soggy roasted chickens

"Let yourself be open and life will be easier.  A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable.  A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed"  Buddha

Thursday afternoon, temps pushing 45 degrees, that's 115 and change.  Usually I leave at 4pm and walk 20 minutes to flag a taxi down.  I might wait till sundown.  I got work to do, right?  And I can listen to Bach.

My twenty two minute presentation on beating burnout went as well as expected though I did begin a little nervously, choking a few words, sounding as if I had no clue what I was talking about but I did know what I was talking about.

Early in my life living overseas I learned to keep my expectations to a minimum, intercultural norms require a pause before speaking, a moment of silence before acting, and it has served me well.

When I returned the car to Ramada on Tuesday I told him about the speeding tickets and he said he'd let me know in a few weeks time, maybe a month or two, how much I'll have to cough up.  So, wondering and waiting could leave me anxious and cause indigestion and that isn't how I want to be.

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

--J.D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I concluded my presentation with this quote.  When  read it I kind of choked up.  While I say teaching is my default profession, I know I want to bring something to the learner's table.  If what I offer helps, inspires, motivates, then I can sleep well.  Some day, someone might be thankful, I'm just a teacher in the sand.

So, plans for this weekend?  No, the usual, eat, sleep, wash clothes, eat, sleep, wash clothes, watch tv, watch more news than I should.  I'm half way through 'The Idiot' and I'm halfway through a couple of magazines, I'm looking at Dubai in three weeks to look at travel guides, where in the world should I go, a new month begins ya hoo, two months and eleven days to go.  Three full moons and perhaps on the day of the third moon I'll depart but where, the states, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal.   Really though, when it's too hot to do anything that kind of sucks, and Dubai's humidity makes everything even worse, I feel like a soggy roasted chicken when I go.  What to do, mel amal?