The end of an era; today was my last day at my summer job and the (partial) first day of my nine-day summer holiday. Many people seemed to find it incredibly funny of me to greet them, instead of the "goodbye" as normal people, by telling them to have a nice life. =)
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I assume it has become very clear to everyone by now that the schools have, yet again, started. I was listening to Radio Rock the other day, and they had an interesting poll question: what kind of teacher (good, weird, awful...) people had at school? Here's my abridged list in alphabetical order.
K- my not-so-beloved PE teacher during my junior high years. She show her first human traits in ninth grade when she let me do other things instead of ice skating (still spelling it like this; 'skating' may be the default form over there but not here). I am also convinced that she took off swimming (that I hated even more than ice skating) when my generation left for high schools and other second grade education systems. That's when I went to another teacher's PE group and K takes off swimming from her high school group. I still haven't swam even a little after high school; traumatised for life, I guess. (For more detailed rant on the teacher see the entry 'A memoir of physical education' on 31st of March on page five.)
M- my Finnish teacher during my second year at high school. She was a known feminist and a strong woman with strong opinions. She was always nice to me and didn't think I was being proud when I was really just afraid to intrude after being left out when people started forming groups around me for group assignments. She also signed me up for Nuori Aleksis reading circle in which one 3rd grade student from each high school. She chose me over many a perfect student whose transcripts held mainly nines and tens in every subject. I guess she saw that my interest in literature came from genuine passion, not from an urge to get as good grades as possible in every subject.
R- My eighth and ninth grade mathematics teacher. During 7th grade I was sure I'm just not goos at maths, and I got quite lousy grades. A group for ill-skilled pupils was founded and due to the lousy grades I ended up there. It soon turned out that I'm actually pretty good at maths, I just haven't had any guidance or teaching because of the rest of the class which was pretty much out of control (seriously: my class was even worse than the feared "tarkkis"). Anyway, she was always kind to me, even after she realised I had a crush on her during the 9th grade spring. There was one incident when one of the female students was loudly telling about her which had ended in a bar in her father suspecting she's a lesbian. R shouted at her from the other side of the room to be quiet, that not everyone was interested in her weekend; right after she looked at me. I think she knew even before I did, then I still thought I might be bisexual. And because she was always nice to me, I knew that when I went to school every day to be bullied there would be at least one person who spoke to me like I was a real human being. I don't think she ever knew how much that meant; it was the only reason I didn't press the blade any deeper. If I ever see her again, I'll thank her for saving my life, since that's exactly what she did.
S- my biology teacher throughout my high school years. He was infamous for always being late everywhere. The classic reply to any question he didn't know the answer to was "I cannot know, I'm a herbologist!". He also made all the notes to be copied with PowerPoint. I can assure you: during a really boring lecture, the climax was to guess in which way (bouncing, Speedy Gonzales, wavy etc.) the sentence appeared and how many spelling mistakes (and there were many..) it contained.
V- This guy was my IT teacher in seventh grade, I think. According to rumours, he had touched female pupils in an inappropriate way. In my opinion, he was a way too soft bachelor, who was always late and never demanded the students anything, resulting in that the only thing I remember is reading Anne Frank's diary during of one the classes. He didn't even notice.
The x in the equation is x=1/7 or x=-4/7, in case someone's mathematics skills on the intriguing area perfect second degree equations falters.
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Today I'm grateful for a web bookstore for sending the books I ordered (one manga that I've been reading for a year, one book n sadomasochism [;)] and one 'Aprilhäxan' on bargain). Too bad they seemed to have lost one of the books completely. There's not even a slightest mention of it in the bill that it might be sent afterwards. I guess I have to sent them a little e-mail.
