Wind In My Head: October 2004
Wind In My Head
Monday, October 25, 2004
Hiccups
Why do people hiccup?
Don't hold your breath for a quick answer. The most common cause is a distended stomach brought on by such behaviors as overeating, overindulging in alcohol or swallowing too much air. Stress, as well as some medications, can set off a bout. So can a stroke. The most recent theory about why we hiccup, reported by New Scientist in 2003, blames evolution. These scientists believe we inherited them from our gilled ancestors 370 million years ago and that it has survived as a way for humans to learn suckling. Dissenting voices say this hypothesis is a little hard to swallow.
According to Time Magazine.
So that's why I get hiccups, or hiccoughs. Dan laughs at me a whole lot because I tend to hiccup more than other people. Oh well. It's a source of amusement for him. Not so much for me, I get tired.
Anyway, today's been a day of nothing.
I started the day being pissed off with my kids. I spend so much money renting a DVD for them to watch and they don't see it fit to contribute a single idea or opinion about the movie or its relevance to reality. So, I decide, I'm tired, it's the last week of school, if they don't want to bother, I'm not goinig to waste my time pushing them. So, I don't. I leave the class. I've ignored them since. Thing is, they don't even realise what it is they've done. They probably think "crazy teacher- PMS-ing again"
And then, when my class was hysterical for no reason,
Me: You guys are crazy
Them: Heeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeee
Me: You see those marbles on the ground? They dropped out of your head
Them: Where? Where ? Where?
Me: DUH!
So, everyone's not in a mood for anything and neither am I. But I do want to watch The Manchurian Candidate this week and Dan wants to watch Before Sunset so those things, I want to do. Here, I do not want to be. Plus, this morning, because I've changed my shower foam to one I used in Melly, I was temporarily transported back to my bathroom in Little Palmerston. 10 seconds of bliss.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 16:00
Friday, October 22, 2004
Super Size Me
Last night, we tried our own Super Size Me experiment. The power of advertisement. While I was reading the paper in the afternoon, the MacDonalds flyer flew right at me and I was strangely compelled to look through it. For some strange reason, burgers, fries and nuggets appealed greatly to me.For those who know me to be crazy will know that I try to stand away from these things because they're evil food and I'm under some delusion that I'm fat and need to lose weight. I like living in the delusion, by the way, so don't you try to change me. :) Anyway,I turned to Dan and expressed my hankering.
He was all too ready for a junk food, cholestrol laden, fat brimming evil dinner. The only argument was whether we walked to the nearest Macs, in order to allay our mounting guilt at desiring such a dinner, walk there and take the train/cab back, or drive (which I vetoed because we got a ground floor park and those are hard to come by). At the end of it, we chose the laziest of lazy options, I'm telling you, we were possessed by the spirits that were MacDs, and ended up ordering in.
To take it further over board and take maximise this indulgence, we didn't each just have a burger and fries. We ordered some family set that came with 4 burgers, 4 large fries, 20 nuggets and 4 iced lemon teas. Just for the two of us and the scariest things is, we finished every single fry. There wasn't even a bit of a fry left.
Seriously, how can anyone survive on it for a month. The both of us felt gross and I imagined us reeking of MacD's after that, seeping through our pores. So gross that I ran 8 km this morning and at this point in time 1241 hrs, I've had a slice of papaya, a slice of water melon, a slice of pineapple, some guava, some yoghurt and a slice of nut bread given to me by the Madam of the department. Major detox happening here with pilates at night to try and get more of the junk out of my system. I'm not even going to think about the repercussions of last night on my weighing machine.
