Getting Ahead

I tried setting my alarm last night for 6:30 in order to get up in time for Meat and going to bed at 1:30. Nearly needless to say, I woke up at nine, too late to go to my first lecture. I could've made it in time for my second lecture today, but I would've had to skip breakfast, showers, and changing clothes, and then sprinted to the Maths building. Since the lecturer in question does the lecture pretty much exactly from the lecture notes posted online, I sided with breakfast and worked ahead on homework in my room instead.

I found my hat the other day! Woohoo! I'd left it in the Maths building on accident during a lecture the previous morning. When the receptionist pulled it out from under the counter, I was like "YEAH!!!!"

So I was headed to formal today, and I inadvertently heard these two guys walking by carrying some large blocks of cheese chatting in Spanish. Not only Spanish, but proper Spanish. Latin American Spanish, the understandable type. I didn't even realize I was doing it, but I somehow ended up turning around and heading in the complete opposite direction as soon as I heard them speaking Spanish. I offered to open the gate for them in Spanish, and they were like, "?Su mama es un martillo?" ("Do you speak Spanish?") and I was like, "!Claro que si!" Of course I speak Spanish! This is Oxford!

To understand why it was so exciting to have the opportunity to speak to someone who comes from a Spanish-speaking country, I speak fluent Spanish, but you need to practice a language in order to stay fluent, and there's no one in England who speaks fluent Spanish. The few people who do speak Spanish speak Spain Spanish, which ith thpoken with a lithp and an extra verb form. These guys were speaking my language, so I just had to go introduce myself.

Then we got into a massive discussion in Spanish. One of them was a fresher from Colombia. I told him his Spanish was excellent (no, of course I didn't). The other guy was from America, but had lived in South America for four years for some reason. I told them I was a fresher and we were walking together, and I suddenly found myself with them in the MCR, the Middle Common Room, for the postgraduates. Apparently I look several years older than I am, and so when I said I was fresher, they assumed post-graduate fresher. Still, they let me stay with them for like ten minutes. Gotta say, the MCR doesn't have a Wii, but otherwise, it's pretty awesome.

Fortunately they let me into formal hall half an hour late.

Before formal hall, I sang bass today in the chapel choir. Normally I sing tenor, but my voice hasn't been up to full working capacity for almost a week now, starting when I got sick. It was fun singing without the fear that you won't be able to hit notes or that you're not singing them with the proper technique. I used to be a bass, when I first started singing a little over three years ago, and then I worked my way up from there. Smiley face.

By strange coincidence / gift of God, just before performing my voice finally cleared up completely and I got my upper register back. God is good.

Speaking of whom, a buddy of mine kept asking me questions about God and telling me that God doesn't exist and how it's stupid to believe He exists. One thing I would like to point out, though, is that if you believe that there is no truth, that everything is relative, that there are no absolutes, then that's fine, believe that. But if you actually believe that there is no right and wrong, then proving to others that they're wrong should be meaningless. Just saying.

I thought I'd include this picture in blog today as my customary second picture (don't know WHAT happened last post) because it's awesome.

Anyhow, I'm going to bed on time tonight!

Good night, stay safe,

    John Khouri, Newly-Rehatted Mathematican and Computer Scientist