OK now. Today we're talking literal and non-literal meanings. Of WHAT exactly? Well, of what it means when I say that really there WAS something 'fishy' going on yesterday morning in my classroom.
I'll spill the beans – no need to keep you hanging on too long. There's lots more to come.
Now, some of you may know that I've been doing this English teacher 'thing' since 1995 – yes, nearly a whole 14 years of it will have passed when September comes around again. Ah, but then you have to take away the one-year break from 2007 to 2008 when I was in London trying to “make it” online.
Anyway, during this time I've had some nice presents from students. Usually they come at school year end and often include ordinary, everyday items like chocolates, ties, photo books and that sort of thing.
Yesterday, however, I had a “present” the like of which I have never had before, that I never WANTED before and that I hope is not GOING to happen again ....
So – there I was yesterday. Ordinary start to an ordinary Tuesday morning in class. I'm there checking the class register as I do every morning. The usual people are late so I mark them as absent as we are obliged to do. Soon, the door opens and in they come – those two clowns. The monitor/supervisor guy and his 'buddy', the guy who STILL has his foot in plaster from Week 1 Lesson 2. “Hello, Hello Teacher!”, they greet me as they come in hoping to get all the attention they can even though I'm more than ready to start the lesson. “I have this for you today!”.
And the monitor/supervisor guy has in his hand a plastic bag with .... a FISH inside it. A dead one of course. “This is for you”, he says and seems pleased with himself and his 'offering'.
“What the HELL is THIS?”, I think to myself!! Of all the things for a student to actually BRING into class, THIS has to be the weirdest ever whether as a 'gift' or otherwise. I mean, A FISH IN A BAG!!
No, I don't know what sort of fish it was. Standard fish market size, not especially big, silver scales, quite thin. I'm no expert on dead fish, you see. I don't need to be, I figure. But now maybe this is a skill I need to practice if this is the start of “Fish Gift Week” or something.
Well, of course I didn't want such a thing and didn't want it in the classroom stinking up the place. I suppose it was fairly fresh and recently bought. Possibly he saw it on his way in. Yeah right – I mean, it's the first thing you think of on your way into an English lesson, isn't it? “Hmm, yes, maybe the Teacher would like a FISH today”. Most students think of bringing the usual studenty things like pens, paper, notebook, bag etc. But THIS numbskull's head was elsewhere.
I think he did it just to get a reaction from me, which he succeeded in doing. I told him to take it away because I didn't want it on my desk or in the room. No, he wouldn't take it away but persisted in his nasty, evil-faced grin that he seems to have fixed on his face rather too often. Yeah yeah – a nice joke to play on the teacher today and let's see what he will do! So it was on my desk and I didn't want it. I wanted to get it out of the room and out of my sight. Such a STUPID thing to bring! Jeez that guy really winds me up!! He comes in late with his friend, Leg Man and they come round my desk like they're trying to be old buddies and like they think I'm pleased to SEE THEM today. Bus the fact IS that I'm NOT pleased to see them and would be happy if I never saw them again. The class runs SO MUCH BETTER without them because it seems their sole purpose in coming is to chat inanely to each other or talk loudly across the room when I am doing something at the front and trying to talk to the class MYSELF. The 'Leg Man' does NOTHING. His monitor/supervisor friend DOES at least do the work (mostly), but anyway I ignore him except to check what he is doing and that it is right. And although I hate to admit it, he does know more English than the others. Unlike Leg Man who, it is becoming clear, is quite a LOT below the others except when it comes to mindless chatter and inability to follow what is going on what is to be done. In THOSE things he is the MASTER SUPREMO!
So there I am wanting to get rid of this stupid fish and get the lesson started. I mean, all this is such a distraction, a waste of time and certainly NOT amusing to me at ALL. So I take this bag with the fish in and take it over to the bin. “No No No!!”, the students all say together like I'm about to do something really bad. OK, so I don't put it in the bin. Instead I turn around and try to give it back to this guy, but he doesn't want it. Well, I've had enough of this, so I throw it on the floor. Ohhh, there is a reaction from some of them, and 'Leg Man' indicates that this was a bad thing to do pointing up at the heavens as he says so.
Fish on the Floor – a terrible sin? Or was it just the fact that I threw a present onto the floor and this is a great insult? Seems that way. But this was no present. It was a stupid idea and a childish game he wanted to play. What's going to be next? Live crab?? Wriggling octopus??
Well, in the end he DID take this out of the classroom. First he wanted to hang the bag on the door but I said no as I didn't want the room smelling of fish. SO he took it away.
For the rest of that day, there was that fish-in-bag out in the rest area all alone just left on a table. Poor neglected fish!
Now then, we come to the possible symbolism of such a gift. I have searched online on the mighty Google but have found nothing at ALL about any significance of fish gifts, dead or otherwise.
