Life is odd.  (At least, my life is odd.)  Bad news from Sri Lanka yesterday, a wonderful surprise via Turkmenistan and through Chicago today.  Oh, yes, explanations.

First, on behalf of Upul, I’d like to thank everyone who expressed concerns.  As for the situation, it stands thusly: some emergency called him back to Sri Lanka and, as I can ascertain, his visa lapsed while he was out of the country.  Now, if a student visa lapses in country while the possessor is still enrolled in school, they get to finish their studies.  If they are out of the country, though, it appears they have to go through the entire application process again.  I think this irritating situation is less about fairness or unfairness than it is the standard bureaucratic morass government so diligently perpetuates.  That means things are just as messy, only there’s no single person to blame for everything for their jerkiness. 

What?  Yes, I did do something other than complain, I’ll have you know.  Wrote and sent Upul the letter of recommendation yesterday, actually.  He liked it enough to request that I sign a copy and give it to his girlfriend, which I will do in the next few days.  Hopefully, once he jumps through the hoops he’ll be back asking me about the metaphorical orientation of the American color pallet (cowardice is yellow, envy green, and so on).  So I hope that yesterday’s bad news will become good news preceded by a time of skin-itching but ultimately temporary frustration.

Now to the good news.  Today a lovely young lady, Shemshat, came into the Writing Center.  For those who know me, that alone constitutes good news.  (Meeting with too many guys puts me in a kind of funk.)  It just so happens that this young lady looked familiar in a subtle, doubt-your-senses kind of way.  Assuming I was making things up, I asked how I could help her and so on.  In the process I learned she is from Turkmenistan, which piqued my interest as in about three years of tutoring I could only remember one other Turkmen I’d taught.  A Turkwoman, actually.  I then told Shemshat about my former student (one of my favorites).  Shemshat asked that student’s name and, to my distress, I could only remember her last name.  When I said this name, Shemshat showed me an assignment with it in the heading.  Turns out, Shemshat is my favored student’s little sister come all the way to the US to study, where she bumped into me. 

Lachin (how could I have forgotten her name!) is now, apparently, happily married and living in Chicago.  I told Shemshat to tell her sister hi for me when possible, and to let her know she is still one of my favorite students ever.  Then I worked with Shemshat on her writing, and found her to be just as sweet and smart as her sister.  (How smart?  How many people do you know who speak four languages fluently?  I know one language, and spend most of my time trying not to mangle it.)

So a strange couple of days.  Helping a friend in Sri Lanka what little I can; meeting a student from Turkmenistan related to a former student I wished good luck and sent off back to Turkmenistan two years ago.  I’ll tell you, this world may be far larger than even I have the pretension to comprehend, but in spite of that it’s a pretty small place.  And there are good people all over it.  I’m privileged and fortunate to be able to meet a few of them.