Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist

A newly discovered quirk of my phone: in gmail, no matter whether I am
composing a new missive or replying to an existing conversation, the
subject line is filled by whatever the subject was of the last message
I sent in Facebook! I've tried sending Facebook messages with blank
subjects, but it just retains the older subject in that case. Nor does
clearing the cache work. So I've taken to filling the line with quotes
from favorite movies, since I'll be forced to read it so often.

CRAVING
Grits aren't the only thing I miss here. I miss potatoes! They are
grown in this country, but for reasons that escape me the people in my
particular village have no interest in them. So I occasionally crave
fries. Since one thing I can get in Ouaga is instant mashed potatoes,
I brought some back to site, prepared some, let it cool, then formed
it into balls and fried it. I got something that tasted almost, but
not quite, completely unlike french fries. But it killed the craving
anyway.

LANGUAGE STUDIES
Whoever put together our Mooré manual chose to translate "to shit."
Not in some scatological section. They just thought it was a verb we
might need. I couldn't agree more.

VISITORS
I have finally, after a year and a half, convinced a small number of
students that if they don't understand something in their classes,
it's worth their time to stop by my house and ask for help. Recently,
I noticed one student writing his numbers right to left. I can't help
but wonder if that's a signal of a fundamentally different way of
thinking about our decimal system. Without question there's a
disconnect between how I think, and therefore teach, and how my
students think, and therefore learn. But I've yet to bridge that gap.

TIE-DYE
I tried to use bleach to make a fun tie-dye pattern on some pants that
already had a faded spot. Against all expectations, there is fabric
here of high enough quality to resist bleach! All I managed to do was
make the pants look old and sun-faded, subtly enough that it doesn't
look at all intentional. FAIL.