by Yesterday I had four lessons – my students were Andreea, Alexandru, Adrian and Alin. By rights, I should get Bianca, Barbu, Bogdan and Beatrice today. Alexandru was a new student, aged twelve. He lives in Madrid and was born there, but is on holiday in Romania where his extended family are. He’s football mad – he dreams of being a professional footballer – and came wearing a bright yellow Ronaldo shirt from the Saudi team he apparently now plays for. We worked from the Cambridge book he brought – he was desperate to finish the book before I go away.
Dad likes to send me videos. This one of Maramureș in northern Romania, nearly 40 minutes long, is a must-see. It was shot in the summer of 2019, and gives an incredible window on village life in that part of the country. The first half of the video was so achingly beautiful that it almost brought a tear to my eye. Seriously. Someone asked in the comments what brings people to turn their backs on a life of peace and beauty to live in soulless, overcrowded cities. The answer to that is complicated. It’s a life of peace and beauty but also back-breaking work in many cases. The second half of the video showed the Mocaniță that I went on two years ago, with extra drama that I managed to avoid. Jenny Parsons, the British woman who made the video, seemed lovely. The camera work was great too – the close-ups of the butterflies in all their varieties, or the way she focused on the opinci – the traditional leather shoes. “The best holiday ever,” she said. I wanted to buy a car so I could see all of this more easily, although I’m now glad I didn’t buy one before going away. The central heating business has pretty much forced me to be at home.
On Sunday I saw a great piece in the Guardian entitled “Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags.” Yes, I know, it’s the Guardian which is left-leaning, but it was hard to disagree. These were the big five:
1. People who are proud non-readers of books
2. People who think that all books should just be short blog posts
3. People who think that wealth is directly linked to intelligence
4. People who go on and on about AI or ChatGPT
5. People who obsess about their IQs
Loads of people fall into number 3, and that’s half the reason why the planet is increasingly fucked. This guy is a gigantic twat but he’s a billionaire so he must be super smart. So I’ll vote for him. To number 4, add crypto. I dealt first-hand with number 5 when I did interview practice with this guy in his twenties who kept going on about his IQ. (Come to think of it, why do women never talk about their IQs?) “What’s the best way of talking about my IQ in the interview?” Don’t talk about it at all! But, but, but, it’s 145. No! To get the message across I wrote IQ in six-inch letters, crossed out. To be fair, I don’t think this guy was an idiot, he was just decidedly weird. I would add a number 6 – people whose favourite travel destination is Dubai or somewhere else that’s similarly fake and extravagant. A huge red flag.
Ten days to go, not that I’m counting or anything.
