We had a storm here in Milan and it took the edge of the incredible heat. I was melting, as usual and even started to do my ‘Rambo’ thing of taking the waistband from my bathrobe and wrapping it round my forehead in an attempt to find some way of soaking up the sweat which literally pours from my forehead.
Today I actually managed to get two thirds of my way to work – a twenty minute bus journey – without sweating profusely, which was great, I can tell you. I saw a temperature gauge, many of the chemists/pharmacies here have them incidentally, and it read a ‘mere’ 29 degrees C, at about 8.45 in the morning. That’s quite cool for Milan in summer.
Even now, at around eleven in the evening things are still reasonable, even though I’ve got the fan wafting coolish air over me, which is still necessary.
I slept last night, or so it would seem, seeing that I felt almost human in the morning, which is more than can be said for how I felt when I got up on Wednesday morning. I think that your average zombie would have appeared more alive than I was. This is not good when you have to stand in front of 15 people you have never seen before and give them the impression that you know what you are on about. By about 11.30 or so on Wednesday I was feeling just about sentient, and may even have given this impression, too. I hope.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
That’s the thing about teaching, you cannot just hide yourself in an office when you go to work, you have to be there in front of everybody and able to deal with lots of questions and stuff. In my old office job it was quite easy for me to find myself something quiet to do on theoccasionss that I was not feeling 100%, with teaching, this is just not possible. I have to say, though, that experience does seem to help. And I have plenty of that, luckily.
Tomorrow, yet more storms areforecastt and these may help to break the back of the heat for a while, until it, er, gets back up to steam, which does not, alas, take too long.
Grin, (and sweat) and bear it is what I’ll have to try and do, although it’s difficult not to get a bit tetchy sometimes and my other half gets the brunt of it. I’m not sure whether she appreciates just how much of a torture the heat is for me, she grew up here and for her the heat is very much normal. Hell, she doesn’t even sweat.
I’m still not fullu acclimatised, even after all this time. Phooey.
