I have installed Cinnamon, and tried both Cinnamon and Cinnamon2d. Both crash frequently, although I have been able, with a bit of cleverness, to get them restarted without logging out. Right at the moment the 2d one is taking, as reported by top(1), 151% of a CPU to do basically nothing. The autohiding panel flutters like an ingenue's eyelashes. Overall, all I can say in its favor is that it's mostly not so bad as Gnome 3. I will be switching back to Mate, but have become curious about E.

My daughter is learning Russian on her own, using memrise.com. The web page construction is kind of clunky, but wow! Learning a language through to basic fluency in 20-30 hours is very appealing. I may actually get to learn Arabic and Khoisan. Khoisan is the oldest language in the world, spoken mainly in the Kalahari now. Linguists seem to agree, to the extent they can agree at all, that Arabic is the most beautiful to listen to.

It is distinctly possible that I may get to live in my house by Christmas.