Wow...it's cold.

Now for the perfunctory complaining about the winter cold that has finally slowed the blood in our veins...and made our existence a frantic search for more layers of clothing...

I was telling someone yesterday that for me, I have isolated the worst part of this weather. 

Going to the bathroom at the school. 

While it is true wherever you are, your potential for feeling really cold exists, there is no more uncomfortable place in my existence than the school bathroom!  The school keeps many windows wide open during the winter.  We are committed to fresh air!  The women's bathroom in the school is outfitted with two stalls offering the finest in western-style toilets.  And a significant (seems enormous to me in the winter) window that is just behind the ceramic fixtures.  When you reach a point of dire need (and believe me, this is the ONLY reason one would go to the bathroom) you must peel off your many, critical layers of clothing, sit on the seat that doubles as an ice-skating rink...and then expose the skin of your backside...to the ICY wind.  There simply is nothing like that feeling with the wind from the North flash-freezing your rear!  In an effort to avoid it, I have been known to do the "4 year old Potty Dance" for extended periods of time...in hopes that I could hang on long enough to get home!

We do enjoy some heat in our classrooms and in the office where we work...but I can not say that I ever think..."wow, I'm warm today"...but that bathroom situation...that's the worst!  It makes seeing your breath at the restaurant, in the school hallways, and in the shopping mall, seem like a minor issue!

In our third year we've come upon an invention that has given us new hope however...the electric hot water bags!  They cost about $2 and you plug them in, then they get HOT, HOT, HOT and you can use them to warm your hands, legs, neck...wherever the chill has settled upon you!  How we made it through the last winters without it, I'll never know!  We plan to have some new teachers joining us next year...without a doubt...this will be in their (literally) house-warming gift packet! ;)

Got to knock the frost of the blankets of the kids...and get them up to start the day...though it is nearly 7 and you'd almost need a flashlight to make it to school today!  (slightly exaggerating here...but NOT about the bathroom conditions!)

Final exams for the term are next week, so we're so busy with that...planning our retreat escape in just 2.5 weeks to sunny SE Asia....

Due to write a culture post soon...constantly discovering more things...

Hope you are warm today, wherever you are!