THE GIG OF THE CENTURY !!

OH... MY... GOD !!!!! Sometimes I cannot believe how intuitive I can be lol
One hour ago I was on google, not really knowing what I was looking for. I wrote something in the search bar, then I erased it and typed "Paul Gilbert", to get some news from my favorite guitar player... and then my heart stopped.
Do you know what G3 is ? It's a "concept" band, 3 great guitar players playing a solo gig and then a big jam together.
So what did I read ? "G3 Amrican tour !! Joe Satriani, John Petrucci... and me." . Me ? wait. Paul Gilbert ? Paul Gilbert is on tour with G3 ? I mean, Paul Gilbert is on tour ? in America ? Not in Japan as usual ? wait. I'm in America too. wait (start to hyperventilate). ok. Dates. Oh my God. New York City, april 11th. wait. What day is it ? (run down stairs to calendar). Wednesday. Oh my God !!! My day off. Run back upstairs, type ticketmaster, clic clic clic I don't care about the prices show tickets left buy. Done. I'm the proud owner of a ticket to the concert of G3 2007 at Madison Square Garden.

Short Story!

Hello everyone! How is your spring-break going??!! How is S.Francisco Pilar?!

I didn't leave the city this days and I am enjoying the nice weather outside. Today I was walking and stopped at Bryant Park, where the New York Public Library is, and was soooo beautiful!!!!.. a lot, really a lot, of people having lunch in the park, outside, I couldn't believe my eyes!! it put me in the best spring mood...hope you guys are also taking advantage of the warmth!!!

I picked up the story for the Book Club, if we are still interested in doing it! I didn't have time to read it and I just choose it because I really like the author: Nick Hornby. So the story would be "Nipplejesus" by Nick Hornby.

Bye everyone! looking forward seeing you on Monday!!

NYC welcomes hungry birds from Africa

Yes, being an au pair can be very amusing from time to time...I truly hate when kids play with food and waste it. The youngest boy I take care of often has gold fish for snack when I pick him up from school in the afternoon. A few times I saw him throwing gold fish in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. Naturally, this 7-year-old guy is not as good at this activity as he would like to be, so his snack tends to fall to the ground. I can't really stand such situations and I said to him: 'Oh, come on! The kids in Africa don't even know that there's something like gold fish. They are starving and you are wasting your food. Shame on you, Mikey!' I don't think I exaggerated; I just wanted him to understand something. Yesterday, we were waiting for a bus and Mikey was eating gold fish (yup, again!) in the meantime. Suddenly, he dropped a couple (he said it was by accident...yeah right!). My reaction was typical: 'Mikey, I told you something about wasting food. Don't you remember that?' He said: 'Yeah, I know, but birds from Africa can have it!' I found his reply hilarious:D I was standing in the street and laughing like crazy. Birds from Africa...Yeah, birds from Africa are also starving so they can fly to Manhattan and have the gold fish that Mikey dropped. OK, I know he's only 7 (almost 8), but still...

Wait a minute Mr Postman!

Hi Everyone! I want to share with you a creepy story that happened to me few days ago. When I knew I was pregnant, I called a doctor that my sister in law recommended and went and visit him. He examined me and he also took a blood sample as to be analyze. Bye, bye, see you next time.
You may also know that when I came here in January I hired a visit insurance with a maternal plan (just in case), the thing is "just in case" was suddenly " a "fact", I was pregnant. Great news, so nice, so soon, so everything!!! Well, one week after I had gone to the doctor I received a call from the Dr's office saying that they have called my insurance and they've said that my plan doesn't cover maternity. How come? My husband and I, called the insurance office to ask what was going on and they told us that we are not covered because the "small letter" (that actually was bold and quite big) says that you are covered only if you get pregnant 30 days after the date you hire the service. Of course, it wasn't my case. Bad luck.
The worst is yet to come. One day, Pablo came home with a letter for me. At the beginning I was so excited, I never receive letters!! The excitement suddenly was gone, I read in the envelope "invoice included". Invoice? Which invoice? It was the laboratory! I received an invoice for $1,187.73!!! Can you believe that? That money for a blood test???!!! We called everyone, the doctor, the laboratory, the insurance!! No way, we have to pay!! The thing is that if I had known the price for the blood test, I would have buy a ticket to Argentina, go home, visit my family, my nephew who I don't know yet, and take and do whichever exam I need without paying anything!!! I cannot believe how expensive is the health care system in this country! I don't want you to get depressed on a Friday night, not even during spring break. The good thing is that I still have hope, I went today to a Hospital and talk to a woman that is going to help me with my case. If the lab gives me a waiver, I will share the good news with you, of course!!! Actually it's been a while without posting, so I decided to write something and this is what came up to my mind first, maybe because it's something that really matters me at this moment.
Have fun wherever you are, see you soon, Pilar.

NO GUTS, NO GLORY :P

Pretty Cool

Just wanted to share this cool video...

Meatloaf, Girls!!

Hi, Girls;

When I came back home today I'm so hungry and I made this!! it's meatloaf, an American food.
Everybody can make it: as easy as
Banana Loaf of Madga.