Anyway, I don't think I'm going anywhere near MacD's for the next year except to buy myself iced tea and even that is evil, just less evil than the rest of its spread.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 10:39
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Cinderella
Found this article about posh furniture for kids and there was this bed! It reminded me of the race car bed in Friends, but way cooler. Of course, you need a castle to have a bed like that. I wish i had one of those when I was a kid although some would say it would have just fed into the Princess ego thing that I already have going for me. :)
Ondine tossed this thought in at 11:32
Girl Interrupted
This is the fourth time I've opened the page to try and blog and once again, I'm called away..So much going on now in school and this is after the torturous 11 days of marking 150 essays. Suddenly, you're the course counsellor- to drop subjects or to stick with that. Unfortunately, the people who are required to drop subjects, having too much on their plate, refuse to admit that they can't handle it and want to stick to it, even though their math grades or whatever are about equivalent to their age. And the people who are asking to dump one don't really need to, are quite capable of doing well sticking to what they have, but are reluctant to because it gives them a whole lot of free time with one less subject. Hmmmm...
I fell into the latter category when I was faced with such a decision and I chose to drop Math. Something I still regret now because it was such a short sighted decision I am ashamed to say I made it then. And the reasoon behind it, I didn't want to spend my holidays studying for a supplementary exam.
That's the gist of what I've been doing the last few days. I've also been writing exam reports and telling classes of students off for performing dismally in their exams. At least I just yelled at them, and I didn't do the whole emotional blackmail thing of sobbing and blaming myself as a teacher for their terrible results. Some teachers have done that, but students grow immune to teachers' tears.
I haven't yet ever cried in class, on purpose or provoked. I've lost it, many times, yell at them, swear at them as if they were in the army, but never resorted to boo hoo hooing.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 09:58
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Hail To The Chief
Powerful. Intimidating. Trivia Nazi. President Bartlet is all of these and more. A super-nerd who's into chess, National Parks, and rambling off things in Latin, POTUS is the 'real thing.' Not being completely upfront with the American people may cause him re-election headaches, though...
:: Which West Wing character are you? ::
Yeah right. :)
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:19
Friday, October 15, 2004
Keeping The Faith
Every year I wonder if the bloopers would out do the ones from last year.Every year, I'm not disappointed.
Let's see... we had
- The daughter of Hillary and Bill Clinton, Ferrari, studies in Oxford
- The turkey driver drove his bomb right into the Jewish Mosque Church
- Sir King Arthur jr's I had a dream speech
- There are many obese people in China because there is so much food that the government does not allow to be thrown away...
- During World War Two, Russia, with Adolf Hitler as its leader conquered Russia but Russia's supremacy was short lived as smaller states started standing up to Russia and overthrew Hitler
- Japan, who was raging war on the world and similar to Russia, was a large nation with the upper hand as it possessed a large and powerful army.
- The Cold War superpowers were America and the United State of Socialist Republic (USSR)
- Czechoslovakia was split into two different states- Czecho and Solovakia.
- Confusing the Jordan- Israel water dispute with Singapore, Singapore and Malaysia had fights over water and to prevent Singapore from getting water, Malaysia dammed us. - Yeah they did!
...punctuation and grammar as in the original.
But let's just keep this between us. :)
And with that ladies and gentlemen, the marking bloopers of 2004. Stay tuned for March 2005!
Ondine tossed this thought in at 13:42
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Once again, I questioned why I didn't join the foreign service.HE Franklin L. Lavin- The US ambassador to Singapore did an American Government 101 with the kids this morning. It was a logistical nightmare where an advance team was sent to us to get the place ready. We joked about them sweeping for bombs and being the target for terrorists and running around looking for table cloth since the Ambassador couldn't know that the table on stage was a bright yellow one which, in its previous life was a canteen table.
When he was being introduced, I had flashbacks to the West Wing episode where the President's swearing in ambassadors and also a little bit of the town hall session at Rosslyn . It was pretty interesting. He spoke to us in Chinese since he actually has a Masters in Chinese History and Language so that got all the kids amused. Nice man. I actually got to say hi to him and he actually remembered my name after that.
