The lyf so short

Seminary started again this week. Because of reasons, instead of one long seminary day (Wednesday), there were two half-days (Wednesday and Thursday). Pleasant work-time wise, except that I drive three hours to get there and back again, so I'd infinitely have preferred going just once. Next week, because of schools opening again, it'll just be Wednesday.

Did I mention that I passed the education science exam in March (on the first day of lockdown)? So now I'm qualified to sit through the regular classes in my specific subjects (as well as the general practice class or Kernseminar that started back in November). Under normal circumstances, I'd have all three classes every Wednesday, but this year, they had to split various classes (so we can keep a distance of 1.5 meters to our classmates at all time), so they're running out of room (and every room has to be sanitised after use), so instead, we have one class per Wednesday but lasting six hours instead of two. In this manner, we'll be going until the summer holidays (starting June 27). And whither then? I cannot say.

English, of course, is one of the classes that had to be split up in three. Seeing the size of the English class honestly makes me wonder why there ever was a shortage of English teachers, but hey, now I'm inside the system and they can't kick me out anymore unless I misbehave or fail the final. I am certainly glad now that - in spite of the endless drive - I opted to start qualifying last November, as I did, instead of waiting until I could start in a seminary closer to home. Technically, the country still needs teachers, but it would probably still have been more difficult to get in.

Anyway, English class has been split into three classes, and yesterday was our first meeting. My English teaching teacher seems very friendly and supportive so far. Most of my classmates are "proper" teaching students (who got a Master of Education at university and then applied at schools right away), so they're in their mid-twenties (which currently feels very young). But there are three other aftercomers like me, who did something else first and now want to go into teaching, and who are married with kids already. (That is, two of them actually studied teaching, but one got her degree in Italy so she has to finalise it by taking the same exam as other German teachers, and the other went on a gap year in Australia that ended up lasting twenty years.) Anyway. Most of them are young and sweet and have that sheltered, clueless feel of kids fresh out of university about them. I feel old. Also, only two dudes in a class of 15 (and one of them is the teaching teacher).

Geography class, in contrast, consists of three people (teacher included), none of whom got a degree in teaching geography originally - even the teacher originally planned to do something else and then got roped into teaching sideways. I suspect that he may be more understanding of the difficulties of qualifying in this manner because he went through it himself (albeit twenty years ago, under very different conditions). Since we are only two students, he has announced that he'll more or less tailor our curriculum to fit our specific needs, rather than the curriculum of the general class. That is a good thing. But since we're such a tiny class (they put us in the first aid cabinet so we wouldn't take up a whole proper room XD), there's no way of hiding or zoning out, which is going to be a new and probably stressful experience, like a six-hour oral exam. :/ We'll see how that goes.

Now as I said, schools are also opening again next week -- one day for every grade except grade 10, who've been back to school for two weeks to prepare them for their final exam. (They all have to sit a final exam at the end of grade 10 and then either move on to something-like-college or vocational training.) This is - again - because current circumstances don't allow us to stuff thirty kids in one room (except perhaps the gym), so the classes have also been split. They'll use one classroom for the duration of their single school day (no chemistry lab or music room), on which they'll have classes ONLY in the core subjects (Math, German, English) without their elective. The other days will continue to feature distance learning. But at least we can print out worksheets and give them to the kids on their one school day. (There's apparently been a shitstorm in at least one class WhatsApp group because there were so many worksheets to print. But this complaint only reached us after the Easter holidays (five weeks after it originally came up) when one mother finally thought of *gasp* contacting the teachers. We could have printed all the sheets and sent them to the kids via snail mail in those five weeks, if only they had TOLD US that they needed them! But that, unfortunately, is typical of the parents at our school: they love complaining to each other instead of contacting the people who can actually do something about it. Same with the workload.)

