I'm back

It's been an odd and difficult week. No school on Monday, but from Tuesday until just a few hours ago, a handful of other teachers, myself included, were in charge of supervising "teambuilding activities" at a private club in Medan from 8 in the morning until noon. There was mandatory testing for some of the students with the highest academic achievement. This was held in the school and unless specifically licensed by the educational elite of Singapore to be there, it was forbidden to be near the testing area. The school's director, a VIP most anywhere in the city and a vital member of the club, booked the site for the majority of students who would not be tested. While the day was technically shorter than the normal school day, it seemed much, much longer. Many of the activities were held outside and the week has been very hot. Students were not of a mind to pay too much attention and being heard was no small matter. Even when provided with microphones, which cracked and squealed and worked little more than half of the time, we were up against the odds. The result was chaos for the first two days and something of a less violent sort of disorganization for the last two. On top of this, each day I returned hot and sticky to a home without power. Today, too, power is out in my neighborhood. On average, it has not come back until six in the evening. I have spent a couple of afternoons at the nearby pool but am feeling quite exhausted in general. A group of teachers wanted to go out for dinner on Wednesday and J. wanted to wear a new dress, which, it turns out, meant that she wanted to go dancing, which meant that we were out until 12:30 am, which, it so happens meant not getting home until 1:30, and this, dear readers, meant that I could not sleep at all for much of the night and am still paying for it. Yesterday I tried to nap, but napping in a tropical climate without power or "aircon" is not something I've been able to pull off.

We have school tomorow--on a Saturday. The testing continues next week for Monday and Tuesday and we will working an odd and modified school day. The testing is disruptive to say the least.

I still have not been to the Grand Mosque, yesterday was planned for the visit but J. was stuck monitoring tests and I didn't want to go alone. I would suggest, for people interested, looking into the small Islamic sect of Sufiism. The Sufis are a tolerant and mystical group (they are so few that they one rarely hears about them) and believe in the obliteration of the ego and the unity between all humanity. One of the more famous Sufi writers said that, "whatever one thinks God is, it's not that." There is more to say on the matter, and there are no Sufi Mosques in Medan from which I could learn, but from what I've been reading, it seems a very positive and lovely religion. Those who know more on the subject than I might want to offer comment, I've only begun to read about this in detail. At the sametime, I've gone back to reading Kafka. That has nothing to do with anything.