Lamma Island, 10:05PM – Unseasonably humid.

Entry 153

The pleasures of a head cold. At home. Lemon and ginger tea, 42 Hong Kong Dollars. Twenty bags in a pack. Individually wrapped, 2 Hong Kong Dollars and ten cents. A desk with a view. 80 midterm exams to grade, one page at time, checked with a red pen and thrown to the floor in a pile. Retrieved and re-stacked on my desk when it’s time to move to the next page. The work of a monk. Comings-and-goings of rain. Old PBS documentaries play on loop as the stacks fall and rise. An old man sleeping. Interviews interspersed with what were well produced dramatizations. Quiet except for the fuzz of VHS. The sound of childhood. I feel individually wrapped. Content.