I don't know yet when I'll be teaching. I usually teach English only in one grade 6 and one grade 7, but due to the split classes and the disappearance of geography for the rest of term, I expect that I'll be getting some new groups as well. But the schedule hasn't been worked out yet. Things remain... interesting. Julian's kindergarten still can't offer more than emergency supervision (only two and a half rooms in the building). Felix' school, likewise, has classes split in half and only one group per day. He'll be in school on Tuesday for the rest of May, and on a couple of random days in June. In all, he'll have seven days of actual classes. (Kids at my school, aside from the grade 10th, will have five days.)

It's a new phase. In theory, it's expect to last until the summer holidays and then the situation will be re-evaluated. In practice, it's entirely possible that two weeks from now, the second wave is going to force everything back into lockdown because keeping kids 1.5 meters apart at all times, washing their hands when entering class, and wearing face masks for the duration of the school day might not be as realistic as the general public seems to believe. And even if the kids stick to the rules in school, their parents probably won't.
It'll be good for the kids to have some social contacts outside home, to be sure - more for some than for others - and it's going to make the logistics of getting material to the kids a lot easier. But the risks are significant - especially as we don't know how responsible people in general will behave outside of school.

Jörg, who (he thinks) is a rational science-minded kind of person, has apparently been infected by the rampant "we have to go back to normal" idiocy going around. He can't wait for trainign to start again and has invited his brother over for the weekend. I want to kick him. He says if the kids go back to school and kindergarten, they're going to be exposed anyway. Never mind that Julian's specific kindergarten will continue to do emergency supervision only. Never mind the precautions the schools are taking. Never mind that kids who are at risk or who live with people at risk can easily be released from their duty to attend until the summer holidays. Never mind that both Jörg (high blood pressure and somewhat prone to pneumonia) and his mother (79, high blood pressure, asthma) are at risk. (So is Uncle Marc, for that matter, after the heart attack that cured him from chain smoking.) This is absolutely something we could apply for, if we took this seriously. Heck, I've been released from teaching in person or doing emergency supervision these past weeks because I'm living with at-risk people! I now feel pretty guilty about it (especially as the mother-in-law has been going to various non-emergency doctor and dentist appointments all this time). Evidently, the danger of them contracting the virus through their own actions is easily as high as that of me catching it from my students and passing it on to them. The mother-in-law has announced she wants to return to gym class, and thinks she's being responsible by waiting until June to do so. It's *throws up hands in despair* you know, whatever. Do what you want in your madness. ("But I'm growing fat!" You literally have zero fat under your skin which is why you're cold all the time, but if you feel you're getting rusty, go for a walk or something. "Oh no, that's boring on my own." Then go with us. "No, you walk too fast for me." Not with the kids, honestly.)

(Curiously, Jörg has been dead-set against letting Felix visit my parents, because contamination, and been very grumpy about our compromise of my parents driving over, parking under the walnut tree, and talking to the kids from the driveway or over the garden fence, because contamination. Dad is at home except when he buys groceries, and the safety measures at the nursing home where mum works are, understandably, extremely high. The mother-in-law visits her dentist and the optician and whatnot, but my parents are a risk to her health. Uh-huh. But my mum is also being absurd. She's still been seeing the kids every weekend, albeit at a distance, and they've been playing battleship via skype and whatnot, and yet she's all "This lack of contact makes me fade like a primrose!" Wow, melodramatic much? IDK. Maybe I'm just antisocial and uncharitable. Also, what are you even saying. Primroses are perfectly hardy little plants. Like. They rally after fading. They're coming back stronger. They're perennials, they know what they're doing. The primulae are fine.)

In conclusion, I'm tired. Again. Behold the field where I grow my fucks and see that it is barren.

Sore throat, no voice. It was bad earlier this year but this time it's worse; I actually can't talk at all, except in a painful whisper at worst need. This is not helpful when interacting with my kids, let alone with a whole class. So I'm at home.

This is awkward. There's a trip to the zoo planned on Thursday, and I currently doubt that I'll be well enough on Thursday to do that. (There's another teacher - my mentor - going, of course, but I'll feel bad either leaving him alone or forcing him to find a replacement on short notice!) We're also going on a class trip for three days next week, which means that my 5th graders are going to miss a lot of English lessons. And they NEED them. And now I'm sick on top of it all.

