Went to Novi, to get a transcript from my college. The diploma won't suffice for the visa, because the Amers, namely INS, don't trust anyone's diploma. It could be anything. So they want a transcript of all the curriculum I had, with the number of hours that they can translate into their credits. Specially as they don't have courses spanning multiple semesters like we do - all of which I didn't know then.
Visited a few guys there, specially Paja. The assistants of when I studied are now professors, and very few of the professors are still there. I've seen names on the roster, but didn't see anyone. The hit of the day is the picture of a shop, in same Arab country, of a "Al Usrah supermarket". "Usrah" means "shat in/into/on".*
As for the phases of the moon, it was one evening this winter, when I was coming back from the vineyard with my dad. We went to pick more rakija, and by the time we finished with other work, it was dark, and the moon was up. I was already beginning to practise the conversions in my head, and seeing the moon I thought in advance, as I often do, how will it be when I have to recalculate... oh, I don't. Only have to translate.
And I was wrong there, too. While there's no recalculation, only the full and half moon are called the same. There's no real equivalent for our „young moon“ in english, and we don't have any for waxing and waning. And they don't count quarters like we do.
The passers by thing turned out to be anything but. Rare are the places there where anyone walks near a window. And the machine somehow turned out to be below the stated standard, except the monitor.
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* in a couple of years I found the american response to this: „oprah“ (I washed).
7-VI-2011 - 25-III-2026