The night before- no matter if it is a DJ show, concert, or what have you, the butterflies are still there. Tomorrow night the Boston area gets a chance to hear one of Armenia's treasures in singer Lilit Pipoyan. The whole community is buzzing about this show. Getting a chamber quartet to rehearse with the artist is an expensive and tough task in that the time is limited. After dress rehearsal today in Cambridge, MA, I am convinced this will be the world music concert of the year. Lilit is in top form and the quartet is cohesive.

Also, the big news for Pomegranate is that Lilit and I have tenatively agreed to release a third album on my label. After corresponding for more than one year via email, we finally met face to face and just got the deal done. Look for the new Lilit Pipoyan album in 2005 on Pomegranate Music...

Ms. Pipoyan took a break from practice tonight and went to the Flamenco Festival in Boston. There are two song and dance troups from Seville in town for 4 days. After a week and a half of intense organiziation of both Gor and Lilit, I am going to sit back and crack open some Pomegranate Wine Gor gave me last week, watch HBO's OZ, and just fall asleep... I am pretty tired...

If anyone is interested, the Lilit Pipoyan concert is at Longy School of Music at 7:30 tomorrow night... www.longy.edu for directions...

Today was a whirlwind. After a sold out Gor Mkhitarian show last night at Toast Lounge in Somerville, MA, this morning Gor and I headed to the new church in Framingham, MA where he gave a free concert of the parishiners over there. After the show, I headed off to Logan airport to pick up Lilit Pipoyan, fresh in from Armenia. So, tonight we had a great dinner at my friend Baykar's house with Gor, Lilit, Karoun, Narine, etc. The excitement is building toward Lilit's debut performance in Boston next week. It's should be a special night. This week will be spent introducing Lilit to the Bosotn community including stops at the Hairenik building, ACEC, and the various markets in Watertown, MA. It should be fun...

I am currently organizing a couple of pretty cool concerts here in the Boston area. The first is Gor Mkhitarian at Toast Lounge in Somerville, MA at 6:30 pm this Saturday night. The other is Lilit Pipoyan at Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA on January 31 at 7:30pm. Working alone as a for-profit company has it's drawbacks and rewards when presenting show of this nature. For one thing, it is liberating in the sense that there is no committee, redtape, or delay in doing a show that is sometimes associated with Armenian organizations. The downside is that the built-in support system of an organiziation is not there and has to be created. That being said, I think both show will be unique in nature and music content and will provide a different look at music from Armenia. Luckily, there is plenty of buzz for both shows and it looks like they are both going to be a success. Boston doesn't get these kinds of concerts often, so they are unique enough where people are curious.

I still haven't found the Armen Movsisyan concert.... if anyone knows anything about it -- do email me! So this week wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The transition from Hayasdan to L.A. wasn't too bad this time, cause I know that I'll be going back soon. Work has been good too, not too busy, not too boring.

This weekend my family had its annual "Cousins' Weekend". My cousin flew in from Seattle, my sister from San Francisco, my other cousins from South Bay and of course all of us. A total of twelve people in our house... madzoonov kufte night on Friday, mante night on Saturday and lahmajun/bureg night on Sunday. It was great to see everyone and spend time together like the old times when we were younger.

There's really not much else going on... we're working on preparing for the 2 sessions of Junior Seminar next month. No trips till then... it's time to stay here for a while.

TSUH! :)~

Just wanted to share with you what types of travels the horizon holds for me: New Jersey, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Argentina, Armenia, who knows at this point, maybe Laos (kidding). All this before June. And my Moms one wish this years was that I sit still. Sorry Mom.

There is nothing interesting going on in New York. Besides the weather nothing really seems to be changing much. We were having such a nice warm winter, I guess since we kept saying it, we jinxed it. Now we have temperatures 8 degrees F and decreasing. My God Yerevan is warmer than us!

So little to log about these days, but there are little things here and there. In comparison to a week in Armenia, DC is so darn boring. But there is a conference at the World Bank this weekend on Armenia. I'll be there and log about it. I also got to see Kojian for a brief dinner last friday... a very jetlagged Kojian, but I'll take it.

The great news is that we (ANCA) have been working a lot with System of a Down on our recent postcard campaign, designed by yours truly. Apparently they were very pleased with the look and want to do more with it, but I'll wait til it's done until I say more. The campaign overall has been going very well. We printed around 70,000 postcards to be mailed across the country for people to sign and mail to the House and Senate leaders, Frist and Hastert, asking for the genocide resolution to be put to vote. Unfortunately there were problems of many postcards falling apart in the mail, which the printer is receiving MUCH grief on. However overall, we have run out of postcards and are considering another run. This should flood Frist and Hastert's mailboxes. In conjuction, System sent out an email to their list directing readers to our website to download a PDF version (www.anca.org/anca/soad). We have also been mailing extras to email requests, so if anyone would like to send a postcard, there is info on our website for that too.

Anyway, that's what fills my days now. I am starting to watch this show "Insomniac with Dave Attel" and it is absolutely hillarious. I truly miss Armenia, but it looks like I may have a couple reasons to return quickly. :)

Back in L.A. - I've been here for about 5 days now, and it seems not much has changed in the month I missed. Everyone's still doing the same stuff... (should I be surprised?). My trip to Armenia was GREAT! I got a chance to get a sneak-peek of winter, even though everyone told me it's NOTHING this year, compared to last year. But hey, I guess Hayasdan's weather godess decided to ease me into winter. Thanks! :)

Yesterday I attended the ARF's 113th anniversary in Pasadena, where the keynote speaker was Vosdanik Marukhyan, Parliament member. Apparently he was on the same flight as me, but I could swear I didn't see him there. Maybe he was VIP or something... but it was driving me nuts as to how I could possibly be THAAAAAT oblivious to things around me. hahaha Well, he had some interesting things to say, but basically he restated the ARF's role in today's Armenia. I guess the one line that stood out for me in his speech (or the idea) was when he was talking about the "Azad, Angakh, Miyatsyal Hayasdan". He said that Armenia had to be economically and socially stable and successful, if we were to even begin thinking about having a miyatsyal nation. Now THAT makes sense! Finally someone said it... focus on today's Armenian Republic... make it reach its highest potential in every which way... and thennnnnn talk to me about enlarging our nation and getting our lands back.

