Aaron Cooks His Own Lunch and Lady Gaga Conspiracy Theories

My flatmate Valerio is leaving tomorrow to travel around Spain. The three flatmates-me, Tony, and Valerio-all went out to a Vegan bar last night to celebrate the good times we had. Valerio understandably got upset because he paid for toppings and all got were two tiny mushrooms on his mystery-veggie-meat-substitute-soya hamburger.

He will be gone but not forgotten. Before I never see him again, he was able to impart to me possibly his greatest conspiracy theory yet:
Lady Gaga is a member of the Freemasons and her clothing and makeup choices are actually secret codes to understanding their secrets. Could her meat dress perhaps be a coded message to the weather-controlling Jews in Antarctica?
I promise I am not making this up. Valerio explained to me that Lady Gaga's wardrobe functions much in the same way as the hidden symbols on the American dollar bill.

He's a very nice guy, but he represents the extreme of a far-too-common tendency in our culture to buy into outlandish theories and become cynics. It's frustrating because it takes the focus away from real problems and real instances where those in power are trying to hoodwink the public.

Today I brought my own lunch to school. I'd made a "garbage" salad of whatever canned veggies I could find in the supermarket and curry sauce. I also poured in a generous amount of habanero sauce as well. It's no great culinary masterpiece, to say the least, and I almost instantly regretted just throwing a bunch of vegetables in, so people were making fun of me today for "panning for artichokes" amidst the sea of whatever else was in there.

One of the intermediate students came over while I was eating and pointed out that what my salad looked like shit. I didn't appreciate this. His opinion was not valued.

Today's lesson was a trainwreck in the middle because I got frustrated with the student's lack of participation, went off script, and started talking at them again even though I knew this is a bad idea. I can't deal with silences as a teacher; the problem is that in a normal classroom you can fill the silences with your own voice most of the time, but in a language class you cannot. Maybe that's why I'd prefer at this point to be a professor (long-term).

Also, a note on destiny: Walking home from school, I took an extra-long time in a restaurant toilet, and because I did, I ran into two of my classmates in the Gothic Quarter. As Valerio would point out, the puppetmasters have struck again.