Mary was a bit on edge earlier this week I think because of the class time I missed to get my parasite issue sorted out. So she was intent on having me do some of the lecture—on the time value of money and basic bond math. She had been talking about stocks recently and I thought the students still seemed a little confused about them. So I spent Wednesday morning trying to help them develop intuition about what a stock exchange was and what it meant to hold stock and then on to what bonds were and the differences. It went really well. Dr. J even said, “Mr. Jon this morning gives a very interesting lecture—the students are much interested.” Well, then in the afternoon I tried to go into calculating bond discounts and premiums, along with some other time value of money work, and I lost everyone pretty fully. “This is so many new words,” Dr. J whispered, “I think you must slow down.”
Knowing our time is winding down, Wednesday night Mary and I decided to do a little socializing. Well, we only ended up talking to each other, albeit in a new environment. Anyway, I heard Samarqand had salsa night on Wednesdays, so we went there to check it out. It’s a restaurant on the first floor with the bar up a spiral staircase on the second. It’s a huge space with all wooden floors, tall wooden chairs and tables, and bamboo around for good measure. It was slow when we arrived and we sat at the bar for a while wondering if the place would pick up. Mary had made clear she wanted to be home by 9:30. The salsa music was blaring, but no one was really dancing. There were probably 20 people there when we walked in (2 of them female). Well, 9 rolled around and I asked Mary if she liked to dance and might want to give it a go. To my surprise, she said yes. I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to salsa, but I can usually fake it pretty well with someone who knows nothing or who knows a lot. Mary was accustomed to a jitter-bug step and I’m not really used to taking structured steps. So, it devolved into me just kind of twirling her around a bit--uncomfortable enough so that the song stopped, it was nearly 9:30, and we headed out. By that time, there were probably 60 people there, 8 female. Whenever I go out here, I’m reminded of a quote from the “Kabul After Dark” article I read—some woman who was working here said, in reference to romance here, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
I gave Weiss a few bucks for taking us to the place—he stayed out in the car and waited for us (which would have been an hour and 15 minutes or so) and then stayed overnight in the little room where the guards hang out (pictured). When we got home, I got ready for bed and worked on email a while when my cell phone rang. This is an event, because I don’t really get any calls. It was R—the president declared the next day, Thursday, a national holiday in honor of the anniversary of the day the Soviets left Afghanistan. So once again our class would be cancelled unexpectedly and at the last minute. I informed Mary, who said, “I’m not staying any longer,” crystallizing my thoughts as well. I just hope the students took Thursday to study because we’re giving them yet another test already. We’d planned to give it Saturday after they had Friday to study. Well, now it will be on Sunday and will have material on it that they learned only the day before.
Knowing our time is winding down, Wednesday night Mary and I decided to do a little socializing. Well, we only ended up talking to each other, albeit in a new environment. Anyway, I heard Samarqand had salsa night on Wednesdays, so we went there to check it out. It’s a restaurant on the first floor with the bar up a spiral staircase on the second. It’s a huge space with all wooden floors, tall wooden chairs and tables, and bamboo around for good measure. It was slow when we arrived and we sat at the bar for a while wondering if the place would pick up. Mary had made clear she wanted to be home by 9:30. The salsa music was blaring, but no one was really dancing. There were probably 20 people there when we walked in (2 of them female). Well, 9 rolled around and I asked Mary if she liked to dance and might want to give it a go. To my surprise, she said yes. I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to salsa, but I can usually fake it pretty well with someone who knows nothing or who knows a lot. Mary was accustomed to a jitter-bug step and I’m not really used to taking structured steps. So, it devolved into me just kind of twirling her around a bit--uncomfortable enough so that the song stopped, it was nearly 9:30, and we headed out. By that time, there were probably 60 people there, 8 female. Whenever I go out here, I’m reminded of a quote from the “Kabul After Dark” article I read—some woman who was working here said, in reference to romance here, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
I gave Weiss a few bucks for taking us to the place—he stayed out in the car and waited for us (which would have been an hour and 15 minutes or so) and then stayed overnight in the little room where the guards hang out (pictured). When we got home, I got ready for bed and worked on email a while when my cell phone rang. This is an event, because I don’t really get any calls. It was R—the president declared the next day, Thursday, a national holiday in honor of the anniversary of the day the Soviets left Afghanistan. So once again our class would be cancelled unexpectedly and at the last minute. I informed Mary, who said, “I’m not staying any longer,” crystallizing my thoughts as well. I just hope the students took Thursday to study because we’re giving them yet another test already. We’d planned to give it Saturday after they had Friday to study. Well, now it will be on Sunday and will have material on it that they learned only the day before.
We’ve been going pretty fast in an attempt to get as much information to the students as possible and try to honor the plan set out in the contract. The students seem to be feeling the strain and are struggling to keep up. “It is very difficult,” is a common comment, in keeping with the national pastime of complaining about ones woes (God knows they do have plenty to complain about) but I just try to tell them they’re learning more than they think they are.
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