It was a hot day. We were sitting in the exam hall. We were doing the Phiosophy test.
Back to the Philosophy class before our test. The teacher, a bald man with no hair on his top and even nothing in his brain, sat at his desk and read a newspaper. We were chatting. We have nothing to do in his classes. He did not teach us anything. And even worse, he suddenly called someone and asked this poor person to answer some questions. I came once. And I came back my seat almost immediately because I couldn't answer his stupid question: 'What is he best time for us to love?'. I tried my best to keep my face straight. And that was all I could do.
The teacher suddenly looked around our class and then got angry:
-'The floor is too dirty. I will report this to the head.'
Oh, dirty??? We swept the floor very carefully and nothing was left on the floor. Except the dust. Dust always flies from outside into our class. Can we ban that?
-'It's time for our lesson.' (Oh, God saves my life! Five minutes left!) What was the world's population in 2003?'
Is this an aspect of philosophy? No one khew the answer.
He got angry (easy to get angry):
-'You're lazy and stupid students.'
What? Lazy and stupid? Just because we couldn't answer that stupid question? Is this the way he uses to distinguish the good and bad students?
The bell rang. Thank you, Belly. You saved our lives. He walked out of the class quickly. Good, very good.
Back to our exam. The first question: population of the world the year 2006? The second question: increase rate of the population of the world the year 2004? The same stupid the other quetions. We needed only one thing: an Encyclopedia. For 50 stupid questions. We didn't have what we needed, of course.
What a teacher was this teacher? This was another question we didn't have the answer to. And the answer never exists in the Encyclopedia.
]]>"There's something that I want to tell you," he says. "To get in your life. First is something that we often called 'money'..."
We all begin to laugh.
"No, there's nothing to laugh at." he says softly. "You are told that money is a thing that makes terrible things. But how can we manage a good life without money? Without money, more terrble things happen."
His voice is clear and beautiful. We are all ears.
"Imagine you are a professor," he looks around. "But your wife and children wear torn and old-fashion clothes. You have nothing to eat. You don't have enough money to eat out one time or go to the cinema or go to the park. You'll see it's nonsense to be a professor. How can you be a professor when your family suffer from difficulties?"
I like his talk so much.
"There are two people who want all our class to go to the restaurant with him. One says, "Let's share the cost!" and one says, "I'll pay for all of you. Let's go and enjoy.". Who will you come with?"
He stops and looks around the class again.
"A poor person is a weak person. A poor country is a weak country. A weak country is a country which have badly-educated population, a weak economy, a week defense and an bad, very bad future."
"The second thing is to gain as more support in your life as possible. Remember that: If you support anyone, when he succeeds, you must gain something. If he become president, you must be come vice president or something else. And, if your family do not support you, there will be noone who will support you."
"That's all," he says. "Now it's time to begin our lesson today. Firstly, what's an company? How does it work?"
We begins like that. The first time and the only time.
]]>He teaches Economy. And Economy is not a very clear notion with us. Economy, in our thoughts, sometimes is only the money which is given to us monthly, of course by our parents.
He is medium at stature. But he is the highest male teacher in our school. There are more than one hundred and fifty teachers in our school and there are less than ten of them is recoded as 'male'. These teachers are often called 'Mr.s'. Be careful. If you miss the dot, "there will be something".
All the 'Mr.s' are under the 'Misses or Mrs.s' control. That means they are in lower positions. You can do a math. The head is a woman, one. The Nature Science teamleader is a woman, two. The Social Science teamleader, another for women, three. The gradeleaders, another three from woman side, four five six. And, you see, the Social Education teamleader: Mr. Economy and his name is Peacock.
We start to learn with him after the Big Event has happened. Big Event is the secert name of The Work Days at the begining of this schoolyear (not all of The Work Days are called Big Event): The School Chief Executive Officer (SCEO) decided to repaint our school and repair broken funiture. One day, more clearly, at the end of The Work Days, the workers was going to painted the third floor, which our classroom was on (and still on now). We was told to help them. Desmis ad Nornas were told to carry the empty barrels to the paint store and had them filled up. The careless boys (after that was our heroes) passed through the Chemistry lab, saw some disorganized things and began to copy Sherlock Holmes, looked into it. Of coure nothing had happened. They reorganized the lab (I don't think they only do that), cleaned the equipments and poured the water into the barrels. Then they remembered what they had to do and hurried to the store.
