conversational_energy epitome of incomprehensibility It takes energy, yes. On the other hand, I'm often pleasantly surprised at how a good bout of talk can invigorate me - add support, knowledge, newness. Last Tuesday, I went downtown to renew library cards. I didn't count on stopping by Concordia, but I had to go to the bathroom and then figured I could sit at one of the tables to eat lunch. I thought I recognized someone: dark skin, short hair with red highlights. I wasn't sure of the face, because we were wearing masks last term, but the shade of hair granted near-certainty. So, when she sat at my table, I asked, "Excuse me, were you in the Indo-European Linguistics class last term?" She was! We exchanged names. I don't want to act like I'm collecting the acquaintance of every "mature" linguistics student like I collect library cards, but I was pleased to get to know someone who was also in the same program, close to my age, and still had more than a year to go. We puzzled over the fact she had to do 120 credits. Why not 90? I only had 60, but that's because I'd done an earlier degree at Concordia, so I didn't need electives. But apparently as a mature student getting into the school for the first time, and maybe as an international student, you have to do more. (Usually you need 120 credits if you're coming from outside Quebec. Other provinces and US states usually have high school go to grade 12, instead of ending at grade 11 and having two college years.) Anyway, it was a good talk and I think she appreciated having someone to talk to before she had to catch the bus (adapted transport - leg problems). Except that I commented irrelevantly on disability (mine is not only less visible and, frankly, easier, but also different) AND The Loneliness of Coming to Montreal from Zimbabwe Because No One Else Here Seems to Be from Zimbabwe, as if I had to talk around that in the absence of relating to it. Pah, I just blab too much in general. But I hope we can have some rapport as fellow Old Linguistics Students. Refreshed by talk, I figured I'd have the mental energy to walk up Guy/Cote des Neiges from the Concordia area to the Cote des Neiges metro area. I don't know why I thought I needed mental energy. I was scared of walking that way alone for some reason. Anyway, it was raining, so I took the bus. 220720 ... raze the ones that fill me up with something i don't always know i'm missing are the collaborative dances. those wild whirlwinds of words that stretch out for hours but feel like they're over in minutes, where feelings and ideas and accidental profundities are exchanged with someone who's as excited to be awake for what's being given and taken in as i am. they don't happen all the time. but when they do, it's reaffirmed for me what a gift speech is. we're the only animal capable of expressing ourselves so freely and fluidly through these units of language. at its transcendent best, talking is an art all its own. 220721 what's it to you? who go blather from