Much ado about nothing. That about sums up the week. It feels good to be home. The trip and visitors were great, but it just feels good to sit around and reintegrate slowly back into life in PE. That's about all we have been doing this week. No real exciting adventures or challenges. Just phasing back into living. This is an aspect of life we have become quite accustomed to. Every summer we take off for a couple of months to spend time up in the Northport area. Part of that summer vacation benefit we get being linked with a university. A long time ago I once heard someone say that it is important to make sure you barter with what is of importance to you. What I interpreted that to mean is to understand what is your unit of currency and use that as your factor for determining how to spend time, what you should be paid, etc. After a 4-year stint with IBM, I realized that my unit of currency is time. I buy and sell in terms of time. Most likely has to do with the modeling I received as a child, where my father was a university professor who also had time as a unit of currency. IBM reminded me that time is my currency. I will never be a millionaire with money. But that's okay. We are used to spending a lot of time away from home and work and having to reintegrate when the time periods come to an end. So, this week was spent reintegrating back into a routine of daily living.
PE is much the same as it was when we started our current adventure a month ago. What we have noticed is that saddam is no longer in the papers or on the news. Zip. Zilch. Seems like he just sort of dried up and blew away. Maybe he moved into osama's penthouse suite in Miami Beach, Vegas, or wherever he's hiding away. At any rate, I guess the "mighty" republican guard was once again pummeled. No more killing of innocent Iraqis for saddam. Sounds like we haven't found him though. It is interesting that this SARS disease coincides with the start of the Iraqi conquest. Could this be one of saddam's "weapons of mass destruction?" I haven't heard that theory yet but am waiting for it to arise. But then again, we didn't hear much about any of the Iraqi "war" or don't hear about SARS. Neither of the two seems to be of major concern here in South Africa.
We passed our halfway mark last week, meaning we have been here 93 days and have 93 more to go. It seems hard to believe we have been here over 3 months. We look back and realize that we've had a chance to do so much while here, most of which we attribute to the energy, excitement, and planning of the de Jagers. We haven't really made any other friends, other then the kids' friends at school and a few acquaintances. The de Jagers have been our sole support system and best friends here. It has been great just spending time with them. A close friend once shared with me that there are 21 people in his life and the rest are just sucking his air. Not sure if I am in that 21 or not, but that's another story. Anyway, the point is that as we go through life there are only a handful that really touch your life who will be in your memories on your deathbed. For us, the de Jagers are there.
It's been a restful week. Just in time as we move into our second half of this visit ready and willing for more adventures.
