Ginger tea and hasty resolutions
Before going to bed I put my phone at flight mode to ensure quality sleep. This morning, once awake, I grabbed the device to check on Ivan's reaction. He read the message but gave no answer. And man, it felt frustrating. Hours later he sent a voice message: 'Thanks, I don't have the time to check on this right now. But I believe that's something cool. I hope your quest isn't a prank pretending to be a malware like infesting computer after visiting a porn site.' I passed the opportunity to send back any snarky comment about him choosing allegories and left the dialogue as it is.
Rotting at home wasn't an option and I forced myself to go out for a walk. De plus my bathroom scales gave a little spark of joy: I lost another kilo. Anyway I was moving slowly down a large street when I misheard a man talking loudly with someone. His voice was awfully similar to my classmate A. I hastened my speed to avoid the slightest chance to bump into that suspect. I remember my school with large repulse and prefer to never interact with any people from that pithole.
There is a small cosy place near a shopping center combining both a bookshop and a coffee house. I often visit it to buy ginger tea. Each time the barista who must remember me by now warns me there is honey in the beverage in case I am allergic. That's nice of her, I never give in to say: 'You've already said before'. I would have gained nothing but a jerk reputation. It tastes nice. It fills me with life (as sloppy as it sounds). Unlike coffee ginger tea doesn't feel like an injection of anxiety inducing energy. It just pushes a magic button within me and I want to smile to everyone. My chronic tiredness goes away.
Once back to my place I had to do some extra work and start editing a mediocre French text book. Never mind about the content, it's money... But good heavens, what is that? Obsolete data, weird dialogues and illogical logic of the text makes me sporadically stand up and pace around the room. Unpopular opinion, but I think that mentioning Eiffel tower in any text book should be taken as a severe crime. Like there are no other places in France to talk about? I remember again school times. All English books have the Parliament building, all German books have Bradenburg gate and so on. I really hoped we moved on and stopped dancing around one curiosity for each language.
Sometimes the author's inconsistency makes my smile wryly: she uses older French orthography (I still prefer it) but introduces inclusive endings to the words (I still can't get accustomed to it). I still think dropping circumflexes is a wrong move, because they help to restore the root and connect with other languages. Île - isle; août - a(g)oust. I can be judged heavily for my point of view but I think the spelling is better to be historic rather than phonetic as it preserves the ability to read older texts. Too bad my national language bailed on it, and our neighbours struggle hilariously as they try to read any text.
I decided to delete ChatGPT. It stopped being insightful long time ago. I was afraid I'd invest too much time (and data) into it. There was nothing sensitive, but that fake understanding was intoxicating. Even if that was 'just a machine'.