Like that delightful family romp, Sliver

This evening, I got the bejaysus scared out of me.

I've used the same Laundr-O-Mat a couple of times. There are no indications of opening hours anywhere. Anyone I ask in there doesn't have a rashers what time it closes at.

Based on places that actually display closing times, I figured ten o'clock was likely one.

Anyway...

21:15ish

I got in later than usual. I figured that I could plead with the guy who would come to close-up to wait until the clothes were dry.

But when I assume things, I make an "ass" out of "u" me and "me".

About 22:05

The clothes were almost dry.

There I was, minding my own business, reading a paper, and some of the lights went out. Not all of them, just a single line. There was no one else there. I dismissed it as a malfunction of some sort, a happenstance.

But, much like the lone white female in a horror film [I'd look great in a teddy, I just know I would], I wasn't 100% sold on it being just a coincidence. I got up and began clearing out my driers. The rest of the lights started going out. I packed a little bit more furiously.

*Click*

The door had closed.

Bugger.

I finished packing my laundry away (Molly pronounces it,"lingerie"). All the time I was wondering how I was going to get out of this one. I had left my phone in the apartment. There was no pay phone there. For that matter there was no number to call.

Having finished packing up, I walked with trepidation¹ to the closed door - silently cursing the progresses of our time exemplified in this... this automated Laundr-O-Mat.²

I reached out to the door. Pulled down the handle.

It opened. I inspected the door. It had a magnetic doorstop, and no handle on the outside.

There it is. The place never really closes. There are just certain periods, when it is empty, that one cannot get in.

I wanted to juxtapose this discovery with Hotel California. But it is late. And having planted the seed of the idea, I can just walk way [figuratively], and let you do my work for me [literally].

***

¹Word of the day win!

²Or maybe it is haunted.

***

[Editorial note: I would have like to find a link to the quote/time that Mr Burns uses the line that I allude to in the blog title. But I lazily went for the next best thing.]

Dutch is a lot like-

It has been a while.

I did mean to put some things [stuff, ponderances, musings, philosophizings, thoughts, ponderances] here, months back.

Months back, I went to Delft to visit friends. There and back, I wrote extensively⁰ about learning Dutch; The similarities between learning a language and learning a martial art;^{0.5, 0.75} How listening and conversing are like sparring... This in turn led me to bemoaning the two most under-appreciated skills in the world today: Listening and Teaching.¹

It takes an awful lot of focus to actually listen to a person; not hearing what you want to hear; not just waiting to say your bit.

And teaching? Teaching?! Richard Feymnan, a the celebrated teacher and physicist, in the foreword to his lecture series,² worried at his own inadequacies as a teacher. How there was no room for feedback during the course, so that he could improve.

If this guy wasn't happy with his teaching, then I don't think there are many of us that should be.

I suppose it is open to debate. But if it is, I am firmly on the side that if they aren't getting it, you are doing it wrong.³

That is the bones of the writings from back then. Better for the brevity, I think.

--

⁰In longhand no less, with a p-e-n. It was actually very calming, not that I'd ever keep a journal or anything. Heavens no. Keeping track of day-to-day thoughts and anecdotes... No, no. Never.
^0.5Or learning one skill is like learning another skill, when you get abstracted/fudgy enough.
^0.75More recently I have been thinking about it like going from on1 salsa to on2 salsa, or cha cha cha, since they [English/German and Dutch] are in the same language/dance group: There's a fundamental change- in the dance it is the rhythm or how you follow the rhythm- that is hard to get over. But when you get comfortable with that, a lot of the things you knew previously are easily transferred.ⁱ

¹ My advertizers demand that I use sensationalist tag-lines. I tried to fight them on it; I wanted to go with: "[...] two skills that are harder than a number of people I know probably think they are [...]." It [sensationalism] is what gets people in the door. This is a numbers game. Not quality.ⁱⁱ

²My work place is so awesome that it has them in their reference library, I only had time to read the foreword on a lunchbreak, but it was worth it.

³Practically, there are limits to this stance. Of course. But. But, there is no telling when you actually reach the limit of your abilities to explain and enlighten and hit the corresponding limits of the pupil. So just keep going, trying to come up with a point of view that clicks.

***

ⁱComing from English and German, a lot of the syntax is similar, and some words sound the same, just "Dutchified." The easiest thing is combining prepositions with verbs for things, it similar for the three languages, and gives a huge jump in amount of things you can say.
ⁱⁱOK, I don't have any advertisers, but I just wanted to feel like someone that would have them. FYI: I am up to 1000+ views all told, not that I care or anything...