the filing cabinet...

and instant noodles...

tonight i had to go down to the filing cabinet. it's in the garage, and squashed up against other stuff that i am storing there, like a punching bag and half a house full of antique furniture. I needed to find the certificate that says i can responsibly serve alcohol, and therefore can get a job in any establishment that sells alcohol. a very useful thing to have these days, and didn't cost me anything to get when i did it 6yrs ago. Thankfully my certificate and transcript were in a box on top of the filing cabinet so no heavy lifting was required *putting my butch card away, undusted*
While i was there i also found some old transcripts which i might need when i enroll in a university preparation course tomorrow. ya know, i'm 30 now, figured it was probably about time i went to uni... and i have finally found something that inspires me enough to want to live on instant noodles for the next 4yrs. So, in honour of my enrollment tomorrow, i am having instant noodles for dinner. right now, at 10:31pm, and straight from the pyrex measuring jug in which i cooked them in the microwave. so very student life style. all i need is a beer and i would have this thing in the bag! *sipping my G&T* whaaaa!?!?!!

while i was looking for my RSA i also found a highly entertaining letter from a teacher, written to my mother in may 1994. i was about to be 15. the fact that i have it, and it has been severely scrunched and then flattened suggests to me that my mother never saw it...
but here it is for you, typed out exactly as written.

25.5.1994
Languages Faculty
Dear Mrs Clarke (not only spelt wrong, but my mother went by Ms.)
We are very concerned about Alex progress/conduct/attendance in Latin.
What particularly concerns us regarding your son/daughter is:
~ regular histrionic behaviour & lack of self control.
~ disruptions to others through talking and above.
~ underachievement in classwork & tests
~ lack of positive attitude to do the right thing.
~ short attention span & inability to focus due to other agenda
~ she is difficult to discipline and very volatile
We would be pleased to discuss this matter with you. Please call the school for an appointment with your son/daughter's subject teacher, Ms. Diana Fraser.
Your faithfully
N.W. JENNINGS
HEAD TEACHER, LANGUAGES


Now, Mr Jennings wouldn't have been able to identify me if he walked into our classroom, and there were only about 12 of us in the class.
I remember making life Hell for Ms fraser, for a very short period. I loved Latin, and i loved my latin teacher in yr 7 and 8, and then over summer she was gone and we had Ms Fraser. if i had not been such a pain in the arse i could have easily passed latin, even got close to 100%. the language makes sense, and she would translate everything for us in class. if i had just written stuff down i could have aced the class. but something about her rubbed me the wrong way. quite possibly it was the fact that she translated everything for us in class. there was no autonomy in her class room. not long after the letter she kicked me out, and said i was not welcome back in her class until i had been to see the counselor. Now seeing a counselor is useless if you are sent there, i know this for a fact, my mother sent me to one when i came out. I had no intention of going to see the school counselor, so i just didn't go to class for two months. when i returned to class she was as sweet as pie to me. She put the rest of the class on yellow slips one day, but not me (yellow slips have to be signed by every teacher for a week to say you attended class and behaved. not sure what the consequence was though). for a few months i paid attention, wrote stuff down, got a really good mark on my end of yr exam that year. over the summer i seem to recall something being said about her not wanting me in her class the following year. Now, this was a 2yr course, and as i'm sure you can imagine by the small size of my class, there was no other latin class for me to attend, so i went to see my year adviser and she sorted it out. I went to latin, continued as i had at the end of the previous year, behaving, paying attention, doing well. then one day, mid term, mid week, completely without warning we had a new teacher. i thought he was a substitute teacher and so asked jokingly if Ms Fraser had gone. when he said yes i almost fell over. now i didn't much like him either, but he was just boring, and made us do the work ourselves (as we should have been for the previous yr and a bit). this is where it showed that i had not been listening for over 6 months. my final exam mark for Latin was 9%. yes that's correct. 9%. the grade on my report card is a D. how the hell you get a percentage mark in single figures and not get a fail is beyond me. I still love latin, but the phrases i have retained are useless. i can say thing like "alas, the dog is annoying me" (ehue, canis et meum vexat), "oh no, i'm dead" (ecce, mortuus sum), "mother is in the hall, the dog is in the street" (Mater est in atrio, canis est in via) and "Grumio is in the kitchen pleasing the slave girl" (Grumio est in culina, delectat ancilla). that last one is my favourite.

but seriously. why did i ever choose to study latin???