I was to teach classes in Coastal Lothic and Athenorkos to potential traders venturing south. I had two days in Rabatha before the classes began, which was no time at all. I spent the first day sleeping. I spent the second day buried under anxieties about the start of my new position. It did not occur to me to do such things as find new clothing, or even wash the one set of clothing I had. It did not occur to me to let my beard grow back or to take out my earring. Dirva, likely, would have suggested such practical things, but I spent the day plaguing him with a thousand questions about where to go and what to do and when to do it. “You’ve seen me teach,” he said. “You attended school. You’ll know what to do.”

But I didn’t. For once, Dirva was wrong. My schedule dictated I was to teach two three-hour sessions a day: Athenorkos in the morning, and Lothic in the afternoon. I had no idea what to bring to that first class, so I brought everything which possibly could have been useful—the requisite pads of paper and pens, but in egregious numbers; some of Dirva’s notes from his own days teaching; and any book in Athenorkos or Lothic I could find, including at least three cookbooks. I missed breakfast. Every time I started to step out the door, I thought of something else I might need. When I finally got to Ralah College, only a handful of minutes before class was supposed to begin, I realized I had no roster and did not know where to get one. The notification of which classroom I was to teach in was buried in the heavy sack of documents I’d dragged with me. I made a desperate stop at the college’s registrar on the other side of campus, got the information I needed from a Qin clerk who could not be truly convinced I had a legitimate work assignment there even after I produced my papers, and got to the lecture room after all the students had already arrived.