The highlight of the evening was a 4-song performance by Armen Movsisyan... which I guess means he will be having a concert somewhere, sometime.. MUST find out where and when! (How about an Armenian TICKETMASTER??)

TSUH! :)~
p.s. - what's up with the 80 degree weather in LA????? (earthquake weather!)

Like many people I kept my New Year’s resolution… so far. And I am proud to say I got off my butt and went to Bally fitness club. I took my mom along with me, which made the process much easier and enjoyable. I wanted her to keep her resolution as well, which she breaks as soon as she finds a good excuse. Right as we walk into class, the trainer immediately says “You will not quit until you have come to six of my classes!” I thought to myself that’s a relief, at least someone is pushing us to keep our resolution. She worked the class without even breaking a sweat; I on the other hand was dehydrating, and because of that I kept messing up. My mom and I attempted to do these classes a few months ago, and we could not keep up with the dance they were doing, so we did what anybody else would do, we boogied to our own beat. Even though right now we are sore and could not pick up a piece of paper, we feel good on the inside. God knows if we will be able to walk after tomorrow’s class, which is called Boot Camp! That is going to be fun, starting the New Year with boot camp. On a good note I have to get ready for our Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas to all Armenians around the world, and do not forget to keep your resolutions.

Back home. Happy New Year everyone!!! Sorry if I have been bad with emails or phone calls. I haven't responded to anyone. Having been on the road for the last month, I merely checked my email to make sure there was still room. What a crazy month of holidays. Chicago was great. I had AYF meetings for 5 days until New Years. The meetings went well and some great conversations sparked quality debates on the floor.

New Years Eve followed and this year I attended the Chicago Armenian church event. I don't know what the name of the church is, but it's in Glenview. It was good. Nothing spectacular, just a DJ and some Mezze. More importantly I was with some good friends.

For the next 4 days I stayed with some friends in Chicago and had such a relaxing vacation. However, I completely disconnected myself from the world and I feel like I am doing circles catching up with everything. I got back last night and I haven't stopped moving since. Arg.

On that note, back to work!

Merry Armenian Christmas everyone!

On New Year’s Day I was watching on the Armenian channel (our family’s favorite) the new movie Siro Masin. I think that’s what it is called. Very good movie…it’s like watching a sing-a-long, after every conversation somebody would break into a song. They even tease about that in the movie when the main character (Grisha) turns to Satan and say’s, “before you leave can you sing a song?” and Satan answers “Why?” and Grisha says, “because everybody is singing in this movie!” Everybody including TATA! He made my smile go ear to ear. That Yerevan song is very true…it feels like he is talking directly to me, saying “Anita what are you doing in New York? ... You should be in Yerevan!”

Although my only pet peeve with the movie was something very dumb they said, that it was justifiable for married men to have affairs. Other than that pathetic statement, I enjoyed the movie very much.

SHNORHAVOR JER BOLORI NOR TARIN EV GALIK SURB CNUND@!!!!

I wish everyone a prosperous, happy, and healthy New Year!
Raffi, if you can post more of those beautiful pictures of Yerevan that would makes us really happy. :)

SHNORHAVOR JER BOLORI NOR TARIN EV GALIK SURB CNUND@!!!!

I wish everyone a prosperous, happy, and healthy New Year!

Raffi, if you can post more of those beautiful pictures of Yerevan that would makes us really happy. :)

New Year's Eve in Hayasdan... there are no words to describe the feeling of being with a group of people who have taken a huge step in their lives to bring their families to Hayasdan, despite all the "hard" times or rather differences of lifestyles. I found myself envying all those people I spent the evening with... and hopefully I will be one of them too soon! :)

Today I went to the Zeitoon orphanage with other AYF members from the LA area, and our Santa passed out candy and other gifts Nigol and Zabelle had collected. The kids who were there today were the ones whose families hadn't taken them "home" for the holidays, or who really had no family. Being there made me want to become so many different things all at once. I wanted to be a mom to them all, a caretaker, a provider, a teacher, and especially a translator for Artur, who is deaf and mute. At that moment, I thought perhaps I could find it in me to go back to school and learn that new language, so I'd be able to help other Artur-s. Hearing the story about how 3 children were found living in a cemetary... my eyes were filled, and I wished I could find each of those beautiful children a home... I used to be one of those people who was not ok with the idea of children being adopted to parents out of Armenia... but today I learned something very important. It doesn't matter where "home" might be... as long as a child is surrounded by love and has somewhere to call home.. that's all that matters in reality.

I also remembered something else after leaving the orphanage... to all those young Armenians living in the diaspora (one in particular in LA) who don't believe there is any reason to come to Armenia other than PERHAPS a 10 day vacation... I wish they would experience a similar visit to the mangadoon.

Another random thing... this morning I watched Tata's music video for "Janabarh" and it seriously made me realize that there ARE some people who understand that feeling of having to return to hayasdan... watch and you will see...

I hope the New Year brings everyone the best of experiences...

TSUH! :)~
p.s. - (gadagi pajeen) Armenia is the only place in the world where a "wrong-number" phone call can become a 20 min pleasant conversation! hahaha