Flesh
I once declared myself vegetarian and unlike Gavin’s Mum, I was actually serious about it. Mostly. But I lapsed often and eventually gave up my “wee carry on,” as I believe my Gran called it, about three years after I’d started it. This was when I was a student and, unfortunately, one of those three veggie years happened when I was in my study year in Germany. Germany is well known as being the third worst place in the world to be a vegetarian.* Like Gavin’s Mum I got myself into a veggie related pickle. I was a student teacher in a well-to-do German high school, and within my first week there I was asked on a school trip to some place where they found remnants of Early Man that wasn’t Neanderthal. I hadn’t been paid my first wage yet and had spent all of the money I had brought into the country within the walls of a new thing I’d discovered called the Bier Halle. I had only about fifteen deutschmarks to my name. That was just over five pounds. Social embarrassment was just around the corner.
And I’m not joking folks when I say, they looked at each other with incredulity.
I thought saying I was vegetarian would be better than saying, “But, I’ve got no money” to get out of going the restaurant. I was wrong.
“What do you have for vegetarians?” I said, meekly. Chorus of laughter. “I just can’t believe you don’t eat meat!” and one phrase that they would say repeatedly to me, “Wie kannst du uberleben?” (How can you SURVIVE?) The headmaster even made a definitive pronouncement, “Man kann nicht uberleben ohne Fleisch” (One cannot survive without meat). If I hadn’t pronounced myself veggie to start with, I would have silently ordered some chicken and eaten it quietly faced with no alternative. But I had announced my life choice to a group of middle-aged German professionals and had to carry it through. I couldn’t U-turn on my so-called principles, which for all they knew, were deeply held. When the platter arrived, they dug in heartily, talking about me not being able to uberleben and what a feast I was missing.
I ate the omelette slowly but after I’d finished it, I was still starving.
*Germany comes third to France, which comes second to my Gran’s kitchen
University Challenge
Students before Happy Hours were invented
Whiff of vomit about your street this morning? Increased police presence in your town at the weekend? Nagging feeling that one of your children might have grown up and left home?
Yes, it’s Freshers Week all over the country.
One set of students hits home again after graduation, to whine about not knowing what they are going to do with their lives and sponge off their Mum and Dad even though their old room has since been turned into a lilac Laura Ashley guest room (Hi Mum!). And another new set leaves home and discovers the joys of binge drinking, waking up with a complete stranger stuck to them and the occasional bit of learning.
Yesterday, I had the great honour of checking out the new accommodation of an 18 year old chum of the Flying Martinis heading off to University yesterday. And of course, I was reminded of my first student house in Glasgow.
In our student house we had a Senior Resident. This was a student chosen by the Housing Association to effectively snitch on the other residents and stop them from having a good time. Think Orwell’s Thought Crime Division, and you’ll get the idea. Our Senior Resident was called Dave. He was, as befitted the job description for such a post, a wanker of the highest magnitude.
Dave was studying Theology in training to become a minister, but seemed to be more of the Hell and Damnation type than the Love Thy Neighbour kind of bloke. In fact, I think Dave had his own set of commandments.
The Dave Commandments
1. Thou shalt not speak to me unless you are a fine, tight assed, Asian, male, student.
2. Thou shalt not get your possessions back from confiscation because you left a dirty dish in the sink.
3. Thou shalt not come to me with any complaints, suggestions or problems.
4. Thou shalt not expect any degree of courtesy from me.
5. Thou shalt not make any noise after 9pm unless you are one of the fine, tight assed, Asian, male, students knocking on my door in their underwear or a loosely tied dressing gown.
6. Thou shalt not be under the impression that my role is anything other than surveillance and reporting back to the Housing Association.
7. Thou shalt not insinuate that I am un-Christian, just because I hate each and every one of you.
8. Thou shalt not expect to get back into halls next year, as the dossier I have on you is about phone-book thickness.
9. Thou shalt not sneak friends from home into your bedroom as I will wait until you are all asleep and throw them out into the snowy January street with nowhere else to go.
10. Thou shalt not ridicule the passive aggressive notes left by me in the kitchen by writing “Dave is a Cock” on them.
Aaah, bless, Dave LOVED us. I wonder if he ever did move to Vietnam.
Still, no Senior Residents in the hall I was in yesterday. Just gangs of nice friendly people handing out kits with laminated cards with instructions on how to live life away from Mum, free music downloads and a complimentary Pot Noodle. There were even Fresher Teams whose sole responsibility was to force people out of their rooms and into the pub. Nothing like 15 Vodka and Red Bulls and a trip to Casualty to break that ice!
And on quick inspection of our chum’s living quarters, the mattresses are not made out of woven pubic hair anymore. So that’s nice!
