07-IX-2013.
Someone had the idea to gather the mathematicians for an anniversary... now there's no matriculation, and we all graduated in our own time, some really soon, some 4-5 years later. I heard that the average is seven years. But there, they took the 35 years since we verified the last semester (not valid in my case, I was officially third year second time then, while attending the fourth). There may not be enough of us for a proper gathering, so they invited the previous two generations as well, there weren't too many of them anyway.
It all being in the afternoon, I caught a bus after lunch, counting on catching some transportation back, or staying through the night with some gang and getting a bus in the morning. At the busodrome there everything is as it always was (and I did drop by two and three years ago), but the ticketing in the city bus changes faster than I can follow, so I took a cab. The driver went on, right after he heard where and why I'm going, about him having three rides last saturday from a similar gathering... and his sister's kid is also studying something of the kind... Wow, we'd end up almost related through the rector.
And the place where he unloaded me has also changed, the paths are somehow jumbled. I've been there three years ago, and again didn't get it right on the first try, there were minor surprises. The urbanism has its way to sneak up on you. I knew our building was complete now, we finally have that middle wing, but it somehow has a different air when there's so many people whom you know.
The best chick of the class is still very sweet, has the same wide smile, and I finally embraced her, but, ahem, the width is to be taken literally. Almost double. Incredible, she gains one more self in weight and still looks good. Of course, a colleague from Bečej immediatelly chided me with „how's that, you embrace right off“. I said „so what, we're old enough that it can't be taken seriously“. His wife looks the same as then, to the last gram, and I told her she hasn't changed a bit, which she fired back with „you mean I was looking like this even then?“. I pulled out of it with „well it's all in the same place, I'd recognize you from a kilometer“, which wasn't too convincing, as I had to carefully sidestep any mention of „it's all at the same distances, didn't space out“.
That was all still outside, in front of the building.
Amazingly, the hall, staircases, corridors, classrooms - it all looks quite the same as it did then. The only difference is that the occasional posters on the noticeboards are now printed in color, with photos. We haven't seen any cleaning ladies, to see whether they still wear blue smocks and borosanas*. And whether they'd still scream at us again if we tried treading the floor before it dries.
Then the professors appeared, the three of them, who were assistants at the time - one for analysi**, algebrae and geometries each. Paja couldn't come, his girlfriend screwed (him up, or just screwed up), I didn't get the whole story.
We sat some time in our regular classroom on third floor, where most of the classes, exams and exercise took place. We barely heard each other, the echo is as bad as it ever was, and the venetian blinds (the only novelty in the trim) don't help much.
The guy with the necktie is the previous generation, works at water mains, and is among the few remaining programmers, if there's any code to write there. We call him Strongest, full title „strongest programmer in town“, because nobody dares arm wrestle against him. (he died in 2020. and his son followed a year later)
Later we went for the usual dinner. From my local gang, Mima, Staša (and his wife, also a colleague from the group - those from Bečej aren't the only married couple among the group), D.P. from IV3, (but Borče not, his father was dying at the time), one guy from funeral/parks (he was in 3rd gimnazija). I asked someone about D.M., also from my town's group, and heard that she died some years ago. Too bad, she was a real sweetie.
The tavern's accoustics was even worse than the classroom's. It's somewhere on the quay, near the fish market, just a couple of blocks from where I lived as a freshman, in the ground floor of a high rise residential building. All glass and concrete, echoes tremendously. I didn't understand half of what was said.
Made a bunch of shots, though. Made a couple of autopatches too, which is pure lottery when you have people moving in the frame. Worked this time.
Staša and his wife drove me home. The option of spending the night didn't even appear, nobody was gathering a gang for an extended party.
It seems only two or three of us are still programmers. Everybody else went into teaching, or ended up so. It was kind of opposite in the beginning, everybody was programming, just a few of us had to teach. Seems to be my lot in life, to always be where the crowd isn't.
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* the allegedly anatomic shoes, with a slomewhat lifted heel and cloth face, laced and reaching above the ankle. They were designed by scientists, I think. Now whether they really helped or not, I don't know, but I've seen many women wear them on the job, if it required being on foot for longer periods of time. They were almost always the same blue as the workshop smocks. They were made in Borovo, hence the name of the model.
** analysis is the general name for all the subjects around infinitesimal calculus; using just „calculus“ for the whole bunch feels completely wrong to me. Calculus is any computing, and analysis is anything but computation.
Mentions: 20-XI-2021., Walnut, gone, 12-VIII-2022., 03-IX-2023., 21-X-2024., gimnazija, IV3, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Merima Tabarski (Mima), Paja Ćurčić, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), in serbian
28-VI-2017 - 25-III-2026