What do you call someone who signs up to give lessons while the real teacher is away having a rest? A fake teacher. Or a fool. This Friday the orchestra session was supposed to be cancelled because there is autumn break in schools. So when I was cornered with the question of taking the place of one of the teachers at the language school for one evening I felt it was a good idea to earn some extra money and said yes.
What follows is that I spent three hours preparing for the three-hour-long class. Then I had to help around the house because Mom is at home with a sore throat and feels like bossing around. By that time it was after half past one and a new email popped up with a task from my new non-profit (meaning they don't pay but I can use it in my CV) workplace, so I did that as well. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do aerobics, and in fact I didn't have time for it all week. Before leaving I quickly washed my hair and applied volumizing mousse and dried it and tried to give it some shape (because when I don't, I look like Farrah Fawcett in the early Charlie's Angels series). Then I didn't have lunch because there was no lunch.
Guess what, the bus was ten minutes late, so I set off for the other bus which stops about 200 metres away down the street. I had a good run because the bus was already at the bus stop but it turned out it was just waiting for the proper time to leave. When I changed to the next vehicle, surprise, surprise, it broke down five minutes later.
I arrived at the school at about 4 p.m. instead of 3.30 as I planned. By that time I was so high with adrenalin I was bound to fall (or fail). The class was to start at 4.30 and I still had a lot to do like photocopying, setting up the CD player, and going to the loo for a change. I didn't want to copy too much on the account of my copy card, so I took the elevator and hurried across the street to the copy shop but they were already closed, so I hurried back to the third floor and made 10 copies of 5 sheets in an incredibly short time. I just managed to get to my desk at 4.28. I started to read through my notes and check the copies, but there was no sign of students. Then I started to go through the listening task, I mean reading the tapescript and marking my answers. (I intended to do Test 1 and spent half an hour listening to it at home, but then I called the real teacher just to be on the safe side, and it turned out they had done the first couple of tests, so I had to go for Test 5, whose copy I didn't have at home because it's such a recent book it's not even on the Net.) Actually I had 2 wrong answers out of 20; even though I read it instead of listening to it. I really should work on my English.
It was already quarter to 5 when I gathered my courage to ask someone at administration about the exact details of the class, and they informed me that it starts at 5 p.m. So I had time to go to the loo again, and I had to indeed because I was so nervous. Two guys and a girl turned up, and we sort of set off on this ride of me pretending to teach and they trying to stay awake. I mean, of course three hours is a lot, so perhaps I shouldn't blame myself, and we did something (useful), only it wasn't as good as it could have been.
Finally I left at about 8 p.m. and phoned Mom to ask if by any chance anyone had bought bread, but of course not. So I took the tram to the hipermarket and hurried into Lipóti, which was miraculously open, and where the assistant refused to half the bread of three kilos as it was late in the evening. So I bought this huge loaf for half price, and as I was carrying it to the bus stop, carefully holding it by both hands, I just had to laugh out loud. And you know what, I carried it all the way home as if it was a cup, a mark of my triumph, and I whistled all the way from the bus stop to our house. After all, life is life.
You might be a miserable madwoman, but this "story" made me laugh.:)
ReplyDeleteYou most certainly earned that giant loaf of bread with hard work!