Mellow day today

Last night I did manage to meet up with one of the two people from my cooking class. Becca showed up with a Russian (Slava) in tow, and the three of us headed off to eat some fried bugs. We were so excited about it, and then the waiter drops it on us: they are out of fried bugs. No! It took forever to work up the courage to eat them, and now the moment has passed. Alas. So we had to just learn to be ok with regular food. We did try fried seaweed, though, which is quite tasy. The only "interesting" part of our repast was the jeowbong. We were so excited about it, and we were so proud that the waiter looked at us with a new respect when we asked for it...then we got it. Apparently the real recipe for jeowbong includes pa daek (the heinous-smelling fermented fish goo) and re-constituted dried buffalo skin. Let me tell you, pa daek tastes like it smells. All that horrible rotten stench transfers directly to your mouth. And the buffalo skin, which I didn't even bother trying, is apparently like the funky veins of gunk you get in a piece of meat that you can chew forever and never put a dent in. Yikes. So there goes my enthusiasm for real jeowbong...but my love for the one in my recipe book is unchanged.
Today it was back to Big Brother Mouse and My Library. A low-key day today, not a heck of a lot going on. But I did realize that it's been a really, really long time since I had to remember which verb tense any word I said was in. Future condtional? Dang, I don't remember that at all. So while my photos upload to flickr I'll be looking up verb tenses so I can be sure I'm teaching the right thing.
In happy news, Sansany (the girl from My Library who will be going to Bangkok on scholarship) is having a baci ceremony the day after Christmas and has invited me to go. I'm so honored to be included, so I'll also be looking up how to be on my best behavior at a baci ceremony. I'm so glad I will still be in town to go!
I hope my health holds up - I think I'm catching yet another cold. Urg. Hopefully I can kick this one like I did the last one, because otherwise that'll put a cramp in my visits to BBM and ML, as well as my plans to take the slow boat up the Mekong to get myself to Thailand (being on a damp, chilly boat for two days does not sound appealing with a cold). Go away cold!
No plans for tonight. Maybe I'll try to find a bunch of fresh OJ to kick-start my immune system. Beyond that...I was going to try to make it sound exciting, but yeah, no plans.