Happy New Year!

Hey, Happy Birthday David! hehe
and Happy Anniversary (you know who you are!)
Well, now it is officially 2008. Andy and I didn't do much for New Years. We hung out with another volunteer for a little bit, but then came back home. Andy had bought these little fireworks at a bitik in Sera Kunda when we were there for Christmas, and he had about 2 left. He set them off, and the kids stood around and watched. It was funny though, because it was only 10 o'clock. After that took 2 seconds, (the grandma aka: Mama, cheered for Andy when he set off the fireworks and thanked him as she sat in her normal spot on the porch. It was funny.), we went inside our house and tried to stay awake till 12, which we successfully did by making some tea and eating some stollen Andy's mom sent us (Thank You! For everything!).

I have been busy working on various things for work. I have all my lessons completed and typed, along with my syllabus. This term, I had to find a solution to the problem of having 350 plus students, and needing to get information to them to read. Because the college doesn't have textbooks, that usually could be dealt with by giving handouts, but there is no way I could make that many copies. On top of all that, I don't have a permanent office here at the college (still haven't found that empty closet I could fit a desk in!) So I have decided to make a binder, put some copies of the articles in sheet protectors and have the binder up at the library. The students will be able to sign out the article they need, make any notes they want, return it for others to use during the week before they see me again, and it will be available during more hours that I would even be if I did have an office.
The school term starts next week. It seems like it is going to be hard to get back into the groove of going to work, because of all the holidays, plus the randomly declared national holidays here. I am apprehensive about the new term (not really sure I have it in me to teach another term!) but at the same time, when I go through what I have planned I am optimistic that it will be a good learning experience for the students at the college and that it will work out. It reminds me of the phenomenon like when you hike up a mountain or some other physically and/or mentally painful event (childbirth comes to mind, though not from experience!) and you tend to forget all that pain once you are past it, and you want to climb another mountain! (or have another child!)

Andy went to the beekeepers late the other night. They went at night to harvest honey at the bee's calmest time, but he still ended up with 20 plus stings in various places, but came home very excited about it, and I think exhilarated by finally getting to experience the harvesting. Along with the excitement, he also brought home a cup of freshly harvested honeycomb. Yum!
And, Dad, he got some use out of the sun hat you sent me, it is apparently great for wearing under the bee suit!
Well, I feel like I'm kind of running on fumes with what to say here, so, questions/comments would probably do some good from you readers. *It is amazing how normal everything feels here, how if someone came to visit, it would take me a while to realize something wasn't normal for them in any given situation here. So, being that way, it is harder to come up with "interesting" things to write about.

Wish me luck for the start of classes next week!
Later.