Over the hump ...

We "celebrated" passing the midpoint in our stay here in Tehran yesterday. I meant to post something then about it, but, frankly, the day passed in a blur of work with our new course starting and today has been busy too. We have a new group of students and its tricky getting to know them, getting the characters identified and defining where the boundaries are.

But, starting yesterday we are counting down towards our return home for Christmas and a bit of our own homes. It will be a relief to be able to deal with a number of things at home and to have my own things around me for a while. Even just to be able to walk to town and the shops and be able to speak to the shop assistant/keepr without the need of an interpreter. As I have several times stated, the Iranians are friendly, hospitable people. Their culture is an ancient one, though their religion is younger than mine, it is based on Gnosticism and much of their Holy Book is taken from Gnostic texts rejected by the Councils of Nicea and Trent in the 300's. For the record, it is the year 1388 (1423 in Sunni calendars) here and Islam is roughly where the Catholic Church was in the equivalent period in the Christian calendar.

OK, so I'm rambling. Its been a long day. 'Nuff said.