All morning, everyone was trying to disguise their awe at the whole thing by rationalising that this man can't be all that great- he was after all a Republican. He had worked for the Reagan and senior Bush administration and he had been appointed by the dim wit himself, so he coldn't have been all that great. It was highly amusing. It was highly amusing also to note the horror of some of the school's senior staff when informally polled, the entire cohort voted for John Kerry instead of ol' Dubya himself. My principal was almost beside herself trying to apologise to the ambassador and the member of the press spoke to the some students at length about the decision although I suspect, in their heads it was more "Bush-Iraq-no good, Kerry-not Bush-good" than real campaign platforms that swung their vote.
I can't say that I wasn't overawed. But at least I didn't pretend that it wasn't a big deal. But I think it was more for me the case of thinking "ooooh....the West Wing!" and wondering how many people worked on the mini lecture he gave our kids and wondering about the aides that were with him. Then I wondered some more about how someone got a job in the embassy since they were some very obviously non-American and very Singaporean people there. And how in the world I was going to land myself one of those jobs.
I had a talk this morning with one of my big bosses about restlessness and what one wanted out of their jobs. Obviously we were talking about teaching and it caused me to wonder, I mean, I have wondered about this before, but this morning, I really wondered, what was I doing here and what did I intend to do with this? Was this just a means to pay the bills or was there something more to it than this? Was there something else out there that I really wanted to do? Was there something else out there for every single teacher I know.
The fear of not knowing is one that I'm unfamiliar with and I'm awash with it now. What do I see myself doing when I'm 35? Apart from having a kid or two, I really don't know. And is that a bad thing? As in, am I going to be doing the same thing when I'm 35? I just heard of another person who is 34 or somthing like that and is principal. And I asked myself, is that what I would want for myself or is that what anyone sets out to want?
I keep drawing blanks with all these questions. I couldn't answer them for myself or anyone else. But I do know, for a little over an hour this morning, I wasn't a teacher. And that was nice.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:31
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Say something cute..."Puppies!"
Ok, I'm watching too much Gilmore Girls but I don't care.I spent the whole of last week having dreams of macabre. It was probably a reflection of my mood and state of mind then. And although that hasn't quite changed, for a change last night, I dreamt of puppies!
I dreamt we had two golden retriever puppies and we had taken them to the park so they were tired out and had flopped asleep in the backseat with me. Why I was sitting in the backseat, I don't really know. Anyway, I realised after looking very affectionately at the extremely cute sleeping puppies that they had scratched up the back seat and I wasn't even made.
Woke up thinking I was part of the Kleenex ad with the puppies in them. Warm and fuzzy.
Then I heard on the radio that some guy in Virginia drowned a golden retriever. Why, if I ever got my hands on him.... What a bummer to be back in reality.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 11:24
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Insanity Inc
You know when you've marked too much when you're sleepy at 7 in the evening and your head feels like it's full of cotton wool.That's how it felt like yesterday after getting through a record number of 30 essays in a day. Pressure does wonders for self-discipline. Anyway, yesterday was a day spent in cafes. First, it was at Breko's. An ozzie style cafe near our place that we like for obvious reasons. Only problem is it allows smoking so for the still slightly asthmatic husband and my over sensitive throat, that got cut short relatively quickly. Then, my brother suggested watching Sky Captain, something I wasn't going to watch and got hopelessly jeered and mocked for resisting.
Anyway, while the men went off to do their macho shit 'thang, I sat at Starbucks and marked some more, becoming increasingly tired and aware that my bladder was rapidly filling up with all the iced tea I had to order through the day to warrant me a spot in the cafe.
So, that's how I got 30 scripts marked only to come home brain dead.
So brain dead that both Dan and I laid in bed, unable to sleep and ended up watching some Tamil Docu-Drama on drug addiction in Singapore with seriously bad subtitling. And worse was the presentation of the subtitles, white subtitles with a guy in a white shirt on screen makes it hard for non-Tamil understanders to actually watch the program- talk about being racially sensitive. Humph.
