Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

And the fall came... although it rather looked like winter, with all those people wrapped in their heavy coats, wearing scarves and gloves. Last Saturday we still had 28 degrees, on Monday temperatures plummeted by 20 degrees! During the night it even got down to zero. It felt so frigging cold! Although I am used to much worse from Montreal, I'm freezing all the time. The problem is that there is no heating anywhere. Not in my classroom, the cafeteria, my office or apartment! So, there is no place where one can really warm up. And even if temperatures climb to 15 during the day, it feels incredibly cold. Especially since neither my classroom nor office get sun during the day - in the sun it's quite bearable - and my apartment cools down at night so quickly, because there is virtually no insulation and only single-pane windows. Now I understand why people from Nanjing complain the winter here is cold. It barely gets below zero, but if you don't have heating anywhere, that feels damn cold. The cold just creeps into your bones and doesn't leave anymore, even when you think you shouldn't be freezing anymore... I should get some of those gloves that leave the fingertips exposed so I can hold the chalk, while my students sit there in front of me huddled in their parkas... oh, it's gonna be tough. Thankfully, temperatures have climbed up to 20 degrees again, but mornings and evenings remain cold (around 10). Anyways, I guess I'll have to go on another shopping trip this weekend and buy some heaters. Consumerism just never ends, does it? And I was wondering how I would spend all the money they're paying me.

Tomorrow and Monday I'm having Chinese mid-term exams. How exciting! :) It really sometimes feels like middle school. I don't need to study extra for the exam. Just going to class is enough to pick up everything - apart from memorizing characters. That's still the hardest part. I still read terribly slowly and I have to make a conscious effort to connect a character with its meaning. I can literally see the progress bar in my brain when it's loading Chinese fonts :)

I also have brand new toy - my boss bought me a computer, a mac book pro. And I now have a couch in my office. So, I should be working like crazy with all these incentives, right? Right. Ehm.