Woke up for Fajr this morning dead tired. Why? Because I’m a genius. I stayed up until 12:30 making my English Night prizes (with glitter, beads, cardboard, sequins, a glue gun, MWAHAHAA!!! Oh, and I et the egg.) and then I suddenly remembered that I had work in the morn. So then I was up until 3 am doing grammar sheets and class work.

So, when the alarm clock went off for Fajr at 4:45, I shuffled to the prayer rug, prayed, and then fell asleep after dua in sajdah position. Then I woke up at 5:30, disoriented and confused about what the heck I was doing sleeping with my face on the floor. It wasn’t all that bad, except both of my legs had gone completely numb.

I staggered back into bed and then woke up at 9:45, precisely two minutes before I was supposed to leave for work. I skulled a cup of lukewarm coffee and ran out the door trailing a wrinkly scarf and grammar sheets in my wake. The moral of this story? Be nice to your English teachers, they’re morons just like the rest of you. And if they sound like they’re tired and don’t know what they’re talking about, assume it’s because they are esoteric geniuses and you’re just too dense to know what they’re talking about.

What else was I going to blog about? Oh yeah, I’ve been teaching my students proverbs in English, and learning theirs in return. I learned some new ones to add to my repertoire.

The mouse cannot fit into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail. Means: You can’t even do the basics (fit in the hole) and now you’re trying to do the impossible. (fit a broom into the hole too) For example:

Techno-Twit: “Don’t worry, I’ll fix your blog up and give you some spiffy special effects!”
Joe Shmoe: “Fix my blog? You haven’t even fixed your OWN blog! The mouse cannot fit himself into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail.”

The chicken has one leg. This is used when a person is lying outright. It’s the equivalent of, “Yeah, and I’m Mary, Queen of Scots.”

Quasimodo: “I am not only the best looking person in this room, I am also the cleanest, richest, and best-smelling.”
Joe Shmoe: “Of course. And the chicken has one leg.”

They have tons of cool proverbs in Ibo, a Nigerian language. You’ll find dozens of them in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a tragic but excellently written book.

The old woman laughs uneasily when you joke of dry bones.
The sun shines on he who stands before it stand on he who kneels.
Like the lizard who jumped from the high Iroko tree, I will praise myself if no one else does.
Eneke the bird says: since men have learned to shoot without missing, I have learned to fly without perching.
If a child washes his hands he can eat with kings.

Ug. I’m going brain-dead. Trying to remember these proverbs has sapped my brain of what little energy was available. I think I’ll pray Asr and go crash on the sofa. That is, if I don’t fall asleep on the floor first...

“And your Lord has said: Pray to Me and I will hear your prayer.” -The Holy Qur’an, 40:60

posted by Abez @ 5/09/2003 05:30:00 PM