Poker Face

Well hello again friends. How's life? It's getting better for me, as I have just recovered from some sort of respiratory infection, could have been bronchitis, but whatever it was, it's finally over. Or almost, I'm still hacking up phlegm on occasion, but at least I can speak whole sentences without the interruption of a cough every other word, and my lungs no longer feel like they are already half full of some strange semi-solid/semi-liquid concoction that doesn't allow for breathing. So this lovely little distraction stopped me from teaching the first week my first year students were finally here, and extended my vacation (although not in a pleasant way) by one more week. But I finally got to teach them this week, and it was more enjoyable than I remembered. I think I really just enjoy hearing myself speak, but then most of us do. Maybe I have a future in teaching, although what I'm qualified to teach, I couldn't tell you.

I enjoyed a visit from two volunteers to my house last weekend. It was interesting at times due to the lack of water coming from my tap, but we made it work. We even made hummus and bruschetta for dinner one of the days, and let me tell you I rarely eat that well at my own house, unless I have visitors (for example while Dan my brother visited, I ate risotto, pasta carbonera, and anther delicious dish that I can't remember the Italian name for and enjoyed every minute of his cooking). So now it's back to simple things, like eggs and bread, but what can you do. I might try some beans and rice again, although beans seem to be very difficult for me. I think I've made every possible mistake you can make in trying to cook beans, first I would let them cook too long without adding more water and get a layer of carbon an inch thick cooked onto the bottom of my pan, then I didn't cook them long enough and ate crunchy beans which result in incredible amounts of painful gas, and last I soaked the beans for too long in advance and they got moldy before I even brought them to the stove for cooking. I may have the technique down now, but we'll have to see.

Other than my culinary excapades, not much else is new, besides the fact that I got into graduate school! Whoo hooo! Marquette University accepted me to their Civil and Environmental Engineering/ Water Resources Engineering program, and I have a recommendation for acception to University of California - Berkeley in the Global Health and Environment program. So now it looks like I still have some decisions to make. I haven't heard back yet from UW Madison, but hopefully they'll let me know soon. Ugh, life decisions. Very difficult they are. Anyway, that's all the latest, so peace out for now, and wish me luck with teaching and training. Casey, you'll be here in about 3 weeks, so I hope you are prepared for the intensity of hurricane Megan in Uganda.

Back in the Saddle

Well, it's that time of year again, the start of school. The students are returning slowly slowly, and teaching has begun. The senior ones won't arrive until the 15th of February, which means I have another week to prepare all of my lessons and get the math club (that's right, we're cool here at Kantare, and we're starting a math club, jealous much?) started and ready to compete. I've made my teaching timetable, color-coded it for ease of use, and hung it on my door. Now all I need are minds for molding.

This will be my last term here at Kantare S.S., so I want to make it a good one. I'm going out with a bang. Or the usual end of term exams, but either way you look at it, I'm nearing the end. I've got a lot to do though, lots of paperwork for administration and I've still got to figure out what I'm doing once I get back. I guess I'm just waiting on responses from grad schools, so not much work there for me, but still, the waiting can be tough. And I get to train some of the incoming volunteers, which should be a good time. I think I'm even hosting one for two weeks, maybe more than one, and that could be interesting. I'll let them teach my classes and see how they do.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Sorry this one is short, but I haven't got a whole lot to say, so peace out and keep on truckin.