Right now a friend of mine, Evan Zaleschuk, is on CBC Radio in an interview with Shelagh Rogers for "Sounds Like Canada". He's speaking as someone who became a Buddhist as an adult.

Yesterday I had a meeting with Yann Martel, the current writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. He won the 2002 Man Booker Prize and a recent German Book Prize for his novel "Life of Pi". The feedback he gave me about my short story ("C.J.O.H.Q.") was very positive and included some constructive cirticism that should be very helpful when I'm making more revisions. It was wonderful to hear such a celebrated author mention so many parts of my story that he really liked.

On Saturday I went to a wonderful event in Saskatoon: "Burmese New Year and Water Festival". In some Southeast Asian countries, people celebrate the new year--which comes near the end of the hot, dry season--by throwing water at each other to symbolically wash away the "sins" of the past year and to physically cool each other. I'm glad that the Burmese New Year isn't in January! Actually, most people didn't throw water at the Saskatoon celebration; they dipped plastic flowers in bowls and daubed/sprinkled others' shoulders with water. I kept saying one of the few things I can say in Burmese: "Ce zu tin ba deh" ("thank you very much"). Later on during the event, some children pulled out water pistols (including a couple of large "super soakers") to create a great mixture of Eastern and Western components.

The food, music and traditional dancing were wonderful. I was invited to the event by a couple of former students and got to speak with several former Saskatoon Open Door Society students there. It reminded me of how much I love being an ESL teacher.

I brought photos from my 2002 trip to Burma. A former student had said that she wanted to see them. Some Burmese children gathered around to look at them because they'd never been to Burma. Some were born in refugee camps in Thailand, while others were born in Canada. It seemed odd and rather sad that a Western tourist had been to places that they'd only heard about from their parents. However, everyone I talked to at the celebration appreciated my presence at the event and my interest in Burma.

"Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted." - Mark Strand