Meanwhile, the colleague who already forced three English classes (so it wasn't just me!) to rush through two units in order to catch up with his one class (which was somehow madly ahead -- I can only assumed that he "skipped" all the boring bits, like ordinal numbers, months and dates, reading the clock etc.) keeps ploughing on at speed. This is completely unnecessary - the book has 6 units, with Unit 6 being pretty much "just for fun". He's already halfway through Unit 5, so what is he going to do in May and June? Who knows. Probably start on the book for grade 6. :P Yesterday he announced that he'd write the second class test next week.

The problem is that all the 5th grades have to write the same tests. This is to ensure that we're all adhering to the same standards and to make their marks comparable. Now, as I said, he was already madly ahead for the last test, and the third English teacher (let's call her Colleague D.) and I had to rush our classes through The Simple Present, Do-Constructions, and Questions. Most of our students are struggling with one of these concepts, let alone three of them more less dropped upon them at once. Most of them are unable to tell a verb from a noun! Not just in English, but in their native German as well! So actually I would need more time to revise basic grammar, rather than less time to heap even more grammar on them! (Unit 5 covers the Present Progressive, and guess what? If the kids are already struggling with grammatical concepts that their native language shares with English - simple present and reversed word order in questions - they are NOT going to get along with a grammatical structure that is generally frowned upon in German and only appears in some disrespected dialects.)

The last test was already desastrous. We had to write it two weeks after - let's call him Colleague B. - 's class (which is why he wants to write the next one next week! the fuck!) just so we'd have (barely) enough time to at least explain and superficially practice negation and questions. This was completely unnecessary, incidentally, because last year's class test clearly shows that they'd only covered the Simple Present by this time, and Negation and Questions came in the next test. I really have no clue what Colleague B. was thinking, and neither does Colleague D. (And yes, we did tell him that our classes weren't up to that test, and yes, we told the head of department, but somehow he managed to ignore it all and push on ahead.)
Anyway, the test was desastrous.

It has to be admitted that my 5th graders are not the best of students. Most of them have next to no self-organisation skills (and we don't have the time to teach them >_>), and a lot of them are either easily distracted or happy to distract others. They will happily talk about whatever in the middle of your class, and when you call them out for it, they'll tell you that It Was Important. Yes, but even important private stuff has to wait until the break! I'm very sorry! -- The day after the exam, I actually exploded. There's a stupid rhyme we use in German when teaching the Simple Present - he, she, it: das S muss mit, meaning "he, she, it: you have to take the S along", referring to the -s added to verbs in (and ONLY in!) the 3rd person singular - and I must have used it about 20 times in the past three weeks. Then on that day, after revising how to conjugate verbs again, when I said he, she, it: das S muss mit, one student (who frequently chats about who-knows-what in class, and is always very blasé about it) said, "My MOM had to tell me that because YOU never did!"
I did, sweetheart, you just never listened. Which is a problem a lot of them have: They don't listen, and THEN they demand that I explain it again, and even WHILE I'm explaining it again, they occupy themselves with other things. Argh.

Nonetheless, grading their tests hurt. As a kid, I always thought that teachers must like handing out bad grades, but now, I know that a lot of teachers actively hate it. Even when it hits the "deserving" (in the sense of: kids that refuse to cooperate in class, kids who boss the other kids around, or kids who do everything except pay attention), it hurts. I have yet to meet a teacher in our teachers' lounge who'd say "Student L from grade XYZ has another fail grade! Boo yeah! Serves him right, the sucker!" - It's always "I've had to give Student L an F, and it's the second time, and I feel bad about it but what can I do when he refuses all offers I make?" We seem to see bad grades to our students, first and foremost, as a mark of our own failure because we somehow couldn't make that student understand (in some cases, couldn't even make that student try to learn). I am beginning to suspect that some students honestly can't be taught (and I'm not talking about kids with ADHD or dyslexia or the like! Many of those are genuinely trying!). There's no miraculous way of making them connect with the material and unlocking their hidden potential. At least, there isn't in a classroom scenario. Maybe there is in one-on-one coaching. (Which our school actually offers - well, it offers coaching in small groups - but of course the kids who need it most rarely take the offer.)