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
Post-its from the poison pen
Image from passiveaggressivenotes.com
As passive aggressive notes go, this one was heavy on the aggressive with the only passive element being that it was left for me to find in the inside of a wardrobe rather than any issues being addressed directly to my face. In true passive aggressive style, I never mentioned the note directly but was sure to tell her that her shirt was washed, ironed and back in her wardrobe.
The passive aggressive notes don’t stop when you cease to do the communal living thing, though. Just this morning I received a group work email that was clearly having a go at the behaviour of one person but was thinly veiled as a polite instruction to all staff. How many of those have you received this week? “Dear All at Court It may have slipped someone’s mind but I believe that someone did promise to love and honour someone else and not chop their head off. I wouldn’t mention it but it seems that someone’s been a bit busy fornicating with another woman, and it may have slipped their mind- Ann B ;0) ” Or from the pen of Neville Chamberlain directed at Adolf Hitler: “ Would all dictators be reminded that they must not leave their troops in the Sudetenland. All persons leaving their armies in independent countries without permission will be dealt with severely. Thanks! :>) This post was inspired by my favourite new internet haunt http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/. It invites readers, Post Secret style, to send in all the passive aggressive notes that come their way. Great reading. Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe!
“Would everyone please remember to put the milk back in the fridge as I find cottage cheese in my tea rather a turn off. Love you!”
Image from www.passiveagressivenotes.com
50 Ways to Lose Your Lover
Paul Simon made it all sound so easy.
You just skip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Hop on the bus, Gus
Drop off the key, Lee
..and set yourself free.
Sorry, it’s not that straightforward, pint-size.
When I was nineteen, I lived in Germany as part of my studies at university. Whilst there I met a diverting chap called Salvatore, who was of Italian parentage but born in Germany. He was eighteen. He was also one of my students. OK, OK but I was a student teacher and I was NINETEEN, OK?
Anyway, I saw him for about five months. I’m a big Al Pacino fan and I guess I had a little Michael Corleone thing going on (the years in Sicily, specifically, since you ask).
Salvatore said he loved me. And I thought I did him too. Until I got on the train out of Cologne back to Ostend to go home, that was. As soon as the train left I decided, I did not. I was NINETEEN,OK? Stop giving me a hard time!
Back home in the Motherland, I got a summer job and started seeing some other bloke I worked with giving nary a thought to Sal. I replied to Sal’s letters of undying love with the news that “Hello, I’ve left Germany. Time to move on.”
He didn’t take the hint, so I wrote a letter informing him of a new boyfriend. Then it started. He made phone calls in the middle of the night to my parents’ house in tears. You do not want to see my Mum being woken up after a couple of hours’ sleep, trust me. The phone calls had to stop.
And they did, for a while.
One year on, I get a letter from Sal at my student flat saying that he’s on a tour of Scotland and could he pop by to see me. I see no harm. I’M TWENTY for Godssakes, of course I didn’t see it coming!
Turns out, of course, that Sal takes the casual affirmative reply to mean he’s back in there. There’s no bloody tour of Scotland that he makes out to sound like he’s doing the old backpacking thing with mates. He is coming over alone specifically to see me. Indefinitely.
Of course, the fact that he’s thrown in everything to come over and be with me doesn’t dawn on me until after a few days after he’s arrived. He just doesn’t leave, and it is excruciating. I find everything about him annoying. Even his shoes annoy me.
I also keep asking him things like, “So are you going to go and see Edinburgh?”, “So is a tour of the Highlands on your agenda?”. He doesn’t budge.
Worst of all, my flatmates and friends think he’s adorable, even though I have tried to hide him from them. They think he is cute and laugh at his little jokes, but everything he does embarrasses me.
Worse than that, he tries to creep into bed with me every single night. He cries (he’s Italian, remember?) when I say I don’t love him anymore. The only plus side I can see about his presence is the fact that my finals are coming up and the German conversation is good practice. But the linguistics is not enough; I have to get rid of him.
I start a campaign of making him hate me, so that he’ll leave. I leave him waiting in for me all evening whilst I go out straight from class and get pissed on Friday night with another bloke. I make no attempts whatsoever to entertain him in any way whilst he is in the UK for the first time. I am rude to him, I purposefully try to make myself look unattractive to him. I make no attempt to smother any bodily emissions in front of him (as you would normally do in the company of a bloke), because I know he is quite chauvinistic Italian about how a woman should behave, and it will annoy him.
But he does not get the hint. If anything, he seems to like me even more.
I have to do something drastic before I end up marrying him out of politeness.
I break his heart and put him on a train.
Gloating the night away!
A lot of you may hate me from this point forward. But I’m going to do it anyway
Woooooooooh Hoooooo! School’s Out for Summer! SIX WEEKS! Get In!
