May 31st. I am leaving to spend a month in Norris, TN June 4th. I worry constantly that the stress of eight hours of school and four hours of training a day will break me, but my friends have faith that I will survive. If it gets too difficult, I could quit...arghhh... just writing that word gives me strength. Quit! What an awful word. Who put that in the dictionary anyway? Quit is synonymous with failure. I will not quit. If it gets overbearingly tough, I will simply take a "health day" and sit with nature and read. Nothing is more energizing than sitting in the midst of God's miracles and entertaining yourself with one of Man's greatest miracles...language. Put that way, this is to be a summer of miracles for me -swimming in Norris Lake, running in the surrounding trails and learning how to teach people with weak language skills. It was a sad day for me today because two people I care about had just found out about a family member with terminal cancer - a friend's husband and a friend's mother-in-law. I did not hear the word "cancer" until I was ten. A friend of my Dad's had throat cancer. His name was Jack and he died too young. I rarely heard the word again until my late twenties. Now the word is frighteningly common. Cities have hospitals with big billboards, "CANCER TREATMENT CENTER". People buy bottles and bags in stores that have, "May contain CANCER causing ingredients" written in small print on them. And more and more children are getting, "CANCER". Why? I believe the more poisoned our environment, the more cancers. We as a nation put well over a billion pounds of pesticides and herbicides into our soil every year. We do it to kill pests and herbs. I think we are getting more than our money's worth. Watch out for anything that ends in "CIDE": Pesticide, herbicide, homicide, suicide. Remember, sooner or later, everything ends up in our waterways. Our waterways (the Tennessee) are vulnerable. Yea! Tuesday I got to pass over the Tennessee River. We drove over a bridge I swam under last year. My heart filled with wonderment and joy as it always does when I cross her waters. I hope I never lose that feeling of exhilarating awe and wonder the Tennessee gives me. Do most people get that feeling when they sit on her shores, or boat on her waters? For God so loved the World...take care of it! mimi