But even the kids who do try hard and who did pay attention didn't get above a C in this test (except for one, who just barely managed to get a B). So it genuinely was Too Much. And I refuse to push on in this manner. We'll see what comes out of that.

-- As it turns out, it was good that I was at home, because Felix behaved so aggressively during gym class that the school called me and asked me to take him home. Hurrah. My child has officially been suspended from school. It will be great fun to discuss the matter with him through my inflamed throat. Not. I expect we shall have to write each other letters. This is the last step in a series of problems he's caused at his school; his teacher has both the patience of an angel and the experience of many years, but even she is starting to be at a loss.

It is planned (TM) that I'll start my "proper" training as a teacher this summer, which would mean a full-time schedule + one day in college, which would be tough at the best of times, but with Felix' volatility? I have no idea how this is supposed to work. Right now it seems more likely that I'll have to stop working altogether just to cover damage control.

It's a great day to feel like an all-around failure.

Am at work.

My colleague who sits at the desk opposite to mine is stuck with an earworm. That in itself is not overly amusing. The earworm, however, is. She's constantly going Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. ...

I AM NOT THE ONLY GEEK IN ZE HOUSE! \o/ My day, it is made.

Over in the tea room, M. (yes, the idiot ex-pseudo-boss) and Mr J. (an unpleasant-thinking-he's-pleasant guy in charge of our quality management system) are discussing medieval market events. Apparently they enjoy visiting the same.

Remind me NEVER to go to a medieval market in the Ruhr area again.

Strike that. Mr. J. just mentioned Schloss Burg (the castle close to where I live). Remind me never to go there again, either.

... oh Gods, as if that weren't bad enough, now M. is talking about the Japanese and their culture. Whenever he became interested in THAT I don't know, but he seems to deem himself quite the expert. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH DESK HERE TO HEADDESK APPROPRIATELY. (And this is an office building.)

AUGH.

Also I crave tea but I am not going in there while they're talking. SHUT UP AND GO HOME, WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE ANYWAY?!

Here I am, back online after a weekend full of work and sunshine.

We cleared out the one-time pigsty and removed the last walls between the two attic rooms; we battled ivy and lugged heaps of stones from one barn to the other; we planted things and put up poles and painted the old steel joists. A cat got stuck under the ridge of the roof. And I turned 25 and got three cakes. And a sock wreath.

But all in due course.

I enjoyed my birthday party a lot (I hope the guests did too, except for one who I know didn’t; she left early and apparently had some trouble finding her way home; I would feel sorry for her if she hadn’t behaved so oddly) even though the preparations were rather stressful and I got stuck in a traffic jam with three of my guests, which cost us nerves and time.

When all the guests but ladyelleth and Eestima had gone, my brother returned from putting up a May birch*. As he was busy doing traditional stuff anyway, he followed another tradition, this time a Westphalian one. It goes like this: When you’re a woman and you turn 25 and you’re still not married, you get a Schachtelkranz. The reasoning goes that if you’re 25 and unmarried you turn into a alte Schachtel (old baggage, as Granny Weatherwax would say), so people collect boxes (Schachteln) and make a wreath which you have to hang from your door for 25 days. It’s sexist, but there you go. Men get sock wreaths instead of box wreaths (I assume this has to do with the humorous shape of hanging socks; this custom comes, of course, from the days when you didn’t have pre-marital sex.)
Now 2008 is a leap year, so everything gets turned around (technically the girls would’ve had to put up May birches for their beloveds this year, but nobody researches this stuff properly these days) and I, despite being a girl, was entitled to a wreath of old socks. And my loving brother made one.
However he said he couldn’t resist the old Schachtel thing, so each of the 25 socks contains in turn a small box. And a Kinder surprise egg (whatever THAT is supposed to imply! At this point you have to know that Kinder means “children” in German…)

