Spring must be closer.
There is not a trace of Christmas left in our apartment anymore; the Christmas tree and all the other decorations have been put away. This time is always one that makes me a bit sad. All boxes and bins have been refilled with our precious Christmas balls and ornaments. Half of our day had passed before everything was again restored to the ten month resting place in our hall storage closet, and only then after the huge help of my Sweetie. Quick touches of lemon dusting spray and Windex and everything looks as though Christmas had never been here in the house. Now it’s another ten months before its time to drag everything back out for Christmas again. Unfortunately, more than ten light strings were tossed out in the garbage. I was surprised because five of them we bought this year! The remaining five either burned for only half or one third of each string… My Sweetie was right last week when he said that our Christmas tree was getting darker every day…
After putting “Christmas” away, I checked my email for new messages and now I have to finish my project about South Korea and post a couple of comments on the panel discussion for my online class. Ugh … I do not like this forced form of discussion we have in this class. More than that, the topic we have to discuss is not really very interesting to me – the political and economic systems of individual countries. Part of my frustration is that it is very hard to discuss or argue with another student when s/he posts one or two sentence answers, especially given that the teacher stated that really well thought responses were expected. For our previous assignment, we had to discuss globalization with other students. But how would you respond to the statement posted by one of my classmates: “I don’t support globalization…”
In addition, I still have to prepare for tomorrow. It is the first meeting this semester for the international student club. I need to prepare the agenda and a couple of icebreakers, so the international students on my campus can get to know each other a bit better. I hope the turnout will be a little better than at the end of last semester. I need to engage them more in our club, because I’m seriously tired of running this organization by myself. I am getting a bit frustrated and honestly am running of ideas how to improve this student organization. So, unfortunately, the rest of the evening I have to spend on college matters. The good news is I still have a pine-scented candle burning on the corner of my desk as I work…
Just remember, it’s like Joe said – in a little less than ten months, “Christmas” will be back. And – in the meantime – we will have the beach!