School's Out

Today is the first day of summer holidays (2 months) for children in Vienna and some other provinces of Austria. On my way to work yesterday, the bus was full of smartly dressed children, some accompanied by their parents, many bearing flowers for their teachers. I felt incredibly envious as I still remember vividly what it felt like to know that you had all those weeks of excitement ahead of you. By the end of August I was always looking forward to seeing my friends again and it always felt that people had changed incredibly within those two months. This is also the time of the year when I think I should have become a teacher (like my parents) after all. Having many friends who teach languages at schools and/or university I'm well aware of the fact that the last weeks of the summer semester are incredibly stressful, so I know the long holidays are well-deserved and that it's an advantage to be able to take a vacation when you want it and not when you have to. Still, I would really love to experience the sweet sensation that is called "summer holidays".

Me, being the model employee I am, I'm trying to recover from the nastiest cold I've had in a long time over the weekend After not as much as a runny nose all winter long, I fell victim to airplance airconditioning a.k.a. "germ distributor" on my return flight(s). It started with a viscious throat-ache and a night of fever-induced shivering under two down blankets before it morphed into a horrible cough and head cold, with aching ears thrown into it for good measure. Last night I felt...what was the superlative of "dead" again? I stayed in bed reading until lunchtime, today, feeling very much like Maru. It's o.k. when I don't talk, but as soon as I do, I get a dry cough bark that would make any bandog jealous. Paired with sore muscles from manual labour on Thursday (perhaps not such a good idea after all, but I did feel quite o.k. on the day), coughing is not the most comfortable experience. Ah well, I hope to be semi-alive again on Monday.

On the bright side, Laura of Lollipop26 fame has taken up blogging again. Yesss!