I visited the Toronto Botanical Garden Spring Sale and was absolutely delighted by the experience. Everyone was friendly and generous. I came home with a bunch of seeds for the allotment.
I think that “gardening” is going to become a major theme of these week notes for the summer. Perhaps I should switch “Moving” for “Gardening” or add a new section?
Some parenting observations.
After years of wondering about it, I finally visited the Toronto Maha Vihara. It was a novel experience. The temple was very quiet and all the lights were off. I went in to the main worship space. There was a monk meditating. I took the opportunity to meditate a bit too. After that, I left quietly. I’m glad that I dropped by. It was similar to visiting a local mosque during their open house; no fanfare, just a place for worship.
I’ve signed up for the May Esperanto-Sumoo. The last time I took part was during REF in July 2024. The Sumoo is a reading challenge.
Antaŭ la aranĝo ni elektas libron, kiun ni legos kaj decidas kiom da paĝoj ni legos ĉiutage. Se ni plenumas nian tagan taskon, ni havas unu venkon. Tiamaniere ni luktadas 15 tagojn. Sumooistoj en Japanio luktas kontraŭ aliaj luktistoj, sed ni esperantistoj luktas nur kontraŭ malfortoj de sia propra personeco. —Esperanto-sumoo
And my free translation:
Before the Sumoo, you pick a book which you’ll read and decide the amount to read per day. If you succeed in this daily task, then you have a victory. In this way, we wrestle for fifteen days. Sumos in Japan wrestle with each other, but we esperantists wrestle with the weakness of our own personalities.
For this Sumoo, I’ve decided to read Pro Iŝtar (1924) by Heirich Luyken. I tried reading it before, but got caught up in other things. Last time I mentioned in on this blog, I was writing a bit about reading old books in Esperanto. I didn’t give up on it for a lack of interest: the book is great. It reframes the tale of Job from the Bible as a conspiracy prepetrated by devotees of Ishtar.
Darwin’s Super-Pooping Worm Spectacular
An enthusiastic vermicomposter recommended this book to me at the TBG Spring Sale 2025. It just came in from the library, and it is really good! Kids books can sometimes hit a sweet spot between information density and entertainment value. This one nails it.
One of my summer tasks is to write homeworks and solutions for my courses. I want to get all this writing out of the way before the start of term. Hopefully, this will free up time for chatting with students and being more supportive.
I’ve been writing some solutions for MAT A29, and there’s a curious phenomena at play. During the term, I have a really hard time producing solutions. It feels like such a terrible chore. Looking at my writing progress tracker, it looks as though it takes me about two and half hours to $\LaTeX{}$ the solutions of a homework set. That’s split up over five sessions. Two and a half hours isn’t a terrible amount of time. It’s just so much easier to find the time in the summer, when there is no pressure.
As the weather has got nicer, I’ve been biking more and more. Bike to the garden, the grocery store, to pick up the kids, etc.
This bit is cross-posted from the Braids and Bands List.
I tend to braid while riding public transit. It always leads to the most heart warming interactions. Recently, I was learning 7-Loop Spanish braiding following Ingrid’s tutorial, and a fellow got on the bus. As he sat he down across from me, he exclaimed: “Hey! You’re just like a kid!”
He was delighted to see a grown man doing this childish activity, and told me all about where he grew up, the girls that he played with when he was a kid, and that they’d done loop braiding but that he never got the hang of it, etc. We talked about our lives and families at length. It was a great conversation.
I always explain my curious hobby by saying: “Oh, I teach camps for kids in the summer.” This seems to explain the situation completely whether it’s currently mid-summer or mid-winter.
Almost two years of learning Russian on-and-off, and all I got was the ability to understand a fake language. That’s a common sort of trade-off you’ll get with language learning, and I’ll still keep at it, because I’m insane.
Remember: It’s better to be proud of a small garden than be frustrated by a big one!
Old writer puts on a sweater
sits down, leers into computer
screen and writes about life.
How holy can we get?
Published: May 16, 2025 @ 01:15.
Last Modified: May 16, 2025 @ 07:38.
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