Slow Times

​I just realized that I missed my weekly post goal last week, but there honestly hasn’t been much to write about. October 1-7 was our national week break and I thought I’d go to Zhangjiajie or Fenghuang, but I waited too long on tickets and decided I may as well just relax for the week and stay put. Then I thought  Shaoshan and Mao’s house would make a nice trip. Then that fell through too, partly because I spent a good part of my break enduring wave after wave of colds that I know I got from my students. I can say this because I was sneezing and actually had to wipe off my arm in the middle of my last class before break while my class was coughing. My first day of break was worse. I was a mess and had a fever too. I found that I had stashed away ibuprofen a year ago that was still good so that helped with the fever. Then the coughing started around Friday and Saturday. I kept promising myself I’d go on Monday or Tuesday (and the crowds would probably be down by that point to) but slept in on Monday and Tuesday and found I could still get pretty warm and feverish when I overexerted myself.
Today? I got up early feeling much better than I had in a while, but knowing that trains and buses back to Zhuzhou or Changsha are limited, decided to save myself some stress. I’ll just book a room, stay a night, and make a short weekend trip of it. I could probably do it in a day if it’s just Mao’s house but I know how slow I am and that I’d rather have a day of not worrying about being stranded and seeing it all. I also don’t want to flare up too far from my apartment.

This didn't last the month, thanks one to one irritated throat.

Otherwise, it’s been chicken soup, almost an entire jar of Tesco honey, lemon slices, hot chocolate, fruit, drinking the broth at the pulled noodle place, drinking tea, drinking water, and drinking all kinds of things that I hoped would finally put an end to this miserable congested time. I’m still coughing some, but it’s not the like the first half of break when I wondered how I would ever get to sleep if I was this blocked up. I also get an extra day of rest since the 8th graders are all testing, but I’m still going to get up and see if I need to lead English drama club. The students seem to know who got in (though I don’t) and are asking me where we meet (which I don’t know). I’ve set aside some index cards so they can write about themselves and I can use that as reference for the future when I’m figuring out what they want from this club.
So this week’s post is 500 words of nothing and I’m really sorry it’s not more exciting. I’ll get to Shaoshan soon!