Don’t expect me to apologise. In fact I am going to justify why I and the other teachers and lecturers of this country are defiantly not going to apologise for our six weeks.*
1. Two degrees we need. Count ‘em! Two! Doctors and lawyers only need one and they get paid shitloads and people make TV shows about them that make what they do look cool. What do we get? “Grange Hill”? “Teachers”?
2. We are to blame for everything apparently.
“Oh I’ve got a shit life because the teachers at school didn’t like me!”.
Oh, dry your eyes! You were probably a horrible little shit. Your workmates probably hate you too.
“It’s the fault of the schools that our children have no respect anymore and rampage through the town at night with their pants on their heads and scare grannies!”
Thanks Daily Express, love your work.
3. The pay’s not magic, to be honest. I refer you to the two degrees again. Costly business that, getting two degrees. In Europe our French and German counterparts get nearly twice what we’re on. Education is valued over there.
No, really valued, not just by some muppet saying the word “Education” three times in a speech and calling it a policy. By actually valuing those that choose to do it for a living. With actual cash.
4. People are horrible about teachers. We’ve a lot of stick to put up with. First off, we get criticised for our career choice.
That “ Those who can’t do, teach” phrase. That’s absolutely horrible! Who the blazes came up with that? I want to drive to their house, with a dog turd in a paper bag, then set it on fire on their doorstep, ring the doorbell and run away.
Then sit in my car laughing at them when they come to the door and stamp the fire out with their slippered feet. Not that I’ve ever done that before, you understand.**
So anyone who knows the originator of that gem, let me know.
5. Every five minutes we have to completely change everything we do, because some vote-whore somewhere decides we must “change” because we’re shit.
Like the whole reading thing. Some smarty pants reads an article on the train to his dirty weekend away with his parliamentary diary secretary and decides that using phonics to each kids how to read was crap.*
“We must change it, it’s crap. Never mind the fact that children have been learning to read this way for decades. Never mind the fact that the teachers are in opposition (whinging bastards). I declare Phonics outdated as children now are completely different than children then. It’s a Darwinian thing. Well known scientific fact. Read it in “Razzle” on the train to my dirty weekend away with my horse-faced secretary ”
Ten years later kids can’t read properly.
“It’s the fault of the teachers. They are quite clearly crap!”
And then, quietly, “Let’s sneak phonics back in when nobody’s looking …shhhh! If anyone notices it we’ll blame it on the opposition…or even better, the teachers”
So six weeks of WELL EARNED time away from teaching your kids and making sure they can all do important stuff by the time they are spat out into the big bad world. Don’t begrudge us a wee bit of a rest. Those hols and sharing our working hours with the funniest, liveliest, most important people out there are the only perks we get!
Let the barrage begin in the comments box!
* Yes, yes, I know you all work hard too, but them’s the breaks!
** It wasn’t me that was a deliquent, it’s cos I had bad schooling.
*** They never got rid of phonics in Scotland. We can’t play football but, boy can we still read!
Sniff!
One very sad thing about my job is that every year you have to say goodbye to graduating students. I always find it hard. I miss them when I come back after the break in September. it takes a while to get over it, it really does.
Almost as sad is that fact that on the last week of term they are all a horrible pain in the arse. Handing portfolios in late, complete with “dog ate my homework excuses” and then demanding to know instantly if they have passed. You can’t enjoy the last few days of their company before you see them off as it’s just all too frantic.
It’s been a hell of week. I’ve been storming up and down corridors bad mouthing the lot of them. I’ve been growling at them as they flannel me, or knock at my office door and hassle me when I’ve a mouthful of sandwich and haven’t had a break all day.
“Why haven’t they just worked hard all year instead of leaving it all to the last minute” I rage, hypocritically forgetting what I was like as a student.
But then the buggers go and surprise me with a large bouquet of flowers and bottle of something lovely.
Now I have to love them again.
So there they are. The Class of 2007 (and a couple of their educators)
Stop Press: Misssives regulars Joseph and Cat are requiring some support over at blogging silliness, Big Blogger. Get over there and decide which of the two you wish to vote for (obviously you can choose to vote for the others, but I’m sure you’ll show a bit of solidarity and take my advice)
I was a teenage pornographer
In 1989 I lived in Cologne in Germany for a year. I was 18/19, and worked as an English Language teaching Assistant in a grammar school in the outskirts of the city. I had, when all is said and done, a pretty good year. I met lots of great people, did lots of great things and generally had a bit of a laugh at the expense of the, as it was then, West German government.
The fact that I had to show up for five and a half days and work at a grammar school, was only a minor inconvenience. The fact that most of my students were the same age as me caused a couple of problems. I may tell you about the more obvious one some other time…..
