Wind

The inevitable has caught up with me after six hellish days of non-stop day and night work. What began with a bout of excessive grumpiness has now become a nasty viral head full of snot and lungs that work like a pair of rusty old bellows. I had to cancel class this morning. Years ago, when my classes hovered at around 100 bodies, this would be done by asking a teaching assistant to wander over to the room and write a note on the board. Now it's done by posting a message on an electronic blackboard that you know will be picked up by many of the laptops in the classroom. Hopefully, I caught a few students before they had to leave the house. I can actually check to see when each student opens the message (but not, as was once pointed out to me by our IT guy, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye, when the message was read). It's a frosty one this morning. 19 C drop in temperature over the course of just a few hours. People freezing to death in the west. Snowstorm in Guangzhou. Just normal freak occurrences -- surely nothing to worry about.

Here, the wind is howling like fury and I'm sitting watching this gigantic pine tree in our yard do battle. If I can ever hoist myself out of this chair and down to my study, I think today will be the day that I will finish the new draft of my book and send to editor and agent. Something is gluing me to my seat, though. I've been through this before. It'll never be good enough because I'll always know where it could have been improved.

Geebus it's windy out there now. I'm wondering how safe it is to sit by the window.