I’m kind of depressed after spending time at this conference and talking to colleagues from many different colleges in the US and Canada. Everybody has horror stories about language programs being shut down, tenure lines eliminated, colleagues pushed into early retirement or outright fired. People have to teach courses they aren’t remotely qualified to teach (like me and my Molière course that starts on Monday).

The colleagues are all wonderful people, and they are trying to put a brave face on it but it’s all so sad. We all came to thriving programs and are witnessing their agony and demise. We had a great thing going with truly the best higher education system on the planet, and we’ve pissed it all away. Yippee for bloody us.

This is the Plaza Mayor of San Sebastián:

If you look closely, you’ll see that there are numbers over each balcony door:

Here they are:

These are not apartment numbers. But what are they? How were these numbers used historically?

At the conference banquet, I was out of luck. The entree featured delicate white fish with a large pickled tomato as garnish. I’m a lifelong fan of pickled tomatoes but they should not share a plate with white fish. They are pungent, overpowering. The fish gets completely lost by their side. Plus, nobody can eat a pickled tomato correctly in polite company. People went at the tomatoes with fork and knife, which immediately got the juice to burst out and soak the fish.

People truly take culinary experimentation too far. If you have a good, fresh piece of fish, all you need to do is not mess with it too much, and everybody will be happy.