I didn’t sleep well and woke up early. Did most of my morning routine, made breakfast and then time got away from me and I didn’t manage to write new words. The boy went to school on time, I talked with my husband. Learned some Chinese, did the dishes and such and went out on errands.
I had to wait ten minutes at the post office before I could send my package, then went on to the health food store where I bought all the food. My husband has been inspired and is planning lots and lots of interesting meals. There are post-its on the fridge again so we don’t forget about any of them. But the big health food store didn’t have everything so I had to go to the other one as well.
Went back home, unpacked all the groceries and had lunch. My husband had made comics caseira:
When we were in Brazil we had that for lunch almost every day. This is chicken but you can also eat it with beef or fish. There is a sauce that goes with it that I don’t particularly like so I didn’t take a picture.
Then the boy and I did the dishes and talked until I threw him out of the kitchen to have a bit of peace and quiet before teaching. Just before I started teaching the second student of the day asked if we could move her lesson to the evening. The answer was yes, that is her regular time anyway, we’re just moving her lesson earlier every time we can because both of us would rather be done with lessons by six. When I called the first student her mother answered and she wasn’t home. Oops. Time had gotten away from them. So I said I’d call again half an hour later which meant that my nice one-hour break was cut in two.
I did some admin stuff and texted back and forth with the friend I had planned to talk to that evening. It turned out we were both pretty exhausted and stressed so we decided not to skip the call. I finally taught the first student of the day then did some more admin and taught the rest of my students.
While eating lunch we had had a bit of a family conflict. We’re all on edge again which really is no excuse but when my husband wanted to tell me about what he had read in Harari’s „Homo Deus“ and started a sentence with something like „the animistic period of human history“ I reacted badly. The discussion lasted all through lunch with my husband repeatedly saying that he wouldn’t talk to me about the book anymore.
When I came back to the kitchen after teaching that night I heard the boy and my husband talking about history and culture and such again and knew they were talking about the book again. So I said hi and then went to fold the laundry. They were having the same discussion my husband and I had started before lunch but the boy was much calmer and sensible.
I had dinner, the boy and I did the dishes after my husband left and then we spent about ninety minutes talking some more about history and the future and robots, as one does, and in the end I pulled out my eReader and we started reading the first few pages of Harari’s book together.
It is definitely not a book I would enjoy. Interestingly, all the topics he talk about are things I find endlessly fascinating but the way he talks about them does not mesh with me. And I find myself become picky and pedantic and every other sentence I start saying, „Well, yes but, um, no, don’t say it like this“ because while the things he says are not wrong per se many, many details are. And I’m not an expert in any of the things he is talking about but I have a suspicion he isn’t either which comes as no surprise because the field he is talking about is so vast that no one can actually be an expert.
So yeah, better not to talk about this with my husband.
I threw the boy out of the kitchen a second time when it was time to get ready for bed, opened a beer, started writing this post and read some more of the Harari book just to criticize it. Which doesn’t make for a pleasant reading experience, I should stop that and instead finish the non-fiction book I actually enjoy so I can start reading the other book I bought yesterday morning, Seth Godin’s „Practice“. I’m hoping for some easy motivation.
Today the boy will give his presentation at the „Jugend forscht“ science fair. He will stay home because the whole thing is online this year and attend from his room. I will take one pair of frames to the optician so he can put new glasses in first thing after breakfast. I will go running and I have a lot more admin and email to do. Then lots and lots of teaching until 7 pm and then I’ll go to a virtual knitting meeting right away.
This week is super-busy but I already decided that I won’t attend the conference thing on the weekend. I need some time away from screens.
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