Since last post:

Friday August 26th:
I met up with Gagik again, and he sold me the new duduk.  It sounds much better than the old duduk.  I noticed that Gagik is attempting to learn English, and has asked me how to say English words like, "hear", "breath", "read", "repeat", "play", etc.  He decided to take a sticky note and write down all of the words in english he's trying to learn on there:  the Armenian word, followed by the English word transliterated with Armenian letters.  The sticky note looks like this:
լսել           հիր
շունճ        բրիտ
կարտալ   րիդ
նորից անգամ    րիպիտ
նվագել    պլեյ
տուն        հոմ
դու           յու
հանգիստ    րելաքս
հոգնած       թայրդ
etc.


I might need to start charging him for English lessons one of these days.  Maybe 5000 dram an hour.  that would be about half the amount he charges me for duduk lessons.  Also, he taught me how to do the vibrato  (vibratsia in Armenian)

Saturday August 27:
Birthright Excursion at Lake Sevan!  We left Gyumri on the bus at 6:30, while it was still dark, to go there.  In the later part of the morning, we went birdwatching.  We saw several types of birds through the binoculars.  Unfortunately, no storks today, but I did see some a few weeks ago and got a picture of two of them.  Then, we went to one of the shores and picked up trash, for a community service project.  Afterwards, we went on a boat cruise, in a wooden boat designed to look like the ancient boats from the Kilikian kingdom era, but with a modern engine and stuff inside.  It was cold and windy, but it was fun though.  Then, we went to the peninsula (which I had visited previously with LCO) where there are two churches on top of there.  Since this was my second time there, I decided to have a look around to see if there was anything I didnt see the first time I was there.  Behind the churches was a trail, leading to a summit near the end of the peninsula.  At the summit is an abandoned building.  I climbed onto its partially-destroyed roof, and surrounding on all sides (except for a thin isthumus) I could see water.  It was a breathtaking view, which I did not get to experience the first time I had visited the peninsula.  Afterwards, we went back to Gyumri, and by that time it was already dark again.  So we left in the dark and returned in the dark.

Sunday August 28:
Since it was a free day for me, I went with my host family to the village where my host father, Tigran, is from, and visited at his dad's place.  Tigran's father owns a grocery store, which is connected to his house.  There, we had khorovats (Armenian barbeque).  In the backyard, the two boys (Hayk and Gevork) and I played games such as hide and seek, and also stick fights.  I had to go easy on the kids, because ...they're kids.  They had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, we went back to Gyumri

Monday August 29:
Not much really happened.  Another duduk lesson with Gagik, improved on what I had learned the previous lesson.  At the end of the day, I asked Amalya, my supervisor at GITC to tell me what my next assignment is.  She said talk to Arevik, the receptionist, but unfortunately Arevik had already left for the day.

Tuesday August 30:
I met up with my cousin Vahan, who had decided to come up to Gyumri with his friends for the day, for lunch.  It was fun.  We explained to his friends the story about how we had met in Yerevan 6 weeks ago and that I had not recognized him (scroll back through previous blog entries to read the full story).  After lunch, I showed him and his friends my workplace, and introduced them to some of the staff there.   After he had left, I asked Arevik what I'm supposed to do.  She said talk to Aram, one of my coworkers.

Wednesday August 31:
First thing in the morning I met up with Aram.  He said to hold off until tomorrow.  On another note (no pun intended), during the duduk lesson while attempting to sight-read a traditional song Dle Yaman, I accidentally played it fast and jubilantly, ignoring the tempo marking "andante cantible".  Gagik's response was something in Armenian, about how it's a sad song about the 1915 Genocide, not a happy song.  Playing Dle Yaman like it's a happy song is kind of borderline offensive.  Oops...  He then showed me the correct way to play it, andante cantabile, like it say on the music.  He also assigned me a few other songs to practice.  I'll have to make sure to read the tempo marking next time I sightread music.  

