Today was a nice, mellow day. We were assigned a village called Piase. Last year, the static clinic that they set up in this area was very busy. Sure enough, our morning was busy as well, but again, in a very feast-or-famine manner. We’d sit for 20 minutes with absolutely nothing to do, and then three people would appear, one…
I’ve always been a fan of comedy, and the 1980s were a golden age. This is a well-researched book about many of the groundbreaking comedians of the era, and how they made the transition from television to film, changing the face of cinematic comedy forever. Filled with juicy stories about Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, John Candy,…
Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata. A short little novel about a young Japanese girl, Keiko who, as a child, was pretty weird. At the age of 18, in an attempt to be more normal, she gets a job at a convenience store, and the store becomes her entire life. She mimics the speech patterns and clothing style of her…
Tuesday has always been the most nondescript day of the week, and this applies to Ghana as well, apparently, because today really bordered on being “routine”. I guess I’ve really grown accustomed to things here, because objectively it was amazing as usual. I had an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then went to base camp as usual to load up…
Alas, the lovely weekend has ended, and it’s back to work again. We had breakfast, and then drove to our base camp as usual to restock our bags with supplies. I started the day with my second post-exposure rabies vaccine, due to that dog bite I received last Thursday. Ironically, the dog bite I received saved me a little money…
A juvenile book with clichéd subject matter, boring characters, and an idiotic premise and plot. The big plot twist halfway through the book was unimpressive. The main character, Flynn, became more irritating as the book progressed; by the end, I really didn’t give a damn about what happened to him. The quality of the writing was just abysmal. After I…
After a busy (but fun) week of vaccinating dogs, we were rewarded with a bit of free time. Originally we were going to do some horseback riding on Saturday and then drive into Kumasi to see the huge market, but we were told that Sunday was probably not the best day to see the market, as this is a very…
I’m a huge Monty Python fan, and Cleese has always been my favorite (just edging out Michael Palin). Last year, I read his autobiography, and I loved it. In 1999, Cleese became a professor-at-large at Cornell University, and was so popular that he secured a permanent position as the provost’s visiting professorship. In this role, he has given talks and…
Today marked the end of the first week. I woke up this morning with my bite wound looking great. There was no oozing overnight, no swelling, no pain, nothing. I shaved and showered, and put on a band-aid, and that was that. Tomorrow I don’t think I’ll even need a bandage on it. This morning at our base, we stocked…
One of the things I had to get used to when I retired was not having a regular routine. My workday used to be pretty structured. When I retired, it took me a while to formulate a new routine. The fact that Mark had to still wake up every morning at 5:20 a.m. dictated the start of my day. I…
Last year I read Chee’s book, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, a collection of essays. I enjoyed some of them, and wasn’t crazy about some others. I thought I’d give him another shot and read his first novel, Edinburgh, which received good reviews. The book was pretty intense, tackling the heavy topic of pedophilia and sexual abuse and the…
I’m sure we’re in for more stock market volatility. For example, I checked the MSNBC app last night, and stock market futures were plunging. The Dow was down 900 points. As I type this, however, the Dow is up over 400 points. That’s a huge swing. If the market closed with a 1000 point gain today, or a 1000 point…