The Birdwatcher

I’m not a bird-watcher,

But sometimes I watch birds,

Through a window,

Or down a lane,

Eating the gravel,

Testing the air,

Looking at nothing,

And everything,

The bird that is,

Not me...

 

I’m not a birdwatcher, but sometimes, every now and then, I find myself watching birds.  I’ll just be sitting there, maybe eating a sandwich, or reading a book, or thinking about what to do next, when I’ll catch myself, completely engrossed, watching a little bird; it’s always little birds that I’m watching.  They’re the ones that you see around, testing the air, pecking at concrete.  I don’t know the names of any of them.  I could guess, I may guess finch, or sparrow, but it would always be a guess.  I could never be sure.  But I don’t mind, I don’t care what their names are, that’s not why I watch them.  I watch them because they’re so different to me and all the other people.  They represent an otherness.  There is no opposite to a human, I know that, but I also think that everything is the opposite to humans.  Us humans, we are everything to us, we are all that counts, the whole world revolves around us.  People talk about the environment and endangered species, but I don’t think they really care.  People feel superior.  Everything else is everything else.  Everything else is inferior.  It is for this reason that sometimes, only sometimes, I like to watch birds.  They are, like everything else unhuman, the opposite to me and all the other people, if an opposite ever were to be found.  When I watch them, I feel like I’m getting a look at something that is unusual, even though there are little birds everywhere.  It is only ever little birds that I watch.  I’m watching something that I don’t watch most of the time.  Usually, I watch other people, or something made by other people, like a book, or a computer, or a screwdriver sitting there on the table.  Sometimes I watch grass, and grass is like birds, but it does everything much slower, so I don’t find I get the same insight.  Once I saw grass growing in fast-forward on a TV, and then I got that feeling, except that it was on a TV, which took away from the whole ‘otherness’ experience.  With birds, they’re always there, just hopping about, looking around cautiously, searching for food.  A lot of the time, even most of the time, I’m not sure what they’re doing; it’s these times I like to watch them the most, because then they are complete mysteries to me.  How often is it that one is faced with a complete mystery?  Not every day, I’d say.  Unless, of course, you like to watch little birds.

The other day, I was watching a little bird, I wasn’t sure what he was doing, I was smiling, I was content watching this little bird, who I’m sure I’d seen before, but probably hadn’t.  Anyway, I was sitting on a bench by a road, it was a busy road, and there were many cars driving past, the little bird didn’t seem to mind though.  He didn’t seem to mind, that is, until one of the cars crashed into another.  This crash, it obviously scared him, because he flew away, off somewhere else to be mysterious, maybe for someone else who likes to watch little birds.

The people from the cars started yelling at each other, and I was left sitting there, looking at where my little friend had been just seconds earlier, acting all mysterious and pecking away at who knows what.  There I was, and all I wished was that I too could jump up into the air and fly away.  As it was, all I could muster was to stand up and walk away, my head down, looking for little birds to watch.        

Yard Duty

This is a tale about yard duty.  “Yard duty” in itself is a funny term to most of us, as it’s not been a part of our consciousness since we were very young.  I guess it’s like “fruit” to me, which is what my first school called recess; the teachers no doubt reasoning ‘at this time the students shall eat fruit, so we shall call this time “fruit”’.  They didn’t go so far as to rename lunch “sandwich” though, which is disappointing in hindsight.  Anyway, yard duty is funny and I have to do it.

At my school, the primary kids have their recess and lunch at different times to the secondary kids, for obvious reasons.  Usually, as I teach secondary kids I supervise secondary kids, but once, earlier in the year, I was asked to watch over the little ones.  I promptly discovered that there would be much more intervention required than what I was used to.  First, a boy approached me and reported that another student, at whom he pointed “abused me in our language,” and then adjusting the trajectory of his point, “he said I gave her pregnancy”.  I thought come high school such an insult would probably be construed more as praise.  This reminded me of an incident when I was a similar age and someone asked me if I was a virgin; I vehemently replied that I was not.  Anyway, I kept all these thoughts and recollections to myself and, harnessing all my diplomatic powers, tended to the situation.