The Duduk Master

Yesterday (tuesday), I met with Gagik Malkhasyan, a professional duduk player, who also teaches people how to play the duduk.  The first thing that Gagik told me when he saw my duduk that I bought from the vernissage was "vat e" (it's of low quality), both the duduk and the reed are of low quality.  A good reed makes it much easier to blow into it, and with a good duduk, it doesnt take special effort to play in tune.  So, he ordered a new duduk for me from Yerevan, which will be here on Friday, and he arranged for lessons for today and for Friday.  He said it would take me only one or two months training with him to reach professional level.  Also, it costs 10000 dram, (about 30$) for each 1 hour lesson, and we would begin the next day.  Throughout the entire conversation, my friend Shoghik from BR was translating between me and Gagik.  I asked her if she would come and translate for him again for the next day's lesson, but she said she wouldnt make it.

Today I met up with Gagik again, this time to start lessons.  It turns out he does know a little bit more English than I had thought he did, more cognitive than conjugative though.  And with the amount of Armenian that I know, i was able to understand most of what he said without a translator with me.  He showed me his own duduk (made of real dziran wood, and not cheap wood from idk what type of tree), and showed me the difference between his and mine.  The dziran wood is black (rather than brown) and more dense than the other wood (this he demonstrated by having me hold my duduk in one hand and his duduk in the other hand and feel the difference in weight).  Also, a good reed makes it  actually sound like a real duduk, and not like a cheap saxophone.

He told me to bring 10k dram next time for the lesson, 20k dram for the new duduk, and 5k dram for the new reed.  35k dram (about a hundred dollars USA).  Gosh, this is expensive.  But fortunately, everything else is inexpensive here (100 dram (~ 30 cents) for a bus to anywhere, and for food, lunch rarely costs more than 1000 dram (about 3 dollars)).

As for the duduk I currently have, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I'm probably going to give it to a friend as a souvenir, but I'm not sure yet who to give it to.  Souvenir duduk?  anyone?  

First week with birthright

I actually have no excuse for waiting another week before writing my blog entry.

On tuesday and thursday, I had Armenian language lessons with the other Birthright volunteers.  We met up with tutors, one or two students per tutor.  The lesson consists partly of assessment of how much we know (since some people know more than others), and partly of spoken practice and dialogues, and at the end we are assigned homework to be done by the next class.

On Saturday, we went to Khor Virap (the monastery built on top of the pit where Gregory was imprisoned).  On my previous visit to KV, (while I was with LCO) the pictures I took didnt turn out very well, because they would either overexpose due to a bright flash (and thus not accurately reflect how dark it is in there), or be blurry due to long exposure time.  I found a way to fix this, which is done by partially covering the flash on my camera, and thus having the short exposure time of a flash photograph but also reflect the fact that it's dark in the pit (the only light comes from an electric chandelier that certainly did not exist at the time of St. Gregory).
Afterwards, we visited Noravank, another monastery (which I had also visited previously with LCO, and described it in my blog as having steep narrow steps leading into the upper sanctuary), and then we visited the village of Areni, which is famous for its wine.  Since I don't drink alcohol, this wasn't very interesting for me.  I asked the guy there how long it would take to remove the alcohol from a mug of wine using a microwave, and he said around 8 days.  (seriously?  This seems like an experiment to do when I get back to the states.)
Saturday night we went to Yerevan.  Since staying overnight in Yerevan is optional (although everyone did it this time), we had to find our own places to stay.  Rather than staying in a hostel, I asked Rafayel if I could crash at his place.  He lives with his parents, his brother, his sister-in-law, his niece, his sister-in-law's brother and his uncle, all in one crowded apartment.  His parents cooked dinner and breakfast for me while I was there.

Sunday around midday was a pool party in Yerevan at the BR coordinator Sevan's house.  This was partly a going away party for Hovhannes, who was moving back to his home in Jordan.  This is sad, because he was a funny guy.  <flashback>When I first met him on the ride to Gyumri my first day in BR, he attempted to guess where I was from based on my accent.  "Somewhere in the southern US, but keep talking, and i'll try to figure it out".  ... "somewhere in the southeast"...  "Virginia"   Then I asked him, "how did you figure that out?  In the Northern part of Virginia I'm from doesn't even have the stereotypical virginian accent".  He then told me that he knew all along from reading my information submitted to birthright, but he was only pretending to be guessing.  </flashback>

After this, we went back to Gyumri later that afternoon.  And now I am here in the office on Monday afternoon.  

First weekend with BR and first real day of work.

first weekend with BR:

So, I haven't been in the office since friday, so I haven't posted anything since then.

