C, F, L, R

True to form, it rained once or twice, late at night, and then stopped again. I awoke once at 3:30 local time, groggy but pleased. Beats the hell out of the time, only a night or two later, when I woke up to someone whistling, only to realize it was probably a mouse (same mouse? different mouse? not sure). Do mice whistle? I’m not sure.

It’s la semaine de la jeunesse, "Youth Week", here in Cameroon, and that means school is suspended in some kind of weird limbo. I think class was cancelled today so that everyone could work on clearing shrubbery from the road that goes to the lycée. Thursday too, maybe even Friday. Awesome, I guess? Fridays are the worst. Last Friday was cancelled because of bilingualism week. I got to sit on the "stage" and watch the whole performance. The first hour or two was utterly hilarious, but then it got awkward as girls from my troisième class danced. Lots of gyration and booty-shaking. And then one of them pulled me up to join her. So weird. But the rest of it was nice, especially listening the fascinating syllable-salad that came from the littler ones when they tried to speak English.

Banged out the PC report thing today. Didn’t write as much as I could have about challenges faced or the experiences of collaborating with my colleagues. Just as glad to send it off. I don’t know what’s working or what’s not, what the challenges are or how to face them. Some days every hour seems like a struggle, and I burn out after they just won’t get the hell out of my lab. But sometimes people just seem interested in learning, or prepared to think things through. None of my projects are colossal successes, but I guess what I’m lacking in quality, I make up for in passive-aggressive glares. Put that in your database, I guess.

So, summary, I’m in a weird mood and don’t feel like doing anything except reading this webcomic and failing at nutrition. Last night I ate rice, just rice, except at the last minute I decided to open one of the cans of mushrooms I bought in Bafoussam. Mushrooms of Paris, allegedly, but canned mushrooms taste like canned mushrooms. I guess that’s actually a step up from back home, where I would have eaten just rice and soy sauce. Thinking of that scene in FLCL where Naota is complaining how boring his life is and nothing ever happens in his town, as the giant iron in his hometown emits a giant cloud of steam. It’s like that, really.

If you check the weather outside

You’ll find

It’s just as I described

I’m doing fine, oh, thanks for asking

Oh work’s OK, it pays the rent

But how much more can a person ask for?

There’s always one more thing to ask for

—world of science, "is this about settling?"

And they never stop asking, either.

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