by On Wednesday I got a phone call from what seemed to be a teenage girl wanting lessons. A few minutes later (this person had spoken very good English in this time) I asked for a name. David. He pronounced it in the English way (the Romanian way is dah-vid). This morning 17-year-old David arrived for a two-hour lesson. He’s been homeschooled since the beginning of Covid; I hadn’t met anybody who was homeschooled before and didn’t even know if it was legal in Romania. He was quite remarkable: his attention to detail – different accents, glottal stops, phrasal verbs, weak forms, the IPA phonemic chart, you name it – was something I hadn’t seen previously. Some of my students show quite poor attention to detail, and that makes them rather difficult to teach. At times I’m forced to say, “Hey, this thing I’m telling you actually matters and you need to pay attention.” Others are much better, they ask questions, they make notes, and they’re always much easier to teach. (I’ve noticed that people who make notes almost always learn faster than those who don’t. Whether that’s the notes themselves, or just that people who make notes tend to be more focused, I don’t know.) Anyway, this David was extremely easy to teach. My whiteboard kept filling up and the two hours went by in no time. We can only have three more sessions before I go away, and he isn’t interested in online learning. I don’t blame him. Perhaps the best thing to come out of the pandemic is the acceptance of working from home. Millions of people are now missing out on unnecessary soul-crushing commutes that add 25% to their working day, and that’s fantastic. But teaching does work better face-to-face: books and all kinds of tactile games and exercises become available, and you dodge all the annoying tech issues. “I can hear you but I can’t see you.” “Sorry, you’re breaking up a bit.” And so on.
Of course there are environmental benefits to working from home too, although the reduction in carbon emissions on the roads must be offset by extra electricity use at home, and I have no idea how those numbers stack up. We definitely need some major shifts in human behaviour after a week in which we broke the all-time record for the world’s hottest day, two days in a row. (I lie. It wasn’t/isn’t an all-time record, just the record since the Eemian which I hadn’t heard of before and ended only 115,000 years ago.)
My sinus problem isn’t getting any better. Well, in one way it is, because (touch wood) I haven’t had an excruciating headache for months now. But it affects me every day. The pressure builds up and builds up until phew, I’m able to blow out a jet of slime, and the process repeats. Nights are often terrible because the process doesn’t magically stop when I’m asleep. This means my sleep is interrupted, and when I wake up for the final time in the morning I often feel shattered. My energy is depleted; everything feels heavy. I have an appointment with a specialist in Timișoara on 20th September, shortly after I arrive back in the country, and if nothing comes of that, my next step might be a trip to Bucharest and possibly surgery.
The last time I spoke to Dad, he mentioned Alzheimer’s. (By Dad’s age, his own father was in the advanced stages of it.) Dad had read that the onset of the disease is usually marked by a combination of “brain fog” and anxiety. He said that he had none of the brain fog (beyond the usual!) but loads of anxiety, beyond anything he’d experienced before, seemingly brought on by all the life admin and tech stuff. It’s sad that he’s been so affected by that. In the last week, there have been positive signs though. The building work is in full swing and they’re cracking on at a good pace. The sooner that’s done, the better.
It’s been a terrible 2023 for tennis. Rain meant that both of last weekend’s sessions got cancelled. No sign of rain this weekend though, so we should get two sessions in. On Monday I’ve got a jam-packed day of lessons planned – I’m grateful for that because it should be good for my mood, even if it’ll be tiring. I doubt I’ll have any more days like that until I go away.
I finished Digital Minimalism and have started John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids.
