And Spring Moves Closer

     First off, if anyone would like to see pictures from Thailand, email me and I'll send you the link. There are far too many to post here.

     I think I can safely say that winter is over. The temps haven't been that bad for a couple weeks now. Today it was about 30 degrees when I walked to work, and contrary to a few months ago, 30 now feels comfortable. When I lived in California, I think the general sentiment was that once it got below a certain number, I believe most thought it was around 30, it all felt the same. Of course, in San Jose it gets down to about 30 perhaps one day a year and everyone goes around complaining how cold it is. But I am here to tell you, for those of you who don't already know, that there is a big difference between 5 degrees and 25 degrees. 25 is cold but doable. 5, however, is very cold and the only thing you want to do is get back inside some sort of insulated structure. In 25 degree weather, I can loosen the scarf, take off my gloves for a few minutes to check the cell, and my nose needs a tissue only about once or twice during my half-hour walk to work. But during the walks to work when it's just 5 degrees outside, I find myself pulling the scarf up to my ears, never checking the cell, and holding my handkerchief in my gloved hand because my nose won't stop running (why do noses run in the cold anyway?) But hey, it's getting better now.
     The other piece of good news is that the winter session is over. It ended about two weeks ago and I was glad to see it done. I was teaching 6 classes a day and started the session with 102 students (and ended with about 60-70% of that), which makes for a lot of extra work outside the classroom with grading tests and evaluating speaking assessments. But this session, I have just four classes with about 10 students each, and I've taught the subjects before meaning that I don't really have to do much lesson planning. So, fewer hours teaching, less lesson planning, and fewer items to grade equals up to a pretty relaxed session for yours truly--which also means that hopefully, I'll write more here. Stay tuned.