Saturday, we (as in, the Gyumri BR group) went down to Yerevan for the Pan-Armenian Games, where teams of both diasporan Armenians throughout the world, and Hayastantsi Armenians in all regions of Armenia gather together.  We didn't come merely as spectators for the game.  We came for business reasons.  See, with the many diasporan Armenians that had come to Yerevan for the games, it seemed natural that we would want to give them an opportunity to learn about how their next trip here to Armenia could be totally paid for. 

            Some of the people there didn't speak English (and I do not know enough Armenian to be able to explain to them what BR is), such as all but one of the members of the Ukraine team.  But the one Ukrainian girl who spoke English translated for the rest of her team though.  Also, I met up with the team from Spain, who were all very friendly.  It wasn't really necessary that I took 4 1/2 years of spanish in high school/college, since they already speak English, but I got to practice it a little bit with them. 

            <sarc> Later on, I discovered that my hometown, Vienna, has its own team.   However, the people on my team kept insisting that Vienna is located in Austria, and not in Virginia.  I'm surprised at their lack of skills at geography, especially when it comes to the town that they allegedly are from.  I later realized that their town is named after my hometown in northern VA.</sarc>  So, nevertheless, I got someone to take a picture of me with them.  I jokingly asked them if I could get a uniform and play on their team.  They said they were all out of uniforms.

           

Sunday, I went down to the local church, where there was a badarak service going on.  Unlike the more modern Armenian churches in the US, they don't have liturgy books in the pews.  More than half of the people were standing, and there were pews in the center of the sanctuary, making it sort of a mixture between the modern churches with pews filling most of the sanctuary, and the more ancient churches, which I had visited with LCO that lack pews altogether.

            That night, i hung out with my host mother, Irina, and her son, Gevorg, who is ~7 years old.  Gevorg was showing me some of the pictures he drew, and I was guessing (in armenian) what they were of.  Later when Irina was helping Gevorg with some math, I decided to write out a calculus problem to challenge Gevorg (obviously he wouldn't know what any of that meant).  However, Irina was asking me in Armenian what all of this stuff meant.  I unsuccessfully attempted to explain to her in Armenian the concept of an integral, since my vocabulary of math words in Armenian is quite… limited.  I tried drawing a graph of a parabola, two lines representing the integration limits at 1 and 3, and shading in the area between the parabola, the two vertical lines and the x axis, but that didn't help at all. 

To sum, the lessons I learned this weekend: 

1)   Don't make fun of Vienna, Austrians, <sarc> even if they did steal the name from my hometown</sarc>. 

2)   I should bring own liturgy book (with translations) to church.

3)   Math is NOT a universal language. 

Monday at the office:

            I finally get to meet my supervisor Amalia.  She assigned me with a very strange task:  writing a proposal for a computer game designed to inform young people and warn them about AIDS/HIV, and it's due on Wednesday.   Wait, what?  Using computer games to educate people about serious issues? 

            Not only did this seem like a strange program, but the fact that after she interviewed me about my skills as a programmer, she asked me to write a proposal for a program, not the program itself.   Uhmm… writing a proposal or other formal document is the job of a secretary.  Not a programmer.  I stared for about 15 minutes at the information she gave me about the proposal requirements.  Must include detailed budget?  Sealed envelopes?  Reference from tax inspection on tax liabilities?  CHEM HASKANUM VOCHINCH!!!!  (i don't understand any of this!)    I finally told her, "Look, I think it might be better if you have someone else do the proposal, and I do the program".   Her reply to this was, "Oh, sorry, that's what I had meant.  You write the program, I write the proposal.  I accidentally switched the words 'proposal' with 'program' ".   What a relief!  

            After lunch, one of then guys there, Aram, showed me some examples of these "educational games" that other people had made.  These seem quite simple, and a little silly.  In one of them, you play as a guy in a spaceship, and you have to maneuver the spaceship in a 2 dimensional plane, dodging flying needles and shooting lasers at them to get points (because needles are dangerous, since they can give you AIDS).  If you touch a pair of floating lips or a mosquito, you gain points (because kissing does not give you AIDS, nor does getting bit by a mosquito).  It was silly, but it's still more fun than I had expected it to be.  

Anyways, I'll post more later. 

*<sarc> ... </sarc> indicates sarcasm.  

