A summer update you can always skip

I'm writing this from a coffee shop along General Santos Drive in Koronadal. I've just sent my Medics column to my editor, something I should've done three weeks ago. This morning I washed the dishes, cooked breakfast, wiped the floor, and rearranged the cabinets. When I'm at home during summer break, it's almost impossible to escape domestic duties. Our forty-something househelp has left us for her twenty-year old textmate, someone she hasn't met personally, so Sean and I are alternating in washing the dishes, a truly tedious task when performed at the peak of lunchtime sleepiness. That and the impossible heat.

Nothing much is happening, except perhaps the on-going construction beside our house. We have a new neighbor, a priest, who bought the house where Frankie, one of my childhood friends, used to live. Maybe this marks an end of an era—of which, I have no idea—or maybe I've only just been away for so long. I no longer recognize many children playing in the streets; the neighbor's dogs have forgotten how I smelled. I got chased this evening by a wretched canine when I bought candies at a nearby sari-sari store.

I was invited to speak at the youth camp in our local church here. The camp's theme is The Gospel That Saves, and I was asked to talk about repentance and faith. Please pray that God grant me grace to prepare for this.

I've just finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and I'm going through The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. All this free time gives me so much pleasure in catching up with my reading. I'm glad my friends have done the same.

Koronadal is still as the charming little city that she is—and I'm so glad to be home.