Salam, and good morning, worthy friends! Please, please come closer. Welcome (back hopefully) to my blog, place of musings, word plays, and the many bizarre thoughts buzzing around in my brain right here for your reading enjoyment! Come on down! Look at this - a return to the blog after a lengthy summer hiatus. During summer, I wrote, I doodled, I listed - but I never posted. Wait, don't go! A new post is finally in tact. This is the famous it's-a-new-school-year-and-I-have-so-much-to-say post. My mind is scrolling the faces I met this week seated around my tables, hoping to still remember their names come Monday morning. I see their smiles, their hesitancy, their questioning eyes. I feel my anxiety, my excitement, and my many many uncertainties. And I remember: as the merchant from the beginning of Aladdin says, "...it is not what is outside but what is inside that counts." Important backstory break: somehow, this is my twentieth (!!!) year to teach. I have n