I’m so sick that even Russian Facebook memes  (e.g. “If your wife is in a bad mood, step aside and throw a wallet at her”) seem funny.

I forgot to buy a medical mask, so I wrapped a nappy around my lower face. Now I look like a fan of Yasser Arafat. This thing is hot like hell. 

Few things are more disgusting than having a cold on an extremely hot, sticky day. 

Professional athletes tend to have the intellectual the of 12-year-olds. But this Kaepernick fellow seems to have been stuck at age 5. He just repeated the dumbazoid line about Hillary calling black people superpredators. Others say this stupid line in bad faith but this poor parrot seems actually to believe it. 

If I tried playing football, I’d be as bad as he is when he analyzes the political process. 

This nasty cold is making me weepy. In class, I almost broke down when I was telling the students about Isidore of Seville. It is a touching story but I had to make an effort not to wail as I was telling it.

I hope the Spanish alphabet that I will discuss in my next class will not prove as tear-inducing.

A student came up to me to share that after a 23-year-long wait, he will finally become a citizen. I almost started crying because it’s so touching and I’m in a weakened state right now.

Also, I’m so sick that I imagined that I had forgotten to switch of the stove and had to drive all the way back home to check. Turns out I didn’t forget to switch it off.

I can’t wait for my next class to make me feel more like myself.

I’m so sick it’s scary. I met a colleague before class and tried talking to him in Spanish but it was useless. Nothing but a weird jumble was coming out.

Still, the moment I entered the classroom, perfect Spanish started pouring out of me. It’s like a switch was flipped. Then, I left the classroom and again everything was in a fog.

N shared his secret fantasy with me. 

“You know what I’d love to do?” he said with a dreamy look on his face. “Just sit there and do abstract algebra. But I feel guilty because it seems so self-indulgent.”

“And I’d love to just sit there and study the history of Luso-Brazilian literature but I also feel guilty,” I said. 

We are perfect for each other. 

The problem with the football player who didn’t stand during the anthem is that there is zero point to these competitive sports other than promotion of the nation-state. They were created to foster patriotism and to promote emotional attachment to the nation-state. And the players today get enormous payouts because they help fans experience the ecstasy of nationalism.

Other than this, they serve no purpose whatsoever. For the players, shitting on the trappings of nationalism is like cutting off the hand that feeds you. 

Every August I fall sick. For decades, literally. And it’s always the same stupid cold. So annoying.