Since we got all the partying done in the night from April 30th to May 1st, my actual birthday was free for – further work on the house. (May 1st is Labour Day, so there was no work or university to attend; besides this year Ascension Day also landed on May 1st. I am mispleased. If this hadn’t been a leap year Labour Day would have been the Wednesday and Ascension Day would have been on May 2nd, giving us a practically free week, but as it was…) But as the weather was so beautiful we did as much work outside as was possible. The pigsty is now ready for renovation; we removed the remains of the old roof except for the steel joists which we de-rusted and painted with protective lacquer. Some friends from Jörg’s former judo club joined us and helped putting up some more poles for the fence, this time without damaging any pipes. ladyelleth stayed until Sunday, too, and Jörg’s mom helped as well so we had a lot of hands around for a change. Jörg’s mother had made a birthday cake for me, but as we were so many it got eaten within a few minutes, and she made another one the next day, which again disappeared immediately, so she made a third one for Sunday when there would be only three left to eat it. It was eaten rather quickly anyway…
All the while I had a Middle English song stuck in my head. If there’s one thing more embarrassing than a stupid earworm, it’s a stupid earworm in an obsolete language. Then again, I normally get church songs stuck in my head while working in the garden – my theory is that the people who used to work there in the olden days were very religious and kept on singing hymns while gardening so the soil took them in and still emits them whenever you stick a spade in. So Sumer is icumen in is at least different…

My parents dropped by on Thursday to hand over some presents before going on to my grandfather’s birthday celebration (he and I share a birthday, alas), issue an invitation for dinner on Sunday, and say that they always had bangs of conscience when they saw us working and they couldn’t help. I managed not to say anything sarcastic.

When, late on Sunday, after we had dropped our debris-buckets, hammers, shovels and other tools, and after we had taken the dinner invitation and returned from my parents’, we opened the door. As often happens, our cats saw us arriving and came inside with us.
This time, however, Caesar – our uphill neighbours’ cat – came along as well.
Caesar has been growing more courageous around us for a few weeks, once even walking into our kitchen although he went back out quickly and before our cats saw him there. He has been seen frolicking with ‘náro and Darcy, too, so apparently they have befriended each other, more or less.
That friendship didn’t extend to suffering him in their inner sanctum – i.e., our house – though. Our kittens growled, Caesar fled upstairs, our kittens followed. What came next was a concerto of threatening cat noises (which sound very un-catlike and more like Roland’s threatening battle-noises, kaneda will know what I mean). ‘náro had his ears cocked to the side and his eyes wide and dark; he looked, I am sorry to report, rather a lot like Pikachu. Caesar was obviously terrified of the fluffy Pokémon and ran up the stairs to the attic, again followed by Pika-náro and Darcy.

Long story short: They chased him as far up as he could go, which is under the ridge of the roof. There he was, and though we managed to lure them to the living room, Caesar couldn't be moved to come down again. So 'náro and Darcy had to spend the night in kitchen and living room while we hoped that Caesar might climb down from the ridge during the night.

But noooo.

Ten hours later he still sat up there, and we were forced to find the longest ladder and pluck him off the roof. He was afraid of moving, but when Jörg held him, he was all cuddly. Once he had been carried down the stairs he jumped off Jörg's arms and walked out (I can save myself, dammit!). End of drama. Also, end of sleeping.

Four days of no work - no paid work, that is - and all motivation to return to the real workplace is gone. Even though today was fairly relaxed, it was sooo frustrating.

*A Rhenanian custom. During Beltane night the guys put up May birches decorated with paper strips in front of their beloved’s window. Traditionally we did not have that plague of a holiday that the Anglo-Saxon world celebrates on Feb.14th, so we have various variants of pre-Christian celebration of love customs instead. In the past ten or so years St. Valentine’s Day has taken hold and partly replaced the original customs, much like Hallowe’en trick-or-treating is spreading even in areas that have other similar traditions such as the wassailing on St. Martin’s Day. Bah.