The paints were in very good cnditions. But after a week, "something" happened. The paints smelled "something" strange but it was still in good colors (and even now). Our former Economy teacher was allergic to that smell and "something" really happened...
Let's see it next story.
]]>The hospital are crowded all day. The doctors and nurses are too busy. They even don't have time to look up to see who is standing in front of them. The guards are annoyed men with hard faces. In the hospital, we could see a lot of parents, children moving around or sitting, make a lot of noises. Sometimes I feel that I am in a wet market. The children shout and run. Some hurt themselves. Some cry after nurses give them injections. Some cry when they don't see their parents.
It's easy to imagine how difficult it is to look after such children. Not like looking after patients who are old men or women. You must be very impatient with the children. They seem to burst out into tears anytime. I must say I don't like the children who cry a lot. Their cries make me sick. When I hear the sounds I feel that my brain is nearly bursted out into pieces. I have headaches after all.
It's my turn to go to the hospital on Thursdays. I am on my duty with Blicky, Sean, Lovy and App. We play with children who have problems with their hearts. You must be more careful when you play with them than other children.
It's a boring thing to do. All the children are about one year old or some are younger. Even there are some children who was born yesterday. They don't know how to read or write or play puzzles. Books, pens, and puzzles are somthing really strange to them. They are only used to teddy bears, dolls or somthing that they could hold tightly and sometimes break it with their tiny hands.
The oldest child in this section is Betha. She is three years old. It's her birthday today. We buy some balloons and decorate them with some funny images. We use ribbons to decorate the room. We also bring a chocolate cake. They are all ready.
Betha is a naughty girl. Sometimes I think the God might make a mistake when he made her. She climbs fom windows to windows, from beds to beds, throws out the dolls, kicks the balls and breaks the balloons. The noises she makes are too loudly that her mother's heart seems to be able to break than hers. And, more terribly, the noises wake up the other children. That causes bad effects, actually. The children begin to cry with high-pitched voices which seem to be the nightmares of the nurses here.
We are preparing the candles when Betha enters the room. App seems to be afraid although he is supposed to be happy when he sees the children:
- 'What's she going to do here?' He whispers. 'All things are ready and she comes and breaks them and ...'
- 'Er, I don't really think you should leave the candles here.' I say slowly. 'Special, aren't they?'
- 'Yes,' App says exciting. 'When you lit it, there will be something. I must say that.'
- 'Ah, I see your "something" but...' Then I also see Betha picking up some candles. That is 'terrible' something. 'Hey, let them there, Betha.'
- 'No...' App screams. 'Betha...'
It's too late to do anything. Betha pick up a candle, look at it thoroughly and then sticks it to the burning candles we lit on the cake.
'BOOM! FLASH!' That is 'something'. The candle begins to throw out some flashes. These flashes reach the flowers. The flowers are damaged badly. But 'something' doesn't want to end its story in such an special day. The flashes frighten a lot of people and we hear sounds of breaking. App pulls Betha out of the candles. She is alright. And only she who will be alright. Volunteer teamleader, Max, followed by Blicky, Sean and Lovy suddenly appear at the door. He looks around and sees what 'something' has done. He says:
- 'I am able to see 'something' here.' Slowly he says. 'And I need an explanation. You!'
App seems to be nervous.
- 'Er, you see. I only bought some of 'something' and 'something' unwanted happened. I see it caused 'something' but you must see that I has tried to do 'something'...'
- 'I also have 'something' for you.'
- 'Oh, really.'
- 'Really, it's 'something' on my table tomorrow morning, okay? And you!'
I am surprised.
- 'Yes, sir?'
- 'Another 'something' of you.'
What?
- 'Hey, boss. I didn't bring that 'something', you know that...'
- 'That 'something' will happen if you and App work together, I seeeeee!'
- 'But...'