Karabagh and my first 2 days in Gyumri

Karabagh:

The passageway to Stepanakert in Karabagh is a very difficult drive. Fortunately, we have a driver named Mayis who knows what he's doing.  First it goes up through mountains, along many switchbacks.  Then through the plateau of mist, where you cannot see more than about 7 meters ahead of you.  (I only assume its a plateau because the road stays straight and doesn't go up nor down very much in this area).  Then, past the high village of Shushi, down another mountain, and there in the valley is the city of Stepanakert.  

On the second day we were there, we visited the battle field where the Karabagh war was fought about 20 years ago.  The Azeris were attempting to attack the city of Stepanakert from up on the high ground, and they didn't watch their backs, because behind them was a steep cliff.  The villagers in a nearby village, however, used to take their goats and cattle up there all of the time through shortcuts.  So, the villagers taught the Armenian soldiers how to get up to the top of the cliff and surprise attack the Azeris.  Kicked their rear ends!

On the third day, on the way back to Yerevan, we crossed through the fog again in the van.  We stopped while we were still in the fog at cable-car station, where we rode a cable car leading to a monastery called Tatev.  The cable is so long you cannot see the end of it from the start.  Well, I don't know if you can on a clear day, but through that fog, we were often unable to see the ground from the cable car.  

When we got back to Yerevan, we went to a restaurant, and ate, and then we met up with my friend Rafayel and some of the other participants who were at the other worksite.  (my cousin Vahan was not there unfortunately, since he was still in the village).  I tried to call Ani to see if she would be able to meet up with us, but her phone was not working.  (I told Rafayel about this, and he said that she was out of town, back in her home village of Stepanavan, which is actually closer to Gyumri than it is to Yerevan. 

That night was my last night with the LCO group, and so I said good bye to everyone.  The next morning, I went to the Birthright Armenia office for them to introduce me to the program and stuff like that.  Afterwards, they gave me a ride to Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia, where I will be staying and doing an internship with the Gyumri Information Technologies center.  A Birthright representative named Hovhannes showed me around the city, and then took me over to my homestead place, with the Tigranyan family.  They speak less English than I speak Armenian, so I'm sure I'll be learning a lot of Armenian while I am there.

And this morning, i started my internship with GITC.  I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to be doing here, but whatever.  Since I am planning on waiting until tomorrow @ 1:30 PM to use Facebook (that's when 28 days will be up), I've just been writing this blog entry and some emails to a few friends for now while I'm here.  Tsdesutyun!

on the way to Karabagh: Monday, August 8

We visited several sites on the way to Karabagh.  The first was a monastery built on top of the pit where St. Gregory the Illuminator lived for 13 years.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story of St. Gregory, continue reading.  Those who are familiar, move on to the next paragraph.  <tangent>The year was 288 AD.  Most of the Armenians were pagan at the time, including the king Drtad.  One of his officials, Gregory, was a Christian.  One day, the king got angry at Gregory because Gregory refused to bow down to pagan idols.  So, Drtad put Gregory into this pit, intending that Gregory would starve to death and die in there.  Little did he know that the villagers were feeding Gregory and keeping him alive while he was in the hole.  It came to pass, about 13 years later, that Drtad was on the search for a wife.  He met this girl named Hripsime who, like Gregory, was a Christian.  Drtad, knowing that Christians absolutely refuse to worship the pagan deities and bow down to idols, decided to try to make a deal with Hripsime.  "You convert to paganism and abandon Christianity, and you can become my queen".  But Hripsime refused, and he had the guards kill her.  Then he went insane.  Trouble arose in Armenia, because it was run by an insane king.  The king's sister, who was a Christian, told the guards that the only person who  could restore the king is Gregory.  The guards were astonished at what she said, "surely he cannot be alive after 13 years!",  but they were wrong.  They lowered a rope into there, and pulled Gregory out of the pit.  And he healed the king, and the king chose not only to become a Christian himself, but also to endorse Christianity throughout his kingdom.  This is how the Armenian church was founded, in 301 AD, the first Christian nation. </tangent>

So anyways, here in the 21st century, I got to visit the inside of the pit.  A ladder leads down into there and there is an electric chandelier (which wasnt there in Gregory's time, when it would have been almost absolutely dark).  There was no toilet in there, so, I'm guessing that whomever fed him also carried out his waste products.  If it were me, I'd just jailbreak the man out instead.   <paradox>However if I had been there (by way of time travel), and I had jailbreaked him out, it would not have been miraculous, Drtad would not have believed, Armenia would still be pagan, Gregory would have been forgotten, and I would have had no reason to go back in time in the first place </paradox>  

Another site we found was a church with steep narrow stairways with no railing leading up to the sanctuary.  Another site was a village where people used to live in caves, and other LCO groups were doing some excavating.  

