June/july is my leave-clearing period. because of the way my term and contract works, i get "reset" on 1 august. so that's when my new leave days come in. as of now, i've planned my leave to...leave me (sorry) with 20 days going into my new term. if they give me the full 20 days for my next term, you can bet i'm going to spam all 40 days' leave towards the end. literally 2 months of no work!

this week was slightly better...some problem kids are starting to put in effort. i suspect their teacher(s) may have talked to them while i wasn't around. while it's a welcome development, it's still too early to tell if the change will be permanent. i realized that my goodwill towards the kids has mostly evaporated. while unfortunate, it's a learning experience for both sides.

reminder to myself, tomorrow is a half day for me. would have been a full day off since the school has an off-in-lieu, but i'm going in to record audio for the speech contest. apart from that, i have this friday off too (except for an hour), as well as the last week of july off, and a couple of other days here and there. summer leave too, have to forecast that by this coming wednesday.

now that the end is in sight, i should plan things out in more detail. that will involve making more than a few lists. off the top of my head, i have: food i want to try making; things to sell; things to do; things to buy. seems daunting, but i have all summer, plus however many leave days to do them. organization will be a problem though...need to think of a good way to set it up. i will have to renew my visa for one month, as well as my driver's licence for 2 months. there are also a few posts that i should write, to get my thoughts and priorities in order. one particular post which i'm quite looking forward to writing is the balls one. despite how NSFW it sounds, it's based on the concept of things in your life being balls made of different materials - rubber, wood, or glass. i'll elaborate on that in the post itself.

the updated countdown shows that i have about 190 days left - basically i reduced my stay by 90 days, give or take a bit. i suppose aiming to lose 100 grams a day would put me in a good weight range by the time i'm due to fly back! considering my plans to use up all the remaining food, that may not be very possible, but we'll see.

-random thought of the day: Asked about getting a flat!-