Well, I'm sitting in my classroom, watching all my students take a test. It's weird. I've never been on this end of the spectrum before. Oh wait, except TAing Latin 102, but that hardly counts. In any event, they are taking a 2 part exam on what I've taught them lately. I think they should be able to do it. At least 75% will be able to with out a problem.

Also, I am immensely pleased that the Mets have tied it up with the Cards. Obviously, I wasn't able to watch any games, and I have in fact nearly missed out on an entire season, but I check online in the morning for 15 minutes of sports reading to catch up. Mondays are the most exciting, because I get to read up on weekend games. I was vaguely nervous going to espn.com today, seeing as how I was about to find out about 2 key games. So it looks like I missed a 13 or 14 inning hitting slump and then a hell of a come back. Go figure my team waits until I move to a country without cable to get this far. Now if they can whip the Cards twice more, we'll have... a Mets/Tigers WS?? Wow. If Delgado ends up pitching again by the Series (if we make it...), I think we

Anyway. I had a freaking great weekend. Guess what I did? ...Nothing. I relaxed, took walks around town, ran, swam, read, and just chilled the fuck out. Now, this isn't any different than any other weekend in Cape Verde, really, except that this time I did it with a different attitude. Before, I always kind of felt like if I was relaxing, I wasn't being a good volunteer. Like I should be improving my Creole, or meeting people, or trying to do something else volunteery. But I've pulled away from that. My Uncle John, who did PC in Nepal in the 60s or 70s, had one piece of advice for me, and that was to just take it slow and not have huge expectations. He said that as soon as he stopped trying so damned hard, great things started happening, and he ended up being a phenomenally successful volunteer (he worked with the Red Cross to set up the Himalayan Mountain rescue system that is still in place today). So after laying the pressure of myself, I am enjoying myself more, and actually meeting new people much more easily.

I also have continued my running a bit. After running, I'm usually so hot and sweaty that even 5 minutes of freezing shower can't cool me down and I start sweating again as soon as I get out. Any runners will know what I mean, and I hate that shit. So yesterday, I didn't even go straight home. I ran to the other side of the road, across the beach, stripped off my shoes, socks, and beater and dove right into the water. And let me tell you, it was probably one of the best ideas I've had in the last 10 to 15 years.

I wandered down a long beach to where the watersports guys have their little shacks set up and asked around about equipment for sale. No one sells it. One guy pointed me to a street in town where he said someone had a shop that sold snorkel gear. But I went there, and the shop didn't exist. It's a frequent problem here: people will be certain that something is there, or that you can buy something in town, but really it just does not exist. It's odd, like people don't really know their own town that well. Nonetheless, I got a nice long walk out of it and met a few people.

One unforseen blessing of teaching a class in Creole for an hour and a half every night is that I have improved my speaking a lot. My listening is still so-so, I often don't understand when people speak fast, but that's just how languages are for me. I find them easy to form, but difficult to comprehend. Kind of the opposite of most people I think. But practice will improve.

Ok, kind of worried, some students have asked me many questions about the test. Must tend to them.