I haven’t had a Sunday off work in several months. My weekends are Tuesday-Wednesday. Much better than when I had a split weekend or when I was not on the same schedule as my husband.

I went to work today for a ceremony class, to say goodbye to a group I have been teaching since the very beginning. Many of the students have recently come into the class, and almost all of the old students are no longer attending. Still, Sky’s eyes lit up with recognition when I put a map up of my home state of Colorado on the board.

‘Denver….Denver?’ he said. ‘My cousin lives in Denver!’

We tried to figure out exactly which suburb his relatives are in, but it was great that he knows Colorado and has been there. He’s a smart nine-year-old, and really quite fluent in English.

After we made a bunch of professions about what we now know, can do, and will learn in future, I went home. I have a massive cold and have been annoying all my coworkers with my coughing for days now. Five more hours of teaching tomorrow. I’ll have to go in early, as I haven’t had time to plan the lesson.

It’s too cold to just lay in bed. I have our heaters on, but the temperature is not much warmer than outside. I frequently wish that I lived in a yurt and not a brick apartment these days. I checked the weather in all my many homes around the world today, and only Suwon and Colorado have us beat. In the winter in Ferrara, it was freezing cold for a couple months and there was little heat. It rained what seemed like all the time.

Nope. It’s so much colder, less heated, and rainier in Shanghai than in any city I have ever lived in. Scores rainier than London.

Frigid, hand-burningly cold laundry it is, then. And then I’m going to try to warm myself and burn this cold out by mopping the floors. Our frigid apartment should at least be clean.