BFF suggested the following as a wedding dress for me:

I could totally see myself in it. BTW, I’m buying a house and having a wedding. Because why the hell not?

“He’s just like these creepy guys who try to pick up chicks in bars!” a student excalimed after we read a sonnet by Gongora in the carpe diem tradition. (For the Spanish speakers, the sonnet in question is “Mientras por competir con tu cabello.”)

I pretended to lack knowledge as to what went on in bars.

Capitalism in the West and especially in the United States is basically dead. It has turned into a government-sponsored griftopia where a small filthy rich class with government sanction uses their control over capital to force the worker class to turn over the majority of the wealth they produce to their owners. For the majority of workers it is little different from slavery, except that you can choose slavemaster A or slavemaster B.

Whenever I read this kind of thing, I always wonder if the author of these words would have the courage of his opinions to approach a black person and say, “Oh, your  ancestors were slaves? That’s totally like working in a warm, cozy office 8 hours a day 5 days a week. I, like, totally know all about slavery because I once had an office job.” I mean, if he really believes what he is saying, then it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

These spoiled little losers keep whining about the imaginary horrors of their useless lives and imagining themselves as some sort of heroes who bravely resist great adversity. It would be funny if it weren’t so offensive.

If you manage to get through the rest of the article by this intellectual impotent, you will see that it contains an absolutely hilarious explanation of why Soviet economy failed. The idiot’s answer: because consumers couldn’t provide enough feedback.

A student irrupted into my office and asked in an aggressive tone, “So do you have a PhD?”

“Yes,” I said. “Are you OK?”

“So if you have a PhD, can you explain to me how a command is formed in the plural for verbs followed by object pronouns?”

I’m always happy to explain grammar even if the request is made with an unwarranted degree of antagonism. So I explained and drew a little picture to illustrate.

“Hah!” the student exclaimed. “So you are saying it would be wrong to say. . .” and she used an incorrect conjugation.

“No, that would be a mistake,” I said.

“Are you sure?” the student asked even more angrily.

“Yes, I am.”

“Professor Gomez always uses this form you say is incorrect, though!” the student was triumphant.

“That’s not possible,” I said. “You probably misheard.”

“No! I heard just right! And I filmed it and uploaded the video on Facebook because I knew Professor Gomez speaks incorrectly! And now I will quote your words next to the video. Because you have a PhD and you say Professor Gomez doesn’t speak right.”

“Wait, just wait,” I said. “I’m sure you misheard because. . .”

But the student was already running away.

I now feel like I’ve been used in some weird vendetta a student has against another professor. Professor Gomez is a native speaker who speaks beautiful Spanish and cannot possibly make any grammar mistakes. Especially such ridiculous ones. And I really don’t want to appear next to any videos.

I used to be a very leisurely person, spending a lot of time spacing out, relaxing, and drifting in contented aimlessness.

I can’t afford that any longer because I feel like I have to be running all the time. So every moment of my day from 7 am to 11 pm is scheduled.

This makes me feel like an entirely different person which is a good thing right now.

The haggard face in the photo is illustrating how hugely over scheduled I am.

Have you watched the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi? I haven’t because it isn’t my thing but here is something interesting: the organizers wanted to honor during the ceremony the memory of those who died in WWII. (The whole opening ceremony was based on the history of Russia, and the victory of the USSR in WWII is the most important event of that history.)

The International Olympic Committee forbade, however, any but the most perfunctory references to the war because this subject upsets the Germans. And you know how things are these days. Nobody wants to upset the Germans because they’ve got the cash.

The activity in honor of the fallen was to be as follows. Everybody present at the opening ceremony was going to be asked to hold a photo of a person who died in the war and raise it at the same time. This would honor the memory of the dead heroes making everybody feel as if they were present among the living.

I never know what is going to impress students. In the Intro to Literature class, what caused an absolute sensation was that I can read Roman numerals and don’t need to stop and think before “deciphering” them. This came up when we started to study sonnets titled “Soneto LXXXVI” and “Soneto CLXVI.” If I’d known this would matter so much to the students, I could have started the course by reading aloud a few Roman numerals.