My Mom on the New Pope.

So yesterday I was talking with my parents, and even though she doesn't pay much attention to the Catholic Church, my mom got on the topic of the new pope.

"Really," she said, in an 'I'm going to speak my mind now' tone-of-voice that I realized that I got from her and use when I go off on things, "How much change can we expect from a 76 year old white guy?"

When I pointed out that the new pope was from Argentina, she was like, "Whatever, he's still part of the old boys club."

Then, she started going off on about how "the old boys club" says nothing can ever change, "But then suddenly one of them wants to retire, and things can change, and he retires."

"They can change things when it's convenient for them," she was like.

Classroom eccentricities.

With my kids where I'm teaching, I:

1) make them roll dice to determine where they'll sit for class, and always tell them it's to "prevent build-up of negative energy in the room", which they'd notice if they taught a lot

- and-

2) have them write their weekly in-class essays on old coffee-stained scrap paper, and thank them for humoring my "environmental neuroticism", as well as reducing the large stack of paper for reuse that I have heaped up on my kitchen table.

Upsetting.

I still get kind of upset whenever I heard about that poor Hadiyah girl who was shot in Chicago.

From everything you read about her, she sounds like such she was such a bright, vivacious girl with a lot of drive and who was a lot of fun, just like you'd want your child to be.

I was pretty hammered when I was watching the State of the Union at the student bar, and me and my one hippie friend from Michigan started talking about Hadiyah when Obama mentioned her, and we both started crying profusely.

Phew - Just in time - Latin accomplishment.

So yesterday me and my one grantwriting Latin student finished up our special readings to coincide with the conclave.

Last week was our 2nd session on sections from the Apostolic Constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis" (the most recent doc outlaying conclave procedures), and we did a ton of sightreading at the end to power through it.

Yesterday we worked on Benedict's resignation announcement.  He had prepped about half, then we powered through and did a ton of sightreading to finish that off too.

I'm happy, my goal had been to finish both those readings before the new pope was elected!

In like 2 places (maybe 3), too, the Latin of Benedict's announcement was kind of shitty, from what I could tell:

1) He used "conscius" instead of "conscius sibi" to mean "aware of".

2) He went back into an accusative-infinitive instruction after a purpose clause, when it seems like it should have been a continuation of the purpose clause.

Also, I think he used "non solum - non minus" when "non solum - non etiam" would have been better (I'd have to check usage on that, though).

I wonder who drew up the Latin text - and what language Benedict's resignation was originally written in (Italian? German?).

Non-pareils (sp.?).

Back in January, I was craving fatty foods a lot, sometimes ice cream, sometimes chocolate.

One night I got home late and had a craving, so I popped into the liquor store near my house to see if they had a candy bar.

As it turns out, they really don't stock candy bars, though they had a few random candies and stuff in a cardboard box lid on the counter, and among them was a box of non-pareils (sp.?).

The incredibly heavy-set Puerto Rican-American woman who owns the store was a bit chatty, and started talking about how when she was a kid in the city her parents would take her and her siblings to this Roy Rogers movie theater that isn't there anymore, and they'd always get a box of non-pareils (sp.?).

I then shared that when I was a kid, my parents used to bring a box of them home for me and my brother, whenever they got a babysitter and went to the movies without us.

Memories of my last cold.

I neti potted out a decently large chunk of snot that got stuck to the bottom of the sink, it had so much mass that it just stuck there and the water from the neti pot didn't flush it down the drain.

So, I turned on the water, and cupped my hands and gathered some water and threw some on the chunk of snot, and it got displaced into the metal net covering on the sink drain -

Where it intersected with the water from the faucet, and got caught up in this little spiral dance, a bit of medium yellowish-white twirling around in the tapwater that was temporarily caught in the wire before disappearing down the drain.

I kept looking at it, transfixed, like that one f*cking plastic bag from American Beauty.

Subway fun: White Castle burgers.

The other week when I was coming home like 1 a.m. on the subway from school (a friend's wife was in town for a long weekend, so I went out at the student bar since I wanted to catch up with her about her new job she got in a different state).

Anyhow, on the subway, these three kids in their early 20s get on with this huge box of White Castle hamburgers, from which they would occasionally desultorily pluck one and eat it rather slowly while chit-chatting about not much at all with each other.

So, I struck up a conversation with the (white) (male) kid near me, and it turns out they had stopped through White Castle after getting hammered at a concert for a metal band they like.

"That's cool," I was like.  "Do you mind if I have a burger?".

"Sure, dude," the guy was like.  "You want regular cheese, or jalapeno cheese?".

I got one burger with regular cheese and ate it, and they offered me a second, but one was enough.

Then, they got inspired by me, and called out and offered them to a nearby (white) dude reading a book.

"I would love one!", he said, snapping shut the hardcover.

It had just been us there (apart from a few people way down at the other end of the car), but as we got downtown, a handful more of people got on, and they began offering burgers to them too.

One (white) gay in a younger gay couple with playbills in hand accepted one, though his (hispanic) partner demurred, saying it would give him diarrhea.

Later, they also offered them to another guy, who thanked them profusely but refused.

"What, it's not a good idea to take free food from strangers?", the (biracial) (girl) who offered him the burger asked, and at that he laughed.