Since my last post was so long-winded, I figured I’d go in the opposite direction with this one…

At the end of March
I met my dear grandparents
down in Marrakesh

We had orange juice
for breakfast every morning
It was delicious

Another tardy blog post, eh? I kicked off 2012 in style. Whoops, did I say “in style”? I meant “in bed”. Horrible illness notwithstanding, I managed to spend a little time with family and friends in London before hopping on a plane back to Tangier.

Early January in Tangier was exciting, and not just because of the delightful weather. Not one, but two friends, Christopher and Erin, joined me in Morocco for the final week of my vacation. If I described our activities in detail, I would be sitting here on my couch, wasting beautiful Tangier sunshine for the rest of the day. Instead, here is a bulleted list.

What’s that you say? The holiday season is in full swing and you need something stimulating to work on before you sink into a sick-of-cheesy-songs-in-the-supermarket, blinded-by-tacky-yard-decorations, chocolate-induced seasonal slump? Well then, it’s a good thing you’re reading my blog.

Choose an image from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” and illustrate it through art, audio, video, or any other creative medium.

“The only things they trust are the racing ships
Posiedon gave, to sail the deep blue sea
like white wings in the sky, or a flashing thought.” (The Odyssey)

One of the perks of working in a school is getting to hear children say all sorts of silly things. Students at AST (especially the kindergartners) are fond of exclaiming, “Oh my God!” at the drop of a hat, for instance. Talking about volcanoes? “Oh my God!” Finding out that a dinosaur in a book is too tall to fit on the page? “Oh my God!” Explaining that a tomato is a fruit? “Oh my God!” I suppose our students just have a flair for the dramatic.

Week six, week six. As everyone gears up for the start of the school year, it’s become increasingly difficult to find that ideal balance between life and work. I spent long hours at school whipping the library into shape, then worked on the aforementioned secret edtech project from home most nights. This was complicated by the fact that Ramadan was followed immediately by Eid, a two-day holiday, on Wednesday and Thursday, so most of the work at school had to be put on hold until Friday.

Still, I managed to get away from my books and my PHP code every once in a while, if only out of a sense of responsibility to my readers. If I didn’t do interesting things each week, there would be nothing to write about. And definitely no photos.

I’ve been behind by a day throughout this trip, and it looks like I might finally catch up if I can knock this one out before I fall asleep. Today was our long-awaited Chinatown day. We strolled down Stockton Street and found ourselves in the midst of a bustling food market that extended several blocks in each direction. Every kind of fruit and vegetable you can imagine, seafood, dried who-knows-what, candy, tea, snacks, noodles… the list goes on. But the highlight of the day turned out to be the bizarre toys we found in bazaars and gift shops. These ranged from angry wooden toys to zombie stickers that are designed to attach to your mirror so you can pretend to be a zombie in the morning, to “handerpants”, which, as the name suggests, are underpants for your hands.

We woke up at the crack o’ dawn on Sunday to drive down to Muir Woods as soon as the park opened, and before all the tourists arrived. Choosing the path less taken every time, we found ourselves on a beautiful two-hour hike through the woods, culminating in a spectacular view across the park. Mist was still blowing through the trees, so the landscape changed every couple of minutes.

Spotted some cute banana slugs, a gaggle of chipmunks, and a couple of hawks. I also made friends with a lizard and he allowed me to get within a few inches for some excellent reptile portraits. He was missing half his tail, so perhaps his amiable demeanor didn’t work with hungry foxes and birds.

A weekend road trip took us north up the coast to Bodega Bay, where we hoped to spy some Hitchcock-esque scenes. Ironically, Bodega Bay was relatively bird-free and we had a hard time even finding a flock of birds larger than two. Not much going on in a town that I expected to be teeming with avian-themed attractions. We even attempted to find the schoolhouse from the film. Well, we found a schoolhouse circled it twice, couldn’t decide if it was the right one, and eventually left disappointed. Bodega Bay did have some redeeming characteristics, however; some beautiful piers, a couple of lone egrets, and picturesque rows of houses along the bay.

Day five, like day three, was full of nature and wildlife. The California Academy of Sciences took up most of the day, until we were kicked out at closing and hopped on a bus across town for some yummy Thai food. Then on to 13 Assassins at the historic one-screen Bridge Theater, a fun samurai flick by prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike.

As someone who can easily spend two or three hours in even the tiniest reptile exhibit, I was delighted to discover that the museum had a special “Summer of Reptiles” exhibit going on. Among many things, I got to see large and small monitor lizards, boas, camera-shy geckos, an agitated rattlesnake, and an extremely bored Burmese python. It pretty much spent its day watching small children on the other side of the glass and pondering which it would devour first, if given the chance.