One of my goals since coming to England has been to see the Rothko collection at the Tate Britain. Tomorrow, my dream will come true as I do not have a first class at Middlesex and don't need to be there until 3:30. Result: I am packing a lunch and going to the Tate Britain. Saying that I am excited would be a bit of an understatement.
This weekend I tried to convert my speaking with Naomi to be all English, all the time. P had encouraged me to do this on Thursday and I was a bit indignant as I thought about it: yes, why should I speak to my daughters in my wife's language? I went to it on Friday and it was quite bizarre: Naomi didn't really understand me and kept asking me to hold her. I think it was tough on her. I pressed forward all day yesterday and today, but I realised that unlike some people, I am not a great code-switcher, so my Japanese (and subsequently, my talk with my wife) really suffers when I'm trying to speak in English to the kids and Japanese to her. Add to that: I have been working on my homework for French all weekend. By this evening, I was back to Japanese with everyone at home, English with my supervisors, and French with my audio recorder tool. I think Naomi will be okay when she goes to school in September. It's only about six months away, and regardless of what works for everyone else, I think I need to stay in Japanese when I'm at home.
Monday, the first, is also payday and I spent the weekend fretting about finances. I'm not sure why: we had a very good month and I made some ridiculous goal for how much we should save and was able to attain that goal. But now, looking at the back account, I'm not nearly as satisfied as I thought I would be with making it through the month at the rate we did. It was very anticlimactic and suddenly, I'm worried about March now.
I realised today that it has been probably five years since I last made the same amount of money every month. It always depends on what work I have going on, but it is never the same month-to-month. Maybe when I grow up, it won't fluctuate as much.
It's Sunday night and I really want to have a beer, but we have no beer, so I am drinking coffee and thinking about how many hours it will be before I am in the Tate tomorrow. Of all the things I have to be thankful for in my life, the fact that I look forward to Monday every week is probably right up there.