Trip to Timişoara, another sort-of-smuggling shopping round.
This june I failed all exams, except perhaps methodics, which is bullshit anyway (check: passed it on 19th, the exam demonstration class held probably the same day in the morning, or maybe the day before). The old fart doing the subject looked dead for at least six years, by the looks of it. He actually never published anything since his PhD, and even that one is "Classification of methods in teaching maths". Great, so his contribution is somewhere near zero, and he's got tenure until he dies or retires. One of those maybe happened already, but nobody noticed any difference. His lectures regularly got me to sleep. OK, they were on monday afternoons, starting at 16 or 17:00 which is mostly night in the winter. The heating in the building was just right, and, well, the guy did have that hypnotic quality.
I kind of remember that absolvents' evening* was on thirteenth, simply by it being the tuesday that fits - before this exam. We held it in a good tavern on Fishers' island. Only mathematicians again. Not too many of us, perhaps a dozen, of which there were four from previous years. Among those who have names here, only Ljuba and Momir... because, well, this is not high school, we aren't a gang from the same city, we don't go out together, and from the few with whom I had some relationship, almost nobody.
When the restaurant closed, about half of the company went to our room, as we were geographically nearest, within walkable distance. I don't know where we got so much wine, either we pooled the money and bought it at the restaurant (which would make it expensive) or someone brought it or went downtown to buy (but no idea where then). We did ourselves humanely, and I kept making shots, I think we smashed all the bottles and cups, including Ljuba's ceramic beer mug. Three or four of us stayed until dawn.
And then the next day the two of us we were getting the room in order. We took down all those nude photos from the walls and ceiling, smoothed the thumbtack holes with gypsum, took out all the trash and shards. The room looked rather desolate now, but then it was summer and it didn't matter anymore. Ljuba moved back home after the last exam on his schedule (probably the methodics), and I stayed until the end of month, trying my luck with more exams, found none.
The slides were to be developed in some laboratory in Skoplje, which did Orwo material, but they never arrived. It would usually come in 4-5 days, just like those from USSR did. I even dropped by in september, when I was there because of exams again, just to ask whether anything arrived - well, nothing. The mongrel recognized me and was very happy to see me, jumped up to my shoulders.
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* the term is strictly academic, there's no absolution of anything, it simply denotes the university students who have ended up hearing the curriculum - now ready to graduate, whenever they catch the time. The term „forever student“ may apply later.
21-VIII-2019 - 23-II-2025