My friend came over to play.

Tomodachi ga asobi ni kita.



The Pumpkin Princess's friend from day care came over for a playdate and brought the most adorable gift. She and her mom made these eggs. They're Jewelpets. The faces are painted, and the ears and hair are cut out of felt.

Could decorated eggs possibly be any cuter?

Eye of the beholder

Miru hito shidai

Back in the late 80s/ early 90s, newspaper print patterns were the trend. Recreating English newspaper pages as a pattern was cool. There were newspaper print pattern pants, newspaper print pattern curtains, and, of course, newspaper print pattern wrapping paper. I had a friend who said "one of these days, I would love to get an armful of Baby's breath (another early 90s trend) wrapped in English newspaper. I would often start reading what was printed and find it riddled with grammatical errors at best. At worst, it would be jibberish. I once wrapped a gift to a friend in sheets torn out from Time magazine and taped a cheap silk flower I found lying around in the house on the ribbon (also found lying around in the house). My friend thought I was Martha Stewart. Or at least, she would have thought I was Martha Stewart if she'd known about Martha Stewart.

So I was amused to find this on marthastewart.com

Coolness is in the eye of the beholder.

Universal law of gravity

Banyuu inryoku no housoku

My former boss left our workplace about seven or so years ago, but acted as an unpaid consultant type, doing stuff here and there for us. Then she decided she didn't want to do the consulting gig anymore. Which is her choice, really, but the downside of this is that much of the work she did has now become the job of yours truly. Kind of like a Newtonian physics type deal. Stuff always falls downward, including work.

One of the things she did was an hour-long class for undergrad students. When I found out I was supposed to do this class in her place, I asked her if I could see her Powerpoint slides. About a week and a half later, she sent me and my current boss a rather huffy e-mail telling all of us off. Which, well, I can't really do anything about, but I really wish I could have seen those slides, because I have had to spend pretty much every spare moment I have had for the past two weeks preparing for this class from scratch.

So anyway, I'm fine, just very very busy. And I've shown some people what work I have so far, and I've been told it is probably more helpful and practical, if not quite as interesting, as the lecture my old boss gave.

And to my friends who teach formal classes on a regular basis, I have always thought you were cool, but now I think you are awesome.