- - -

( Nachlese )
- - -

Sometimes I despair of my co-workers.

Enter H., workaholic, vaguely instable. Already violated German work law repeatedly by staying more than the maximum ten hours, amassed over-time. Company wants him to finally take his vacation days, at least those left from last year. Now he comes to our office complaining how his cruel girlfriend has forced him to take vacations for Easter, keeping him from earning money. Going to Venice.
I forgot to check whether there's a full moon, he says, because when there's a full moon high tides are likely and he wouldn't want to have to take Wellingtons along. Hope there's no full moon around Easter. Will check that right now.
...
...
...

Easter is, as always, the first Sunday following the first full moon in Spring. Yes, that's a very Pagan reckoning of feast days, but that's the way it's been working for the past thousand-something years. Easter is always close to a full moon. Per definitionem. You don't need to check a calendar to realise that if Easter's on the 23rd, you'll have a full moon on either the 21st or the 22nd. (It's the 21st.)
...

I'm not sure which is more annoying, people telling me what I experienced in Japan, or people who don't even ask what it was like and instead brag about their one-week business journey to Isar II. That's close to Munich.
M.. my pseudo-boss, was there to copy files. He returned on Monday and he's been telling everybody about the beautiful places he went to in exotic Bavaria all week, and the general brilliance of his work there.
Today he had to share the story of that pretty researcher who asked him, first day, whether he'd like a coffee. Yes, he said, all surprised because he isn't used to that (subtle look towards me, because I'm his bloody student assistant and I never brough him coffee, bad me!). Milk? Sugar? she asked. Just milk, said he, and she brought him a perfect coffee. With milk. Just like that.

I can see how a lousy tea ceremony with Maiko under the plum blossoms at Kitano-tenmangu shrine can't compete with the utter amazingness of that experience.

- - -
Finally managed to finish the last episode of Heroes (season I, so don't spoil me for anything that's to come please). I like Heroes but how hard would it have been to research a Kyudô club so those Samurai in the end could've drawn their bows like, you know, Samurai, as opposed to like Englishmen?

- - -
( Mann Mann Mann Mann Mann. )

Gnah.

The weekend at the Feuerfest (a joke that doesn't translate into English, as the word can mean both "fire festival" and "fireproof") was wonderful, weird, hilarious and scary; once I have sorted out my thoughts and my character has gotten over her ridiculous crush on Fingolfin, I suppose I'll try to write a brief report.

At work, I have currently been promoted from student assistant to secretary because both our secretaries are ill again. Suspect I only get to work the secretary's hours for the student's hourly pay. Will have to find out about that. On plus side, don't have to do pseudo-boss' bidding. Also, I may have the chance to write my term paper at work, because otherwise I won't make it 'till Thursday.
Oh, who am I kidding. I won't make it 'till Thursday anyway. Only thing I can hope to do is get so much written that I at least have something to show the professor when I go begging for an extension of the deadline. Augh. Uninteresting topics are better than the interesting ones; the interesting ones get me bogged down in all the different fascinating aspects.

Yesterday and this morning were a beautiful start to my favourite season; then came the rain. This evening one the way home (7 pm) it was darkening already, but suddenly the clouds tore up and there was a spectacular sunset and a rainbow (the end of which was visible on the other side of the valley - right on the junkyard in Remscheid. Well I won't dig there. Although considering the prices of junk and steel at the moment...). The sky looked as if it was in flames, which caused Jörg and me to spontaneously break into a recital of "Nis Randers":
Und brennt der Himmel, so sieht man es gut:
Ein Wrack auf der Sandbank! Noch wiegt es die Flut,
Bald holt sich's der Abgrund...

In other words, there are a lot of things that should make me happy or at least content, and the rest needs to be tackled, not pushed away, but I just can't get anything done. Nothing. I feel terribly overwhelmed at the moment. All is well. I just need time.

I hope it's just hormones.

