Tuesday, August 28, 2018

To Spanish or not to Spanish

As September nears and things return to normal here in Sevilla, I'm going to start a Spanish language class. I'm trying to figure out how much time and can/want to commit to the effort. On the one hand, I have my research and other sabbatical goals. On the other hand, how often do you get to live in the country whose language you want to learn?

I will certainly take a course, but the two options right now are a 15 hr/week class that goes week-to-week like Laura's and a 4 hr/week course that covers about 12 weeks. After 7 weeks of intensive Spanish, Laura can definitely hear and speak wwaaayyyy better than I can. At 15 hrs/week though, there's not much head space left for math and that's why Whitman's paying me.

I only took one picture today. It's of an abandoned cement planter down by the river where I start and end my runs. It's not much to look at, but it's the perfect height and location for stretching out after the run. To commemorate this mundane, but useful object, I memorialize it here:
It's beautiful really (no filters used on this shot). Plus, that graffiti absolutely finishes it. Finally, you can't go wrong with a regular hexagon--one of only three regular polygons capable of tiling the plane and definitely the most efficient by a lot of measures. (You can definitely tell I have nothing to write this evening.)

Whitman started it's Fall semester today. This is the first time I'm not teaching the opening day of the school year at Whitman in 15 years. It's weird.

My niece started her first year at Loyola in Chicago this week. I swapped texts with her today and sounds like she's starting off well.