martians are invading my world

i have been looking forward to the weekend the whole past week, not for what there is to do, but for what there isnt to do. i woke up late today and had dimsum for breakfast. and i read the newspaper. and then i walked around imm and then i let my pet terrapin out for a walk, and then i fell asleep until now. i still have not done my french homework. if i had done my french homework already it would have been a perfect weekend.

in my b2 class there is this particular student called lalita who seems really old. she wears gold-framed reading glasses with a pink-beaded spectacle band and the glasses distort her eyes a lot. usually she wears curtains to class. she layers them to make them look more like clothes. she writes quite slowly and seems to be hard of hearing in both french and english, and she talks too much. she must be an ardent believer of the non-existence of stupid questions and irrelevant comments. and she must belong to a group of people that believe in improving themselves in obscure domains just for the sake of being good in that said obscure domain which seems to have little practical application.

i am a proponent of lifelong learning, but not of lifelong coursetaking. it might be myopic and naive of me to place an economic value on classes such as this, but i still feel that the capital outlay is not small and requires a good return for justification. and it is hard to see how learning language for its own sake is really enjoyable, especially an anal language as french. taichi or yoga can be justified by contributing in some way to increased longevity and probably also quality of life in old age. but for french the benefit seems far less apparent. maybe watching 'la vie en rose' in french improves her silver years muchly. maybe a french penpal.

i always feel that grannies like her should be staying home on friday nights spending quality time busying themselves over an aromatic pot of good curry reminicising the good old days when they still had the energy to dance around coconut trees. maybe she doesnt have her own family. she always talks about her nephews and nieces but never before about her sons or daughters. maybe she feels incomplete. maybe french class completes her.