HAPPY NEW YEAR to all those who are interested 
well what can i say that won’t bore the whole wide world? it’s MINUS TWELVE DEGREES celcius here as we speak, which is about 10 degrees farenheit. the other day, it was -35F (-37C) in New Hampshire, so i guess it makes me feel happy that i don’t live there… but still, it’s hard to write because my fingers are so frozen!!! the very happy thing, though, is that there is NO SNOW yet and that’s just about a miracle. The other day, it was snowing a lot, big storm, and after about 30 minutes, it stopped, and we got a clear, blue sky and beautiful sun for about 30 minutes, and then a big snow storm started again and it snowed for about 30 minutes, and then it stopped, and the sun came back… i swear, it did that ALL afternoon, i was laughing my head off! and the weird thing is that it was only in lafayette, and over in west lafayette/purdue, they never saw a snowflake!
other than that, i kept my economics of education class and am trying to read ahead because it’s tough! learn about all different kinds of foundings for different school systems and in different states, different kinds of taxes (income, wealth, state, local, federal, property, etc.), equity vs. equality, the growth of households today and in the past, inflation rates, enrollment rates, the cost vs. quality of education, Marx, Keynes, Galbraith, Friedman, and Smith’s ideas about politics and economics… YUCK! my human resource class is super tough too, but at least the teacher is really helping everyone LEARN how to think like a human resource manager and not thinking that since half the students already know how to do it (because it’s their jobs!) then everyone should know it too (which is what happened last semester in my space and facilities management class). as for my world englishes class, what can i say, it’s just fantastic and i LOVE it, but i always knew i would. yesterday i was sitting next to Brita, a student from germany, and we are the only two european students there and we were both arguing against the rest of the class about the « invasion » of english in the french and german languages, and the funny thing is that kids there use a lot of « cool english » words and expressions, but really, no american or british person would ever understand what the #*!# they are saying! i mean, it’s not ENGLISH, it’s french or german english. but then again, the question is, what IS english really? the other day, one of my indian students said to me « i’m sorry for eating your head! » and i thought wow, now THAT must be indian english… and a few days later, as i was reading my world englishes book about indian english, they gave this exact same example as a typical indian englishism. funny. i love this stuff.
so, for my dissertation, i have decided to stick to my thesis’ old topic 
yeah, i’m too lazy to start something completely new, but i still hope to get the swiss government to give me some money if i do part of the study there. i have a few contacts in colombia, turkey, hong kong, france, and hopefully (this is a wong use of this word, i know, but find me a better one! …plus i’m sure half of you didn’t know it was wrong to use it this way!), i can find someone who would work with me in switzerland too.
ok good people, that’s it for today, the wind is blowing, the water in my kitchen is freezing, my students are waiting for me (ungrateful little brats they are, but still really nice and hard working, for the most part), and my books need reading. oh, and i need to call a tax person to help me fill out my tax return for last year darn thing! i hope i’ll get a lot of money back, though, since this year i’ll try to have my professional association memberships and conferences deduced from the whole things! knock on wood! well… knock on ice, really! hasta luego, bis bald, ttyl, a bientot, tchuss, and jumpa lagi (10 extra credit points to the person who can tell me what language that is!).
