by I wish it wasn’t so damn hot. The good news is tomorrow will be the last in a long line of 36s and 37s for a while if the forecast is even semi-accurate.
I went back to the orelist, or ENT specialist, last week. He poked a camera up my nose and I was able to see just how swollen and blocked my turbinates were. That’s one problem. The other is some deviation in my septum, caused (I think) by a slight fracture when Mum dropped me on the stairs when I was just two, before any carpets were put in our house. He’s given me some more drugs to sniff and swallow but I might end up having an operation that will put me in hospital for two or three days, perhaps in the autumn. Amazingly Mum said she’d be happy to fly out here from New Zealand if and when I have the op. I mean, she stayed home back in oh-five when Dad went to the UK for the operation on his aortic valve that almost did for him, so I don’t know what to make of that. Mum and I have talked a lot on the phone in the month since my parents were here, and we’ve been getting on absolutely fine. In fact, better than that, she’s taken a keen interest in my lessons, especially the ones involving nine-year-old Matei.
Yep, she’s right, two hours is too long for Matei. It’s almost too long for me. He’s starting to get bored of me I think, and after 21 two-hour sessions I’m running out of topics. Weather, superheroes, modes of transport, aliens, types of homes, animals, sports, body parts, directions, things you find in a city, you name it, we’ve covered it. And to make matters worse, it’s the middle of summer and he probably doesn’t want to be doing any of this English crap that his parents are forcing him to do anyway.
My favourite lesson last week was with a 30-year-old woman whose English I’d rate at a 7 out of 10. We discussed a hundred or more tricky words like paucity and disavow and conscientious. That was pretty cool. After the lesson I reflected on how mad and awesome it is that I’m doing this. In Romania. I could go back to New Zealand at some point, but there’s no way I could go back to my previous life, or existence, to be more accurate.
I was pretty much tearing my hair out when I got a no-show on Saturday from my most reliable student. I’ve got 17 hours planned for this week, including 4½ with a new student who may or may not show up. This unreliability is still a huge problem, and I’m trying to think of ways to combat it.
Federer did win Wimbledon last weekend, playing brilliantly against a hampered Cilic in the final, and I was glad it was all over for another year.