However, today I am reminded of one particular problem as I read a news item today on IMDB about a teacher who showed the film “Brokeback Mountain” to her high school students. The female teacher is being sued by the grandparents of some of the teenage kids, as the film contains scenes of homosexual lurve action. Here’s the link, if you’re interested in the details. it’s four or five stories down the page:
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2007-05-14/#3
Well, been there, done that! I showed “My Beautiful Launderette” to my Year 8 class (18 year olds). Here’s a quick summary for those of you who don’t remember or maybe haven’t seen “My Beautiful Launderette”.
The film stars Daniel Day Lewis and Saeed Jaffrey and is set in Thatcher’s Britain. It concerns the dealings of an Indian ex-pat entrepreneur (Jaffrey) and his nephew (Gordon Warnecke) whom he places in charge of his latest business acquisition; the launderette. Behind the scenes Uncle is trying to marry off Nephew to other Cousin, unaware that Nephew is getting it on in the back room of the launderette with local skinhead sexy-pants, Daniel Day Lewis.
My reason for showing the film? Well it was, your Honour, entirely innocent. I had, in consultation with the head of English, decided to deliver a project on British culture in the political climate of the eighties. Up until that point we had looked at music, specifically the more intelligent lyrical efforts of “The The”, “The Waterboys” and “The Smiths”. We had watched some excellent TV programmes, like “Boys from the Blackstuff”, “Edge of Darkness” and before-it-got-shit Brookside (it used to be great, honest!). Basically it was a thinly veiled ruse to play music and watch telly and chat about them afterwards.
I decided to show Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears “Launderette” because it was about multicultural eighties Britain. Oh… and it was cracking, to boot.
The students loved it….until the English Head walked into the class just before the gay sex scene came on, cueing the longest five minutes of my life. After the scene got going he switched off the TV.
MisssyT, as I was then, was summoned to the Headmaster’s office the next day. Early. He was the only person that called me Fraulein T. Everyone else used my first name.
I was to have all video privileges suspended indefinitely. I would consult my Mentor (teacher in charge of me) on everything I gave out to the students. I was made to feel like a porn peddler. I tried to put it in context. He wasn’t interested.
The next week the students asked to see the end of the film. I told them that we couldn’t and I wasn’t allowed to show any more films. They were a bit fed up about it, but not enough to ask their headmaster for an explanation, or fight my corner. It was only school after all, and watching a video was better than doing real work. But if real work had to be done, they would get on with it.
I saw the film a few years ago on telly and was surprised at how tame that scene was. Perhaps I should be glad that it was 1989 and not 15 years later when I would’ve had “Queer as Folk”, “The L Word” or “Sex and the City” to choose from!.
Apparently the year I left, the headmaster had opted not to take on an English Assistant for the foreseeable future.
I must have hit a nerve…..
The magical properties of dog spit
I don’t often write about my students. They are mostly harmless and don’t deserve to be used as subjects of my witterings, as they might start demanding editorial rights or something. To be honest if I did decide that they were fair game then I could pretty much just fill my blogs with a transcript of them everyday and leave it at that.
That’s what I love about my job. It’s not the easiest of professions, but I do spend a lot of my working day laughing.
So I think I’ll just quote today’s thing that had me chuckling on the way home.
We’re in the studio and the students are working on filming a scene, and some members are in front of the camera chatting in between takes…
Student A : Aaah why did I do that? Aaah!
Student B : What?
Student A: I’ve just picked a scab off my elbow. It’s bleeding. Aaah!
Student B: Oh you’ve just reminded me. I’ve got one too, I’m going to pick mine off too.
Me: What are you doing? It’s like watching chimps, stop picking stuff!
Student B: Like your nose
Student A: …and eating it. That’s supposed to be good for you.
Student C: I heard that, it’s supposed to be good for your immune system
Student A; Yeah, that’s why you should share an ice-cream cone with a dog.
Oh there will be more from this lot…don’t you worry about that
The magical properties of dog spit
I don’t often write about my students. They are mostly harmless and don’t deserve to be used as subjects of my witterings, as they might start demanding editorial rights or something. To be honest if I did decide that they were fair game then I could pretty much just fill my blogs with a transcript of them everyday and leave it at that.
That’s what I love about my job. It’s not the easiest of professions, but I do spend a lot of my working day laughing.
So I think I’ll just quote today’s thing that had me chuckling on the way home.
We’re in the studio and the students are working on filming a scene, and some members are in front of the camera chatting in between takes…
Student A : Aaah why did I do that? Aaah!
Student B : What?
Student A: I’ve just picked a scab off my elbow. It’s bleeding. Aaah!
Student B: Oh you’ve just reminded me. I’ve got one too, I’m going to pick mine off too.
Me: What are you doing? It’s like watching chimps, stop picking stuff!
Student B: Like your nose
Student A: …and eating it. That’s supposed to be good for you.
Student C: I heard that, it’s supposed to be good for your immune system
Student A; Yeah, that’s why you should share an ice-cream cone with a dog.
Oh there will be more from this lot…don’t you worry about that
