Clemson is 6-0!!! I ran this week for the first time in a few weeks due to excessive traveling and the rainy season. My time was slow and I only kept up a jog through the first 6 miles but I'm hoping to be back to smoothly knocking out 8 in no time. I'm considering the half marathon at the Jinja Source of the Nile Marathon next May. Once I'm back to my 8 mile regular run I'll start researching and training more seriously.
Neutrals:
Neither a high or a low, but a very neutral and worthy compromise. I am no longer a fan of the New York Yankees in any way. I renounce them and am exclusively a supporter of the Texas Rangers. In Return... I will never have to listen to any positive comments or allegiance to the Dallas Cowboys from a certain North Texan, who is now a light supporter of the New York Giants.
Lows:
I can't stop picking at the callouses caused by my Chacos and as a result I have exposed flesh sores on the sides of my feet. I burned my finger lighting a cheap match the other day; cheap flint material stuck to my finger as I struck it and just burned there for about 2 seconds. Did not get to listen to Clemson dominate Boston College because of poor internet reception. I'll have to arrange to be in a big city for the North Carolina and GT games.
What I Did:
Read a lot, worked on some admin stuff for Peace Corps, and taught a LifeSkills class.
What Is On The Agenda:
More lifeskills, rolling out some new project ideas with my org, trying to push forward on the mudstoves at my school, and more admin stuff for Peace Corps. I'm working on an application for a training committee for Peace Corps. It is a complete waste of time because like everything Peace Corps does they just keep trying to re-invent the wheel over and over instead of just greasing the perfectly good wheel they have. I'm missing working in a structured environment where there are procedures that everyone is aware of. It took years just to get a feel for basic procedures at my old company, but I and everyone else is only here two years. That structure and logical order just never gets formed here.
Ugandan Annoyance of the Week:
"Master? Master?"
One of the teachers lives in the unit next to mine and I hear people coming in all the time saying "Master? Master?" looking for him. Apart from the obvious cultural uncomfortableness created from having Africans saying "Master" all the time is the annoyance that comes from Ugandans repeating things unending until they are answered. The other day a girl sat in the room for 3-5 minutes and must of said "Master" 20 to 30 times.
Reflection:
I was walking to the secondary school this week to pick up applications for Boys and Girls leadership camps Peace Corps volunteers are hosting in December. A man approached me saying "treatment" over and over. He pointed to his feet and I saw that he had no toe-nails. I told him "I don't have" and continued on. The incident just reinforced how pissed off I am at the Peace Corps. I'm a health volunteer assigned to orphanage / vocational school. I have no responsibilities and my organization has no aspirations other than to receive more money. Peace Corps Uganda has no Wat San program but brings in volunteers anyway. From a work standpoint I just wish the assholes in the office had taken another Health Volunteer and let me go to a country that has a Wat San program.
What I'm Reading:
This week I read two short stories and a novel. Early in the week I knocked out Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. It was decent, but left me with the same impression I had of Hemingway in high school when I read A Farewell to Arms, 'this guy is over-rated.'
Mid week I knocked out the third installment of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, The Waste Lands. I'm really enjoying Dark Tower but am going to be walking away from it for a little while. Many of King's other works crossover and touch the Dark Tower series and I want to get a better appreciation for what is going to happen in the later part of the series, so I'm delving into a couple other King works, namely, The Stand and Salem's Lot. It won't give me the appreciation of a fan who read Dark Tower and King over the 30 years it was being published but will, I believe, enhance the reading experience.
After knocking out DT3 I decided to take on another short story and pad my finished list a bit. I read Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. I'm really enjoying re-discovering Steinbeck and will probably end up reading some more of him while here. His foreshadowing is both obvious and beautiful. I enjoyed the characters and story development in East of Eden a lot more, but East of Eden is a 25 hour read, Of Mice and Men is an easy 4 hours!!!
I've knocked out the first chapter of Stieg Larson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest and am going to start reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay along with it. Kav and Clay is a physical book and is large so I won't travel with it, but will read it at site.
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