(Fevered Mutterings v2.0: September 2006)
…..
Sir, I’ve finished the story you set for me.
That’s the single most stupid thing I’ve heard this week, and this week has been a veritable Ardennes of stupidity. You haven’t “finished” it. You’ve merely stopped working on it. It will never be finished, and that is the sickening tragedy of it all. Give it a week, and it will turn your stomach, much the same way that it will turn mine when I force myself through it this evening.
Sir, what do you think I’ll be when I grow up?
Older. Also apathetic, bitter, disillusioned, the usual. Watch some French cinema, that’ll put you in the right frame of mind.
Sir, can u speak txt?
It’s not a real language. 1,000 lines: “I will endeavour to wield the Queen’s English at every opportunity, as is my moral responsibility.” No, make it 5,000, I don’t like the way you carry yourself.
Sir, my computer isn’t working properly – I can’t see the flashing cursor when I type, it’s confusing.
You think you’ve got it bad, you really do, don’t you? I can only dream of being as shambolically ignorant as you. When I first began using computers, they started with a shovelful of manure and a hand-crank. I suggest typing everything without looking at the screen and then editing it all later. It’ll hone your dexterity. You can stay behind after class to do it, although I’l have to lock you in, I’m going to a meeting and then out for dinner. If that’s not acceptable, use a piece of BluTac and move it along as you type.
Mike, we need someone to supervise the 2nd-year football – it’s only a one-off.
Get someone else. Football is a crucible in which money, intelligence and wit are melted into a useless nondescript slag of squandered energy. That’s “no”, just in case you play a lot of football.
Sir, do you like my poem?
I don’t like any poems. But let us imagine a fantastical world in which by some arcane conjunction of improbabilities I actually did enjoy poetry……….yes, I still wouldn’t like your poem. I’d say ‘try harder’, but then you would, and I’d feel guilty.
Sir, what’s an idiom?
It’s a peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage often having a meaning other than its logical or grammatical one, of course. Now, everyone in the class each give me 50 examples. No – different examples. Nobody leaves until I have them.
Mike, we need someone to sit in on a detention.
What am I, a prison warden? Don’t answer that, as you probably have a point. But no, as tempting as it is to watch some fatuous, recidivistic little cretin squirm under the yoke of justice, I’m busy, doing….absolutely anything else I can think of in time.
Sir, what’s the single most inspiring thing that you’ve ever heard?
Puppies barking in the fields, the sound of one hand clapping, running water and the laughter of little urchin children. Is that close? Because you coudn’t handle the truth, you little short-trousered beatnik drawn ever onward by the bogus carrot of self-improvement. The only things worth learning are born in ways you cannot express through language, which is why I love teaching English so much. 10,000 lines: “I should endeavour to distrust upbeat platitudes and associated pontificating self-helpery”. Make it 20,000, in honour of my inevitable ulcer.
Mike, we all feel like you’re not happy here.
I’m happy here as anywhere. And for the record, I know people, powerful people. Removing me will be like trying to lever up a limpet with an egg. You’re stuck with me and my ‘not-happy’-ness for as long as I decide, which right now is open-ended. I enjoy leaving at the end of the day so much that it’s almost worth turning up. No – I like it here.
Sir – do you think I could be a writer?
It’s possible. But only if you start…..RIGHT NOW! No? I see you’re still not trying, and now it’s just too late, you don’t have enough time left to do it properly. It’s possible you might hack out a career as a blogger instead: if that’s your choice, I wouldn’t worry about having any time left to learn. Unlearn, maybe, yes. In fact, start unlearning now, before it’s too late…..nope, you blew it again. Close the door behind you, please.
Yes, Mike, you would.
Wonderful.
you couldn't learn me anything.
U R Crap…………….
A-plus, Gareth. Complimenting the teacher is better than giving him an apple.
Except of course you want an A, and this is all a ploy. I see right through you, sunshine.
D-minus.
**********
belly –
Evidently.
You brandish your linguistic skills like Aragorn waving Anduril at the hordes of Mordor.
Thank you for calling by and showing us all how it's really done. There are tears of gratitude rolling down my face.
Oh no. I've met the male me. Don't ever come see me. The world will end.
Like two lumps of plutonium at half-crtitical-mass. BLAM.
Like two lumps of plutonium at half-critical-mass. BLAM.
"Now, everyone in the class each give me 50 examples. No – different examples. Nobody leaves until I have them."
I do that on a regular basis. Come to Spain Mike, We need more of you.
Yanno, I had loads of teachers like that. I liked them, too, because adult foibles and collection of same was one of my interests.
"You haven’t “finished” it. You’ve merely stopped working on it. It will never be finished, and that is the sickening tragedy of it all. Give it a week, and it will turn your stomach"
Love it. Priceless
we need more of you. – never did i imagine these words to be formed into a sentence regarding Mikachim. stop, stop NOW. rethink your very existance.
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP…………
oh, and LOL, CYA L8R M8
Elena –
I'm on the train to Madrid right now. I trust that you *have* thought your comment through properly, and have arranged accommodation, food expenses, a 5-year contract and a personal allowance of at least 10 litres of sangria a day? (All good teachers have vices. Mine are culturally-determined. If you were in Moscow, I'd be demanding vodka, and it you were in Belgium, well, I'd be telecommuting).
Oh, and I want a full DVD collection of everything ever created by Joss Whedon. This would give me something to concentrate on while I was marking essays.
Elena –
I'm on the train to Madrid right now. I trust that you *have* thought your comment through properly, and have arranged accommodation, food expenses, a 5-year contract and a personal allowance of at least 10 litres of sangria a day? (All good teachers have vices. Mine are culturally-determined. If you were in Moscow, I'd be demanding vodka, and if you were in Belgium, well, I'd be telecommuting).
Oh, and I want a full DVD collection of everything ever created by Joss Whedon. This would give me something to concentrate on while I was marking essays.
Judith –
I wish I'd had teachers like me. Except, if I had, would I have turned out like them? One for the philosophers, and in the meantime here's 1,000 lines for enjoying being taught by academics whose only perk in a thankless job is your obvious misery.
"I must endeavor to facilitate the manifestation of deep psychological torment whether it be present or not, in order to give my teacher a single reason to get out of bed every morning."
1,000 times. I want it on my desk by 9am. I'll be turning up at 3pm slightly drunk as usual, but I'll get someone else to check you met the deadline.
Pete –
The tragedy of writing. The second you thought of it, it starts to fall to bits, and by the time you get it out onto the page it's probably just rubble. So it's easy to spend the rest of your life trying to shore it up.
I tried reading some of Fevered Mutterings v1 recently. It was a painful experience. It's as if someone recently hacked into my computer and ran all my archived blog files through an Engrish converter.
Pete –
The tragedy of writing. The second you thought of it, it starts to fall to bits, and by the time you get it out onto the page it's probably just rubble. So it's easy to spend the rest of your life trying to shore it up.
I tried reading some of Fevered Mutterings v1 recently. It was a painful experience. It's as if someone recently hacked into my computer and ran all my archived blog files through an Engrish converter.
belly –
10,000 lines, "I must strive to free myself of the compulsion to sell Mikeachim inexpensive yet not entirely necessary computer hardware and software, like a confused half-competent Robin Hood (taking money from the poor and failing to give it to anyone else). And yes, this is still the same sentence".
Make it 20,000. (I spend the late afternoon playing this instead of being productive).
Make it 30,000 because of your handles comment in another thread.