Thursday March 15

I woke up before the alarm again. We did another work shop today. This one might have been a little too difficult. I think I am going to work hard to simplify the coming lectures. So far all reports I received regarding the work ethic of Afghanis have failed to materialize. My students are, for the most part, working really hard. Thursday is a half day (one of the students said TAIT – “Thank Allah its Thursday” – John is thinking about opening up a chain of restaurants with that name). We left at 12:30. John forgot his coat, and we went back. They were all still there working hard on their lecture. They are far more attentive than nearly any American class I have had.

I got interviewed this morning. IRD (International Relief and Development) sent a reporter. He was really polite and articulate. I could tell he was leading with his questions, but I was happy to follow. He took some pictures of the class and asked John and I some questions. Memorable ones were:
“Would you come back to Afghanistan?” –Yes, I really like Kabul
“What is your message or vision for our country?” – I don’t really have one. The Afghani engineers have a much better idea of what is going on than I do. I am happy to help in any way that I can.
To John “What message would you have for the Afghan engineers?” John – Keep at it and be patient. Things are getting better.

We just found out that Wednesday and Thursday next week are holidays. (Wednesday is new year and if a holiday falls 1 day away from Friday they get the day in between off. Now the RAS class has to go from 7 days to 5 days. In a sense, this is good given the two other recent developments: full day classes and Jon Fenske not being able to come. At this point, less is going to be better. Spent the afternoon reading about snowmelt. It is too important a process here to leave it out…but I knew next to nothing going in. I’ve been hitting it hard and fortunately it is interesting.

Tomorrow is my first day off in like 12 days. I will have to work for some of it but we also have plans for some fun.

We went home at 5. If we stay and eat at AID we can’t leave until like 7 because the drivers eat from 5:30 to 6:30+. This is usually not a problem because of all of the printing, prepping and e-mail we have to do. But this was our only free night, so we decided to eat dinner at the facility across from our place. When we got home, though, we weren’t hungry. So we went to the gym first. That’s three days in a row. It is a good gym. They have a press machine that is at just the right angle to not hurt my shoulder.

After dinner I set up to count sand. I counted for a couple hours (4 bags) and then read journal papers for an hour (I ended up reading 4). It was a really productive evening of stuff I hoped to accomplish if the class wasn’t so demanding. I’m sure I could have been a more exciting partner for John on a Thursday night, but I am running out of time before the baby comes. I feel like I am getting a good handle on the turbulence and dilation comments that my paper reviewers wanted to see. (I need to talk about the turbulent Reynolds Shear component –u’w’ bar).

I read a little Williams and was asleep by 10:00.