This week has been insane. Good but insane. I've been teaching. Much to my dismay on Monday night I realized that Billa doesn't carry Merci chocolate.  After school on Tuesday, I got a haircut. Wednesday night I got roped into some babysitting. Today, there's an overnight English Department retreat. Graduation is on Friday <em>and</em> my birthday is on Friday. At least after this whole thing, the international teachers have a three day weekend.

Let me break this whole thing down for you.

<strong>Merci chocolate</strong>. These are by far the best birthday chocolates. They are tasty and everybody likes them because there are a bunch of different flavors. You can buy either a small box or a big box of these chocolates. But who am I kidding?! There's no need for me to even think about buying a small box. I'd better buy two big boxes or nothing at all. Currently, it's nothing at all. That's because Billa apparently isn't carrying them any more. Instead they have a bunch of brands I've never heard of and that seems like a bad plan to me. I don't want to give my friends and colleagues bad chocolates on my birthday. So right now I am chocolate-less and I am not sure that I'll have any time in the next day to remedy this situation.<em> Boo</em>.

<strong>Haircut</strong>. I'm in love with my new haircut. It's perfect for spring. I can't get over how cute and funny it is to have my Bulgarian students wish me a "Happy Haircut." It's a Bulgarian thing that translated into English never ceases to make me smile.

<strong>Babysitting</strong>. This ended up being a surprise addition to my night.  I thought that I was going to go out to dinner with a friend. Only a colleague of mine and his wife both had to go to a big school event last night. The girl they'd originally lined up to babysit was sick, sick and couldn't so at 5:15 last night I agreed to watch their 5 and 7 year-old from 5:30-8pm. I really like these kids and I've watched them before so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I do have to say two little boys can be a handful and I haven't stepped on so many lego pieces in years. There were two great moments from last night. The boys are building lego spaceships. The 7 year old takes pieces from the 5 year old's spaceship. Five-year old realizes and gets really angry. Rightfully so. Only before I know what's going on 5-year old is choking 7-year old. Oh.

Enter timeout. I put 5 year old on a chair for a timeout. He gets off the chair. In my strictest teacher voice I tell him he needs to back on the chair before I reach the number 3. I say: one. He's still under the table. I say: two. He peeks his head out to look at me. I am serious and not smiling. And before I say three he is sitting in the chair. Then of course he wants to talk to me, to play with things and to otherwise create a scene. I told him he had a one minute timeout and that the time would start over each time he broke his timeout. This proceeded for 10 minutes. At the end of 10 minutes, the 7-year old strolled over and asked: what was going on. Timeout I replied. He asked: for what? Me: choking you. Him, very vaguely: oh yeah. He's clearly forgotten about the whole incident.

The other great moment had to do with some serious candy negotiation for dessert after dinner. Seven-year old asks for some dessert after dinner. I tell him he has to eat a little more food on his plate. He reluctantly agrees. Then he tells me his mom lets him have three mini-snickers and three<a href="http://www.toffifee.com/" target="_blank"> toffifee</a> and gummy bears. <em>Right</em>. I tell him that my mom only lets me have one of each. After a moment of whining negotiation ensues.

I was not prepared for the seriousness of this negotiation nor the passion with which it would be conducted by a cute and very skinny 7-year old. I counter offered: you can pick either two snickers and one toffifee <em>or</em> two toffifee and one snickers. Next he tells me three snickers, three toffifee and 10 gummy bears. <em>Um, no</em>. We continued to go back and forth. A deal was struck at two snickers, two toffifee and three gummy bears and he cleaned up the legos and took the dishes to the kitchen. It was clearly too much candy and I should have been tougher but these things happen.

At the end of the night I concluded that if and when motherhood finds me, I'd rather the stork brought me a newborn rather than a 5-year old and a 7-year old. That's a lot of crazy to jump into all at once<em> and</em> I teach high school!!

<strong>Graduation</strong>. My first class of ACS students are graduating on Friday. At this point, I've taught more than half of them and I'm incredibly happy to have seen them grow-up so much over the last three years. Rain however is threatening. And if it rains, we'll have to have graduation inside. This will be painful. Students will be given tickets which will have to limit the number of family members who can actually sit in the auditorium and watch them graduate and I imagine that we'll be over the fire-code limit for the number of people in the auditorium making it hot, loud and generally unpleasant. Keep your fingers crossed that the weather clears up for tomorrow afternoon.

<strong>My Birthday</strong>. After graduation, I've lined up my friends to join me for dinner at Don Domat in Mladost. It's not going to be a very big celebration because well, it's after a long day of work but I couldn't imagine just letting my birthday pass without doing anything. I thought originally that we'd go to Happy in Mladost. Only when I called for reservations at 8:30pm I was told I could only get a reservation for 7:30. I explained that wouldn't work for me because I'd still be at graduation. Then there was some back and forth and it was suggested that people come 7:30. Again I explained that my friends would also be at graduation and no one would be able to come and sit at the table. Then I was told that we could come to the restaurant even without a reservation. <em>Long sigh</em>.

But really, I am not showing up with 10 friends on a Friday night without a reservation. So I called Don Domat. They were very polite and helpful. It was no problem to make a reservation for 12 people at 8:30 pm in nonsmoking. It's funny how two different chain Bulgarian restaurants can have such a different approach to customer service and reservations.

After all of this, I get a <strong>three-day weekend</strong>. I suspect that I'll need it. However, I realize that my three day weekend is not the norm in Bulgaria this weekend. Saturday is a work day because the government has given Bulgarians a four day weekend later in the month to celebrate Cyril and Methodius the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet. Luckily I don't have to work. Then on Monday there are state exams for seniors across Bulgaria. Our Bulgarian teachers have to proctor these exams but not me.

Then I've got to teach on Tuesday and Wednesday. May 24th-27th there's the four day weekend. I'll be traveling around Bulgaria for this long weekend and on the 27th of May I'll be attending my first Bulgarian prom.

Phew. I am tired just thinking about all of this.