Josh, CJ, Toby, Sam & POTUS come to Bishkek

So they make halva here, and it's delicious. I've always thought of it as a Middle Eastern specialty, or more recently a Baltic one; but here it is, sitting in great hunks in the bazaars, just begging to be eaten for breakfast (which is a peculiarity that I discovered in Greece). I mention the fact because it's Friday night and I just ate a large piece of the stuff, as a reward for a Very Long Day - which involved, among other things, grading papers, a rock climbing excursion and musical rehearsal - and also a Very Long Week.

A contributing factor to the Very Long Week: my purse was either lost or stolen on Tuesday night. I'm not going to speculate about which it was - either way, I was careless and it's embarrassing, not to mention dreadfully inconvenient. I want to kick things extremely. It took an hour to cancel my credit card on Wednesday morning, and another hour to arrange for a new one to be sent, which will take about a month. Also, there were about 3500 som in there and US$100, which altogether is a significant amount of money. Thus, I rely once again on the goodwill of the people around me, who have lent substantial sums of cash to tide me over. Thankfully, my rent and most bills are paid up for the next month, and I didn't have any other significant cards or documents in there, so it could be worse.

A mitigating factor in the Very Long Week. I met someone who owns all seven series of The West Wing. This is life-altering knowledge. I already got my hands on Series One, and even though I almost know whole chunks verbatim, I still watch with bated breath. I also borrowed The Black Swan (in Russian) and all of Fawlty Towers. Now, if only someone could send me all of this year's Oscar nominated films...although, to be honest, I can probably buy dubbed copies on the street for a couple of dollars. (It's frightfully annoying that Russians don't put subtitles on English-language films; they just speak over them, badly).

Speaking of The West Wing...it must be time for a cup of tea and more halva...