Hello!
On this page you shall find a compilation of moments which I have deemed memorable. So memorable, in fact, that I have to write them, otherwise I will forget them! I have categorised them so people don`t have to read the rude ones if they so wish. I can already predict most of my friends heading straight for those juicy ones though!
School
1) The time that Nathan in Secondary 4 serenaded me on his guitar in the music room. He played very well and once he was finished, asked "Did I make your heart beat quicker Madame?"
2) In one secondary 5 class when Jonathan decided to be a snake and went under and around all of the desks in my classroom.
3) The "interesting" conversations I have with Etienne in Secondary 5 about llamas and how many he has "raped" this week. He was worried about whether the count included dead ones. I hope this lends some insight into the humour here!
4) The time when Jonathan told me that the biggest waste of money this year was buying a bike because he took it to Boston and "a black guy stole it".
5) Doing urban legends with sec 5, Etienne ran with a story for about 15 minutes about how they like to have hot dogs - dogs put over a fire and slow cooked. They also like to put BBQ sauce with their spit roast dog.
6) The One Direction Fan Club (as I have named 2 girls in secondary 2) who turn up to every class with a piece of gossip on One Direction and random information about teenage British boys that have a new song out, which I haven`t usually heard of!
7) The time when Stephane took it upon himself to explain the intricate meaning of the Flo Rida song "Blow My Whistle".
8) The time when Stephane got me to read the texts he sent his girlfriend....
9) The time I played ping pong in the foyer with the Secondary 1 boys and everyone stood around and cheered me on.
10) The time when Alex in Secondary 3 told me that Patrick had said he was my boyfriend.
11) Patrick`s reaction of a very red face. My reaction of saying to Alex, "Who is your boyfriend then?" Alex`s subsequent reaction of trying to save face and defend himself.
12) Dylan in Secondary 5 and the way it has become a joke to answer all questions with the word "beer".
13) Johann the German exchange student getting me to watch Monty Python`s Ministry of Silly Walks and walking around the Library doing the various walks.
14) The time when all the Sec 5 enriched boys sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to me after the Christmas Holidays.
15) Doing a quiz with the Sec 5 regular group and one team calling themselves "Weed Smokers". Then bumping into one of the team members in the supermarket with his mother and saying "Your team did very well today. Which team were you on again?", whilst the boy was making "NOOOOO" signs behind his mother`s back!
16) The look on parents faces when you bump into your kids in a shop and you have a conversation with their kids in a different language other than French. Awesome!
17) The time when I was asked what a colour was.
18) The time when the Sec 1 students told me the exercise was too hard for them (when Eilidh had done the same thing with her 10 year olds the day before!).
19) When a shouting match commenced in class about who can be called a Hockey Player and who can`t (how Canadian!).
20) When Stephane couldn`t think of anything for me to talk to the kids about so gave me private information on all of them and asked me to sit down and discuss it with them. I had one who is "impulsive" and got suspended at the beginning of the year for swearing at a teacher. His girlfriend is also impulsive and they argue all the time... Granted. His mother is also undergoing a police investigation to ensure that she actually does have 2 children and that she isn`t just bludging off the government. I also had a girl who was hospitalised after her boyfriend broke up with her... I thought the C in CELTA stood for 'Cambridge', not 'Counselling'!
21) Teaching Sec 3 Enriched vocabulary. The word "rare" came up and they all had to say the word back in my accent. It came out as a unanimous "Rahhhh". Absolutely amazing moment!
22) I went to the Mechanics Room with PAI (Special Needs) as some of the guys from the class were working down there and the mechanics teacher said in English "You have a little accent".... If my English accent is "Little", I'd love to know what a "big" accent is!
23) The word for "mansion" in Quebecois French is "grand cabane" as in big cabin! How typical!
24) Doing tag endings with Sec 3 enriched. They then went onto their Billy Joel project which involves modernising the words to "We didn't start the fire" and one of the boys wrote as his title: "We didn't start the fire, did we?"
25) Stephane's concept of women's fashion! He had a painting commissioned for his "girlfriend" and the picture of the dress he printed off the internet to give to the artist was hideous! Thank goodness I found another one or the "girlfriend" probably wouldn't even be in quotation marks! He also bought a snow suit for this "girlfriend" who is visiting this weekend. It is from the 70's and cost $4... She will look smashing on the back of one of his 5 snowmobiles! (That he hasn't offered to take me on!!) Amazing conversation between us: Me - Stephane, do you have a snowmobile? Stephane - No. I have 5. .....
26) The moment when one of my students wanted to be "gangster" whilst listening to "Thrift Shop" in class. he pulled his trousers down a little bit so he looked like a rapper, but he is so skinny that the trousers hit the floor and he was left staring at his trousers around his ankles in shock while the rest of us wet ourselves with laughter!
27) Stephane to Alex Fauchon and Jonathan Laberge (two spirited kids in sec 5): "Mr Ben invented rice". Fauchon: "You can`t invent rice! It`s a plant!" Followed by lots of laughter.
28) Stephane to me: "Chantal's girlfriend is having their baby. So now Chantal is going to be a father or whatever you would call it".
Parents Evening needs its own special section!
1) Parents evening consisting of all members of the "Students in Trouble Department «standing at the front of the auditorium talking about all the students that have drug problems, who are violent, who have problems at home. No mention of regular students. I wonder what type of students they will get next year!
2) Talking about the enriched programme. So it turns out the enriched (advanced) programme at St Prosper is a load of rubbish anyways according the Ministry, which I only found out about 2 months after parents evening. Despite this, the Head teachers plugged the programme for all it was worth, only to have one parent say "My child isn`t good at anything. She is just very normal. Can she do regular classes instead of having to choose an enriched subject?"...
3) Stephane making me stay 3 hours after school to attend said parents evening, as it would look like they were taking English seriously. Was I introduced to anyone? No. Did I spend the evening downing coffee and staring wistfully at the cookie plate? Yes.
4) Stephane flirting with the MILFs.
5) The sports presentation where the phrase "Those who can do teach. Those who can`t, teach sport," is very accurate. The sports dept had prepared a PowerPoint on their sporting success. Strangely, they have girls’ rugby but not boys’ rugby here. Anyways, during this presentation, there was motivational music aka Black Rap with gazillions of swear words. Cringe moment when the word "Niger" was blasted all around the Auditorium with a resounding gasp from the English department.
6) The amount of Mullets at parents evening.
7) The cracker of the lot! From the Director himself: "I have a 7 year old son, so I know what you want from a school and from teachers." The following 10 sentences all started with "as a parent myself..." Yes, because we actually only teach from the ages of 12 up...well done sir...
New York (RUDE!)
1) This one came from New York.
- Imagine a Samuel L. Jackson/ a gospel preacher esq figure walking down 34th street in Manhattan exclaiming so proudly into his hands free "Maaaaan, my girlfriend is on birth control now! I am gonna bash that UP!" Although I do hope that he wasn`t referring to domestic violence, the elation in his voice would suggest otherwise.
2) Another quote along the same vein as the last one, this time coming from the New York Subway on New Year’s Eve. One black guy hops on the subway and shouts to his friend on the platform: "One day we shall be free my friend!"...There`s me thinking that he was talking about black rights... Until: "One day we shall be able to ejaculate freely, without becoming Daddies!"
No comments:
Post a Comment