Dinner with my students was fabulous last night. There were 12 of us and for the benefit of the Diasporan who had invited us to this dinner, we all introduced ourselves and gave a bit of background in English.

My students presented me with a toy horse and advised the gift was for luck seeing it�s the year of the horse. We then decided to name my horse and Hakob Hovhanessian; the Director of �Duty to Live� came up with the name Kourgig Jalali that is the name of the horse of Sassoontsi Davit. I�ve decided to call it Kourgig for short and it sits at work with me all day. They also presented me with a book in Armenian on Gandzasar. This one will take sometime to read as my reading skill is not up to scratch but maybe my students are giving me a message? Whatever the reason, I was quite moved receiving these gifts.

Thank you again to my Diasporan friend who wants to remain anonymous for his kindness. I should mention that we did cheat at times and spoke Armenian, for example when someone was toasting. Somehow, the toast doesn�t come out as melodious in English.