The Five-Star Cycle, Please

This month we returned to the classroom. We opened on 8th July, following Saba Saba (Seven Seven), a national holiday here and a day reserved for an international trade fair - an event mixing something near the magnitude of the Calgary Stampede with the organization of your local county fair; a very dangerous mixture. We made it to the event after being turned away in the morning from one of the local prisons. We had gone to visit a friend who was visiting a little longer, but the guards turned us away saying we needed to check with our respective embassies prior to entering the facility. We have yet to get our passports cleared, but I remain skeptical that even then will we be granted entry. Perhaps another story for another day.

The second week of the semester Gonzaga played host to a group of students from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. They were midway through a three-week immersion trip in Tanzania and volunteered as teaching assistants for the week. It was nice to have another group of students with whom to reflect and to share the experience. Since they departed, school has begun to settle into its groove. I was reminded before the semester began to not be discouraged when my students returned to school empty-headed (it happens everywhere, I was reassured). However, my students in both Standards Three and Five are doing well and have retained more information than I think I taught last semester. Most importantly, it only took them a day to reacquaint their ears to my Canadian accent and so we are flying along now studying the past simple tense and the metric system!

I recently had what I believe to be my first five-star laundry experience. As I sit like Peter Pan rubbing soap on my shadow (or pants, in this case), I have much time to ponder life's bigger questions and so recently I came up with this five-star rating system.

The first star is based on the amount of laundry you wash. The litmus test: did I get it all done? The second star is earned if at the end of the experience you look at your knuckles and they are not bleeding or oozing. You win another star if while washing your clothes, you can say (honestly) to yourself, "Yeah, I am being effective today. These clothes feel clean." This is not always a given for as anyone who has handwashed a lot of laundry can attest, somedays the clothes just seem to stay dirty. Now we are down to our last two stars and these are in Mother Nature's hands, although you can plan for this next star. Did the laundry avoid the "extra rinse cycle" (i.e. rain) thereby avoiding picking up that odd rain-residue smell? If so, tack on yet another gold star. Now the final variable and by far the most unpredictable. As you remove your clothes from the line and inspect the day's work, to put it plainly, do you see any crow shit? No? Not today? Then you win the final star! As was the case this past Saturday, I managed to pick up all five stars and so for at least a little while, I can feel good about the shirt I wear on my back.

I hope all is going well back home and that summer is passing with fine weather, good barbeques, and a few ballgames here and there. I am thinking of you all and praying for you. I only ask that you think of me every now and again as you take a dip in the Shediac Bay!