Oddly enough, the docu-drama, despite its bad editing, fake fight scenes with loud kicking and punching sound effects was strangely compelling. We watched enough to know the Indian girl, despite her alcoholic mother's demands, marries a heroin addict, becomes addicted and ends up begging money to buy more hits. No surprise, she gets arrested and put into rehabilitation after which she tries to stay away from her good for nothing but heroin husband. Unfortunately, he is convincing and dogged in his attempts to beg for her forgiveness promising that he's managed to shirk the habit. So, of course, like all good dramas, she gives him a second chance and goes back to him only to return one day to him, doing a hit and cheerfully asks her how she is doing even though she looks like she just got slapped. And she leaves him for good after that.
That's where we stopped watching, I mean, it couldn't get much better than that by then. :) Strange thing we realised, the Tamil language didn't seem to have a word for "please" or "drugs" for that matter. My culturally, racially and linguistically insensitive husband thought "ganja" was drugs in Tamil.
So, marking does do strange things to you. It also gives you strange dreams. I dreamt I was being beat up, much like those people in the drama, by some guy who didn't like the fact that I was poor. Weird. And the weirdest thing about all that is while I was being beat up, I was concerned that the bananas that were in my back pocket wouldn't get squashed. Talk about priorities.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 11:22
Friday, October 08, 2004
A Plague on Both Your Houses
So, being married doesn't just mean you share a life together. It means you share a house together and everything in the house, including the germs.Surprise surprise. I'm sick too. Not as dire as Dan's, since I have super levels of antioxidants, but still sick nonetheless. And it kinda feels really miserable because not only am I sick, he's still sick and up to his eyes in marking as am I. So, two people in the same predicament aren't exactly what the doctor ordered.
But that's what it is.
The marking still hasn't been too bad. There haven't been gems like Kay's, but sometimes amusing enough. I need to finish about 20 essays a day in order to get all done by next weekend. I should be grateful though. One of the teachers that was supposed to be part of this marking crew lost all the marbles over the last few days and because of that, we were faced with the possibility of actually marking more than what we are required to. But thank God for small favours that we don't although I wouldn't like to be the teacher who's desperately, on all fours looking for all her marbles now.
We never figured that all those tales were true, about how teachers were the most likely to suffer from depression and the second most likely to become alcoholic (behind the poor dentists who look into your mouth and use small sharp implements to scrap food out from between the teeth). I guess, there would have had to be some element of truth in it, otherwise it wouldn't have been said, but I guess it was just one of those things that happens to other people, that you hear of. It's not really supposed to happen to someone who sits a couple of cubicles away from you.
Everyone said there were signs, but I guess, it's easy to ignore when everyone is as busy as we usually are but then again, I suppose we also have no excuse to ignore the plight of a fellow human being, much like the guy who fell at the Island Club some days ago, shouldn't have been ignored for a good 20 minutes before he was helped.
Anyway, she's on leave now, hopefully she'll have time to recuperate, as will we when this madness is over. It's bad for me to say this so early seeing that today's the first day marking and the week leading up to it, I'd been feeling terribly guilty not doing anything when I knew I should have been (actually, there wasn't much for me to do and nothing much I could do about certain things).
Dan thinks I'm too much of a control freak and that I'm too much of a doer. I need to do things. I can't sit back and wait for things to happen. It just isn't me to sit back. That's why this time is hard for me- not just the marking but everything happening now. I have no patience for things to happen on their own. If I had my way, I would cajole it and move it along. Unfortunately, it's out of my hands and I just need patience and faith, something that I'm struggling hard with, together with restlessness, fatigue and this gnawing feeling in my tummy that makes me think I'm going to spew.
Some days just aren't meant to be spent awake. But even the dreamscape possesses too many nightmares. Perhaps, I should start looking for my marbles too.
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Can I count on you, S'pore?
