And it's Friday

Some random stuff:

* As much as I love some of Adagio Tea's blends, I'm coming to the conclusion that Harney and Sons teas are better quality.  (they have a website, and I also now get catalogs from them since I've mail-ordered from them)

My dad is very fussy about tea and I gave him a tin of their English Breakfast loose tea for Father's Day, and his conclusion was it was better than the one he was ordering from some British importer. I think I'm going to order him some more for Christmas; I think he might like All India, which is one of my favorites of the "plain" blends. Or maybe just their plain orange pekoe; I know my dad doesn't care for the flavored teas.

* I tend to be one of those people true tea-snobs roll their eyes about because I like the flavored teas. My current Harney favorite is their Vanilla Comoro Decaf. It's just a good tea, and the fact that it's decaf means it works even better for me. I also really like their raspberry herbal tea (I got a sample of it), and the next time I place an order I'm going to order a larger amount to use.

I also like their chocolate mint black tea.

* I just have to remind myself I'm teaching for the people who give a dang. I looked out over my class today and saw a few bored faces (and one person texting on their phone, and no, I'm not saying anything to them, because when they're not texting they talk, and that's worse). But I also saw a few people who were paying attention and who looked interested.

But it just makes me sad. I remember my own college days - how quaint that era seems now - and how so much stuff excited me (and as I said, I was still sufficiently terrified of having a Permanent Record somewhere that I really did not want to fail).

* I also remember enjoying a lot of my classes. A few I was puzzled or worried in. But I don't remember being bored. I don't know if my tolerance for "boring" is higher than some people's, or if students today have become more jaded. I've had a few BAD teachers over the years - mostly people who were nasty to the students (there was one chem prof at Michigan who was infamous for chewing out people who came to his office hours with a question he deemed insufficiently insightful) or who confused me because they were disorganized. But I didn't mind the droners or the slow-movers if they presented stuff in a way that made sense to me, and most topics were interesting to me.

Or this could just be a case of "the farther away you get from a time in your life, the better it looks"

* I'm trying to find a good, more written-for-the-reader type review of basic (or perhaps, not so basic) algebra. I admit I've forgotten a lot of it and some of my attempts to relearn calculus are probably hampered by my not immediately remembering some of the algebra stuff. I have the Manga Guide to Linear Algebra, but that's a bit farther along than what I want at the moment. (Yes, embarrassing: I need to review quadratics and factoring and stuff like that). I'd prefer an applied-type book where the author talks about how and why you use the stuff. And not so much a textbook....

(I'm still going to read the Linear Algebra one. It talks about eigenvectors which I sometimes use, or, rather the computer calculates for me and I know kind of what conclusions to draw from what they say, but I don't really know how you get to having the eigenvector).

* One of my colleagues is learning French because his daughter's fiance is French and he wants to communicate. Periodically he comes and asks me something or composes a sentence for me. I'm actually surprised and pleased at how much French I remember. (And my accent is pretty good, I guess: I was correcting his pronunciation on some things one day).

I think one good thing in high school; we memorized poetry in French. By having something memorized, we could really work on pronunciation. (And yeah, how you pronounce in poetry is a bit different, because of the scansion: you usually pronounce final "e"s that you wouldn't normally. but still.

I just generally tend to be pro- things like memorizing poetry. I enjoyed it, and I can still dredge up bits of it 30 years later.

* I wonder if he will want me to teach him how to swear in French. I only know a few of the slightly milder ones (Heh, I just looked up one I thought meant "a-hole" and it turns out it means a slang term for another bodily orifice that women have, and it translates to a word I'd really, really never use*. So I guess I do know at least one of the really bad ones. Holy cow, so that's what Dr. Pryce was trying so hard to explain without really explaining when we ran across it in a book in class.). There's also "le mot du cinq lettres which is the strong French word for solid excreta.

(*The way the expression is used in French, it is roughly equivalent to "Well, you've got some nerve!" but with a side of "and you're being a jerk about it") (Interestingly, this site translates the word, in isolation, as "ass" or "the milder term, idiot." I don't know. I still wouldn't use it given what it apparently can mean in some contexts. But wait, there's more: over here they do give the genital explanation of the word. I guess you have to be VERY careful speaking a language that is not your native one.)

There is a similar word (cul) that is a rude word for butt. Hence, PQ or "Papier cul" for toilet paper. (I guess Cul, though it translates into English as a ruder word than Butt, isn't seen as so rude in French....)

Of course, in Canadian French (and perhaps still in the rural European French), the way you swear is by literally blaspheming - blaspheming a saint or the Virgin Mary or something. (I admit, if I were going to go "harsh"? I'd rather use "le mot du cinq lettres" than that)

Languages are interesting. Sometime I want to take time and go back and learn more German. Some of the people on ITFF use an app called Duolingo which is sort of a language-learning game. I don't know if you can download it for a laptop or if it's mobile-only, but I should check; I could download it at home and when I felt like faffing around with a computer game I could play it.

I also still have a vague quixotic dream of trying to learn Latin some day. Just because. (And anyway, learning stuff stretches your neurons and is supposed to prevent brain loss). I don't have time now but someday I want to.

* While talking about "you could put these data into a pie chart" in class today, it popped in my mind: "I wonder if there's a Pinkie Pie Chart." (It's a good thing I have a strong "filter" or all kinds of WTH stuff would pop out of my mouth in the middle of class.)

And yes, there is. I don't have a good attribution because this comes via Google Image Search from some discussion board, but if you know who did this, I'll happily give attribution:

I still think Fluttershy is Best Pony! but I also have to admit very strong love for Pinkie Pie.