On another note: After having used a village squat-hole for excrementing solid waste 24 consecutive times over the past 3 weeks, it felt good to sit on a real toilet instead.  Yes, I did keep count.  

Sunday, august 7

We left the village this morning to return to Yerevan.  We had to leave the cat behind.  I had attempted to ask the villagers if they wanted to keep it, but all they would tell me is, "che, chem uzum", which means, "no, I don't want it".  So, I left it in front of the town center.

Along the way to Yerevan, we visited yet another ancient Armenian church; this one was right near a canyon.  We've probably visited at least 10 early churches, including some that were from the 4th century, when for the first time, buildings were being built with the intended purpose of Christian worship.  <tangent>After having visited so many old church buildings, when I get back to the United States, and attend church services at First Baptist Church in Newport News, it will probably come as a shock to me the lack of pencil-thin candles and candle-trays, khachkars and other stone carvings, ornate robes on the derhayr (pastor), and the Armenian language; and also the presence of a projector screen/projector, pews, guitars, drumset, amplifiers, organ, pianos, stained glass windows, a baptismal pool in the back of the sanctuary, brick rather than toof rock, and most strangely of all, electricity.  My friends at FBC, if you are reading this, do not be surprised if I walk backwards out of the sanctuary crossing myself and addressing Pastor Seley as "der hayr", and start lighting candles everywhere.  However, there is one very important thing that is the same.  We are worshiping the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and praying in the Holy Spirit. </tangent>

I am now in Yerevan.  This evening, I got to meet up with Rafayel, one of my friends who used to intern at Jefferson Lab.  My other friend, Ani, was supposed to meet with us, but dueto certain circumstances, was unable to meet up with us.  Rafayel showed me the cascades, which are on a hill, overlooking most of the city, and from which one has a view of Mount Ararat on a non-cloudy day (today the top of Ararat was not visible).  It started raining hard, so we took a taxi back to the hostel.  And here I am again at the hostel, watching weird pop music video on the flatscreen TV.

Tomorrow I go to Karabagh, which is 7 hours away, and will be staying there two nights, and then returning to Yerevan on August 10th and then leaving Yerevan the next day to go to Gyumri.  Hopefully I'll get to meet up with Ani next time I'm in Yerevan, on August 10.  She has yet to call me back to let me know if the evening of August 10 will work for her.

Also, today I purchased a duduk (a type of Armenian musical instrument for 7000 dram. (about 20 dollars).  It sounds kind of like a saxophone, except it's made of dziran (apricot) wood, has a double reed, and is shaped more similar to a recorder.  It's the same type of musical instrument used in the soundtrack of the movie Gladiator (which i have not watched).  The duduk is truly a breath-taking instrument, and by that I mean you have to blow very hard into it otherwise you make no sound, and you get out of breath quickly by playing it.  The breathing on duduk is much harder than an ocarina.  (well to be fair, with the ocarina, the fingerings are less intuitive than with the duduk, since the holes on an ocarina don't need to be in a line, and therefore generally are placed wherever it is most ergonomically convenient to put them.  But it only requires a little bit of effort to memorize the fingering placements on an ocarina, whereas, it takes an increase in lung-power to improve one's duduk playing.)

I'll have to post a video of me playing the duduk at some point.  But not until after I improve at it. 

a

Thursday:

In the evening before dinner, we climbed a very steep mountain nearby the village.  It took us about an hour and a half to climb up to the top.  The slope was about a 60 degree incline (about .3 radians, for nerds).  At the top, there was an altar, with several khatchkhars and other Christian icons around.  Also on the altar are soft candles that people had pushed onto the altar to spell their names on there.  Most apparent at the altar, however, is a full-sized wooden cross.  Several pieces of cloth had been tied to the cross.  When Arman, our archaeologist, got to the top, he asked in Armenian for a knife.  I was not sure what to expect.  I thought he was going to cut off a piece of his own shirt or something and tie it onto the cross.  However, what he did was the exact opposite.  He cut off the pieces of cloth.  I asked why.  Since he doesn't speak much English, all he said was "very bad, not Christian".  I later found out that this tradition predates Christianity, from pagan times, when they would tie a piece of clothing to a tree or bush when they got up to the top of a mountain, and I inferred that it's disrespectful to tie it to a cross.  He and I stayed at the top after the others had left, as he and I were praying at the top, while the others had left to explore a different peak.  So, coming down the hill it was just myself and Arman.  

