It has been a long time, and I definitely owe the blog an update. I have a good excuse for not writing lately, however. I’m just getting over the flu, which knocked me out of work a total of five days, spread over two weeks. This is unprecedented for me to miss so much work, and the timing couldn’t have been worse with the decision on whether to renew my contract or not still up in the air.
Good news, I renewed my contract, and I’ll be gainfully employed through 2017. The people in the human resources department that I work with were very understanding of my situation, and since my boss recently got over the flu himself it wasn’t a big deal to take some sick days.
Two weeks ago I had a brutal cold which brutalized my voice and my immunity system, and the week after that the flu moved in and sent my fever to about 40 degrees C, which is in the “red zone”. The doctor had me laid up with an IV and kept me pumped full of meds. I had a weird reaction to some of the medication – it was giving me shortness of breath and I kept waking up thinking I was drowning – but once I cut that medication things got better soon.
One of the side benefits of the flu is weight loss. Hooray – it’s one of the most dangerous ways to lose weight ever! Now I’m tipping the scales at my lowest weight in eight years. I’m sure it’ll come back to a more normal weight soon, but in the meantime it is nice to see the low numbers.
With a new contract comes new travel plans, and the first part of this year looks a little busy. We’ll be off to Singapore in a couple of weeks, to Seoul, South Korea in June for a weekend getaway, and then we decided to go ahead and travel to Eastern Europe for the summer. We had considered Northern Europe or possibly not traveling and saving money this summer, but in the end we decided that we should go ahead and go while we have our health and the fleeting remains of our youth. More on that trip later, but we booked the tickets from Osaka to Zagreb, and back from Prague to Osaka over two weeks in August. Can’t wait!
I’m wrapping up my term with the new employees over the next two weeks. They have a final presentation to do in class and also for their boss – both of them in English. I’m also going to have a final conference with them to advise them on their strong and weak points and steer them towards the best way to continue their studies. I have really enjoyed teaching this group of students – they tried hard in every class and were serious about learning. I hope I get to work with them again in the near future!
