Today's Twix

One of my favourite teachers keeps her hair short.  She's the most casually dressed in the office; jeans, t-shirts, hoodies. 

I found out last week that there are about a dozen girls in love with her.

They say that when they first met the teacher they thought she was a guy.  A handsome guy.  By the time they learned the truth, it was too late they said.  They still think she is so handsome.  They still go out of their way to see her.

...

There is no 'z' sound in Korean.  The closest they have is the 'j'.  I hear a lot about 'scary jombies' in my classes, but I was still surprised when I student told me he was going to take care of elephants once he became a jewkeeper.

...

This morning my vice principal wandered the office with an envelope doling out whatever it was within to people around the office.  Whenever anyone doles out anything in the office I am very probably going to be offered some.  It's really hard for me not to sit and watch them make their way towards me but all that potential eye contact might seem demanding.  So I stare at my screen and act surprised when they come by.  

"Would you like some green tea?"

I accept everything I'm offered except for coffee, (and even coffee sometimes if they're smiling too wide and don't understand enough English to know why I'm refusing).  I get a bunch of rolled and dried leaves mounded on a piece of A4 paper, from the envelope to me.  

Now I'm a big enough person to admit that I don't necessarily know what to do with these, or at least I can be.  Not today though, today I am not big and not even thirsty for green tea, for hot drinks at all.  But the longer this mount sits here the longer I am marked by it.  

You would have put them in hot water right?  I now have a cup full of leaves; no longer dries and rolled.  They have taken up a lot more of the cup than it looked like when they were mounded on that A4. It's hard to drink without eating one and in the same way I could have asked I could also just eat these.  Except I'm not going to, not today.  Today I am going to sneak a mini Twix from my lowest desk drawer, (I sneak it because eating without offering to share with everyone in about a twenty foot radius is selfish and I might have enough to share with the 8 people who sit in that circle but I'd certainly have almost no Twix left and I am in fact selfish - especially today), and I'm going to consider putting a fish in my cup and watching it swim amongst the reeds of my tea.

Clarity

I am leaving for Jeju island today.  Google them if you wish to feel jealous.

Midterms have just taken place.  There has been some trouble with the exams.  In short, one class was not taught one example that appeared on the test.  About eight students from that class have been in the teachers' office every day since to harangue us about it.  A meeting is being convened, I am told.  I am told, but I am not invited, but after I am told the teacher stands and waits, and waits.  I guess that perhaps she would like me to talk.


I say that I don't know how the system for dealing with this sort of thing works.  I ask if it would be possible maybe just to cleave that question for the exam for the 40 students in that class.  Render it null and simply make their exam out of 29 instead of 30, or 99 instead of 100 or whatever it may be.  But I don't use those words like cleave or null.  I try and be as clear as I possibly can.  And I am not even suggesting, I am only asking if that is a possibility that they would consider because I don't know the procedure, I don't know what can be done and what can not.  


I finish and she looks at me.  She looks at me.  She looks at me.  She keeps looking at me, her mouth set in a dead straight flat line.  She says finally, much too long for the answer to feel hooked on to the question, "yes." And then she slowly backs away and leaves.  And I have no idea, no idea at all if I gave her what she wanted out of our brief but hanging conversation.