This morning I went to pick up the groceries from the supermarket. I order online most things, but choose my own fruit and vegetables before I collect the online order. Today I needed to get onions, but … there were no onions. The place where the onions normally are was full of bags of potatoes. At first I thought they must have reshuffled the vegetable section like they seem to like to do every so often, but scanning the rest of it I couldn’t find any onions at all. A staff member noticed me searching in vain and asked if I needed some help. I asked if there were any onions. He led me over to the organic produce section, where there were a few dozen tiny onions for two or three times the cost of regular onions. I sort of looked askance at this, and without any further prompting the staff member picked up a couple of the onions and said, “I’ll just peel the stickers off for you.” So he peeled the “organic” price stickers off them and handed them to me. Okay. Not one to look a gift onion in the mouth, I took them.
I had four ethics classes today, so there wasn’t a lot of time to do much else. But after the first I managed to fit in my first 2.5k run since returning from Japan. It was a little too cold to be comfortable, and I took it easy since I was out of practice, and clocked just a couple of seconds under 13 minutes.
After that I had a shower and also cleaned the bathroom and shower. Then had lunch and then went out to pick up Scully from my wife’s work. I drove back via a bakery where they had a new product: a mini sticky date pudding. I like those so I tried it. It didn’t have butterscotch sauce which is the usual topping, but did come with a blob of icing on top. And the woman there asked if I’d like it heated up, which I accepted given it’s winter and a warm pudding would really hit the spot. The icing melted and made a kind of sauce, though a more sugary one. It wasn’t quite the same as a sticky date pudding you might get after a restaurant dinner, but pretty nice anyway.
Then it was into three ethics classes in a row – phew! I had another older group among them on the Privacy topic. There was an interesting contrast with yesterday’s class. I ask the question: At what age should children be given privacy by their parents, with respect to things like using email or messaging apps to talk with friends, or with what websites they visit? Yesterday, both students said about age 14. Today there were three students, and the first two said 18, while the second nominated 16.
Which actually reminds me of another interesting thing, from the younger classes. We’re talking about heroes and villains, and i bring up the story of Robin Hood – steals from the rich to give to the poor. I ask the kids is Robin Hood a villain for robbing people, or a hero for giving money to the poor? So far, almost all the kids have said he’s a villain. Stealing apparently feels so bad that it’s enough to make someone a villain. Then we have a bit of a discussion which brings up the point that in this story “the law” is actually being made by the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham.
After my classes, I went out for dinner with my wife, to our usual pizza place. It’s comfy and homey, and a good place to relax, and was really nice after our recent trip away.
Tonight is online board games with my friends. I’m in the middle of losing another game of 7 Wonders….
New content today: