Exactly How Bad Is It?

There's been a plague of bad news in the world lately: last week North Korea was testing long range missiles, this week the Mumbai train bombing, and the situation in the Middle East seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Ali's picked a funny time to be leaving Middle Earth, but he hasn't been back to the US for over a year and decided it's time for a visit. He just got a ticket for the end of August.

On Thursday the Commercial Law Department had its Mid-Winter Lunch, scheduled for 12:30 at a local Italian restaurant. Apparently, twice a year we're treated to a department luncheon. This was my first.

I'm in the middle of preparing 18 hours of lectures on NZ investment law, plus working on my last LLM paper. Next week when classes resume, I'll also be doing the Tuakana mentor thing again. In other words, I'm still keeping busy but I was happy to take time off for a nice lunch. Who knew there would be several cases of wine provided, or that it wouldn't get over until 7:30? Not that I'm complaining, it was a great time.

I'm also getting used to working weekends. Although the weather has warmed up a bit, today was pretty gray and drizzly. So it isn't a great sacrifice to stay inside. Tomorrow we'll go visit our new niece, who now has a name: Antonia Robabeh. (But she'll always be JBF 3713 to us.)

Her Daddy recently sent me a joke. I hope you enjoy as much as I did:

One morning George Bush is getting his morning
briefing from his war advisors on the situation in
Iraq.

They mention to him that 3 Brazilian soldiers were
killed in Fallujah yesterday, to which George responds,
"What? That's terrible..." and sinks down in his chair
with his head in his hands.

His advisors are very surprised, having told him about
the deaths of hundreds of Americans before and not having
seen much reaction. Yet now George is almost in
tears over the deaths of 3 Brazilians, so the advisors
just sit there in stunned silence.

Finally, George lifts his head up and says "Well, a
brazillion sounds like a pretty big number, but
exactly how many is it?"

Cheers,
Sandie