by After a six-week winter we had the warmest February on record (warmest X on record is something we’ve been hearing a lot lately, right?), and now spring has well and truly sprung. Saying that, it’s tipped it down all day today.
A funny week of lessons, and it’s far from over. On Monday I had the 17-year-old mall rat again, though this time she seemed actually human. We had something approaching a chat, mostly about the Ukraine war. After two years, people here have become dangerously blasé about it all, but she was rightly concerned. One oddity was that she’d never heard of the September 11th attacks. I say oddity – for me it’s the where-were-you moment when the world changed at a stroke – but in Romania it had a much smaller impact on the collective psyche than in the English-speaking world or western Europe. And of course she wasn’t even born then. On the same day I had an online session with the senior manager (a 35-year-old woman) who lives somewhere near Bucharest. Saying these sessions are like talking to a brick wall would do a disservice to the responsiveness of masonry. Just an utter waste of time. The good news is that pointless work makes up just 20% of my hours; 15 years ago it was up near 90%.
A student from 18 months ago has also rejoined the fray. He goes by Italian-sounding name of Marco. I don’t know how you get that out of Dumitru, his real name. I’ve had three online “lessons” with him already this week. One of them he spent lying in bed; during another he smoked the whole time. (I recently had a guy vape during a face-to-face session at home; things suddenly got very strawberry-ish.) The sessions with Marco aren’t pointless exactly, but he’s on a different frequency to me somehow, and I struggle to pick up a signal.
It was 10pm when I finished with Marco on Tuesday. With no lessons the next morning, I put on the game between Hull and Birmingham. Hull, predictably, took the lead just after I tuned in – a goal that should have been disallowed for handball. Hull were dominant and it had all the makings of a stonking win for them, but Blues clung on and in the 82nd minute conjured up an equaliser as Lukas Jutkiewicz who had just come on as a substitute headed the ball home. A good point for Blues but they’re still very much in a relegation scrap. (Today I saw a simulation model that gave Blues a 15% chance of being relegated. Having seen a few of their performances, that feels low, even if they do still have a game in hand. They go to Millwall on Saturday, a huge game for them.) When the Blues game was over, I switched over to Ipswich – the Tractor Boys, as they’re affectionately known – at home to Bristol City. It was 2-2 with ten minutes left and the place was rocking. Ipswich were awarded a penalty, and a shocking kick was easily saved, but not to matter. They scored the winner a couple of minutes later, and it’s a wonder they didn’t add to their tally in stoppage time. That was fun to watch.
Not much other news. In my next post I’ll give a run-down of all the vinyl I bought recently. In the meantime, here’s a video from CityNerd on the world’s top ten music cities (by the metric he uses). Very interesting.
I’m extremely proud of my brother for getting his first-class degree. His graduation takes place on 18th April, a couple of weeks after I go to the UK. It’s a shame he won’t have family there for it. My graduation ceremony in 2002, which my parents and grandmother attended, was quite lovely really.