- 'We have to do 'something' here, okay? Quickly clear your 'something' or there will be 'something' more terrible.'
I hate him since that.
It's silent in classroom. The Literature classes are often boring to me. It seems to last long and forever. I don't hate Literature. I love books and I read a lot. I like the books of Doyle, Azit Nexin, London and soever. I like poems of Puskin, too. But by some reason, Literature is an nightmare subject. I dislike the books and the authors we are taught. I dislike their writings. But the minister of Education likes. And all I must do is learn and fill my exam papers with someome's (not my Literature teacher) thoughts about the books and the authors.
Today we learn about an historic work. It seems interesting. But the students keep their interests inside. The class finishes when we hear the bell.
Almost immediately when Mr. Flora, the Literature teacher, get out of the class, the students' interests and thoughts begin to break out. It's noisy now. Everyone wants to talk.
Let me summarize our lesson today: In the last years of Pera dynasty, everything was in bad conditions. In addition, the Emperor unluckly had no son. It was such an problem as the law didn't allow women to be Emperor or Mandarins. The Emperor had two princesses. The elder was Sophie and the younger was Sapphire. He also had a clever mandarine, Mr. Ceily. Ceily helped the Emperor a lot when he ruled the country. By the time the Emperor died, he had Ceily to look after and help Princess Sapphire, who became Emperor later. Princess Sapphire was only seven years old but Princess Sophie had married Ceily's nephew so she couldn't took over the throne. Princess Sapphire became the Emperor. Ceily brought his another nephew to her palace. His name was Scenet. Sapphire and Scenet played with each other. One day, Sapphire said she wanted Scenet to be her husband. It's seious. Ceily thought carefully and then arranged them to be married. Then Scenet took over the throne and became the first Emperor of the Ceily dynasty. The Ceilys then led the people of the country defeat the invasions of Nien people.
The story is clear but it holds some problems.
Manda is our classleader. He says:
- 'How do youthink about that? Loyality is the first thing a mandarin must have. You see, Ceily robbed the throne for his clan. He was not loyal. He was..'
- 'Where would he put his loyality, if the Niens defeat us and rule this country?' Says Sera. She is the most stubborn student with strange ideas. 'Has you thought about that? Everything was in bad conditions in the end of the Pera. How could Sapphire lead the people to defeat them, then?'
- 'But she was the Emperor and she was his owner. Or if he didn't see her as his owner, her father was his owner. He must be loyal anyway. Who prohibited him from leading the people to defeat the Niens as a mandarin of hers?'
- 'You say something like owners will always be owners, huh?' Resorts Sera. 'Do you remmember how you become classleader? It's Heta who could not put everything in an order that she was knocked down by everyone in our class. And remember Risu. He made everyting become even more terrible than before he became classleader...'
- 'So what?' Says Manda angrily. 'They don't relate...'
- 'Why not?' Asks Sera loudly. 'They relate closely, I tell you. If you are a good leader, they will not knock you down and put someone else on. And if you are a bad leader, you see what happened to Heta and Risu.'
- 'But you don't have any prooves that Sapphire was a bad leader.'
- 'I think I have more than one.' Said Sera. She becomes angry, too. 'First, she was too small...'
- 'It's not a problem.'
- 'Second, she was so childless because she asked Scenet to be her husband when she was only seven.'
- 'It's normal in her time.'
- 'Normal? Are you crazy?' Shouts Sera. 'Anyway, her father was a bad leader, wasn't he? How can you believe she would be a good leader? She is his daughter.'
Manda nearly shouts out when the English teacher comes in. He has no chance to say more.
]]>The school is not very far from my house. But the way I usually get to go to school is very annoying. I often have to wait for nearly half an hour. And when the days pass, it becomes worse. Today it gets the best of me. The bus slowly comes along. I get on. You can imagine that, when I get on it, I give my all to have a choice to get off immediately. But I cannot. The bus is so crowded that I feel like a fish in a full fish pool at the wet market. But even the fish doesn't have my feelings now. I feel that I cannot breathe anymore.
