the rains subside for a few hours and the sun comes out. the trees all sparkle with their newly formed leaves and the grass shines brilliantly green. outside the air is not cold but not yet warm. it feels soft inside. the sun reflects and glistens off of everything once rain soaked. it bounces off of my sloping driveway right into my eyes.

behind out house the grass is soft and cool. i took my shoes off a long time ago and am content just walking around looking at the trees and the sky. the ground is hard under my feet. i can still feel twigs and roots. they aren’t pleasant but remind me that i’m alive.

birds swoop from branch to the ground and hop about. they look concerned. squirrels hop high and far in order to escape the wet grass outside. they look absurdly built but agile. they spastically move and scratch at the earth.

i continue my walk on this wonderful spring day. the church graveyard stares down at me and reminds me that one day i won’t be here. my feet are still wet though and none of that matters now.

heat all around. the air is so thick that you move through it slowly. the sun beats down and off of the pavement and cooks you from all angles. your face is constantly pounded with heat-waves. you can feel them pulse. the instant you walk outside you long for the shady comfort of home. nothing can prepare you for this heat.

we drove our bicycles to breakfast this morning about an hour before noon. we couldn’t believe how hot it was. our legs moved slowly, like pudding, and our faces were twisted in pain. the heat boils the blood, it melts the skin, it singes the hair.

we had lunch slowly and peacefully. even inside, under a swiveling, rusty fan, we were hot. we walked back to our bicycles. the seats were on fire.

i have never experienced heat like this. the only other time i can imagine is when i was baking cookies and bread with my mother. reaching down and opening the oven, sticking your hand in there and waiting for the heat to rush up to your face, pulling out the warm food and quickly shutting the door again. that’s the only time i’ve ever experienced this kind of heat.

my sink fell off of the wall. well, it didn’t fall off, i did have something to do with it.

this morning i went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and what not. i hobbled into the bathroom and glanced briefly at my swollen, well-rested face. another day. i had finished brushing my teeth and leaned up close to my foot-wide mirror. it sets a bit behind the sink and one can’t really see well for picking zits and what not.

my right hand rested on the sink. the sink always looked quite formidable and seemed to be quite sturdy. if you looked at it from a distance all seemed quite normal. however, when it was touched, it had an unnerving habit of moving.

i must have put a bit too much pressure on the right side. it was supporting a bit of my weight nicely. then there was that moment when everything goes remarkably wrong. all of the sudden nothing was supporting my hand. all of the sudden all the laws of physics were thrown out the window. i started to fall towards the mirror and my left hand caught me. the sink floated to the ground and shattered. the sink floated in silence. my heart raced.

i stood over the maimed carcass and nothing made sense. what had i done. how would i explain this to anyone. water was spraying everywhere.

i began to tape the hose up and was soon covered with water. i took a shower and plotted.

one of my friends in the foreign language center asked me to come over and have breakfast. it was perfect timing. i explained to him what happened and he promised to get it fixed right away.

i came home and was greeted by a small man who was going to repair my sink. he came in, assessed the damage and said he was going to get another sink while i cleaned up.

he came in with my new sink. my old sink was small, sleek and white. my new sink looked like it came out of a world war two submarine. it was covered in dirt and stained yellow. it was large and square and thin.

he attached it in about ten minutes. the drain fixture was too big on my “new” sink so he had to “adjust” it. the fixture was plastic and the wall mounting was metal. it involved him lighting a small fire with toilet paper on my bathroom floor and melting the plastic until he could force the drain into the wall.

i have a new sink and it doesn’t shimmy when i touch it. i’m quite happy.

how do people think?

in english lit class we talk about themes. i’m always trying to have the students think critically. i want them to analyze the theme and decide what they believe and why.

the theme we worked with yesterday was, “if everyone believes something it’s not always right”, or something to that effect. it basically stated that, if the masses concur, they can be fallible. i thought it was a fairly simple theme and there wouldn’t be too much room for discussion.

the first three students who stood up said that they disagreed with the theme. at first it caught me off guard. they believed that the masses were always right. they didn’t have any facts to back up their argument even though i pushed them. the next group of students to stand up agreed with the theme and backed up their opinions with a wide variety of facts. “galileo believed the earth circled the sun and not the other way around. everyone else was wrong and galileo was right.” “people used to think the earth was flat but now we know it’s round. someone had to be the first person to believe it.” and so on.

i was surely shocked that some of the students did not agree with the theme. i tried to put myself in their shoes and argue their position but kept running into walls. this is a pretty good demonstration of how society here is changing. half of the students still adhere to the old tenants and the other half are moving in a different direction.

i find it all interesting.

april fools day. i never thought the day would be celebrated all the way over here. how do things like that happen anyway?

jack and i decided to play a joke on two of our classes. he was teaching a listening class and i was teaching an english lit course at the same time. we decided to switch classes and make up elaborate lies and then have a good laugh with everyone.

i walked into the listening class disheveled and rushed. i really wasn’t but pretended to be. it all felt like i was on a small vietnamese stage. i told the students that jack had just asked me to teach his class and i didn’t really know what to teach. one of his friends had come to visit him from america and jack decided to skip out on all of his afternoon classes. i stood in front of the room and talked about how irresponsible it was of jack to skip out. i told everyone how disappointed i was with him. the kids ate it up.

we proceeded with the class for a few minutes and i fumbled around with the lesson plan jack had given me. they were going to listen to a lecture and i had them reading a preview of it when i received a mystery guest. i started talking to someone outside and they asked me to come out of class. there was no one there but the students couldn’t tell. i left and said i would be back in a minute or two. i rushed over to my english lit class.

i walked into the english lit class looking very miserable. they had just taken a test and the reason jack gave for having to teach them today was that i was very disappointed with them. they had all done poorly on the test and i didn’t have the will to teach them anymore. jack was taking over from here. the kids felt terribly.

we ended the joke and yelled, “april fools!” the students sat for a bit wondering how they should react. they murmured for a bit and then, after jack and i said, “it’s a joke!”, they started laughing and clapping. they had all fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

jack returned to his listening class and the students were surprised to see him. they had all fallen for it too.

i guess i should learn my lesson and not play jokes on gullible people but it was too much to resist. the students didn’t know how to react and believed every word we said. one girl came up to me after class and said, “i didn’t think you would lie to us.” it wasn’t a judgmental statement. she said it more like she was slightly surprised.

well, i don’t know if i would do it again.