As Mom knows, I’ve been exceptionally lazy recently when it comes to mornings. Today I was woken up by a telephone call at 9am. While I’m sure some people wouldn’t call that lazy, I do. For the last month I’ve been getting up at 7am or earlier each day.

In just under a week I get my monthly salary, which should be substantial owing to the vast amount of teaching I did this month. Which means I’ll be treating myself to an extravagant trip in the near future. Also, the extra money will go towards a trip to Beijing at the end of August, when Grandma will visit for eleven days.

The weather’s relaxed a bit here – heat-wise in any case. The temperature has been hovering around 30 degrees for the last week, a great improvement from the 40s of recent weeks. Instead of heat, we have had rain – a lot of rain. On Friday we had serious flooding from a relentless torrential rain. Roads were literally turned into quick-moving rivers, and the drainage systems became fountains rather than whirlpools; there was just too much water for this flood-plain region to handle. This city has historically been flooded by the Yellow River but this time it was only rain that caused the problems.

I’m going to do some reading now. Later in the day I’m going to run a suggestion by Mr Wang. I’d love to have three days off per week; it would drastically expand my potential travel destinations. I’ll propose to him he could give me a greater work load on the working days, and in return give me a three day weekend. I’m pretty sure it won’t be accepted, but I’ll ask anyways. If I had three days, every region of China except Tibet would be within travelling distance for me.

Chris