An injured man was left lying for 20 mins
at the Singapore Island Country Club before help came. Are Singaporeans
heartless? The New Paper puts this to the test with help of an actor who
pretends to faint in 3 busy areas
By Teh Jen Lee jenlee@sph.com.sg">jenlee@sph.com.sg
Pictures/ ZAIHAN MOHD
YUSOF
ARE Singaporeans heartless?
After all, when Mr Alan Wong injured
himself in a fall and lay face down in the rain outside Singapore Island Country
Club, it was 20 minutes before anyone came to help. At least four people passed by, he said, before club staff helped him get up. Was Mr Wong unlucky, or would the same thing happen to anyone, anywhere?The New Paper asked amateur actor Jace Lee, 25, to pretend to faint at several places last week, to see how quickly people would react.
ORCHARD ROAD: Three minutes
First stop: Orchard Road, outside Takashimaya shopping centre
at 5.30pm.
When Mr Lee staggered and fell on the walkway, at least six people froze like the painted lions nearby. And they stayed frozen. Tourists and locals alike gawked. Questions like 'Eh, what happened?' flew fast and furious. 'Is that guy for real?'asked a cleaning lady, who immediately approached a security guard. A few people stopped to ask if he was okay - but we felt someone should actually help him to his feet to be considered a true good samaritan.About 40 or 50 people slowed down, stopped or gawked - some asked if he was okay- and moved on.
It was only three minutes later that Indonesian tourist Yuli Andriani squatted close to him and repeatedly asked 'Are you okay?' until he stirred. She helped him to a seat, concern etched all over her face.Even after we explained that it was a set-up, she was still worried and asked Mr Lee: 'Do you want something to drink?'
Asked why she went to help, the 44-year-old, who's here for her daughter's medical check-up, said: 'It's human to want to help. I was not thinking of anything else.'
Why didn't others help? Street surveyor Jesvin Kaur, 24, and her friends circled, but hesitated to do more.'Twice I have seen mentally unstable people fall down, but when I went close, they came at me with arms flailing. That's why I held back. Plus I could see his hands moving. If he'd still been like that after a few minutes, I wouldhave called the ambulance,' she said.
RAFFLES PLACE: Immediate help
At the next location, Raffles Place, help came immediately.
At 6.30pm, people were streaming past the OUB Centre building and manyappeared to be in a hurry.But when Mr Lee collapsed, three people immediately stopped to help him stand up.Miss Di Ser, 24, a secretary, was especially spontaneous.Although she was rushing to make a 6.45pm class a good 10-minute walk away, she didn't hesitate to stop.
Unlike passers-by at Orchard Road who seemed nervous about getting too close to Mr Lee, she was not afraid to turn him over. She said: 'If you see someone just fainting like that, I think your first reaction is to see if he's okay. I had to help, he was right beside me. It would have been impossible for me to just walk away.' It's the second time someone has fainted near her. 'The first time others helped. It wasquite long ago but I still remember,' said Miss Ser, who is not trained in first aid.
What if Mr Lee had been dressed shabbily and reeking of alcohol? Miss Ser said: 'I will still pull up a drunkard. But I'll probably need someone else to help me because I'm not that strong.'
CLEMENTI MRT: Immediate help
Our third and final stop - a bus stand outside Clementi MRT station.
At 7.20pm, the heartland hub was bustling with people eating, shopping or simply heading home. For five minutes, Mr Lee sat with his head in his hands. But when he fell on the ground, those who were sitting near him did not immediately respond. Instead, it was those walking past who helped him up.
Ms Cynthia Low, 45, an admin executive, started applying medicated oil on Mr Lee's temples and offered to let him keep the bottle. When we explained the situation and asked why she helped, she said: 'Who knows? One of these days, you may also need people to help you, right?'So the The New Paper experiment seemed to suggest that Singaporeans are not so very unkind.Mr Lee himself was glad that people responded. 'I expected to lie there for 20 minutes. Those in their 20s and above seem more caring, while the youngsters were more 'bochap' (uncaring, in dialect).'People might think there are others who will help, so they don't stop. But what if everyone thinks like that?'
