Two days ago, I sat outside the cafe I volunteer at, trying to distract myself from my drooping eyes and get some work done. Just then, a cross breeze blew its way onto my face, grazing my cheek. A hot slap. It was 37 degrees in the late afternoon, and my laptop was so hot I couldn’t continue typing. I’d been sitting there for less than a half-hour.

It’s the hottest heat I’ve ever experienced. Having grown up in tropical Asia, I’m no stranger to high temperatures. My dark skin and an unhealthy obsession with zero skincare regimes have left me almost permanently tanned. And so when friends told me it’d be hot, and we wouldn’t want to do anything—even cooking elaborate meals—I was amused. I said nothing, however. I can handle the heat, I thought.

I thought wrong.

It came as a surprise to me that I’m not excited for the impending summer. It’s beautiful outside with lusciousness painting the town green, early morning sunlight beating off of hanging leaves, illuminating old brick houses making them, somehow, seem far more bright than they are. Sidewalks are abloom in yellow and purple and white, smiling, welcoming with warm head bobs.

It’s all lovely and inviting. Except it’s hot. Strangely enough, a lot of the houses I’ve seen in Canberra don’t have ceiling fans. Since I arrived just before winter, I didn’t think a no-fan home would be so bad. And yet, as I sit on my comfortable bed, now quite warm from me resting my butt on it for the last twenty or so minutes, mildly wondering if my heating up laptop would survive the summer, I realise—fans matter.

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