After two weeks of depressing rain and thunder storms, today was too hot to focus on anything other than napping. Which is bad news, incidentally, because I have a paper due on Monday that I'm having trouble organizing, two more papers the following week which I haven't started, as well as a couple exams coming up. Unfortunately, being the end of the semester, this is also when teachers in Taiwan try to "make up" the lectures that they've missed or canceled during the course, so that in addition to our regular classes, we have extra classes squeezed into every available moment, including national holidays (dragon boat festival) and weekends.
My topics for the papers are fascinating, actually, but I'm frustrated because I'm sure I'll never be able to do them as well as I'd like to in the two weeks I have, when facing everything I'm supposed to be doing at the same time. Even worse is the fact that I'm spending all my free time trying to find a summer job that will pay enough to take a long, leisurely holiday at the end of August, and worrying about my health - constantly reminded of my mortality and the futility of everything by the constant gnawing pain under my right ribcage, which tomorrow's endoscopy should confirm as a gastric ulcer.
Faced with all the pressure, I'm escaping into dreams of freedom. I'm actually HOPING that this summer is hot enough to melt all the ice in Greenland, raising the oceans by 20feet and flooding most of California, Florida, as well as all the coastal cities in Taiwan. (it could happen, really...) Of course, this could be seen as a major tragedy. But what do I know of tragedy? My generation has never seen the kind of change that comes with epic disasters...the kind that makes novels, movies and stories worth telling - the fire in which pure souls are elevated, the breakdown of social order which allows the possibility of true freedom. I'm sick of the idea that I will always have to work, always have to provide for myself (and my family, if I choose to have one). I would much rather scuba-dive down into the wrecked jewelry shops and search for abandoned gold trinkets.
Oh well.
Well, although I may have missed the boat races, at least I went out dancing last night to celebrate. But today its back to the grind - trying to organize a Levinasian response to Paradise Lost. 1 more week to finish three papers and take two tests, and I'm done for the summer.