there's the part you've braced yourself against

Last night I dreamed that I shoplifted a pizza.

Dreams have been on my mind a lot recently -- probably because I have been sleeping so much. During my first year of college I had a recurring dream that I had to go back and complete another year of high school. This feels a little like that. High school is high school everywhere, and Micronesia and Cairo are similar in many ways. I haven't had an identity crisis yet, but it is still a little bit unsettling at times. The reassuring thing, however, is that my students think that I was born in 1972.

Outside of school, things are still beautiful and peaceful. There is a vague effort on the part of the police department (all four members) to cull some of the more aggressive feral dogs -- this only sounds sad until you have been chased down by a pack of them. So now instead of swerving to avoid dogs in the road, drivers swerve to hit them. It is unclear whether this is any more dangerous than the status quo.

Liberation Week (next week) has been shortened to Liberation Thursday-and-Friday, so there are three extra (!) days of school this quarter. One of them will be a party, because I can decide things like that, because I am the teacher and I said so. Ha, power trip trumps identity crisis. Or maybe this is what happens when you don't know which mentality -- student or teacher -- to harbor. Or maybe parties are good things and that is all.

These are our three dogs: Saddam (front), Bobo (right) and the neighbor's puppy who answers to "oh hi!" That is our house in the background. If you look carefully you can see the "OPEN" sign in the far window, leftover from the glory days of motel-dom.



Happy Sunday/Saturday!