I had spent all afternoon yesterday trying and failing to study. I knew that it was going to be difficult as I’d spend a sleepless night in my apartment. The heat in the house was almost unbearable, I had every window open and it wasn’t helping. There was no way that any study was getting done without the air conditioning. Regardless, I felt like I was wasting what could have been a productive day of study, so I did my best to soldier on. I was finding it hard to grasp the basic concepts of what I was studying due to the heat. I felt like the words were suffocating me and I could concentrate on nothing else. I’d come to my wits end, having a slight tantrum in the kitchen when I realised I’d re-written the same line of words, eight times in a row.
The air conditioner was out of action and it was my own fault for not getting it serviced when I should have. My parents had reminded me several times last summer that I should get it serviced because the cooling unit was making a funny noise. It was a struggle to admit my mistakes and make the appointment for air conditioning repairs, Melbourne was my own personal oven of shame. I knew things were going to be ok once the apartment cooled down. Although my afternoon was not very productive, I did a lot of thinking about my research topic. I also did a lot of daydreaming, often drifting off with random thoughts that lead me away from my goals. I didn’t know if the heat was affecting my brain, but I was pretty sure that my walls were not supposed to be moving. The sooner the air conditioning repair guy arrived the better. I had a pretty tight deadline, my assignment had to be done in just under a week. I was confident I would make it, but only if I had a regular air conditioning service. Melbourne was annoying hot and the forecast was for more of the same. If the air conditioning service technician was unable to fix my system, I would have to either toughen up, or find somewhere cool to study. The latter was probably the most likely. I thought about taking my books down to the school library, but decided to go swimming instead.