The Martin's Blog

Tom – two of my PE instructors had to go to Colombo tomorrow so we had class today instead.  My instructor classes have been running about 3 hours and we meet 3 days/week.  I meet with my student fitness class for 2 hours 2 days/week.  I also meet privately with at least two instructors per week.  In addition to this workload, I have redesigned their weight room, developed an Exercise Chart (Excel spreadsheet) for their Health/Fitness class, and marked out a two kilometer walking/running course on campus.  This workload is actually heavier than my workload at Wittenberg! 

I worked in my office during the afternoon and when I got home went into the yard and was surprised to find a four foot lizard.  This was the biggest one I have seen so far – it was dark with some yellow circles and eyes that appeared to glow – I ran in the house and got my camera.  The picture is not great because he was moving but you can get a sense of how big he was!  We learned later that it was a water monitor who had come to our pond to each the frogs and fish!  It has a razor sharp tail that is used as a weapon.

The mosquitoes and bugs were really bad tonight so Helen and I went to bed early just to get under the mosquito net!  As mentioned earlier, these bites can last up to a week.  Neither our insect repellent nor the anti-itch cream seems to be very effective.      

Helen:  Wednesday is usually a day we have off together so we get to do something.  Tom said I will take a snack for lunch and see you later so we can go into town…he got home after 6:00.  He puts in a lot of time.  One of his main projects that day was also to finish up the blog after the school work.  I really didn’t mind because while we were in Colombo, someone gave me a John Grisham book “The Rainmaker” a good thriller which kept me busy all day since it was cloudy and a good reading day. 

Tom entered the house yelling don’t open the door just look out the window into the yard, there is a monster lizard by the pond.  He runs and gets his camera and just gets back to the yard to get a quick picture as the lizard swaggers up the hill by the outdoor grill/patio and into the neighbor’s yard.  From the back his tail swished back and forth very much like an alligator’s – spooky!!!  I would say he was at least 4-5 feet long.