Riga - A Sense of Accomplishment

So…tonight’s the last class.  The exam is Monday evening and I don’t count that as a class.  I prepared 50 short-answer questions, mostly true/false, others “check the box” or write one or two words.  I would think that three hours would be enough to answer 50 short-answer questions, even in a foreign language.  That’s over three minutes per question.  I bought a box of candy and two screw-top bottles of wine for the occasion (my Swiss Army knife isn’t the one with the corkscrew, dammit).  Couldn’t find plastic or paper cups; hope they can snitch them from the cafeteria.

I spent most of the day working on extra presentations: defamation, fraud and nuisance and a last-minute show on intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Went out for about two hours, got back to the hotel just as it was beginning to rain and it rained steadily until class time.  The forecast is for light snow later tonight and into tomorrow but doesn’t seem they’re expecting much accumulation.  So what to do for the weekend?  There’s Slava’s 60^th birthday on Saturday evening and I’ll probably be able to get to the national art museum during the day.  I also hope to attend a concert at the cathedral on Sunday evening.  Otherwise, not much else.  I’ve read the two paperbacks I brought with me, and The Economist.  And one can spend only so much time staring at a monitor screen.  I’ve missed regular exercise, although perhaps I can comfort myself with all the walking I’ve been doing.

Class tonight culminated in triumph.  I ended it ½ hour early for the “party” and brought out my pitiful (in my view) offering.  Which was not pitiful at all in the students’ opinion; the chocolates (box picked totally at random) elicited admiration.  Over the too-sweet wine (they did swipe cups from the café) and chocolates, they told me my class gave them exactly what they were looking for: practical aspects, not legal theory.  They eagerly grabbed up the souvenir pens.  We had some great discussions about such weighty topics as traffic tickets and McDonald’s (a lively debate among the students when one of them announced that McDonald’s should be outlawed for selling unhealthy food).  The sound of an intense classroom argument was music to my ears.

Now I can kick back and enjoy the weekend—no presentations to prepare; the exam has been sent out to Aiga for copying.  This adventure has turned out exactly as I’d hoped.  What a great feeling to have imparted something useful to a receptive audience.