today i've had a nice conversation with a young teacher from my department. she being the only member of staff under 32, we've always been in non-formal terms and i had happened to exchange a few words with her before, aside from the occasions when my professional (hah!) role was required. this afternoon she was having some problems with nasty cookies on one of the pcs in the library, and i was in the same room so i stopped to help. this took some tinkering and in the meanwhile she kept expressing gratitude or embarrassment at using up all my time or something. i'm always very sensitive (.) towards overly polite people, who are probably better off spending their time being overly polite with someone worthwhile instead of me, so i decided to hang around some more to chat a bit, and i offered her some of that godawful tea that automatic machines create from powder, nuclear waste, and the spinal chords of unborn babies.
even though she's not very familiar with anything internet, her command and common usage of colloquial english make her an interesting conversation for someone like me, whose longest talks in italian in the past week were nonetheless about teh internet (not to mention vaguely suicidal, but you know that already). i was particularly satisfied with how rapidly we got to the point where "having a life" was being discussed. it was geekdom offline, a bit like a star trek convention without the silly costumes.
all of the above should have made me come up with something slightly more friendly than "see you around" at the end of our chat, especially considering that she actually went through the trouble of thanking me profusely for my time -- i didn't make it longer in order not to give the impression of slacking off when i'm at work, in case you're wondering -- and calling our talk "interesting", but i was feeling a little uneasy and all but interesting, or blessed with the gift of having something remotely bright to say. as i've been predicting for some time, one thing is being able to cope with my shortcomings while i run my daily errands, and quite another is seeing myself as useful or pleasant in any way.