I was... *drumrolls* at WORK today!

Yes, that's right - me, student of the glorious city of Cologne, usually friend of all things related to dressing up - did not only not celebrate carnival, but even WORK!

My opinions of dressing up and those of the general carnival-goer differ greatly anyway. I mean, I saw enough of those people in the past weeks. Either they're just wearing a funny hat or scarf, or they're wearing those cheap flimsy polyester costumes. And those are the people who celebrate carnival religiously! Each and every year!
Considering that I occasionally move in circles where people put a hell of a lot of effort (and sometimes, but not always, money) into their costumes so they look really really good and authentic, this is so disappointing. Especially as the people with the GOOD costumes are often poor students, apprentices, trainees and entrants, whereas the people in the cheap polyester garb are generally well into their jobs if not downright rich and could afford so much better.
Granted, when your only purpose in your costume is getting drunk anyway, there's probably little point in making it good, as nobody will notice the effor after the first twenty minutes, but... still.
Ah well.

At any rate, I was at work. Working on a pseudo-holiday is wonderful; hardly anyone there, certainly not my idiot colleague or the new student (who, while nice, has for no reason discernible to me, been made MY responsibility rather than that of our boss - I would feel flattered if I intended to stay in the company for more than two years (if that)), enough room to actually get some work done - AND a chance to do some reading or writing of my own (or both, as it was).
I've actually begun the third chapter of the plotbunny from Angband fanfic. That's not impressive in itself, but generally second chapters are what stops me; they slow me down, steal my motivation, and then the bunny bounces away anyway. So making it beyond the second and into the third chapter is... yay. Even if I end up giving up later on - I have no idea, I've never made it that far yet, so...

Anyway. Happy Chinese New Year to those to whom it applies, a fun carnival to those who happen to celebrate it (in style, I hope), and a nice week to all and one!

Oh for Eru's sake, people. 13 is not a crossfoot. Go away with your stupid 1+3 + 1+0 + 2+0+0+6 = 13 thing. I've had to listen to M. spin his stupid conspiracy theories all day. 1+3 + 1+0 + 2+0+0+6 = 13 = 1+3 = 4. There you go. Is everybody afraid of the four now?
Didn't think so.

In other news, today was Mr S.' birthday. Mr S. is the head of department and it was a 50th birthday, too, so it was a bit more than the usual generous invitation to have sandwiches together: it was a full-fledged reception down in the multi-functional hall next to the cafeteria.
As Mr S. is a Francophile, the head of the cafeteria staff thought they'd do him a special favour by pinning a tricolour flag to the wall over the buffet.

Now tricolours are tricky things. At some point in European history, tricolours were the new black, for which reason many countries have tricolour flags. Yes, France has. So does Italy. Or Belgium. Or Ireland. Or Romania. Or, if you count the horizontal ones, Luxembourg. Or Bulgaria. Or Hungary. Or, recently, Russia. Or Germany. Or - you get the picture. Even though the colours differ, they're all tricolours.

To make a long story short: Mr K. had at least got the colours right, red, white, and blue.
However, everybody (but him, apparently) realised at once that it had horizontal stripes and was, therefore, not that of France, but of the Netherlands.

Mr S. not only loves France, but also loves football (the kind you watch, not the kind you play, at any rate).

German football fans generally are not too fond of the Netherlands.

We all took it with a grain of salt, though. Or a bowl of mousse au chocolat and a glass of sparkling wine, as it was.

Or rather, one particular colleague; the rest of the mob I can handle; they may be vicious, arrogant and/or macho, but with them, it's mostly a show, and above all, they're not stupid.

This particular specimen, though...

Of course, it has to be my immediate pseudo-boss thing. "pseudo-boss" because he isn't actually boss of anything; he's just the "department technician" the students are assigned to.
And he's just... gah.

We had a discussion today in the office - that is, it was mainly between him and C., another student. Somehow, they'd been talking about funny movies.