Ondine tossed this thought in at 23:24
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Domesticat
I'm home today, on urgent leave. At 10.46 am, I've done more housewifey things than I have the entire month.- I defrosted pork at 7.10 am
- I did grocery shopping at 8.43 am
- I unpacked 4 bags full of groceries into the fridge.
- I made a toasted ham sandwich for breakfast at 9.07 am and this wasn't for myself
- I made 2 litres of chrysanthemum tea from scratch
- I dragged out the slow crock pot cooker thing from its 3 year long hiatus (Oh goodness! I've been back from Melly for 3 years)
- I scalded some lean pork and skinned three bulbs of garlic (bulbs?) and dumped them into the crock pot for slow cooking
- I cleaned the kitchen counter and refridgerated previously boiled chrysanthemum tea
- I had breakfast at 10.43 am, 2 hours after I got back, making me really feel like a housewife because there were so many other things I had to do before I could sit down and read the paper and have some cereal
Ok, I didn't really take urgent leave to do all that. I took urgent leave because I had a whimpering, extremely feverish, sneezing (who says you can't sneeze in your sleep?), coughing, sniffing individual sleeping beside me. Dan is down with some strange virus. The fever just got higher and higher through the night till it hit 38.8 degrees this morning and he looked like he couldn't even walk straight from our bed to the bathroom if his life counted on it. That's when I decided, there was no way I was going to leave him home alone and started messaging people even before the sun had really come up- actually that's just figuratively speaking, it was bright at 6.32 am this morning- to let them know I couldn't come in this morning. I'm glad I didn't because you know you're in a whole lot of trouble when you walk into the doctor's office and the first thing he says to you is " you look like crap". Well, Dan, not me.
And however rubbish way we lead our lives, eating out more than our parents approve of, I know enough to make sure that the sick kid gets real food. Hence, the flurry of activity this morning.
One of the colleagues I informed this morning said that adults hit by viruses are really harder to look after than kids. Yes and no I think. He's passed out now and I don't think he'll stir for a while, but he's also pretty stubborn, insisting that we (YM and I) should still go for kickboxing tonight. Yes, we're trying that out soon. We're on a big craze to get fit and have been hit late by the fitness/gym/yoga/pilates type of bug.
I always thought I didn't need these things because my constitution is naturally above averagedly fit. Unfortunately, I underestimated what age actually does to a person and now, I humbly admit that I actually need these classes to keep fit. It's the same reason I had to retract my calorie logic sometime back. For the longest time, I didn't care about calories. I think that came from the fact that I was so active as a teenager and was never told that I had to count calories. I was told I had to count fat, so obediently, I did, but I didn't care about calories and sugar.
I think its effects only occurred to me after I hit 25 and around the same time Atkins was beginning to take the world by storm. Only then did I realise that calories were also bad.... So bye bye unlimited portions of bread, rice, noodles and pasta. Sadness is when you realise your body isn't as young as you think it is.
Same goes with Dan I guess. His body can't take the immense amounts of stress that he's being put through now. But for him, I don't blame calories, or sugar or a slowed down metabolic rate. For him, I blame the fat assed bitch, that I gloriously dreamt of chasing with an axe in my dream last night, plus her stupid high heels made her trip and fall, making dismemberment all the easier for me.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 10:45
Saturday, October 02, 2004
At First Sight Unwarranted
When some people talk about injustice, they talk about the North South Divide. They talk about the Caste System, They talk about how some kids are starving in the African continent and our kids are obese. Or they talk of how bastards in any and every sense of the word get away with things and the most innocent, virtuous person is the one that gets stricken by cancer.I am sure I have faced much injustice in my life. After all, I was a teenager once.
