Hergest Ridge

I cleaned out the washing machine today. After I pulled out the last batch of clothing out of it, the clothing smelled as if a swamp monster had regurgitated it. Test wash in progress. :)

After spending 200Złt at the store, I still forgot a bulb for my desk lamp. I’m using candles again to light the place and the atmosphere feels a bit churchy. Either the candles need to go, or I’ve to find a date. (Seeing that the former is probably easier, I’ll probably just walk over to the store tomorrow and get a bulb. And if I did a bad job cleaning out the washing machine I’ll smell tomorrow like the thing in the picture above, which will definitely make getting a bulb easier.)

While eating breakfast I turned my phone into a remote control for the notebook. This could be considered quite neat, but instead is probably comical: my flat is 18 sq. meters (about 200 sq. feet,) and a long broom stick would have done just as well. I was going to take a picture of the flat, but I can’t step back anywhere far enough to get more than one wall into a picture.

This concludes my day with the conclusion that I’ve done nothing of great importance today.

(Image credits: Hannah Krueger & The Blog of No)

Mia: Don’t you hate that?
Vincent: Hate what?
Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Vincent: I don’t know. That’s a good question.
Mia: That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute – comfortably share silence.

– Pulp Fiction

“What’s another word for escape?”
“Run away.”
“That’s not the one, there was something shorter…”
“Run.”

“Are you guys still meeting?” The old woman wore a beret over her silver hair, had a big smile and a pug dog on a red leash. She waited for my answer.
“We don’t know each other” I replied politely.
“Oh, oh, that’s a shame.” She walked off with a big smile. I liked her and her dog.

Claire: There may be life somewhere else
Justine: But there isn’t.”

While the pace of the film felt at times sluggish, I got into it in the second part. I think the characters needed more background – for the first half I wasn’t personally interested in them.

One thing I found to be life-like is how Justine, Claire and John betrayed their own personal characters in the end, and accepted their fate in ways so different than one might have expected them to.

The swan song of Melancholia nearing had a strangely calming effect, perhaps akin to the Titanic orchestra that played well into the end 100 years ago today. The Atlantic ocean took back from humanity that which humanity vainly harvested deep from under its skin torn and ripped greedily. Melancholia took everything else, leaving no one to lament or bemoan its fate.

Justine: The earth is evil. We don’t need to grieve for it.
Claire: What?
Justine: Nobody will miss it.

Someone I know wrote ‎”… any think you can dream!!! and free staff.” I say to them ‘I beat thee with the free staff for the massacre you’ve inflicted on your mother tongue.’ Furthermore, I feel no guilt for beating you with the said staff. You’ve given me the tools, and the reasons too.

Today in an individual English class the phrase butterflies in the stomach came to question. It’s when you fall in love answered my youngest student. Her quiet certainty made my day.

Working with school-aged students is like varnish against the layers of cynicism that build up over time and with each disappointment.

I think there might be more truths than lies, and it makes me want to learn maths for its austere logic, sequence and structure. I noticed the pace at which my teenage English students learn compared with their older contemporaries, and recalling the problems I’ve had with maths as a young lad realise that at my age I should just quietly volunteer in a soup kitchen instead. The difference in speed of learning is often like that between the brightest student in the class, and that slightly retarded kid whose name no one could remember (you all had one of these in your class, right?)