My 33rd Birthday

I am continuing the tradition that I started on my 30^th birthday. I am celebrating each birthday in my 30’s someplace new. My 30^th was Malaysia, 31^st-Singapore, 32^nd-Indonesia and now my 33^rd-Arizona.

Cards from students 

It turned out to be a much better birthday than I thought. I have only lived in Arizona for a month and don’t really know many people. Since it was weekday I knew there probably wouldn’t be much to do, and I ended up with a horrible cold that Monday.

Never dying flowers

It started off with the staff meeting. At the end of the staff meeting the whole staff surprised me and sang Happy Birthday to me. I brought treats for everyone that worked at the school. My students were very excited and said Happy Birthday to me about every other minute throughout the day. Made me wonder if this is what it will be like to have my own children, where they are super excited about my birthday. Each class sang Happy Birthday to me. Some of the students made cards for me. One girl brought me a never dying bouquet of flowers. I also got two deliveries from my parents. One was a bouquet of purple and pink flowers. The other was a box of gifts. I brought cookies for all of my students.

From Mom and Dad

I was going to eat at a restaurant for dinner but by the time I left school at 5p.m. the restaurants that I wanted to go to were already packed. I don’t have a problem eating alone in a restaurant but since I still had a cold, I decided just to spend a quiet evening at my place, so I ended up getting Quiznos. I read Sophie’s Heart, which I got for my 17^th birthday from my maternal grandma, and I read every year on my birthday. Then, I was going to watch the Princess Bride, but my brother called and we ended up talking for hours.  We hadn’t talked since Christmas and still haven’t seen each other since I have come back from overseas. So, it has been almost four years since we last saw each other. Other people called while I was on the phone with my brother and left message. Needless to say, I felt very loved even though I was not around my family and friends for my birthday. Celebrating three birthdays overseas by myself made it easy though to celebrate another birthday by myself.