On 29th we had the farewell to štafeta at the city. After the crowd dispersed, we decided to go to city park, behind the city hall. We: Tejka, Dragana, Oli Boj, Zvojko, Đ., Duca, M. The atmosphere there was somehow mystical, there was something in the air. Yeah, spring and the lightbulbs hung around. But that was enough.
For 1st of may, Aleksandar with parents visiting. I couldn't stand the kid, he was full of bad manners and just plain trouble. I barely made it through those two days. Or was it three? Yup, 1st was a friday.
Yesterday, yet another game of remi - Tejka, Vladimira, Dragana and, for the first time, Bosa.
Today, the next degree of math competition, this time at the intermunicipality level (and probably the same building, as the city is the centre of the region). This was kind of easy, as the rest of the region are the lower grade elementary schools, from villages and smaller cities, where the parents have too much influence and criteria are lower. So they may be deemed geniuses in their schools, but when they come to compete as equals, they don't do so well.
This kind of thinking was actually common - there was always some grudge against the kids of influential parents. Not that they were showing off as rich - they weren't, even by then criteria, much richer than the average, and showing off was actually frowned upon. It's that their parents would walk into the staff room without the hesitation common for any other parents, who behaved as if the staff room is a minister's cabinet, speaking softly and politely, waiting by the door until someone would come out to talk with them, sometimes right there by the door. The staff room was generally off limits to pretty much anyone except those influentials - the apparatchiks, managers or just colleagues from other schools. And the teachers didn't really dare shed the gift marks on these kids, the other kids would notice, with their keen sense of justice, that it's a gift. They'd rather try to motivate and help those privileged kids to show their best - even if it was a little staged at times (e.g. "I will ask her these questions only").
But then when we'd get to compete outside of their parents' sphere of influence, we'd see "who mows and who carries water", as the proverb goes.
Four dead in Ohio, on fourth. On eighth, Nixon's construction workers beat up students in New York for protesting that. Last album of Beatles. Bomb at our embassador's door in Brussels. The next two weeks we host the world basketball championship and take our first gold medal. Big floods in Romania, and Danube and Tisa flood here. If I remember well, Bagljaš was also under water, allegedly the Đerdap dam caused the underground water levels to rise all over Vojvodina. Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin rescuing Andreas Baader (RAF) . The Forsyte saga is broadcast here, we watch it regularly. When that ends, after a few months they'll begin running Buddenbrooks, which I'll start skipping. It being late in the afternoon, I'd usually take that time to have some supper, then vanish.
7-III-2020 - 25-III-2026