Odds and Ends Thursday 64

Last night I dreamt I wrote a draft of a fairly controversial blog post and inadvertently set it live. In the dream people were texting me to make sure everything was okay, and it all felt pretty real. When I woke up this morning, I was alarmed and confused, and it took a couple minutes to convince myself the whole thing didn’t happen. 12 hours after the fact I’m still not convinced. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• In my year 12 class today, some of the boys were singing “Lovefool,” which took me back to 1997. At one point I stopped them to correct them on lyrics, and they looked at me slightly annoyed and said, “Okay, Justin Bieber.” Get it straight, goof balls. That’s the Cardigans. There is no Bieber.
  
• ”Northern Exposure”: easily one of the five best shows of the 1990s.
  
• I know I’m joining the party about 6 months late (as is the usual), but I really like Shakira’s “Waka Waka” song now.
  
• Apparently some team is coming to stay at our school for the Oceania games. This will entail:
  
  
  • The cancellation of school next Friday (i.e. the day of the PSSC CAT for my year 13s, the test we’ve been gearing up for since February; and
    
  • Teachers coming in at dinner time in a 3-day rotation through the last week of school and the first week of break.
  I’m really excited.
• I got a stamp! Charges d’Affaires Robin had one! Mail sent. Thanks to all those who offered to send one. Much appreciated.
  
• My year 13s have their big PSSC Common Assessment Task next week (as noted above), but we’ve been practicing and practicing for weeks now, so on Tuesday the kids showed up and a bunch started watching some collection of goofy YouTube-esque videos that someone brought in. And even though their test is next week, I think we were all relieved to take a break from studying to watch guys getting hit in the crotch with a football.
  
• A bunch of us had pizza and beer with RPCV John 6 (Yeah. Group 6.) tonight. While he was away from the table, we all talked about how his stories from back in the day are waaay better than our stories from now.
  
• I bought deodorant today. What a bizarrely priced item. There are no roll-on sticks in this country; only small plastic tubes with a rolling ping-pong ball on the end. They’re tiny (50mL), and they go for roughly $7WST. There aerosol spray is 250mL, and sells for about $11WST. It’s five times bigger and less than twice the price!
  
• Actually, that was a lie. They sell Secret in roll-on stick form here. It’s strong enough for me, but in my opinion, the pH balance is way off.
  
• The math teacher I sometimes sit next to at Interval has been asking me lots of calculus questions lately. Apparently this is the first year it’s required on PSSC math, and she genuinely seems excited to learn it. But I don’t know any calculus. We mostly just read the book together, and I nod when she asks me questions to confirm what the book says. Speaking of that, can anyone verify that integrating is the same as getting the anti-derivative?
  
• Tonight was our last soccer game. We lost 3-1. We were down 5 players to 7 during the entire opening half though, so it seems like it should have been a lot worse.
  
• When we were at Tafatafa on Sunday, there was a burly group of Kiwis a couple fales over, who started a game of touch-rugby. Much like tough-football (American), in touch-rugby, you don’t tackle anyone; you just touch them, and the play ends. So I figure, why not? I’ll play. No more than 10 seconds into the game, Dude body-checks me in the nose, blood trickling through both nostrils. And that was the end of my touch-rugby career.

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

Dan opening a coconut with a piece of firewood at Tafatafa.

Athletes hamming for the camera the afternoon before last Friday's Champ of Champs athletics meet.

I was in the neighborhood near Samoa's Accident Compensation Board this afternoon.  Judging from their wall sign, it appears they've had a few accidents.