When I get off the bus, I feel better. That feeling doesn't last long. Very soon, I realize I am standing beside a line of stalls and the stalls are crowded by a lot of people. There're not any spaces for me to move around or even get out of that crowd. For more than one reason, I protest the ideas of locating schools next to markets.
It is not a wonderful day for me and my class. The reason is very easy to see if you look at our timetables: Tuesday: computer science/ maths/ maths/ geography/ philosophy. That is the most badly formed timetables I've ever seen.
You cannot imagine (even I before) that all the equipments we need for a Computer Science class is a book, a pen, and some papers. The book is a thing that give us the reasons why IT is so important, give some directions to use the Words, Excels, IE that we really know three years ago. It teaches us how to use the operating system (oh, my God) MS-DOS. Do the writer really know that nearly all the world use Windows or Macs or Linuxs and he (or she, maybe) also do not use MS-DOS to write this book.
It's enough to describe the book. It's now the papers' turn. You can look at the papers of the students at the front desk that are nearest to the teacher. Clean, aren't they? Pick up the first sheet and you can see the sheets behind. Not the lessons are written on it but games or letters or bills. Yes, bills. Some students see it's much more useful to calculate their shopping prices than listening to the lectures. It can show you that the students behind them don't note anything on their sheets. And their books (now the books) have another function to hide theirs sleepy faces from the teacher.
The teacher is often called CSP (Computer Science "professor"), which can show how boring her lectures are. By some ways, she give us the thought that if she use the computer, she will turn it into the most useless tool in the world. More, the ways she spells the names of the programmes counteract our efforts to keeping a straight face. That is only thing that keeps us awake (means not very sleepy) through the lessons.
The Maths teacher is often called Mr. Potato or Mr. Po for short and secret. He is a short man but he is very clever. He is so clever that we often think he should have worked for a Maths institute not a high school. In addition to that, his ability to talk through the classes give us freedom to do anything we want because he pays so much attention to his speechs about Maths and how he studied Maths than to us. And the classes pass so quickly that when we hear the bell we even think we need more time for him to tell us briefly about the lessons and give us something to do at home. I am lucky that my mom are so good at natural sciences but my friends are not and they simply pass through the exams only by copying upper-grade students' notebooks few days before.
The person who I think should have been somewhere else not at my school is "Mr. Geography". He even not have an honour to be in an institute like Mr. Po. He's a terrible man. He seems not to have even the simpliest definition about what he is teaching. He enters our class once a week (thanks God about that) and looks around the class, sees a student who has a new coat, a new haircut or anything that is new and says: 'New, isn't it?' and that unlucky person will be called to recite the lesson. It's almost impossible, because he doesn't teach us anything, we have to study ourselves that I don't see it's something bad of my friends to whisper him or her the answers. The only thing that makes the Geography classes different from others is, instead of the empty board, we have some pictures and some maps on the board and we have to guess what it is about.
We end the day, just one of the days, with one of our nightmares, Mr. Philosophy. He is a bald man with an old 'brain' which contains a lot of old-fashioned ideas. HE always thinks that we must wear uniforms all the time (Ok, it's acceptable), we must learn without looking at the book all the time(it's good, I must say), we must be 'generous' with everybody which means we must give all our own things to society (even your lover?) and give up our own benefits for the benefits of the community, of the people who embody the community (it's possible, but in the war, it's peace now), we must stand straightly everywhere and move without making noises (we're ghosts?), we must obbey the adults even their orders are not true (even illegal?), we must not love anyone or feel something about anyone when we are at school (Hey, love or like someone is not allowed, how can he be sure that we will obbey his ideas). He is really a Communist who destroys our optimistic ideas about Communism. Is Communism the thing which bans us from having our privacy?
The head of the school once heard this song: 'It's just one of the days. It's just one of the weeks. It's just one of the months. And it's just one of the year. They're just pillows and books. They're just tables and beds. They're just sleeping and learning. And we just sleep all day at school.' The song was banned immediately. But it's more possible to make the Earth move faster so one year will have fewer than 365 days than ban every students in that school from singing that song. It's music that help us to see our lives at school are beautiful in some ways.
]]>