so, as many of you know, i'm a huge fan of all (or, well, most) things japanese including the incredibly delicious candy *pocky*. i realized last saturday, as i was preparing the food for the teahouse, i discovered that we've had quite a few different odd pocky flavors in our time. so i figured i'd start a list (i'm always on the hunt for new and interesting pocky). now, i have no idea honestly what we had over in japan so i'll have to go digging through my piles of stuff (i save all of the boxes for later use in crafts) but here's what i have so far:

1. plain old chocolate
2. almond crush
3. coconut (with the fancy hawaiian shirt label box)
4. milk
5. men's (bitter chocolate)
6. grape (it was gross)
7. brazillian custard/pudding
8. strawberry
9. mousse: green tea
10. mousse: mango
11. hello kitty strawberry
12. decorer: white
13. decorer: fraise
14. banana (plain i think)
15. hello kitty chocolate

new for us (so far!) for 2009:
1. orange bits (which is rather more like a yummy orange cream)
2. decorer: chestnut mousse

(i know we have had more decorer but can't figure out which ones...)

links to another list (to help me figure out which is which in terms of flavor!

so, i'm thinking about my impending (doom?) intermediate classes coming up in march. i've been racking my brain, trying to decide what i should teach, and i must be a bit burned out because i'm having a bit of trouble coming up with something new and exciting. now, i *could* just teach stuff i've taught in the past, but i'd like to teach something new ;) i'm pretty "bad" about that - i always like to have a nice, tidy set curriculum, complete with handouts etc, for my students to follow. in the past 3 years of teaching, i've offered the following 8 week courses:

* Dynamic Duos (partnering)
* What Comes Next? Transitions (a basic intro to different types of transitions)
* Tantalizing Taqsim (slinky slow movements)
* Spectacular Shapes (covered triangles, safety pins, squares, cork screws, s curves, etc)
* Bellydance Around the World (each week was a different style and covered music, costuming, core moves, etc)
* Intro to Props (veil, candles, cane, basket and sword - basic balancing)
* Lovely Layers (basic theory behind how to layer with types of layers and appropriate movements)
* Intro to Zils (yup. 8 full weeks of zils, combining rhythms with patterns)
* Rhythms and Rhythm Combos (intro to 6 basic rhythms)

dang. that's a lot! i hadn't realized how much i'd covered. in the midst of this, i've also taught 3 choreographies...trying to intersperse dancing time along with the topics. i'd like to do something other than a choreography, though, prefering something that had an interesting theme. i've worked hard to create these curriculums, and am out of juice right now. if anyone has any thoughts/ideas/suggestions i'd love to hear it! my students have only made 2 requests thus far: layers and tribal. i'm shying away from tribal, only because i don't like doing an 8 week intro course and then not coming back to it. the layering I could do again, but I did it fairly recently so am considering doing something else...

any ideas you'd be willing to share would be great!

just finished reading "The Feast of Roses" last night. i'd read the entire "Twentieth Wife" on the plane trip back from portland - had picked it up from Powell's when evajulianna and i were there. it was fabulous. this one is the sequel and was also excellent. surprisingly so in the way it made me utterly loath several characters. i always figure that, if an author can make me detest wanting to even read more about a character, they're doing a particularly good job. as always, though, the little descriptive details were elegant and peppered throughout; my favorite part to be sure.

so that's the first official book of 2009. i figured i should keep track, cause lord knows i read way too much and never remember...

Misha's twitterings for the day:

• 07:09 is trying to figure out how she will cram everything in to today... #
• 11:04 Is office, storage, field, rye office, bank, downtown office...just another day at work! #
• 22:15 curled up tight with her foxy...so good to have a thermal parasite in the house! #

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