When I'm feeling blue I read about Evil Popes. I don't know what the correlation is. I bought a book called A Dark History: The Popes Vice, Murder, and corruption in the Vatican for myself for my birthday. Since that time I've been blue enough to get to page 65. The writting is terrible, but the illustrations are quite nice.

It seems the popes of old were terrible fellows. No wonder Martin Luther protested.

I'm only now to Pope Gregory IX (1231)- who intruduced an inquisition against the Cathars. The Cathars remind me of the Latter Day Saints- kinda Kookie and theologically-off the Christian rocker, but not bad people.

I found out one of my students is an actor on a Mexican Soap Opera. He's a villain. it's hard to imagine- he just kind of goofy/cute guy in class.

hmmm- come to think of it they are all villains.

pooh- i think i have the flu

If I do have the flu at least it's mild (at the moment)
To console myself on my bad luck- I bought one single serving of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream, and some 'Air Borne' and some Tylenol cold and allergy. I think the ice cream helped the most.

I rarely watch the news, but it came on while I was sitting on the sofa feeling flu-like so I watched it. It seems some 'feral hogs' have been tormenting some home owners in Dallas. I didn't stay long enough to get the whole report. I did stay long enough to see a report on a 'tractor-trailer, a herd of cattle, a high powered rifle and a high (and sometimes slow) speed chase through Wise County' I'd say that has the elements of a fine Country and Western song.

It seems some young guy was on a ranch and high, he thought taking a joy ride in a loaded semi would be fun, so he stole a truck full of cows and drove through 4 or 5 cities between the speeds of 5-80mph. Finally the police got in front of him, waved everyone off the road and shot his tires out. He kept driving for 3 miles . . . he must have been really high.

More on the flu- one of my students said he was very sick over the weekend and now he felt "soft." He asked me what was the word for feeling "soft." The first word that came to my mind was 'flaccid' but that's not the way to describe how you feel when you are getting over being sick, so I told him 'droopy, limp, or lifeless'

Flaccid

Another of my favorite sentences:

Vocabulary : Rundown

"I met a people very cute and beautiful, but after three years she's run down."

The other day I got in my car and pushed my "start" button. It didn't start. I immediatly thought, 'Great- what do you do when a hybrid doesn't start? It's not like you can ask your neighbhor for a jump- we'd all be electricuted.' So-- I pushed the button a few more times and wondered how I would get to work.

Before I remembered that I had AAA, I realized I hadn't put the key in the ignition.

I'm greatly looking forward to 5 days off for Thanksgiving. I'm feeling a little stressed with the sudden change of position. Did I mention I'm the Reading Instructor now?

Five students in a class of 13 told me they had never read a book before. In their lives- even in their own languages. That hurt my soul.

I'm knitting a shawl from some yarn I bought while I was in India. It is called 'sari silk' yarn. It is made from recycling the remnants of sari silk. This is one of the 'cottage industries' which are all over India and other underdeveloped countries. Usually women who have to support their families work at a craft house to supply trinkets, souvenirs and exports which represent their region or country.

There are many kinds of sari silk yarn, and it is, like many cottage industry products, all the rage in the West now. I bought two kinds, the fine spun and the rough spun. If I remember correctly the fine spun is done by machine and the rough spun by hand. The fine spun intertwines colors, the fibers are more uniform and the texture consistent. On the rough spun the colors don't gradually blend- they suddenly jump from chartreuse to orange to white, aqua, red, yellow (interlude forest green) ok orange again. The textures are many and there is really no uniformity in color, fiber, texture or tightness of the ravel.

So, with this second yarn I'm making a shawl. This shawl is in every way representative of India. The colors are blinding-combining in ways that are at the same time unsightly and amazing. It's awful but attractive. It looks old like it was made 100 years ago- at the same time impossibly- magically vibrant. It's made (and looks to be made) of rags, throw a ways, trash- but the feel of it, there is a satisfaction and luxury in the weight and texture of the silk.

These are the puzzles of India. The age, the beauty, the colors, the textures of life where rags and riches aren't separated- they live together-blending to make a whole which is blinding, unsightly, awful, amazing, vibrant, magic, amazing.

I think I need a samosa.

Apparently the new roach bate is delicious- Buzz keeps trying to eat it.

Great- now the dog is eating to roach bate and the roaches are eating the dog food.

Last night I had a funny dream.
I don't know what it was, but it was hilarious. I woke up thinking, "I wonder if I was smiling in my sleep." In my dream I was cracking up!
It was something about Danny Devito and Simon Baker (The guy from the TV show The Mentalist) a moustache and a Slurpee.
I don't know why those things were funny.

The roaches and I are at it again. I've taken on several new strategies- roach spray, powder, motels, hotels, creams, gels and lotions. Okay, no lotions, but there's probably one on the market.
Yesterday I bought "lemon scented Raid" "Kills on contact!" I was skeptical- but what the heck? It couldn't smell any worse than normal scented. To my surprise- lemon scented Raid really does smell lemony-good. The "kills on contact" is not quite true. It does kill them, but sometimes it takes a few sprays. I know I spray too much product- but I want to see them die before my very eyes- I don't want them slinking away to die- or maybe not die . . . So- I spray until they flip over and start kicking their tiny little death kick.

Much to the dog's dismay I have started vacuuming up roaches. I figure if I see one, there's more hiding where ever he came from, so I just leave the vacuum ready to suck them up to their deaths. I hope they die chocking and gasping for air-drowning in dust. I hope they don't just get in there and think, "hey cool! a nice dark place to copulate!" Then crawl out later when I'm not looking. I've seen no evidence of roach escape so far.

Buzz goes into fits every time I turn the vacuum on. He won't just go and hide as one might expect, he has to run around in circles and keep coming back to see where the vacuum is- then run away so it doesn't get him, then come back and check . . . I wonder if he's checking to see if I'm okay- maybe he's not just afraid of getting sucked up himself, but afraid that I might also get sucked up- I don't know what's going on in his little doggie brain.

So- I hate teaching modals- trying to explain why must, have to, have got to and had better are the same - but really different gives me a head ache.

Here's the only thing that perked the experiance up a bit- I had talked about using must for logical conclusions. Like, "You stayed up all night? You must be tired." I gave them a statement, and they were supposed to give me a logical conclusion.

I wrote: "You see a licence plate that says, "LDY DOC" what conclusion can you make about the driver?"

One student wrote: "The driver must see a lot of girls everyday."

I said, "Why did you make that conclusion?"
He said, "Don't you have doctors who only see ladies here? He must see lots of them every day."
I said, "Uh- yeah, that's not what I was thinking, but yes . . . ok I don't want to talk about this."

Another one was, "Shannon has a pink computer bag, a pink purse and a pink backpack."

One student answered, "Shannon must be fancy."

Indeed.