Blog 2020 Week 3: 5th October 1582
Today I learnt that in 1582, in accordance with a degree from Pope Gregory XIII, time jumped forward by more than a week. The Catholic Church was unhappy that Easter was getting further and further away from the vernal equinox, which I gather is when it was supposed to happen. To prevent further “drift” of the years in the future, Gregory, or Greg to his mates, ordered that the day after the 4th October would be the 15th. The ten days in the middle ceased to exist: they never happened.
That’s how today has felt for me. One of those days when you’re still in your pyjamas and realise it’s getting dark, and all you’ve achieved today is shouting at your book of Italian because the verb conjugations don’t make any sense. Generally I don’t like the disdain we feel for a day wasted, an unproductive day. Almost like a system of all-encompassing exchange has trained us to equate completed tasks with value. But I’ll take off my Marxist hat for now.
This week has flown by a lot quicker than a standard January week. I usually find that the first weeks back in reality post-Christmas eke past at the speed of a retirement-home chess match, but it’s been 7 days since I landed and I guess I’ve been busy. After bailing on my first few days back due to *insert most recent health worry here*, I had a bit of apologising to do when I returned, but fortunately everyone has been really understanding. Sometimes I get frustrated at the slightly haphazard nature of our small school, but they really do take good care of me and I’m thankful for that.
I hope I’m not imagining it, but it seemed like my kids missed me. I didn’t realise how much I missed them til I saw them again: there’s a few in particular which I’ll be heartbroken to leave at the end of the year. I’m not sure why this thought is already occurring, but perhaps it’s because I’m approaching the stage of life where I’m biologically programmed to want to become a Dad. Weird thought.
I was nervous before the first lesson. I thought this was odd until I confessed this to Hannah, who told me she’d been a nervous wreck when she restarted last week. It’s strange — although this is my fourth teaching job I’m not an experienced teacher by any means, and if I don’t keep doing it, I feel like I’m gonna freeze up. I remember this time last year I was asked to chair the Waterstones Camberley Book Club, hardly the most riotous of classes, but I worked myself into a complete state beforehand.
But in both cases, once I got started things were fine. It’s not even like the adrenaline kicks in or anything, it’s just that you need to be so focused when you’re in charge of a group of people that you just stop being self-reflective at all. I think this is one of the things I like about teaching. This week almost all of the classes I taught were about New Year’s Resolutions in one form or another, and it proved an enlightening enough topic. The highlight came from a girl of around 15:
I need to stop eating pomegranates. I’ve already eaten three today. I get them delivered to my house every morning, and when we go away I need to take more. When we went skiing over Christmas I had one bag for clothes, and one bag for pomegranates. It’s like a dependence. My mum asked the doctor, but he just laughed at her.
I have to admit that I laughed at her too, particularly since this came right off the bat of a harrowing story about how she wants to pay more visits to her terminally ill Grandfather — in prison.
To be honest, she’s one of my easiest students to teach — her English is excellent for her age, and some people are just entertaining to listen to. Also this week, she arrived 45 minutes early fearing that she was late, since she’d got the time wrong. When Ruggiero at reception told her she was actually early, she disappeared again, reappearing a full hour later, now the only student I’ve ever had who’s been both early and late to the same lesson.
The other highlight of the week was being rugby tackled to the floor by a 6 year-old. At the end of our lessons we need to get a signature from our students on our register, but with my very young kids there’s often so much to clear up at the end of a lesson that I often forget. This time I remembered ten seconds after they’d walked out the door, and caught up with little Noah and Natan before they left.
They were with one of their Dads, a stern-faced military man. You know the type — stiff back, shaved head, and probably hasn’t cracked a smile since he bayoneted his first victim in ‘Nam. I find him slightly intimidating as-is, but as his English isn’t great our interactions are even more awkward. I knelt down next to the boys to get their signatures.
“The boys, do they grow up?”
I look at him towering above me.
“Yes.” I say instinctively. “They’re doing well.”
“Grew up? Grow up?” He says, frowning. “Grow is a regular verb?”
Grow is an irregular verb, but I’m not sure this is the time or the place. I’m trying to think up an answer when Noah finishes his signature and decides now’s the time for a takedown. He grabs me around the shoulder and pulls me back, and since I’m bending on one knee with both hands on the clipboard, I’m knocked off balance and we both go crashing to the ground. Everyone in the reception area goes awww. I get up and ruffle his hair, already planning my revenge.
The week goes by and my kids tell me about the somewhat impressive array of presents they got this year. Although I’m aware they could be lying, it does seem like they get a lot: most of them got at least 300 euros spending money, and there are many new enormous phones. Through online gaming and meme culture, they’re definitely a lot more aware of world events than I was at age 11. Lorenzo is a bright kid from the local Catholic school, and when he arrives 5 minutes early he happily chats away about the US declaring war on Iran, and how we’ll all die in World War III. It feels a tad sketchy to be teaching him phrases like “nuclear weapons”, but what can I say, English is English.
I have a new adult class this week too — a C1 class, which is the level below fluency. It’s such a joy to not have to moderate my language at all, to have a class who understand sarcasm and inference, where we can study genuinely interesting topics. One of the students wears a necklace with what looks to be a large cross, but I soon realise it’s actually an intricately carved sword. He starts talking dungeons and dragons to Alicie, the receptionist at school who’s also joined this class, and I already know it’s going to be good. Also, one of my pre-existing students has started, the first time I’d seen her since Christmas. This lady started in September with the alarming news that she’s signed up for an exam in December — the equivalent of taking your University finals three months into your degree. A quiet and somewhat unconfident woman with a great sense of humour, she showed a real grit and determination over the intervening months, and lo and behold, she fucking passed. I was over the moon, and I think she was too, in her own reserved sort of way. And that, ladies and gents, is what it’s all about.
