As I write, some of my absolutely favorite students are knee-deep in their studniówka. How I wish I could be there. I wonder if Adam is there? I can’t really see why he would be — if he doesn’t even know the students’ names, why would he care about their studniówka? On the other hand, if he’s the strange one he seems to be, he might just be there, sitting with the teachers, not saying a word. I wonder if Danuta is there. In some ways, I really doubt it. She certainly wouldn’t want to spend so much time with the teachers, but she might have gone to see the students. Doubtful, but one never knows.

Yesterday I had to go to Carberry’s for lunch — I was expecting to go out with Adam (he’s offered to buy me lunch because of all the time I wasted working on that stupid project this week that seems to have been, by and large, for naught) but he’d already brought something for lunch. And of course that meant if I wanted to eat, I’d have to go get something myself — and pay for it myself, that is. Anyway, I went with several of the DLG folks — Ryan, Stephen, Jennifer, Rob, and a tech guy who’s name I can’t recall. I didn’t really say that much because I didn’t have anything to say about the topics of conversation. They talked (for some bizarre reason) about how much they hated Dunkin’ Donuts — how they won’t even set foot in there. They talked about the “horrible” work environment — I could have added something here, but to what end? I just sat there thinking, “Try the teachers’ room in Liceum Techniczne. That’s bad. This is heaven in comparison.”

Another topic: complaints about the fact that they’ve stopped bringing pastries and instead are bringing bagels for lunch. How ridiculous — they’re complaining about free food. For all intents and purposes, they’re wanting to say to DLG administration, “Look, we know you’re giving us this food, but we’re not satisfied with what you’re giving us!” It’s just a little ludicrous.

During the whole conversation I just sat gazing out the window, not really saying a single word. I’m not sure what I could say — I’m not good at “small talk” I’ve realized. I said that to Chhavi yesterday — “You’re just not good at talk,” she laughed. I’d have to disagree in a way. If it’s something that I’m interested in, and if it’s something that I feel at least vaguely knowledgeable, then I’ll contribute to the discussion. But talking about bagels and the oily nature of the coffee there (they were complaining about that as well) — no thanks. Nothing worth wasting my breath on.

I had a very Eastern sequence of thoughts while sitting there. Why am I so ambivalent to so many things? Why are the most common words to come from my mouth, “I don’t care?” It’s simply because the less preferences I have, the less stress I have to worry about. If I don’t care, then anything will do. If I can drink any kind of coffee put in front of me, then that’s one less thing I have to stress about. If I don’t care that I chose a rye bagel and just go ahead and eat it, so much the better for my stress levels.