how to deal with stress

The headache came yesterday and it still persists.  I haven’t helped the cause either.  Last night I slept terribly, thinking too much about this morning’s car inspection which turned out to be too easy, and what a waste of worry.  Classes were cancelled as well today, a march to welcome the king back to the country did that.  I went to the office after the easy inspection and the place was empty.  I returned to the grotto and have been in bed most of the day.  The headache disappeared after my last nap but has returned and it's in the same place, the left temple and behind the eye.  I’ve resisted advil but I may give in and take some before crashing again.

A sickly new pigeon stoops on the terrace, its parents groom each other next to it.  I open the screen door and the parents flitter away leaving the sick thing alone.  Ten minutes later they return.  Do pigeons have emotions?  Are they grieving for their little production?  The ragged bird will most likely die, there are no pigeon clinics around here.  And the parents will have a go at it again to produce a healthy crapper.  I guess the parent’s presence may indicate some small measure of compassion, or it might be an instinctual thing, an obligation to protect.  Can you have obligation without love and compassion?  Ya you can.

3.31.15

A starbucks double espresso and out comes a teaching philosophy, BAM, and  a cover letter, BAM, and along with the cv, out it goes.  Where you ask?  Ya know I can’t say it here, I jinx myself every time, I know it.  So, I won’t.  Is it probable you’d be hired there?  I know the guy who I sent this too.  Did we have a good relationship?  I think it was mutually good.

Anyways, I was advised to submit my letter of resignation a few days earlier than the 12^th.  Fine.  I should do it now, what is going to persuade me to stay here any longer?  A woman?  ha ha hoo hoo.

I was looking through my curriculum files and found this listening exercise I made when I taught summer school in the Emirates in 2007.  Key words were missing and the students had to write the words in the spaces provided.  I read each sentence twice.  Some of the sentences I read made me smile, I don't know if the students found the humor in them, most unlikely. 

1. Angie demonstrated a culinary skill not seen around here since Julia Child left the building.

2.  If you stay up too late drinking coffee and red bull you may encounter a fuzzy state of mind.

3.  The officer said go straight ahead and I did and drove right into the corn field. 

5.  Dorothy, the best way to deal with stress is breathe deep, close your eyes, tap your toes and repeat there’s no place like home three times. 

6. Tony, I’m not sure organized crime is the best way to subsidize my income. 

10.  The crescent moon is a symbol with many meanings to many people.

11.  If the system breaks down again, go have lunch and we’ll call you.

13.  On many occasions but especially during the long days I tend to drink too much coffee.

14.  Read the text one more time and you may be dismissed.

16.  The topic of their conversation in twenty minutes ranged from nuclear war to how to braise a duck.  

17.  How do you know the difference between a tourist and someone who lives here? 

20.  I hope we all have the chance to take a nice long trip somewhere this summer. 

21.  Fashion trends among the teachers tend to be unique but not urbane.  Ok, sometimes they are.

22.  I was raised in an urban environment and always long for the rural. 

24.  The Red Crescent Society is always looking for a willing volunteer.  Are you busy?

25.  Let us remember that waste which doesn’t make haste is never a good thing.   

Evening movies are so badly edited here I wanna throw the tv out the window.  Last week they showed The Deer Hunter, one my favorites and I was so excited I got real comfortable on my lumpy sofa and I swear there was a wedding scene in this picture.  They cut the whole thing out including the celebration afterwards.  I was afraid to know what else they’d butchered so I turned it off in disgust. 

And then yesterday they had The Thin Red Line on, oh my another one of my favorites and a long one if I remember correctly.  But wasn’t there a whole scene when Jim Caviezel was in this village on the coast?  Not tonight, it was over in two hours and that included awful commercials.  Turn it off.  They have maliciously and for no good reason cut out scenes in Empire of the Sun (remember the Gone with the Wind poster in the town square?  Cut down like a sausage hanging in a German deli)  but the worst editing is Moulin Rouge and the first big dance scene.  It’s edited so badly you’re not even listening to a song, the nutty editors cut scenes every five seconds and then pasted them together.  It sounds like, like, it has been heavily edited.  Terrible, they shouldn’t even put the movie on because they did this to the rest of the movie.  Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so obvious if it weren’t a musical.

Tonight though while I prep for tomorrow The curious case of Benjamin Button is on and I don’t think they’ve edited anything.  Thank goodness.