things that involve leaving your house unless you absolutely have to do so.)

I posted two stories written by my friend BS (and it never fails to amuse me that his initials are BS) to the Desolation Travel website:

Holiday in Abkhazia and Elista: Desolate Disappointment

I added a new video to The Inhumane Society - although if you haven't been keeping up with the posts over there, you might want to read the first one hundred pages in one stretch... which can be done by clicking here.

And lastly, here's a video I shot before leaving Georgia of the current state of my mom's 1906 Bungalow. Enjoy!

I'm not sure how much time I'll have for blogging this coming semester. Last semester I had my grading assistantship and three graduate level classes... this semester I'm taking four classes, plus my graduate assistantship, plus a part time teaching gig that will be anywhere from one and a half to four and a half hours a day (not including prep time). I'm not sure when I'll have time to sleep, much less blog, but I'll keep you posted when I can!

It's not that I'm not writing....

...I'm just not blogging. 

I've been doing a lot of writing recently, just none of it for the blog. And I haven't really felt much like blogging the things I've been up to. This is mainly because most of what I get up to is feeding cats, feeding dog, cleaning litter boxes, and changing pee pads - not the most exciting of blog-fodder, and hardly consistent with the theme of the International Cat Lady. At least not the "international" part.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this blog. Should I close it? Put it on hiatus? Not sure yet. 

I'll let you know.

Introducing the American Interlude Series

Today is September 11th. Yet again I'm here in South Korea, just as I was this day ten years ago. I'm not going to write about my 9/11 experience. Instead, I'm going to link something much more meaningful: a blog post written by someone who was just a stone's throw away from the World Trade Center on that fateful morning. CLICK HERE and read it.

In addition to being the tenth anniversary of 9/11, today is also the second day of a four-day weekend here in South Korea. The four-day weekend is to celebrate Chuseok (추석), a holiday often explained to Westerners as "Korean Thanksgiving." Traditionally a fall harvest festival, Chuseok is now a time when families get together to celebrate family and to show respect to their ancestors. For Westerners in Korea (other than those with Korean relatives or spouses), it's generally a time to travel the country, and enjoy some of our precious little time off from work.

Unfortunately, I've been back in South Korea exactly one week. I'm rather low on cash, and even lower on travel-willpower (having spent the previous six weeks living out of a suitcase). I'd thought I might spend the holiday weekend exploring Seoul, looking for things to photograph, but the weather is alternating between cloudy and rainy - not the best for photography. As such, I've decided that now is as good a time as any to start working on some blog posts about my brief time in the US (from August 21st through September 2nd). I've got two up on my other blog - here and here - and four more will be appearing shortly on this blog. Stay tuned!

starting a new blog

I've had several blogs over the years. I posted at the longest running one for over five years, and had a pretty decent following. Back when I started that blog, I was completely unconcerned about privacy issues, and was completely honest about who I was. I had nothing to hide, so why hide my identity, right?

That was before I developed a couple of stalkers (literally - including people jumping out of my bushes, threats against me and my family, calls to the police, restraining orders, etc; more details here) who regularly visited my blog to see what I was up to. Knowing that these individuals were monitoring my activities made blogging substantially less enjoyable. My posts, which once had numbered a minimum of one a day, became few and far between. The few posts that I did write consisted of a lot of photographs, but few words. Additionally, it seems that these people have been googling my name... a couple of months ago they found (and made a rather nasty comment on) a post I submitted to someone else's blog - a post which they could only have discovered by googling my name and scrolling through six pages of results. It's been over a year since I got the restraining order; these people are persistant.

And so I stopped blogging. I made an announcement on my (now former) blog that it was finished, and that there would be no posts. It's been about a month since I closed shop on my old blog, and I've found myself missing it. Additionally, I've since done a couple things that I really wanted to blog about... as such, I've decided to start an anonymous blog. I'm not going to use any real names here (those of you who know who I am, don't use my name in comments, please!), but I am going to do my best to get back into enjoying blogging the way I did before the crazy people entered my life.

Here's to a life (and a blog) without any crazies