Funnyquote Friday

Your quote for today comes from my fellow PCV and friend from Halfway Tree, referring to her internet connection:

"If the wire reaches everywhere in your house, 

it counts as wireless."

Well said by someone who carries a generous portion of the requisite Peace Corps optimism.

I am enjoying full-fledged DSL internet at my apartment, finally.  And the plumber came by one morning this week and fixed my hot water knob in the shower.  And I cooked for myself again!  So I am riding high on the shower tower of Skype hype and flour power.

I cooked on Tuesday, this time I fried some eggplant I purchased at the Basseterre market, which opens about three mornings a week and one afternoon when the produce boat from Grenada comes in.  The inspiration came from another time gone by when friends Patrick, P.J. and I found ourselves on campus for summer semester and the need to cook.  Patrick's favorite dish is none other than Eggplant Parmesan, and we teamed up to produce a satisfactory portion for dinner and, in the process, set the smoke alarms off in a deserted Freshman dormitory.  So the Atlanta Fire and Rescue got to appreciate our cooking as well!  I still remember the cooking instructions, and so I used that experience to guide an attempt at fried eggplant with sauteed vegetables on white rice with lentils.  Success?  Let's just say it was infinitesimally better than... edible.

I picked up some passion fruit at the market as well, and am waiting on a friend to show me the right way to juice them.  In case the reader does not know or forgets, this is what the inside of a passion fruit looks like:

So part of the fun of juicing passion fruit is holding back one's gag reflex in the process.  But the end result is so worth it, it comes at an easy cost.

The commercial was a success.  And more importantly, the ensuing Healthy Breakfast Cereal sale was demonstrably successful, to the point that the students ran out of cereal to sell within the first hour of opening.

Progress at my primary attachment, the National Skills Training Programme, is progressing, if slowly.  I am loosely scheduled to submit the fully revised copy of our new career development material by the middle of November, so more updates are sure to follow this month with regard to the reception of my suggested changes and added clip art.  Following that, I'll put together some interview materials to be used to gather post-service information from previous clients of the NSTP, eventually culminating in statistics and success stories to be used towards acquiring funding.  Also on the docket: setting up data collection systems to accommodate these new data, as well as transferring a large portion of the NSTP's stock of manuals and textbooks to electronic form for accessibility and preservation purposes.

I ran again this morning, making it the third time this week and in three different directions.  This time, I took the dirt road that parallels the main road going west from Mattingly, and ran all the way until I was North-South even with a visible cell tower on a mountain, a displacement of about 1.75 miles by my estimation, whereupon I came across a donkey that was hogging the whole passable portion of the trail.  So I turned around and ran back.