Not long after, another small human approached me, tugged at my sleeve and pointed to the far corner of the playground.  I looked in the direction of the point and saw laughing, happy children, and then looked down at the tugging pointing one and said, “No thanks,” assuming he wanted me to join in.  But, just like Lassie or Inspector Rex, he tugged again at my sleeve with imploring eyes that said, “Come on stupid human, understand, there is a crisis you must tend to, if only I could speak!” So, I gazed a little more intently into the throng of playing, screaming children and spotted the cause of the little one’s insistent sleeve tugging; a sad child!  Yard Duty Man to the rescue!  So, I made my way to sad child with sleeve tugger close in my wake.  On arrival, I asked sad child what the problem was.  He wiped away his tears and nodded in the direction of a little girl ten metres away who was sat on a wooden bench with the cold hard stare of either a murderer or a child who knows they’ve done wrong.  “What did she do?” I asked.  Sad child abstained from answering, but fortunately sleeve tugger was once again there to help, “She hit him,” he said.  By this stage, there was a throng of about a dozen children standing around to observe the event unfold.  “Did she hit you?”  I asked, for although I trusted sleeve tugger, these were serious accusations that I couldn’t accept on mere hearsay.  I received a nod as confirmation that charges were indeed being pressed.  “OK, I’ll just go and talk to her.”  I walked across to the accused and found I was being accompanied by the onlookers, a group that had by now ballooned to about twenty in number.  She still had her cold hard stare on when I confronted her with the charges; “Did you hit him?” I asked, now pointing myself by means of identification.  She looked to the ground, refusing to answer.  The crowd jeered “Come on!  Tell him!”  I asked again and this time, worn down by my interrogation, her face lost its hardness and she admitted guilt by way of a nod.  I said, “Do you think you should say sorry?”  After a pause and some more jeers from the crowd, she again nodded.  I put my hand on her shoulder and bade her to follow.  The whole affair was very solemn, as if I was leading her to her to the gallows.  We made our way towards sad child, duly accompanied by the group of onlookers, by now a group of well over a thousand.  “Do you have something to say?” I said to the accused.  Again, she stared at the ground.  The crowd goaded her.  Eventually she mumbled an apology and sad child accepted.  Then, a member of the crowd yelled out, “Let’s play family!”  At this point, I thought to myself, “what the fuck?”  The overzealous crowd member continued; she pointed at sad child and said, “You can be the daddy,” then to the accused, “you can be the mummy, I’ll be the daughter, you can be the son,” then, inevitably, she pointed to me and graciously offered me a choice, “who do you want to be?” “I’ll be the dog,” I said, thinking I was being smart and as the dog would not have to become too involved.  Little did I know, where these kids come from they ride dogs.  In a matter of seconds, sad child had become happy child and was jumping on my back for a ride on the pet dog.  I obliged, and ran him around the playground, his laughter deafening my left ear.  As I was completing my first lap, I saw the “family” line up for rides.  I couldn’t deny them their fun, so continued giving rides.  As I was doing so, I tried to reflect back on my “Social and Professional Contexts” university subject to ascertain whether what I was doing was actually legal, however I couldn’t think with all the laughter.  The best I could do was hope that no one saw me.  I gave rides to five or six more children, including a second go for sad-now-happy child, as I thought he deserved a second ride because he was sad.  Then, I feigned a sore back and called an end to my role as a dog.  The students were disappointed yet understanding.  I returned to my sentry post, and the rest of recess, or fruit as I like to think of it, continued relatively uneventfully.  

Interesting teacher experience #1

It should be noted that this is by no means the first interesting teacher experience I have ever had.  It is simply the first one I have ever written about on this blog.  More to follow.

Hello, my name is Mr. Lorenzo*.  I am a teacher of English as a second language.  I teach New Arrival students from all over the world.  This is a tale of two such students; Melissa from Chile and Tung from Vietnam.  Both students are 15 years old and of average size.  Melissa has trouble pronouncing my name so just calls me either “mister” or more often “miss” (the latter salutation is a result of me being one of only two male teachers among a merry band of thirty women).  Tung has trouble pronouncing the “th” sound and consistently forgets the plural “s” when speaking though rarely when writing.

This is a tale about love; deep, requited, beautiful love…or at the very least a schoolyard crush.  However, as a result of being but spring chickens, this modern day Romeo and Juliet are unaware of appropriate and effective methods with which to proceed.  So, they bicker, throw things at each other, accuse one another of offences that were never committed, and were this the period when inkwells were still used in schools then Tung would surely be staining Melissa’s golden pigtails blue (assuming of course that Tung sat behind Melissa and that Melissa had blonde hair, neither of which are currently true, but they could have been a hundred years ago, we simply cannot say).  

I had sat back passively and watched this love (not) develop throughout the term.  I thought it no place of mine to get involved.  I maintained this position consistently until I did not.  At that point, near the end of term, just after Melissa had accused Tung of something and Tung had thrown something at Melissa I said something helpful and enlightening like “Come on guys, why can’t you be friends?”  I then collected my books in a swift, professional, teacher-like action and headed for the door.  While doing so, I happened to pass Melissa and added, “I think you like him, anyway.”  Melissa proceeded to chase me down the hall saying, “What did you say, miss?  Miss!  What did you say?”  I said, “Nothing, nothing…I think you heard me.”  And her best friend, Haus, ran along behind us supporting my position (not that I was running, but you know how it is when adults walk quickly…) Anyway, she continued with her “Miss!  Miss!” all the way down the hall.  I was under the impression that this was all in good humour until I relented and told her again what she already knew I had said.  She responded by stomping her left foot, raising and lowering both fists, and exclaiming that, “Me never say mean to you!  Why you say mean to me?”  She then stormed off back the way we had come, not allowing the opposing torrent of students to slow her down one bit.  Cries of “crazy girl” were exclaimed as she barged through.  I made to reconcile with her but realised immediately that to even begin to approach her pace I would need to adopt techniques I had learned during football training when I was twelve where you had to knock down teammates holding giant protective pads.  Since none of the students were wearing pads I held back.  Haus was still there and she said she’d talk to her.

