It's One Thing When You're Here!

As many of you know, I'm back at EF this summer and am (finally) happily teaching Upper Intermediates. Although all my students are Spanish, something which generally poses a problem because such students often speak between themselves in their native tongue, the majority of those that I'm teaching are relatively well-versed in the language and therefore, conversing in English is relatively straightforward with them; this as opposed to last year, when I just had Elementary students - a downright 'mare for someone who struggles to write in simple English, let alone speak it.

Anyway, following last Monday's attempted intimidation/assault/call it what you wish by the hamalla from the depths of God knows where (I still insist, had that bitch or her son/boyfriend/brother/whatever ogre he might have been as much as laid a finger on me, I would have beaten them to a pulp), the last thing I perhaps wanted on a Tuesday morning is school at 8 a.m. Of course, my sleep had been massively disturbed due to this... incident. But yet, I had to live with this, for this is what happened. It's useless crying over spilt milk.

Anyway, all zombified, I walked into class that morning and all was fine. The first lesson actually went to plan and without any hitches. As is the norm with this group of students that I have, they were cooperative and willing to work, and actually seem to enjoy the lessons. Fantastic. However, two particular incidents straight after this lesson (which did not involve my students) - please note that my students' brains were meant to be fully functioning yet mine was still completely... asleep - then jolted me into action for the rest of the day. Perhaps, with hindsight, thank God they occurred!

The first was actually a bit absurd, but I believe that I was in the right. Some idiot was sitting on the porch that leads to the school building and had a tissue in hand. He was wearing a cap and looked like a rapper, with the only difference that he was caucasian - rappers, normally, are not. Anyway, our coolio friend decided that he didn't want to hold the tissue in his hand any longer and threw it into the road. I caught the fool red-handed. Being the dedicated corrector of people that I am employed to be, I decided to approach this student and told him that he had thrown the tissue onto the pavement. He vehemently disagreed with me, protesting his case in a not too dissimilar manner to a chihuahua. Seeing his non-compliance with my telling him that that he did, I ordered that he go and pick up the tissue. The student once again refused, and actually told me to tell him to 'say please' (yes, I quote). Say please? Bloody hell, I'm a teacher and he's a student; if I told him to pick up the wretched tissue because he actually threw it on the floor, then he sure is going to pick it up! Eventually, after I showed him that I wasn't going to budge and that I was boss here, he got off the porch, picked it up and threw it in the bin in a similar way to how Joris Mathijsen slammed a football into the ground after disapproving of a decision made by the referee in the World Cup Final last Sunday; this to the tune of me telling the student, "We do not litter our country!" Well, we do, but I can't accept these tourists doing so - they can do what they wish in Spain, but here, it's another thing altogether.

If the first incident perhaps merited attention and me remembering what happened, the second incident, which occurred straight after the break finished, was just plain farcical. Some student came to school - he must have been drunk - at half past 9, when in reality, his lesson was at half past 4 in the afternoon. It transpired that he thought that yesterday was Wednesday. Anyway, our friend found me and asked where his lesson was, and I kindly indicated that it's in the afternoon. Fine. He then asked if I was his teacher, even though his sheet said "Michelle Borg" on it and did not indicate my name. Yet again, I replied that I wasn't his teacher. The boy kept on insisting that I was his teacher, and I told him that Michelle is a girl's name. I then asked him whether I looked like a female or not to him - you know; shaved hair, growing stubble, deep voice... these characteristics should have all given it away. In truly idiotic fashion, this student replied in the affirmative and said that I WAS a female. (I hate using 'emoticons' in blogs, but this really merits a '-_-'... big time.) I was shocked that he did not know/notice the difference between a man and a woman. And please note, the reason why I was shocked was because his timetable indicated that he was an Intermediate student!! Someone, evidently, guessed his way through the placement test...

Oh well, any other crazy adventures from work will be posted here in due course! What a wacky world us teachers have to put up with...

God Bless You All!
Matti

Stop, Think and Write

The weird thing about of all this is that when I update my blog, I normally have something to blog about. By elimination of all the logical things that you would associate with blogs, that would probably be THE most logical. Alas, this is a time where logic doesn't really fall into place, as it's one of those times where I really don't have anything in particular to write about. Indeed, at the moment, I'm writing just to say that I'm writing something; for no reason other than that. I don't need to write, I just want to write. I don't need to update my blog, I just feel the need to - even if it is with some useless crap such as this.

Anyway, I'm realising that as time goes by, I'm perhaps becoming more and more impatient and also more easily irritable as a person. It's as if 'old age syndrome' has really set in on me, judging on the way that I'm talking at the moment! I don't know why, it's one of those mysteries of life, I suppose. Patience is a virtue, my mother always tells me, and it's something that I tend to lack. I'm finding myself getting more and more ticked off at when people, including myself, make ridiculously stupid mistakes, for example. Not that I was ever patient in that regard, but anyway.

As contradictory as this sounds though, this summer has taught me, to a certain extent, to control my 'impatience' levels. You see, when you're teaching students who, for the most part, do not know a word of English, you really do have to be patient as the probability is that you'll have to explain various points twice, thrice, four times or even five times until they remotely understand it. I suppose that that patience arises from the fact that 99% of the time, such students didn't know any better - after all, they were here to learn the language and not irritate me with their visible lack of knowledge of it. That's not to say that I lost my temper once or twice with some of my classes this summer, especially with those at Spanish School, who sometimes seemed as willing to learn as much as a wooden spoon would.

It's obvious that it's not the above that bugs me, as otherwise I wouldn't have taken up the job in the first place. It's obvious now that it's something more along the lines of grossly stupid comments or a grossly irritable character that sends me driving up the four walls of my room. And unfortunately, there are so many of these people that it isn't even funny. Granted, you have to grant concessions and be lenient as occasionally, stupidities emerge from all of our mouths; but when these are constant, you have to wonder whether the IQ of the person in question even surpasses a measly 80 or is on the level of George W. Bush.

The solution to all this? There isn't really. I suppose the best thing would be to try and avoid these people at all costs, before I explode into a million smithereens. Anyway, rant over.

God Bless You all!
Matti