Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

I’d Like What You’re Smoking, Please

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Dear Anyone Who Wants To Hire Me As A Spanish Tutor,

If you call me at 8:00 PM on Saturday night to ask me to tutor your child, and then mention that their exam is on Wednesday, and that they’ve been having a really hard time all semester, and that they “had a bad teacher” last year, and so are basically asking me to catch your child up on a year and a half of Spanish in THREE DAYS, then don’t get pissy when I tell you that it’s impossible and that there’s nothing I can do.

BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO.

Oh and also-the fact that I specifically told you that I wouldn’t lie to you and take your money for something I couldn’t do?

Yeah-you’re welcome.

Not Even Special Needs

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The latest stories from my teacher friends.

1. On the board are written a list of 4 items with prices. The student is asked, if you buy 2 of this item andn 1 of this item, and you have $75.00, do you have enough money?

Teacher: “Do you have enough money?”

Student: “Yes.”

Teacher: “Then you need to write that answer in the box.”

Student: In the box, writes “$55.27.”

Teacher: “No. The question is, ‘Do you have enough money?’ ”

Student: “Yes.”

Teacher: “Then you need to write that answer in the box.”

Student: In the box, writes “Do you have enough money?”

Teacher: “No. The question is, ‘Do you have enough money?’ ”

Student: “Yes.”

Teacher: “Then you need to write that answer in the box.”

Student: Does not understand what to do.

Teacher: “It is a yes/no question!”

Student: Blank stare…

2. Teacher asks, “If there are 93 students on Bus 7, and 112 students on Bus 12, then how many students are there altogether?”

Student: Multiplies 93 x 112.

Student: Does not actually know how to multiply, so somehow comes up with the answer of 404.

Teacher: Explains how if you multiplied those two numbers together, the answer would be 10, 416 students.

Teacher: “Have you ever seen a bus with 10,000 students?”

Student: “Well, yeah. My bus is like that.”

Teacher: “Well honey, let me tell you something. It may seem that way, but those buses only  hold 70.”

Having Nothing To Do With The Fourth Of July

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Not sure why this memory reappeared all of a sudden, but I’m glad it did, because now I have a funny to offer you for this weekend.

Ten years ago I taught Spanish at a local community college.

One morning I was collecting homework, and I got to a student who didn’t have his to turn into me. I expressed my displeasure with this state of affairs and he replied,

“Well, if I’d known I was gonna get arrested last night, I would’ve kept my Spanish stuff with me so that I had it when I got out of jail this morning.”

Helping To Ease The Transition Back Into Work

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Today I saw one of my students for the first time since the Christmas break, and when we were done with Spanish we chatted a bit about our holidays.

“One day some of my friends and I thought it would be fun to get a Ouija board,” he said. “So we got one and were trying to use it at my house, but it didn’t work.”

Apparently they tried to do some troubleshooting, until one of his friends became convinced that he’d discovered the problem.

“Well we are down in your basement,” he said. “You don’t have any cell reception down here. So maybe the spirits can’t get through either.”

Helping To Keep Me Young

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I really enjoy working with high school students, because they help keep me current on many things such as language.

I was recently tutoring one student, and in between Spanish exercises she was telling me stories about her various friends and how they’d “hooked up” with members of the opposite sex.

I had a vague idea of what that term meant when I was a teenager, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it covered these days, so I asked my student to clarify it for me.

She said, “Well it doesn’t mean having sex, but it means you do everything up to right before getting ready to have sex. At least that’s what is means if you’re a teenager. I don’t know what it means to old people.”

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

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The other day I had a session with one of my new students. I was testing him on his vocabulary in preparation for a test, and we got to the word “edad”, which means “age”.

He couldn’t remember the English definition, so I tried to give him a hint.

I said, “If I tell you, ‘yo tengo treinta y cinco años’ (Literally, “I have 35 years”), then ‘treinta y cinco años’ is my ‘edad’.”

He thought about it for a while, and suddenly the light of comprehension dawned on his face.

So proud with himself for finally arriving at the right answer he yelled out, “I’ve got it-it’s OLD!”

I Am Drunk On My Own Power, Mwa ha ha ha ha!

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A few years ago I was a teacher at a small, religious school.

Fortunately for me, the head of the school was unshakably convinced of my secret identity as The Spawn Of The Devil, or else it would’ve been really easy for me to get the big head.

Because what I didn’t know, having no children of my own, is that kids? Are really easily impressed.

For example, one day I was teaching my third graders, and while I was talking to them I was writing on the board without looking at what my hand was doing!

And dude, once I revealed my magical super hero power of Doing Two Different Things At The Same Time, I totally owned the third grade.

So it’s lucky that I live with three cats, cats who are totally shameless and amoral, cats who condescendingly tolerate our presence in their home because we are the only two beings with opposable thumbs who can open the tub of cat food, cats who pee on every single square inch of the bathroom floor EXCEPT the very expensive, state-of-the-art, self-cleaning litter box we purchased especially for them, because it helps keep me humble and grounded.

And I need that kind of real life reality check to balance out days like yesterday, where I once again used my Magical Superhero Powers Of Awesomeness to outwit The 12-Year-Old Boy Who Is Laboring Heavily Under The Delusion That He Can Totally Play Me.

We were once again forced to confront his evil nemesis-Spanish vocabulary words, and once again he decided that the session would yield much better results for him if he could trick me into telling him the answers, rather than looking the words up himself.

We’ve been on the same chapter with the same vocabulary words for an entire month. We’ve had tests and quizzes and homework assignments on all the words related to clothing, and yesterday he still did not know the Spanish word for “clothes” (did I mention that it’s been a month?!), a fact which did not at all make me feel like a failure as a Spanish tutor, or heavily tempt me to become A Person Who Drinks.

So of course, I told him to look it up in the dictionary, and of course he used his super-keen spidey senses to hone in on my super hero weakness by saying, “Why-don’t you know the answer?” (accompanied by a disgusted head shake and heavy exhale) “Yeah, I bet you don’t even know the answer.”

Right.

Do you have any idea how hard it was not to smite him with the razor-sharp edge of my sarcasm? Really. f*&#ing. hard.

But I’m happy to say that I was able to restrain myself, and instead decided to use my powers for good, limiting myself only to saying, “That doesn’t work on girls.”

He was quite surprised to be let in on that little secret of the universe, telling me that, “If I’d said that to a guy, he would’ve told me the answer.”

Well, little one, welcome to my world.

Things That Make You Say, “What?!”: Teenagers

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Yesterday I was working on some new vocabulary words with one of my students. She quickly scanned the list, and from time to time I heard her mutter one of the words under her breath.

“Bargain…department store…size…oh, and there’s the gay man’s section.”

“What?!” I asked, apparently having missed that particular term during my own perusal of the list.

“Jenny,” she replied, in a tone designed to convey that, truly, my stupidity was beyond her ability to comprehend, “it’s synthetic fabrics.”