A student handed in an absolutely perfect final exam today. It’s an Advanced Grammar course, so the exam was harsh. At the end of the exam, the student wrote in beautiful Spanish a page-long message (which was not a part of the exam, of course) about how I’m the best teacher he has ever had and how my passion for languages and for learning has been a constant source of inspiration.

I feel happy, people.

The new Twitter! I can’t find anything in it. Where am I supposed to look for the messages that people send me through Twitter? I go to Direct Messages, and there is only the most recent one there.

I’d gladly not use Twitter at all but it’s becoming a preferred way of communicating for a growing number of people.

I really don’t get this changing things for the sake of changing them.

The Blogger has also adopted a new look. I participate in a writing group that operates in Blogger and I can’t help but notice how annoying the new Blogger structure is.

I’m reading David Graber’s Debt and I just discovered a very curious thing. In the Lord’s Prayer, English-speakers say “. . . and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This is very shocking to me because Russian-speakers have a very different version of the prayer. We ask God to forgive us our sins. And so do Spanish-speakers, as far as I’m aware.

What about other languages? Does any other culture use this weird financial terminology to pray to God?

I don’t know why I’m so surprised if we are talking about people who came up with the brilliant idea to use the language of commerce to speak about sex.

Graeber, of course, commits the mistake of equating English-speaking Christian and all Christians. In his mind, if English-speakers do things a certain way, the rest of the world must certainly imitate them.

An unhinged person had the following to say about people who oppose Arizona’s anti-abortion laws:

Opponents of this law do not really prioritize women’s health and their right to choose. Instead of wanting women to make smart decisions for themselves, they become “pro-abortion.” Their ultimate goal is the slaughter of innocent babies, so women can maintain their more comfortable lifestyles rather than live with the results of their choices — both the trials and the blessings.

No, silly little freakazoid, it’s only the guilty babies we, the evil feminazis, want to slaughter, so you can rest easy.Where do such creepos come from and how can we ship them back to their weird planet?

For an intelligent, detailed takedown of this unhealthy statement from a deluded maniac, read the post I linked to.

The only reason I placed this quote here is as a response to people saying that instead of calling such folks vile freakazoids, I should debate them logically and reasonably. Of course, I’m guessing that I will be a lot more successful holding debates with the neighborhood pooch who hates me for some reason and goes into fits whenever it sees me. Holding an intellectual discussion with somebody who says that my “ultimate goal is the slaughter of innocent babies”, though? Seriously? Because I want to waste my life debating things with people who are congenitally incapable of formulating a rational thought?

No, I’ll just stick to using these creatures for the only purpose God and nature intended them: to serve as an object of ridicule.