hot

today I woke up and looked at weather.com. At 9:30 AM it was 90
degrees, 99 with heat index. Apparently it will get much hotter in
August. Wow. A friend/co-worker is leaving for Canada tomorrow and
gave me her heater - I certainly felt silly walking down the street,
drenched in sweat, bringing a heater home.

I have many new classes and I am quite busy. Today I had my last one
on one class with an adult who is applying to the University of
Wisconsin's graduate literature program. I read most of her thesis
about a Doris Lessing novel I have never read. I was very impressed
with her ability to write about complex literary theory in English.
She is currently teaching english at a junior college here, and
although her speaking abilities still need a bit of work, she writes
english at a level beyond most native speakers. We talked about
Foucault, bell hooks, Julia Kristeva, and various takes on the idea of
"hybridity" among other things. It was interesting to talk about
books, philosophy, and theory with someone and get paid for it. I
used to give that away! Conversely, I'm currently teaching the ABC's
to small children in a summer intensive. Although I have been doing
some 7 hour days, it looks like I will soon have fridays off, so
hopefully I can do a little bit of exploring around the island soon.
And I need to get back into some kind of Chinese studying routine - I
miss it a great deal. Some of my time is also being eaten up by the
weight bench I just bought - I already feel better after just 3
workouts this week. I really needed that thing.