The next day, I saw Melissa in the morning and brightly said “hello”.  She ignored me.  I saw her again in the afternoon.  She ignored me again.  Despite agreeing with me, Haus seemed to be back in the good books.  She confirmed for me that I was still in Melissa’s sin bin.  The next day, she seemed to have thawed somewhat.  She responded to questions in class and asked me questions.  Later in the day, she pulled me aside and said “Miss, me still little angry with you.  Why you say that?” I replied, “I’m sorry Melissa.  I didn’t mean to make you angry.  I just think that you and Tung could be friends.  But I’m very sorry that I made you angry.”  She said “OK, miss.”  I then asked her if she forgave me, which she clearly didn’t understand so I “graded” (dumbed-down in teacher speak) my language to “Everything OK now?”  “Yes, miss”.

And that was that, or so I thought.  No, that was that I guess, but there was also more.  Now I’m not sure if this is linked to the whole episode, but a few days later, on the last day of term in fact, Melissa handed me a letter in an envelope.  She made me promise that I would not be angry.  I promised.  Before you read this letter, I should add that a few days before all these incidents, Melissa had asked me if I was Christian.  I replied that I was not.  She then asked what I was, to which I said, “It’s not important what I am.”

The letter read:

“Hello dear friend.  I hope that you’re alright.  I want to tell you that today I feel very happy and I want to share my happiness with you.

(At this point I thought that she and Tung had sealed the deal, but no…)

That I have a friend who has done a lot of things with me and with many other people and his name is Jesus.  If you knew him, you’ll be very happy.  But first of all I want to tell you that I have no intentions of offending you, I just want you to know him so you can know how it feels don’t let me tell you or allow anyone else to tell you, prove it yourself all you need to do is accept him as your saviour.

I assure you, that you won’t regret it.

You friend that loves you.

Remember God loves you.  He’ll always be waiting for you.

Too Jesus loves you because he died for you.  Because he loves you so much.

From: your friend”

Despite holding a fairly strong aversion to religion (not the religious), I found this letter quite nice; as one of my friends said, “That’s quite sweet”.  That said, another friend rolled his eyes and said, “Oh my god” (with no irony intended).

Next term, I will access skills that I have picked up in other aspects of my life and pretend nothing ever happened.  Hopefully these skills are transferrable.

It should also be noted that despite a couple of mistakes in her letter (spelling and grammar, not the belief that Jesus is the son of god), Melissa clearly received considerable assistance in composing this letter.  I’d say the church is making a little missionary out of her.  She’s failed on this mission…

*Names of people and places have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted in this story.

 

A piece of advice.

La distance n’y fait rien; il n’y que le premier pas qui coûte. - Marquise Du Deffand

My father always said that the hardest thing about running was putting your shoes on and leaving the house.  He also said ‘Read the fucking question!’ (priceless advice on how to solve any mathematical problem) and ‘Always take a book’ (priceless advice on how to avoid being bored, although these days phones have games, so who needs books?)

Anyway, back to his first observation; on a literal level, useless to me, as I don’t run.  Fortunately, us humans are rarely constrained by the literal.  Fortunate also is the fact that we are not constrained by the truth; everyone knows running is difficult.  It is not the donning of the shoes and the exiting of the building that makes running one of the most hated sports in which to partake, it is the fact that it is hard, bloody hard (not to mention boring to many of us).  So, despite the facts that this comment is both inapplicable to me and not true, it still exists as a useful piece of wisdom.  Similarly, Marquise Du Deffand’s observation above doesn’t stand up to scrutiny from all corners.  The fact that Saint Denis walked two miles with his head in his hands would surely be found remarkable by anyone (even a chicken would be astonished, not for the walking headless part of course, but for the holding the head part…opposable thumbs…), but as Du Deffand pointed out, the distance is not hard; it is the first step that is difficult.  True enough I guess, in some respect at least.

Despite being a proper adult, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I think I will never feel experienced enough to impart wisdom.  Why’s this?  Cerebral malfunction?  Personality trait?  Lack of confidence?  Appreciation that the world is far too complicated to comment on?  Obviously I don’t know, not experienced enough.  But despite my misgivings about my own qualifications to advise, I’m going to give it a shot.  And it links in with all these comments about first steps.  Of course, what I’m about to advise is not original, but I don’t think that matters.

So, here goes.  I’ve always found the most difficult decisions in life are those leading to the first step.  This is not because it is a difficult decision to make, for as soon as you start deciding on a decision, you have really already decided.   The reason it is difficult is usually because you’re stuck in a rut, and ruts, by definition are difficult to get out of.  Not because they’re big (because they’re not big, they’re just ruts) but because they’re familiar, comfortable, easy, and safe.  And a rut’s not always a bad place to be; I have found myself in many fine ruts over the years.  But we all know there are bad ruts, and they are always hard to get out of.  This leads me to my advice, my simple advice; when you start thinking about making a decision, you have really already made the decision.  What you need to do is put your shoes on and run out the door…