When I got back down, I decided, quite spontaneously, to shave, which i haven't done since I was in Vienna (VA, not Austria).  At the request of the other participants, I did sideburns and a handlebar mustache.  When I get back to Yerevan, I might shave off the handlebars and just leave the mustache.  I'm not sure yet.  Normally i have a mustache and a goatee, but I don't have time to grow a mustache back yet.  

Friday 

was our last day working at the site.  While I was working the wheelbarrow during the second-to-last hour of our work, we got a flat tire.  So, instead, we used buckets to transport the dirt out of the hole for the last hour and a half of work.  THE last hour and a half of work we will do here in this village.  We are now done with that.  

Saturday:

today I am borrowing Haig's orange dongle again to write this blog entry.  Also, I found out that i will be working with the Gyumri Information Technologies Center starting a week from now.  I received a message from birthright about this:  http://www.gitc.am/Gitc/

Oh, and by the way, if you want to see the pictures I and the other participants have taken on this trip, go to www.lcousa.org.  Some of the pics are mine, some are taken by the others.  Then you wont have to wait for me to post to facebook a week from now.  

Week 3 part 1

Sunday:

This sunday was a special holiday involving water.  (I forgot what it's name is).  On this holiday, kids take buckets of water and splash it on cars that are driving by, and people pour water on each other and use squirt guns and stuff.  While we were in the van, with the permission of the driver, Mark spilled bottles of water on pedestrians twice.  The driver, told him which ones to do it to.  I heard him say, "spasek!", which means "wait", in this context, for a better victim to pour it on.

  So, in honor of this holiday,  we did the most natural thing to do and went to Lake Sevan, the largest body of water in Armenia.  On a steep hill on a peninsula overlooking the lake are two churches right next to each other.  Up on the trail to the churches are people selling stuff, such as obsidian sculptures, mini-khachkhars, and other trinkets.  One man was selling a duduk for like 100 $US, but I didn't buy it because it was probably overpriced (I plan on buying one either the next time I visit Yerevan, or while I am staying in Gyumri (and I still don't know what I'm going to be doing in Gyumri yet.)).  After visiting the churches, we had lunch and then went swimming in the lake.  It wasn't too cold in there, fortunately.

Monday:

Because all but one of our pickaxes were broken, we got off work early today.  We visited the village's preschool and had some snacks there.  This is the first time I've ever eaten honeycombs.  The honey is good, but I don't really care for the taste nor texture of beeswax.  Caleb, one of the Canadian participants, commented (not-exact-quote), "I love how we are screwing over the bees by eating the place where they live in".  After eating these snacks, and later eating lunch, I napped most of the afternoon.

Another thing:  up until today, I was wearing protective gloves whenever touching the cat.  Now, I've decided to give up doing so.   Also, I have attempted to teach the cat 0008ytttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt8gptgh6iiiiiiiiipppppppppp how to use the computer.   (the 0008…ppp is where the cat was sitting on my keyboard.  She has a long ways to go before becoming a true hacker).  It's also a good thing that this computer has a trackpad instead of a mouse.  Otherwise the little kitty would attempt to eat the computer mouse, which is not healthy for it. 

Tuesday: 

work continued, now with the pick-axes replaced and/or repaired.  Now all our efforts are focused on digging trenches next to the worksite to make the courtyard wider.  It looks like we won't be able to finish this task by the end of the week, which is unfortunate, because we will be leaving the village Sunday, finished or not.  Also, while checking my email today I discovered that my Flickr account will only allow for 200 pictures unless I pay to upgrade my account.  I guess I'll just wait two weeks and then upload pics to facebook.  Or delete some of the pictures from Flickr that I don't care as much about to make room for good ones.  I think I'm more likely to do the former.