A motherly observation.

During that same conversation, I told my mom about the brewing scandal, where the president of the university where I go to very bizarrely won’t let maintenance workers use the elevator in the main building on campus, which I guess forces them to haul equipment up up to 6 flights of stairs.

“Man,” I was like, “That really got me p*ss*d off, when I heard that.”

“I can only imagine,” she said.

Joke repetition.

The other week I was talking with my parents on the phone, and I mentioned to my mom that I was going to see Verdi’s “Joan of Arc” that weekend, since a local opera company was putting it on.

She started to say something, and I cut her off and was like, “Don’t tell me how it ends!”.

(The opera, by the way, ends with Joan escaping from the stake, leading the army to battle once more, than ascending bodily to heaven...  They changed the story a bit, as it turns out.)

She then said that like half a year or a year before that, before she retired, she was at the library and had finally got off the waitlist for some book on the Mayflower, and was talking about it with the library’s IT guy, and when he had started to say something, she had said the same thing.

When she said that, I vaguely remembered that story, and I wonder whether I subconsciously filed away that joke, or if I simply re-invented it.

Latin bummer.

My one very good Latin student sent me a semi-dramatic email out of the blue thanking me for lessons, and saying he really couldn’t continue them because he got suddenly tapped to undergo (free) certification training that allowed him to ascend the office ladder, and that’d pretty much suck up all his free time, though he’d try to translate a little bit on his own if he ever had time.

I replied very nicely, and reminded him that I’d be in the city for at least 2 years, so he always had the option of starting up lessons again, and that if he ever got through any decent amount of the texts we had been working on (and I recommended which ones might be easier to do on his own, since a few of them were consistently challenging for him, in a good way), we could always meet for 15-30min. to check his translation on a play-it-by-ear basis.

He said definitely, and thanked me for my flexibility.

It’s kind of sad, he read a ton of Latin each week, and it really kept me on my toes.

I’m certain he’ll be back, though, if/when his time frees up.

At our last lesson, even, we had just started Vergil’s 1^st Eclogue – we had already read the 4^th – and he mentioned that he really enjoyed it, and when I then said that it would be feasible with dedication to read the entire work, he genuinely, immediately exclaimed, “I’d love that!”, and you could tell he meant it.

He really does have a genuine love for Latin, it’s very endearing and inspiring.  I’d *love* for him to be able to study with that one priest I studied with, I know he’d really enjoy it and learn a lot.

I also think that he gets oddly dramatic...  Like half a year ago he said he had a family situation that was sucking up his time and money (he lives at home with his parents – is one of them sick?), and couldn’t afford the roughly $150 a month he was paying me, so we talked it over, and I ended up halving my hourly price to fit his budget, until such a time that he could up it again, as he could afford it again.

I really think he was honest with me then, and had thought I’d be a stickler for my price or something, and that's why he cancelled.

More pleasant stuff about my new apt.

The area has very nice residents:

- Mexican and Mexican-American families.

- Working-class whites.

- A few hipsters who run some tasty and affordable cafes and coffee shops.

- Chinese families with kids (though they do drive too fast and not obey traffic laws).

Thankfully, no yuppies.

Pleasant morning noise at my new apt.

The other day some workers were at the boarded-up house next door (under construction, foreclosed, or both?), and some oompah-oompah Mexican tuba music was playing over their boombox, and then one (Mexican?) guy started singing along to the lyrics and bombastic melody, on an otherwise quiet street.

Addendum.

Overall, I find making a potato curry very very similar to making potatoes paprikash.

You cut up some onions and sautee them in oil, then throw the potatoes in to cook them on the outside so they stick together a bit more when you boil them, and then you dump spices on and stir it into the oil and over the potatoes, and then pour water over it, and boil.

Same damn process!

It almost makes you wonder if there's some ancient connection between Hungarians and India (j/k, though Russians think like that and make those kinds of connections, they tend to respect India so much).