<SYSTEM_TASK:>
Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
<END_TASK>
<USER_TASK:>
Description:
 def parse_attributes( fields ):
 """Parse list of key=value strings into a dict"""

    attributes = {}
    for field in fields:
        pair = field.split( '=' )
        attributes[ pair[0] ] = pair[1]
    return attributes