December 99 December 98 December 97 _________________ Wednesday 22 December 99 the moon is the closest to earth that it will be for 150 years 11 54 pm mst   [ bus ride home ] The children were very badly behaved night before last, so I got next to no sleep.   Yesterday on the mountain I was horrid, unable to keep my skis from crossing.   After several falls I realized I was suffering from serious sleep deprivation.   Matthew was very supportive, but I couldn't help feeling defeated. Last night, since I was so cross at having been kept up the night before, I informed each and every member of our bus that they were forbidden from hanging out in the halls.   I told them they had lost the privilege and they were surprisingly compliant.   A greater surprise came today during check out, when the hotel declared that there was absolutely no room damage from any of the kids on our bus. Today was the last day, and we are almost half way through our 15 hour ride home.   M and I got in a pinch of skiing, but we rushed off the mountain to have lunch with my favorite uncle.   He lives in Salt Lake City, and we waited an hour and a half for him to show up, before giving up and going for greasy Chinese.   I thanked the waitress in Mandarin, but could not understand her response. I hate having to wait for someone, because I find the mixture of worry and frustration to be overwhelming.   I have no idea why my uncle didn't show up; I heartfully hope everything is ok. Matthew and I brought my old Hi-8 viedeo camera on the trip and manage to shoot a piddly amount of each other skiing, but the camera ceased to function today.   Its death certificate will read that it died of natural causes in accosiation with old age. I am looking forward to the traditional family nonsense associated with Christmas; I still don't know what I am doing for New Year's.   It was so lovely to be in the snow durring the holidays and to see all of the decorations.   I suppose I am in a festive mood. Matthew and I more or less had the "bad bus" of the trip, which Matthew says he gets every year.   More specifically, he gets the bus of Beverly Hills High students annually (he has been going on this trip for something like 8 years).   I am really intolerant of people making remotely racist remarks, and corrected several of the tour guides who used the term "Persian" interchangably for "students from Beverly".   Granted, all of the Persians on the trip are from Beverly and are on this one bus, but some of the students from Beverly are not Persian.   Besides from the white students, and other clearly not Persian students, there are the ethnicities which are mistaken for Persian, like the French Morocan students (who are grouchy at being mistaken for Persian). I am horrible at distinguishing races, so I never bother to guess what people are (if their race is not glaringly obvious) and I never refer to people by their ethnicity.   I remember finally asking Matthew what he was after we had been dating for a couple months and it occurred to me to be curious.   He expained that he is half black and half white, and that he was adopted.   When I finally got around to telling my mother about him, she asked what race his adopted parents were.   It had never occurred to me to ask [I always ask absolutely any question that occurs to me] because I had never even thought about it [I suppose I would have just found out when I met them].   His adopted parents are white. So, I corrected people when they refered to the Beverly kids as "the Persians" because it irked me to no end, but I whimped out today when the owner of the ski and snoboard tour complany made such an assumption.   He said he was considering banning all of the Beverly kids and anyone with a remotely "Middle East sounding name".   I was so shocked that I was too stunned for a second to form a comeback.   By the time I regained my composure, I lost my confidence (rare for me, but this is my first time on this tour and Matthew really respects this guy).   I did correct the manager of Denny's, when I was there last night dealing with a bill that some of the kids on our bus had skipped out on [they were identified as being on our bus because they were Persian].   The manager kept refering to the kids as Asians, and I could tell he meant the distinction in a derogatory way.   I could only wonder what rude things he would say to me if he knew I was Jewish. As for being Jewish, most of the Persian-looking students on the trip were Jewish (as I was to learn) but were incredibly polite to the guy who assumed they were Muslim.   Much as they despised me when I made them obey the rules, they seemed to welcome me one step closer to them when they learned I was Jewish.   Apparently one guy who was not on the trip, but came to the hotel (which we had completely rented out and filled with our 350 high schoolers), told one of the non-white Beverly students that he was a nazi (it was even rumored that he had a tatoo of a swastica).   Several of the boys said they wanted to "kick his ass" and I discreetly explained that I would glad be an ass kicker if such an idiot was located.   The whole incident brought back memories of the swastica flag I wanted to steal in Tennessee.