Feeling sad. I was going through my email log and found messages from my friend Doug, the guy who committed suicide last year. They were messages about waiting to hear if they were going to be able to adopt a child from Asia. He was so excited. What happened?

My classes are fun. Last week we had to do our presentation on Patricia Grace and the Maui Mythos. The other students have each had to do presentations and more are yet to come. But I think we did pretty good. The others we've seen so far have been cut off when they ran out of time. The were all young, nervous, and hesitant. In our group we had two people who are used to working from the stage and three of us are, uh, middle-aged. we left embarrassment far behind us.

So we grabbed them and pulled them along showing them a slide show and speaking of the history of NZ and the Maoris and a few of the myths of Maui-Potiki. Toni had the job of getting the audience to answer five questions about the presentation, kind of a "what did you learn?" She put one question on a sheet of paper and included instructions for the work they had to do.

We took too long on Monday so the professor made us do it again on Wednesday. I think she really liked it. Those of you who have been on stage with me know that I do not sit quietly while someone else is introducing their piece. The young guy was nervous so I called out to him that the audience was unarmed, I'd checked.

We had a pretty good time.

This weekend I have to go to the annual Language Arts Conference which starts this afternoon and runs all day Saturday. My instructor wants us to attend five of the breakout sessions and write up a reflection on each. It should be fun. I may see some of my former co-workers and friends.

Shawna continues to impress. This morning I stepped out on to the carport in time to see to of the neighbor's dogs trying to sneak past the house. I stepped back into the house for the BB gun and snapped a shot at them. Shawna took off chasing them off. She then hung out at the end of her territory, took an obnoxious leak, and came trotting home. She comes when called. This is amazing because she was alone for all those years.