Try it.
Receipt is below;
You need

Ground meats (beef/ park/ veal) 1 1/4 lbs.
Onion chopped 1/4 cup
Fresh parsley chopped 1/4 cup
Carrot shred 1/4 cup
Cheddar cheese shredder 1/4 cup
All-purpose flour 2 tbs.
Dry bread crumbs 1/4 cup
Worcestershire sauce or Soy sauce 1-2 tbs.
One egg beaten (Jumbo egg 1 or Large egg 2)
Milk or Sour cream 2 tbs.
Oil (such as extra virgin olive, canola is better)

Seasoning; Salt, Fresh Ground Black Pepper, Garlic powder, Herbs De Provence or Canadian Seasoning(if you don't have these spices, you can use allspice, thyme, rosemary, sage,fennel, savory, tarragon, as your desire)

Medium size casserole( mine is oval about 2-3 servings)

Cooking:
Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl add all ingredients except egg, milk& spices. Mix well toghether. Add spices, milk and egg. Place in a casserole lightly coated with olive oil. Bake about 1 1/4 hours in the oven.
While you baking loaf you can make some of vegetables, such as mashed potatoes, green peas, cauliflowers(this is your side dish).

The meatloaf is done, you can wait for about 5-7 minutes and serve at the table.
It goes good with red wine or beer.
Enjoy your meal!!!


P.S.
If you left the meal, it would go better taste next day. You can cook double in weekend and save for tomorrow.
It is not necessary to use salt because of cheese and Worcestershire sauce already having salt.

HELP ! HELP ! HELP !!!

Okay everybody !
I tried to save the promos for the edit jam as drafts, then to publish the one we're keeping, but I had a few problems :
- I cannot find Yoko's
- I cannot find Sandra's promo
- I think it's because I'm only allowed to change my posts !

So, I need ;
- each one of you to save her promo as a draft (once on the dashboard>manage posts>edit>save as draft)
- Yoko re-publish yours
- Sandra send me your picture by email
Then I will publish the final version !

Hope it will all work out. I'll keep you posted !
See ya'
Emma

Where am I???

Hello, class.
Does anyone of you remember that I was going to Myrtle Beach for spring break?
Well, I am in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina right now. o.o;;;
What a surprise. I mean, I didn't know that it is in this week. Spring break in Business School is always one week ealier than other colleges in Columbia. I forgot about this, and realized on Monday that our depature should be on the next day.
This time, I left it up to my husband to do all the planning for the break, so he did. And I only asked him where we would go, not when. Well....what happened is, I ended up here in Myrtle Beach.

The weather is fantastic. Very warm, sunny, beautiful golf courses all around. (Except weather, though, New York is much much much better. The town is quite boring for me.) Anyway, once I came here for vacation, I decided to enjoy as much as I can. But still, I feel so bad that I have to miss classes this week. The theme of this week sounds so much fun to me, so I really want to be a part of it. Tara and Joachim, please let me catch up.

I am coming back this Saturday. See you guys all.
(BTW, when will we all meet again? March 19th?)

Banana bread, anyone?

Guess what I was doing after our class yesterday? Yup, baking, baking, baking and…cooking!!! Results: lamb chops, Smokin’ Sexy Chocolate Cake (one of the boys I take care of asked me to write this phrase on that cake) and banana bread! The last thing is extremely easy to make so I want to share the recipe with you, guys! Here we go:

You need: 3 ripe bananas (well mashed), 2 eggs (well beaten), 2 cups flour, ¾ cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350’F. Grease a loaf pan. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour.

Simple, huh?

Bon appetit!

CEP Book Club?!!

As it was so much fun to hang out together on Monday I was thinking that could be cool to start a CEP books club. We could choose a fun book, a contemporary American novel or something different (like for example a book about democracy in the world or in the US as we discussed about it!) and we can all read it and comment it on the blog, in class or in front of a cup of coffee!! how does this sound??!! not feeling like reading an entire book in english??!! I thought it could be cool thing to do so let me know!! may be our teachers can recommend something cool!

Monday's Class

I think we had a little too much fun writing reviews of local coffee shops during class on Monday! I thought you might enjoy these pictures of all of us at Kitchenette. Did everyone enjoy their breakfast here?

Future Rock Stars ?

Hey everybody, here's a video of my kids, so you can really see how fun and entertaining they can be sometimes ! Hope that does the trick ! I'm pretty proud of myself !
Hope the EditJam went well, sorry I couldn't make it, due to those two. Expect to hear some feedback !
See you Monday !!

Democracy

This is the interesting video about democracy & fascism by Dr. Howard Zinn.

How much does this coffee cost???

I don't know if I can afford Starbucks anymore!

video

I wonder if there is something about this video that I don't get??!! what you guys think??!!

Emmanuelle's test 1, 2, 1, 1,2

Dudes, I did it! :P

Yeah, I did it!

Guess what's showing in this video

Can you?

Pilar @ home

Hi Everyone! I am just writing to you to tell you that I could not go to class today, because I am feeling awful. This Thursday morning sickness is worse than the other days, so I've decided to stay at home. I hope to feel better tomorrow to enjoy the Edit Jam II. See you, Pil@r.

Hooray for our class !!

Just a quick post to say that yesterday, I had my monthly meeting with the other au pairs of my cluster and our counselor. We had to introduce ourselves bla bla bla and tell if we were taking some classes. And a lot are taking CEP classes at TC and say that it's... BORING !!! I was glad to prove the opposite !! Hooray for Tara and Joachim !! (and Skye :P)