In retrospect

To quote me from yesterday:

"Either our Italian teacher has been replaced by aliens intent on revamping the wonders of the Spanish education system, or like the Pointy-Haired Boss she accidentally did something right, but today . . . breathe . . . she explained, clearly, what the homework for tomorrow was. I came out of the class stunned, and my friend and I looked at each other in bewilderment thinking that this was somehow a trick. Or that maybe we just became fluent in Italian."

Turns out - it was a trick. I did the homework that was not asked for, that wasn't to be handed in, even pissed the teacher off and saw a roll of the eyes from her thinking that I must be related to Sarah Palin. But our teacher has numerous faults, among them: not explaining instructions, believing that group dialogue is best done with the class listening instead of everyone chatting at the same time, going off on a tangent mid-sentence while reading (so that yours-truly gets to continuously ask "where the fuck are we?") and forgetting that this is a first semester class. The pretty girl who sat in front of me today had to turn around several times, point to the book and say "say this," and whenever the teacher uses a tone that I interpret as "thank you Oisin, we're going to move on to the next person" it appears as though she's actually saying "you suck and we're going to stay here until you get it right." I'd care, maybe, if I wasn't scribbling notes down and not listening at that point, which is why she got pissy. I was seriously expecting to be pulled aside at the end of the class and be asked "what the hell is going on?" I kinda wish that she did, because I had a good rant lined up.

Interestingly, I knew that I had gotten to her, and felt some shed of pride at that. It also meant that she was afraid of calling upon me for the rest of the class. It's just a shame that the rest of the students understand her to some degree, and can figure out what's going on.

But fuck it. I'm on my Christmas holidays right now and have 3 weeks off. I don't have to see that cow until January. To chronicle my other two classes of the day is shorter and easier: Español Coloquial - the guy read off a list of similar sounding words for half an hour, Oisin tuned out for the rest and watched the blonde girl in the row in front do the sudoku in the newspaper. Italian cinema - we watched a movie, for the first time it was in Italian, and the professora never showed up. Normally there are 30 or 40 students in that class. Today 10 turned up.