Once I've seen a little book about a hundred excuses for those who cannot make it on time. I was sure I'd make it this morning, but you won't guess what happened! As always, I grabbed the rubbish bag waiting on the door handle, left the flat and shut the door behind me, went downstairs and then realised that the hold-all backpack stayed behind. Luckily, I managed to get hold of the landlady pretty soon and got the spare set from her place.
Today I met another woman who makes her own jewellery. It was fun to help Vanessa find a belt to match a cricket jumper she was lucky to find! She allowed me to take a picture of her earring and I gave have her the address of my little blog. Let me know, please, if you do venture here, Vanessa. :-)
We agreed with another lady that this piece of fabric must come from Mexico. She bought it and was going to frame it and hang it in her house.
I like this kind of old cityscapes; snapped it in a hurry and cannot quite tell which city it depicts:
A display unit that resembles a transatlantic ship to me:
I wonder who will want the dolls and where they will go:
I made a correct guess that the young male customer was from the United States. Of what he knew, his great-grandparents were of distant Polish-Russian descent. He couldn't say much about it. That's what I remember about the American education. Specialisation begins quite early and most students, even if they make it through the high school and college - wouldn't be familiar with the seemingly elementary stuff outside their chosen subjects. Many years ago, in the mid-nineties, living in the States, I was really surprised to discover that my truly educated in the humanities friend would only distinguish between a coniferous and deciduous tree, but wouldn't know an oak, birch or pine. Who needs that unless they are a gardener or a forester, though?
Having mentioned the States, somebody today talked about Samuel P. Huntington and the invaluable Wikipedia has just opened its resources for me. What caught my eye was the criticism he received from some reputable mathematicians who accused him of misusing mathematics and engaging in pseudo-science. I thought my recent guests from Poland, mathematics teachers, might like to explore the topic, hence the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington, and one more: http://thoughtcast.org/politics/samuel-huntington/ (BTW it looks an interesting website). My thoughts go back to our dinner in the spectacular settings of Sarastro in Covent Garden last Sunday.
We talked about teaching and I remember saying something about the danger of putting off the student but making mathematics too theoretical rather than practical in many schools. My friends strongly disagreed and unanimously said that mathematics is the most practical of all the subjects! I cannot agree more; just some teachers seem to forget about or ignore that fact....
Anyway, once I got to thoughtcast.org, I came across a number of materials I'd like to read or listen to, but I shall leave them for later; just adding the link on James Joyce, as we talked about him on our Sunday hike around The West End and I referred to the annual walk in the footsteps of his most famous character: http://thoughtcast.org/literature/in-dublin-with-james-joyce-and-editor-maurice-earls/
Good night!
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