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Today is a bit of a sad day for me. For the first time since 1990, I’m missing the Super Bowl. Now I know not everyone can lay claim to the fact that they haven’t missed a Super Bowl in 18 years, so let me just reminisce out loud for a minute. It has been quite a ride.

I was there in ‘91 when the Giants (and Scott Norwood) shocked the Bills, in ‘95 when the ‘Niners shocked no one, in ‘97 when Brett Favre gave this bandwagon fan an AIM screenname (PackOs97), in ‘04 when the Patriots held off the Panthers, I was even there in 2000 to see the Titans come one yard short against the Rams. I know many on the east coast claim to have “lost power” and “missed that game” perhaps because of the “severe ice storm” that “shut down most of the mid-Atlantic coast” but to me these are all nothing more than hollow excuses, shrouded in cloaks of embarrassment and despair. I was there, sweating out every second right along with Jeff Fischer, Steve McNair, Eddie George, and Kevin Dyson. I was there.

And today, out of all the recent Super Bowls, I’m missing the one I would have wanted to see the most. I’ll note that there are two things in football I’ve wanted to see since I started following the NFL in about 1991: The Giants win another championship, and a team go undefeated. Today, one of those things will happen. And I won’t see it, unfortunately.

I dreamt the other night that the Giants held off the Patriots in a furious defensive battle, 9-6. This probably proves how little my subconscious has paid attention to the NFL this year, seeing as how most betting men would have more than 15 points being scored in the first 4 minutes of the game (mostly by the Patriots). But until I find out the actual outcome, I’m going to pretend this is what actually happened. This is one of the perks of living halfway around the world. You can make things up in your head and tell yourself they’re true, because there’s no Sports Center to give you the highlights or “results.”

Anyway, enough about football. I hope it’s a good game. In honor of the shrimp dip I’d be having if I were in the US, today I sprinkled some Old Bay into my imitation-Ramen. It was almost the same, except my body is probably screaming for something other than salt and carbs at this point. The most common meal I have here is rachki, a mix of pasta, carrots, potato, and a small helping of meat. Sometimes there’s a curve thrown in and we have rice instead of pasta, pumpkin instead of carrots, or sometimes camel instead of cow meat (which is actually really, really good). I end up eating out a lot too, relying on the local cafes to fulfill my body’s need for the kinds of nutrients found in cucumbers and tomatoes. There’s a really good Korean dish here called “kookcee” that has become a favorite for me, McKenzie, and Cho, the other Americans here in town with me. But wow, what I would do for a giant bowl of spaghetti or a hand-tossed Domino’s pepperoni pizza delivered fresh to my door.

As for a school update, after two weeks of classes, I can say that this semester (knock on wood) is going much better than last semester did. On the first day of class (which was really the second day, since I found out the hard way that most students miss the first day of class after a long break) I laid out my eight rules (in honor of Cal, and also because more would have been too many) and we played a true-false game to make sure they understood the rules. A little condescending maybe, but they seemed to enjoy the activity and understand the rules, and with my blood pressure reaching unsafe levels last semester it was necessary for me to do this. We also discussed our goals and the theme of "Why I'm Here." The second lesson focused on job interviews, which the students also seemed interested in. Hopefully I can come up with enough interesting, practical, and relevant activities to last me 13 more weeks. Creativity was never my strong point, so suggestions are always welcome.

What else? Something that’s been on my mind- I heard a lot about “Kazakh Hospitality” before coming here and in my first few weeks here. I’m realizing that hospitality can manifest itself in different ways according to what culture you find yourself in. For example, my host family has a clearly defined view of hospitality. Most Saturdays they say to me, “Here, why don’t you just stay here with this cat we both know you hate while we all go off to our parents’ presumably much nicer house we’ve never invited you to....but we left food for you.” Of course I say this a little tongue in cheek- my host family is great - they invited me to Shymkent for New Year's and generally take good care of me - but the word “hospitality” with them, as with many other families here, seems to depend more on how well they feed you than, say, how much time they spend talking to you. I think this is a cultural difference between our two countries, one that I’m slowly learning to live with. And one that my almost non-existent ability to speak Kazakh is still at odds with. I always kind of assumed that my language skills would just naturally improve the longer I stayed here; I never would have thought I’d be speaking English 98% of every day. Though this is disappointing for me right now, the way I’m coping is by bragging to all my friends about how good my English will be when I move back in two years. Most of them don’t care, but I tell them this anyway.

Well this was a long one. I guess I had to make up for my two-week silence. There’s plenty more to talk about than I have time to write right now, so I hope to post another update later in the week. Til then, go Giants! If they don’t win, please don’t tell me. Remember I’m still living in a fantasy world and will find out everything that’s actually happened in America when I come back in ‘09.