I really thought she was dead. One of my older students nodded off towards the end of lecture today. It wasn't the first time I've put a student to sleep, so I wasn't alarmed. Yet as I was packing up and the next class was coming in, one of my students said,"Hey, you've still got a student asleep here." That student nudged the older woman, and she didn't awaken. Then I started to shake her gently. Then less gently. Then with a sense of urgency. I was aware that she was still warm, but who knows? Maybe she'd just died a few minutes before. Just as one of my other students was about to rush to a phone, the older woman startled awake. We welcomed her back. Apparently, she had taken some medication this morning - I think she needs to cut back the dosage.

---

On another teaching-related note, the young Arabic man in my lab today was the center of attention. Not in a bad way. He had brought a book written in Arabic script and showed some of us how it is read - you open the book from the right, for example. The layout is the same, including the format for footnotes and page numbering. He was impressing all of the girls by writing their names in Arabic for them. Gotta love it.