It's so freaking hot

I woke up yesterday feeling rather parched, which was strange because I am the type of person who hydrates properly. Then I remembered: the air-conditioning was on the entire time the day before, and the negative side-effect to having a chilled room is that air-conditioning removes moisture, leaving your skin and mouth dry if you don’t drink more water than usual. So I got up, skipped the coffee (a diuretic that also dehydrates), and made a giant jug of lemon water and promptly drank half of it.

The desperate need for fluids is a small price to pay for the comforts of having air-conditioning. The long three-day Labor Day weekend saw historically high temperatures in much of California, with San Francisco hitting 100 degrees on Sunday afternoon. Since the last such heat-wave, I finally broke down and purchased a portable air-conditioning machine, not wanting to suffer the hot nights of uneasy sleep any longer. Our relatively tiny 10,000 BTU unit did a superb job at keeping our living room at a comfortable (read: not cold enough for multi-layers of clothing) temperature during the day, and evacuating the latent heat in the bedrooms before sleep time.

So glad we bought it in time for this heat-wave, and probably should have done it way sooner.

Traditionally, the long Labor Day weekend is a time for us who work in education to take a breather after the intense opening weeks of the Fall semester. I had plans to the write the August installment of the GT3 diaries, and to devour a few books. The weather gods had other plans of course, and it was entirely too hot inside the house to have any productivity. I feel guilty sometimes being for being such a wimp: temperatures go past 90 and suddenly I can’t work anymore! But you try putting together cogent sentences when merely sitting down and not moving is enough to cause a sweat; my room was a sauna.

It didn’t help I recently just sold my Macbook Pro, so I didn’t have a portable device to bring to the air-conditioned living room to continue working. Instead, I lounged around for much of this past weekend, trying to stay cool and hydrated. Sorry, dear readers: the August update for the 911 GT3 will have to wait another week.

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Weekend position.

No rest for the wicked?

It was Labor Day this past weekend, and after a hectic week at work, in which it was the first week of the Fall semester, the respite of a three-day weekend came at precisely the right time. I had plans to do my normal two-day weekend routine on Saturday and Sunday, and then come Monday, the goal was to do absolutely nothing, and just chill.

Well, Monday rolled around, and along with it the difficulty: I actually couldn’t make myself to not do anything! That morning, by the time the second consecutive Youtube video rolled around, I already had pangs of regret in wasting time and not being productive. On Labor Day, the day where I am suppose to relax and be lazy - and super fortunate to be in a position to do so, I have trouble in execution. What happened to the guy who could simply binge-watch a string of television seasons, like any other normal person?

He’s no longer here.

After watching the second video, I was too uncomfortable with the notion that I’m going to be doing that for the rest of the day. So, even though it’s technically a holiday, I returned to my daily routine, albeit in less of a time crunch since I didn’t have work: study Korean for an hour, read a book for an hour, and write a piece for this very website. It wasn’t until I’ve finished all three items that I felt at ease with watching car-related stuff on Youtube for the rest of the day.

The inability to just chill: is it a bad thing? Is there some latent anxiety or depression that I’m using constant productivity to avoid confronting? I really don’t know. The clock never stops on the action long enough for me to invade my own mind and find out the answer; I’d get antsy and pick up the book again, or write some more; or I still have many great podcasts to listen to, so let’s jump back to that queue.

These days I have a great desire for peace and quiet, but ironically, granting that silence for my own mind is a grace I can’t seem to give myself. I’m far too eager for what’s next, which is why even on Labor Day I’m unable to fully commit to a day of doing nothing.

I’m sure there’s some positives to that, too; hashtag hustle. That’s the ‘yin’ and the ‘yang’.

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This is exactly how I pictured Japan car culture looks like.

Labor Day plans

For those of us working in education, Labor Day is quite possibly the most welcomed public holiday on the calendar. The fall semester has just started, and everything is a mess, hectic, with about a millions things on the to-do list. The first few weeks of a new semester is the busiest time of the year, and Labor Day provides the perfect respite, even if only for a little while. This year the holiday arrives on the third week of classes - next Monday - and I’m beyond ready to shut off the mind for the long weekend. 

And I do mean shutting off the mind. In recent years I’ve been so caught up with productivity and being productive that I’ve essentially given up most of life’s frivolous (to me) pursuits. For example, I don’t play video games nor watch television shows anymore (Mondays are awkward when everyone’s discussing Game of Thrones). Abstaining from both have given me the time to study Korean and read a solid book/novel every two weeks. It’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not about to go backwards, but I think it does the mental state lots of good to schedule back some mindless fun into the mix. 

So here’s what I’m going to do all Labor Day weekend: belatedly watch all the saved automotive related videos on Youtube. 

Well, maybe not entirely: perhaps on Saturday I’ll still get in some photo-editing work. Can’t help it.