A week off
It’s my jobless week in between the spring semester and the first summer term. This afternoon, I’m in a lounge at Notre Dame, hoping that the strangeness of the locale will stimulate me to write.
I lunched with my dear cousin, Vickie, who’s just finished her bachelor’s work at Notre Dame. The poor thing has lost 20 lbs. during her last semester. I asked if it’s because she’s been eating phở in the cafeteria every day. No, she said, she hasn’t been doing that; she’s lost weight because of stress.
She has some jobs lined up for the next couple of years, but eventually she’ll have to decide whether to go to graduate school.
She said that in one of her sociology honors courses, the professor told the undergraduates that she expected all of them to go to grad school for sociology.
I think that’s the sort of expectation that ill serves humankind.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The last two days, I got to watch two fantastic Champions League semifinal games.
On Tuesday, Liverpool defeated Barcelona at home by four goals to zero, gaining a decisive 4–3 lead in aggregate goals and canceling out Lionel Messi’s superb performance from the previous game.
And yesterday, the Potato Tots scored three second-half goals in Amsterdam to edge out Ajax on “away” goals. Lucas Moura, the goalscorer, prayed fervidly at the start of the half, and by the time he put in his second goal, it sure looked like he was receiving divine favor.
Still, I felt badly for Ajax: they’d outplayed the Potato Tots in three of the four halves. And I felt badly for Messi, whose teammates had failed to oblige when, in Barcelona’s home game, he’d set them up to score enough goals to put the series to bed.
The final (June 1) will be a ferocious contest. They’re two very gritty teams, Liverpool and the Potato Tots.
I lunched with my dear cousin, Vickie, who’s just finished her bachelor’s work at Notre Dame. The poor thing has lost 20 lbs. during her last semester. I asked if it’s because she’s been eating phở in the cafeteria every day. No, she said, she hasn’t been doing that; she’s lost weight because of stress.
She has some jobs lined up for the next couple of years, but eventually she’ll have to decide whether to go to graduate school.
She said that in one of her sociology honors courses, the professor told the undergraduates that she expected all of them to go to grad school for sociology.
I think that’s the sort of expectation that ill serves humankind.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The last two days, I got to watch two fantastic Champions League semifinal games.
On Tuesday, Liverpool defeated Barcelona at home by four goals to zero, gaining a decisive 4–3 lead in aggregate goals and canceling out Lionel Messi’s superb performance from the previous game.
And yesterday, the Potato Tots scored three second-half goals in Amsterdam to edge out Ajax on “away” goals. Lucas Moura, the goalscorer, prayed fervidly at the start of the half, and by the time he put in his second goal, it sure looked like he was receiving divine favor.
Still, I felt badly for Ajax: they’d outplayed the Potato Tots in three of the four halves. And I felt badly for Messi, whose teammates had failed to oblige when, in Barcelona’s home game, he’d set them up to score enough goals to put the series to bed.
The final (June 1) will be a ferocious contest. They’re two very gritty teams, Liverpool and the Potato Tots.