Breast Feeding Frenzy

"That looks interesting" I thought as I scrolled through the on-screen programming guide. Turns out the Discovery Channel was showing Bear Feeding Frenzy...

Get a grip!

Had my hand fixed a couple days ago. It's still in a cast so I can't type too well. The only thing worse than being practically the only white man down here is being a white man with a cast on his arm. Everyone seems concerned: they point and gesture as to say "What happened?" In my best Malayalam I tell them, "Meen chinganee" while making a petting motion. It means crocodile (gharial, to be exact)...

This and That

Oh poo, my antibiotic conservatism has backfired. After putting up with that damned gastroenteritis for a number of weeks, I finally broke down and began some antibiotic treatment a few days ago. The effect was practically miraculous: within 4 hours my belly felt normal again, so I suspect it was giardia just presenting differently than I've seen it before. But unfortunately I'd had my CBC taken before that and the WBC was elevated, so the surgeon has decided to wait a few days before doing my hand. Now I'm sitting around with a head full of Xanax and nothing much to do until Friday.



I've been in Kodaikanal for the past few days checking out whether I'd like to live and settle down there, and perhaps build or buy a hotel/restaurant. I could have been in Seattle for the weather because it rained and drizzled almost the entire time! The kodai (fog) was pretty thick too, so my sightseeing was limited to about 500 yards on a good day. It's a beautiful spot and I'd have to go back during the nice season just to see the sights. Don't think I could live there though, and heaven help me if I wanted to buy property! Not only would a good location be out of reach of my budget, but the competition is just too fierce to make a go of it.



One bright spot was a visit to the Jesuit school's natural history museum where I had a good chat with the brother in charge and seemed to impress him with my rusty knowledge of zoology and the like. I got the impression it wouldn't be too hard to secure a teaching job there like any number of other expats have done. Many seem to be Australian, for some reason. So who knows - if I get bored and restless in 10 years or so when the area's a little more developed I might go back and see if I could still swing it.



I do start teaching conversational English for a couple hours a day at a vocational school in town in a couple days. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing of course, but I pitched it to the manager as just an informal, low-pressure way for the students to practice their English and get some gentle guidance on pronunciation and grammar. As an icebreaker, I've come up with the idea of sticking a bunch of limericks on my Kindle and passing it around and having each student read one aloud. It'll give me an idea of the sounds they are having trouble with and provide some amusement, too. I had to nix the idea of dirty limericks for obvious reasons, but the silly thought of a guy saying "There once was man from Nantucket…" with an Indian accent seems permanently stuck in my head. I ran across another one which would get me fired in about thirty seconds, but I'll share it here:



One morning Mahatma Gandhi
Had a hard-on and it was a dandy.
He said to his aide,
"Please bring me a maid,
Or a goat, or whatever is handy!"