Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

For those of you that read this occasionally / regularly, would you mind giving me writing feedback?  I am consciously working on trying to become a better writer.  This means everything from spelling and grammar to writing style.  I moderate the comments, so if you write something there, I'll see it and then have to the option to publish or not, so feel free to be brutal in your feedback.  It would be greatly appreciated.

Imagine walking through a sea of distracted engineers, free to ogle as your heart desires.  I know, this is only appealing to a certain demographic of nerd, but whatever.  How did I get this privilege? Last Friday I proctored the morning session of the Principles and Practice in Engineering Exam at the Jamil Temple. How did I get involved in this?  A friend told me about it, and it paid $13 an hour to walk around and minimize your yawn volume. The space is basically an enormous high school gymnasium filled with row upon row of folding tables and chairs.  We had 251 people signed up to take the 8 hour test (2 sessions or 4 hours each).  It consists of practical problems and it's open-book, so the engineers lined up at the door a little before 7 were trailing behind them any and all types of item conveyance, from bins of books on dollies to actual suitcases that I myself would fit into were I folded properly.  There was even a guy with a small rolling books...

Jessica sent me this poem a long time ago, and I keep it by my bed.  I feel like it's a promise I make to myself every day in Derek Walcott's words. The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.