Well, it's a short post this time. I'm tired, and I can't fall asleep at night, which only makes it worse. In brief, I had a very nice birthday - 4 days of celebrating (whoa...too much). Thanks for the many Facebook messages, emails, etc. I will get around to most of those, but it will take me a while. I've had all of about 30 minutes of free time since last Monday. I forgot how busy these first couple of weeks are. But this weekend will begin the National Holiday, which means I'll have a week off. Rick and I will travel to Tianjin, so I once again won't have much time to catch up with folks, but I'll do my best to find some time in there. Just forgive me. More free time is coming - I promise :)
Main thought/request - I really am having trouble sleeping. presently, out of the last 7 nights, 5 of them have involved long, long periods of trying to fall asleep, followed by waking up time after time during the night. Today the sleep deprivation really hit me. Even as I'm typing, my eyes are glazing over and my head starts to nod. Please keep me in your prayers. I'm not sure if this is a physical thing only or if there is also a spiritual aspect to it, but it does make my work pretty difficult.
The only side benefit - I do get some pretty strange dreams. Last night in my dream, a friend and I were deciding what we would do in the future, and we decided that we would form a band called Melvin de Celica, and our first hit song would be the sequel to Baby Got Back - aptly named Baby Got Back (Again). However, before we could carry out this most noble of plans, we came across a group of animals we were not familiar with. They were a blend of chicken and flamingo, and they were infused with a touch of jive. They also could talk, and their leaders were named Lamont and Cointreau. They seemed to think my friend and I were a threat to them, so they all started yelling at L & C that something needed to be done. So some of them came over to us, knocked us down and started pecking at us. But before they could do much damage, they had to have a dance break. Some crazy funk/jive music started playing, and all their necks and knees started a-boogey-in'. It was really quite bizarre and entertaining. But I woke up again before I could see the outcome.
Now I have to get ready to teach. Hope you enjoyed the story. I'll be back soon, hopefully.
