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The second week of the Spanish course went well, although honestly, I found it a bit slow and boring. Probably less boring than slow. (I spent parts of several different days trying to see how many words I could remember and write in Russian - not very many!) We didn't get to any tenses or moods of Spanish that I remember struggling to figure out before. Languages have always been pretty easy for me, but I think what made the difference this time is that I've been reading and speaking it more in the last 6 months or so. Therefore, I'm much more comfortable with some of the easier tenses and parts of speech (pronouns, direct and indirect objects, future tense) than I used to be. I still need some work on the more complex tenses/moods that are usually used with compound sentences and all the different clauses that can occur in them. Luckily, I'm pretty good with my English grammar, so the Spanish grammar is easier. But still...some things are a challenge to figure out. However, it was a great opportunity to practice speaking and brush up on things in general. Overall, I really enjoyed the class.

We flew back to Kansas on Saturday. We left Portland, OR at 10:30 a.m., then landed in Houston at 5 p.m. (I got to watch KungFu Panda in Spanish though, so that was kinda fun!) We boarded the flight for Kansas City at 6:30 p.m., but we had to wait for some people from a connecting flight (and their luggage), so we didn't actually leave until 7:30 p.m. So, by the time we landed, got our luggage, etc, it was 9:45 p.m. Steven and I got back to Wichita about 1 a.m.

It is definitely warmer here. It was barely 70 degrees in Washington on Friday. It's about 100 degrees here today. Eek! Yes, it's hot, but overall, I'm not minding it terribly much. Our classroom was so cold all the time that it's actually quite lovely to be warm.

It was a bit of a culture shock when I went to the grocery store though. The peaches were half the size of the ones in Washington. The produce was all quite sad looking, really. I also stopped by the Demo Garden at the office. The tomatoes were all really sad looking, and the squash, eggplant, and cucumbers are in poor shape - not because of the weather, but because the crew didn't HARVEST ANYTHING! Argh! Squash, eggplant, cucumbers all tend to stop producing if they aren't regularly harvested. Ah well...it shall be a "teachable moment" on Tuesday.

I am feeling slightly justified in my defense of heirloom tomatoes though, because my favorite variety is looking beautiful and healthy, even compared to the "best" hybrids of Kansas. Granted, it is much later producing than the hybrids, but if it tastes better and is more vigorous, I sure don't care!

I have meetings at least 2 evenings this week, but other than that, I think my August is pretty quiet - in general. I'm sure my desk will be covered with things to deal with when I go it tomorrow. Good luck to me!