Odds and Ends Thursday 15

I’d go so far as to say that it’s a little chilly at night these days. During midday it’s still possible to be uncomfortably sweaty, but it cools off quite a bit in the evening. I once asked a Samoan about the way it feels in winter here, and she looked at me like I was an idiot. Whatever. The cool, dry season is noticeably cooler. Global warming is causing the wet season to be less wet and the dry season to be much more. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• It’s a little funny because Koa bet me there’d be no classes this week, and I bet there would be class as usual, and at my school there’s been very little class all week, but at Koa’s school it’s been class as usual. Like I said on Monday, we’ll have to split the difference.
  
• I saw a bunch of my staff heading into the RSA afterschool today. The RSA is some sort of bar/dance club in town that we were told to stay away from during training. In any case, I wonder if that’s a usual thing. And I wonder if I could crash it. Staff bonding would be good, I think. Like the old CNET happy hours.
  
• My eyes feel great today, thank you very much.
  
• Today one of the year 13s, Filifili, recommended I visit American Samoa, and I admit, I am interested to see it. Sara, who trained with us but works for the United States Department of Agriculture, lives there and said that all of us were welcome to stay at her place if we went to visit. I’ve never been to a territory before.
  
• The scroll wheel on my optical mouse is sticky sometimes. Anyone know what’s up with that?
  
• I haven’t done much thinking about finding my purpose, but I have been listening to an awful lot of Avenue Q while I play minesweeper, which turns out to be surprisingly contemplative.
  
• I had an elaborate dream last night where I went to a small Green Day concert and Mike Drnt(sp?) was really excited to see me, and they invited me to play with them, but they gave me a really crappy bass, and I couldn’t tune it, but it was thrilling nonetheless. Always lousy when you wake up all excited because of a dream, and having to realize none of it was real.
  
• When I arrived at school this morning, most teachers were wearing the Independence Day uniform. No one told me we were supposed to wear them today. Also, I never got mine tailored because I knew I wasn’t going to be here for Independence Day. Oops.
  
• Last week when we were on the bus back from the river hike, I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Our group was pretty much the only ones on the bus, save for a few other Samoans. So when the bus driver pulled over to buy some taro from a roadside vendor, Max told me I should just hop off and goon the side of the road. I thought the better of this plan, but then my bladder reminded me who’s boss. I jumped off the bus and peed on the side of the road. The bus driver was confused when I got off, but when he saw what was up, he thought it was hilarious. So everything worked out.
  
• I went running on Monday and ran into Joey and Erin 78, who were also running. So I ran with them. They’ve been going every day at 5:00 p.m. So I ran with Erin on Tuesday too. I hope I can go with them a couple more times before Erin leaves in 3 weeks.
  
• I’m back into Weeds (season 3) and The West Wing (season 2), and as it turned out, both season premieres were two-parters, which meant Tuesday night was the most obnoxiously suspenseful night I’ve had in a long time.
  
• One other goal I have for term 2 is to send more snail mail. I believe there was a list of you from whom I solicited mail addresses so I could send postcards. Please don’t be offended if you never received one; none of you ever received one. But I think I’ll get around to sending a bunch of those pretty soon. So you can look forward to that. And if you still want to get in on that action, shoot me an email.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.
















Staff meetings are lousy here too. It's hard to see the facial expressions with the picture this small, so I uploaded it bigger than usual. Click on it to enlarge. Also, Ulia and Tevaga (on either end) are wearing the Independence Day uniform that I (and Peteru in the middle) didn't wear today. Also, Ulia is reading a bank book. I probably haven't seen a bank book since I was 10.
















I walked into town behind this kid. His school uniform accented the landscape well.
















This dog lives on our campus.