C.: I didn't like Traumschiff Surprise all that much. Schuh des Manitu was much better.
M. (the pseudo-boss): No!
C.: You liked Surprise better?
M.: No! I hated them both! These gay people!
C.: ... what, about how they were depicted?
M.: No! Gay people!
C.: So what was wrong with them?
M.: They were gay!
C.: ... so?
M.: I belong to the people who say that's not normal. Honestly, I want to punch them all.
C.: .... what do you mean by normal?
M.: It's not natural!
Me: But hey, there's gay penguins and guinea-pigs* and dolphins and all - it happens in nature, so it can hardly be unnatural.
C.: Exactly. Nature's way of keeping population in check.
M.: But those don't reproduce.
C.: ........ gay humans don't reproduce either.
M.: But I can't stand them! And they always try to convert you and hit on you!
What I THINK: To quote Michael Mittermeyer: Don't worry, M., gay men have TASTE.
What I SAY: *nothing*
C.: ... well, what do you do when a woman hits on you and you're not interested?
What I THINK: ... seriously, that guy isn't "not interested" when a woman hits on him.
What I SAY: *nothing*
M.: Tell her that she's got no chance.
C.: So you do the same with guys. Works for me.

[And C. is quite a pretty guy; I can imagine he will get hit on rather more often than M.. For real.]

Now - I wasn't actually surprised by M.'s stance on the topic; I hadn't expected anything else. If anything surprised me at all, it was C.'s reaction; C., like all men in the company, pretends to be the strong, uncaring heroic macho type, so I wasn't expecting him to be reasonable as far as a topic like this was concerned. As far as M. was concerned, it was just so typical. And the way his "arguments" were all so ridiculous, and he didn't even notice that they were, and that he was backing up even while he was being stubborn... just drives me up the wall. ARGH!

Or a discussion we had yesterday:

G. (another colleague): ... wait, don't you write Systematik with an H?²
M.: Of course you do!
G.: Christiane, you're good with languages. T or TH?
Me: T, of course. It's derived from System, which is written without an H, so Systematik is written without H, too.
M.: But Thematik ["subject matter"] is written with an H!
Me: ... yes, but Thematik's got nothing to do with it. Systematik comes from System.
M.: But Thematik is written with an H!
Me: Yes, M. Systematik, however, has nothing to do with Thematik. Honestly. *on my way out, because otherwise I'll go snappish, which I can't afford*
M.: I'll check the dictionary.
Which, of course, told him that it is not "Systhematik".

I know it's kind of petty to ride around on that sort of thing, but it happens All. The. Time. And he thinks he's so smart and brilliant and oh so superior to us poor little students because he, after all, has a proper job that is mostly done by the students assigned to him and is made. Fact is, he's a college dropout because he got offered the job of department technician while he was doing a student job at the company or something - at any rate, he dropped out of university to work there. Now I know that dropping out doesn't make you a worse person, or intellectually inferior to people who are yet trudging on. But it does mean that he isn't growing into anything any more. That's what Jörg always points out when I bitch about M.: He's reached his finish line for life, whereas I've already caught up with him - and am only just picking up speed.
If only M. weren't so damn smug about being all he can ever be. If that makes any sense. I mean, work-wise, there's exactly two things he can do better than I can: a)work in Excel (which I daresay I could learn if I had to) and b) stuff you need an administrative account on the company network for. That's all.
And then you're supposed to not be "intellectually arrogant", as my dear old German teacher used to put it.
*le sigh*

So I work out of the office as much as I can - luckily, there are many chances to do that - and stick to the other co-workers who may not be nicer but are at least smarter as much as possible, and only roll my eyes at him when I'm out of sight, and just don't argue with him because there's no point.

But ARGH.

*I did indeed have two pairs of gay guinea-pigs: Klopfer and Asterix, who were brothers on top of being gay; and Sam and Frodo. (To the hobbit-slash haters: Yes, I had named them before I knew that they were gay. To the hobbit-slash fanciers: But they were gay anyway. BTW, Sam topped. :p)

²A problem that can only arise, of course, in a language without dental fricatives.