A Leaf of a Student's Diary

A few years ago, I read Eva Curie's biography of Marie Curie. When it came to the part where Marie Curie was so preoccupied with science that she didn't nourish herself properly and contracted terrible anaemia, I started practically shouting at her in my mind, Just eat a steak, please!! As the irony of fate has it, I suspect that I've slipped back into anaemia myself through a similar neglect of basic nutritional sense: the past two days have been a bit dizzy and tingly and brain-foggy, to the point that this morning it felt harebrained to go out instead of declaring a sick day.

This morning at 8:50 a.m.ish I arrived rather late for an online Greek class, in which we are reading fiction about the 19th-century master diplomat Ioannis Kapodistrias.

Then it was time to get ready for a Spanish class, in which we were overviewing Gender Studies theory with a heavy emphasis on Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, and Jacques Lacan. Cycling through an autumn tapestry of leaves, sunshine and bright blue skies and all, was rather nice except for my aforementioned anaemia symptoms, so that I pedaled slowly and concentrated on taking no risks.

Then I repeated the journey 40 minutes later, having left class early. Fortunately I arrived on time for a dentist's appointment back near my home. Funnily enough, I ended up waiting quite a while in the waiting room after all, and reading my uncle M.'s gift of a book about Captain James Cook to entertain myself. The appointment wound up soon enough, with the unwelcome news that I have a fresh cavity. (It will be seen to next week. In the meantime, I have regretfully turned my back on the remnants of Halloween candy in our household — except for a piece of chocolate.)

After that, I met up with my aunt. We went to a restaurant where we ate hummus, tzatziki, lavash bread, and a roasted dish of eggplant, zucchini, tomato, and carrot with rice, respectively. We chatted over the food, and sipped coffee and tea.

In my ideal world, I'd be about to eat a nice warming bowl of something sweet (yet dentally safe) while resting my slippers upon a footstool and watching the next episodes of The Wartime Kitchen and Garden on YouTube, then going to sleep. (Having finished the historical/experimental archaeology series Tales From the Green Valley yesterday.) Unfortunately there is homework to do.

On Thursday I sent off an essay about the preterito perfecto compuesto in post-Columbian Iberian Spanish. Finishing it was exhausting, also for my mother and two youngest brothers, who obligingly sat down with printed-out copies and corrected the flow and the German grammar. Now I'm working on my Molière-and-Moratín essay, also left over as an undone task from the summer semester.