But yesterday, I learnt what true injustice was and this morning, I woke up with a bitter taste in my mouth when it was the first thought that entered my mind. True injustice is when an institution that prides itself in being one that is God-fearing goes out there and persecutes an innocent being. When that institution does not come clean on its policy and executes it with great partiality. Injustice is when the institution is so powerful that it is above the law and anything done against it would be like David throwing flowers at Goliath.
And that injustice entered my home yesterday and affected me. I know I shouldn't be vengeful and vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord but truly, may the true wrath of God descend on all those who have perpetuated this injustice.
When I first learnt about this institution, I had my reservations. It had a good reputation when I was an teenager. I knew people from there, I was constantly impressed by them much to the dismay of my brothers. As an adult, I heard a different side of this same place and thought to be wary. But there are some things that take precedence over rational judgement. Loyalty, love and faith cause these suspicions to become at first sight unwarranted. And even when they become clearer, the benefit of the doubt, the undying love for the icon of the past shrouds it all. So you push these thoughts to the back of your head and you go on trying to make a difference. And then when all that effort is rewarded by being shown out the great gates for no real reason, you reel from the shock and wonder how you could have not seen this coming.
No one did and everyone now is in shock. But what good is it when there really is nothing you can do about it except to put all your belongings into a box and turn your back to those you really care about, those you made promises to and those who matter most, the innocents in this whole powerplay no matter how much it breaks your heart?
This is when you suddenly realise how small you are in a system, that you're an ant. An ant that can and will get trampled on just because the ant believed that the toil and trouble was worthwhile. Well, apparently, it never is and it isn't the toil and trouble that counts. In reality, it isn't the toil and trouble that counts, it's the offering of great gifts and the appeasing of the big haired, fat assed giants that do the trampling.
And that, is the greatest injustice of all.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 07:58
Friday, October 01, 2004
Prain Engrish Campain
Yesterday, during one of my classes, a girl saunters into the class while I was in mid sentence. Annoyed. But I thought maybe she left something behind, but she marches up to me and goesGirl: I wanna talk to you
Me: I'm in the middle of a class here
Girl: But my tutor asked me to talk to you NOW. I want to study overseas next year.
Me (Letting my eyes take in the entire class): BUT I'm in
the middle of TEACHING a class NOW
Girl: So when can see you?
Me (Slightly exasperated): Tomorrow maybe?
Girl: Today cannot ah???
Me: No, I'm busy.
Girl: It's very important, you know??
Me (Pissed off): Tomorrow. I'm very busy today.
Girl: Tomorrow what time ah???
and after I tell her, she just marches off without a thank you much to the incredulity of my class.
I came to the conclusion that there are just some people out there with zero social skills and are absolutely rude. Who were they brought up by? Jungle folk?
Anyway, today, she comes to see me. And this takes the cake.
Me: Where in Australia do you want to apply to?
Girl (mishearing me and thinking I asked her why she wanted to apply to
Melbourne) : Orh, I don't like Singapore. Dowan to study here ready.
Me (trying to be polite): No, I meant, where do you want to go.
Girl: Orh... the university of Melbem.
Me (resisting the urge to tell her to f*ck off): Oh, you mean the
university of MELBOURNE
Girl: Yah, Melbem.
If left up to me, I wouldn't send her there. I mean, she can't, for the life of her pronounce the name of the uni right, has zero social skills (have I mentioned that already?) and wants to go there because it's not here. A reason, that if my child used to argue a case for me to send him or her away, just would not cut it.
And it's somewhere I have wonderful memories of. If she can't pronounce Melbourne, how is she going to pronounce the Baillieu library, or the Babel building or the Sunderland lecture theatre? Mutter. Nope. Can't. I can't in all good conscience send her there and say she is there because of me. I can't take credit for something like that because my conscience wouldn't be able to actually take it.
Unfortunately, I have to be the impartial one here, and get her focus results to the university and leave it up to them. Perhaps if I focused my discontent enough through telepathy, maybe they'd get the hint. But knowing my luck, probably not.
12 years of our education has produced someone like her. And sometimes we wonder why we worry.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 09:37