Part I
It’s been a crappy weekend, to understate things.

The heat’s intensified over the last few days – I think the first day of the current hot spell was when I had that long run on Thursday. Ever since, it’s been very hot each day. We get what used to be the 10 o’clock temperature at 7:30am. My “Right Guard” just rolls off me. The coolest temperature at night is in the high 70s or 80s, so there’s no respite even when the sun goes down.

I haven’t done much running after Thursday, and have only done minimal weights. My only run was just now – 2.5 miles at 8 minutes per mile which felt relatively easy, and before that I did 150 pressups, mainly in 30s. Over the past few days I’ve been feeling a little “off” and not very inclined to exercise at all. Perhaps it’s just the body’s way of saying it needs a break, or perhaps it’s just work-related ambivalence.

I’ve got three more weeks of term at my current teaching job (five, if you include the “holiday” activities I’m supposed to supervise) and people have been talking about my impending departure. I’m intending to uproot, move and teach elsewhere. I’m not happy at my current job for a variety of reasons.

I’d hoped to leave quietly and without fuss but people have obviously gossiped about it. Those within the inner circle who had to know – such as the head, deputy heads, clerks and all – have clearly gossiped about the whole thing to others, and the number of people who know grow each day. I am very pissed off about it because I feel this is a private matter, that I should be the one going to my friends at the school and telling them of my departure, instead of people talking about what I consider to be my private matters, and the reasons for my departure. Today for example, before I’d even set foot to my table someone else was already asking me “Is it true that...” and I immediately gave a emergency wave off and slinked away on the grounds that I had something urgent to attend to (which I did – a student had had her wallet stolen, from a room that was locked).