HOWEVER .... have any of you out there watched “The Godfather” trilogy set of movies? Well, I haven't, but apparently there is a scene in one of them where a dead fish is given. Its significance? Well, in the prime mafia country of Sicily, it is a warning of death. It seems to mean, as I have now been told, that one of your family will be found at the bottom of a river somewhere. Literally, “sleeping with the fishes”!!
When I mentioned this fish gift to an online friend, she straight away came back with The Godfather and what it meant there. And one of my teaching colleagues also said the same.
Now, touch wood, all my family are safe and well and not in any danger. This is Saudi Arabia, not Sicily. Strange country, yes, but I think if there was any no-good thing going on then they would have other ways of going about it. Although this monitor/supervisor does have his “connections” to higher parts of the upper military ranks, I don't think it extends THAT far. So I rest easy .... though if any of you know of any significance of such a gift in Islamic and/or Saudi and/or Arabic culture then please let me know.
Basically I think it was just plain WEIRD and the attention seeking behaviour that you might come to expect of a boy of HALF his age. That is all I think it is.
Hmmm – what else has happened this week? Well, it was the end of course Week Number Five! How many more to go? No no NOOOOOO, don't start THAT again! Nobody knows the answer to THAT! But now, with the Wednesday off every month and a rumoured week off for the military students next month, this cuts down the time and, I suppose, breaks the course into significant halves. Not just one 'splurge' of week after week after week. Both we and they need a break. Well, of course THEY will get a break while WE will have nothing to do and will sit twiddling our thumbs for that week back in the office.
Ah yes, that reminds me of something else. Two new teachers are due to arrive soon – one of them this weekend or early next week. Quite what they'll do or how long THEY will be sitting doing nothing is anybody's guess. But that is not the issue. The thing is WHERE are they going to sit. Currently the desk and chair I use AND the desk and chair used by the teacher I share the military classes with is regarded as Temporary. In other words, we are not the long-term occupiers of those places. Who WILL be then? The new guys? Could be.
If the new guys are to do their teaching in the main building, then they would have, I suppose, more “claim” to those desks. Yeah, GREAT! So where would I SIT then?? I need afternoons for preparation time and I need desk space to put books, computer, pens and myself on. My arrangement now is that I keep the books and files I use on my desk so that when I come ion, they are easily accessible and I can get on with organising the next day fairly efficiently and in minimal time. If I did NOT have that desk space, then I'd have to faff around every afternoon getting those files and books out again and the resulting time would be longer and less well organised. And I'd feel less comfortable in general.
There are these desks and desk space for us out in the offices in the military area, you see. Yes, they are very nice desks and it is a nice office to work in. But there are no teaching books, no photocopier, no kettle for tea and for SURE no computers for word processing or internet work. Which means that that office space is useless except for comfy-chair value. Therefore it is useless to put us there permanently.
I know the Head of Department is trying to get more office space elsewhere by moving some of the Registrar staff to other locations. Indeed, there is brand new office space for them under construction now. Really it is VERY nice. But we all know how things move here. SNAILS GET READY!!
No doubt we will have a nice “surprise” when we walk in to the office on Saturday afternoon. Ha!! And just when you thought all the surprises were gone!
Other than this, it has been a fairly standard week. Good days and bad days. Trying to move through the ridiculous book – on one hand, showing that we ARE using it, but on the other hand using it as little as possible since it IS so useless.
Next week is Test Number 2 for them. Again it will be very interesting to see how they manage. I have learnt from the previous one and will know better how to put it together. A task for this weekend. Won't take long. Similar format to the previous one – two 'papers' with the first one being a mix and the second being question formation and a writing exercise. THIS time I'll get a picture they can write about.
Ahh, I forgot last week's “outing” to the shopping mall of the week (the Mall Of Dhahran in Khobar, for those of you who are counting!). Standard stuff mostly but with a few observations. Shopping mall visits are good for these.
The first one concerns a poster which I saw and had to work out WHAT I was seeing. I've seen such posters before with pixellated out areas. Never been quite sure why and up until now I always thought it was part of the design of the thing. Until I saw the one I did last Thursday.
Was a picture containing three young men and boys. One crouched down, the other two standing up in the background. With the boy sitting down, he seemed to have something with him. Some kind of pixellated-out white or light brown thing next to him. What could it be? And what were the two similar white or light brown things pixellated out behind him with the other two young men??
Worked it out yet? When I DID work it out, I just HAD TO LAUGH. But at the same time, it is complete STUPID.
OK, the blurred out bits were three DOGS! Yes, DOGS!!
Why, you ask, would they censor out photos of dogs?? Ah well, dogs and cats are considered “unclean” and dirty animals. No Saudi family keeps a dog indoors. And, in this heat, this doesn't give the poor canines much option. I don't know if they keep them as guard dogs, but you would suppose not given this that I saw on the poster.
I mean, DOGS of all things!! Pigs, yes, I might understand as pork is forbidden here. And, remembering back to the censored bits on Saudi-edited films on the plane, there are other things too which are “haram” (forbidden). But I don't see the logic in sparing people's eyes from DOGS. Well, I'm not much of a dog-lover, but come ON! They're not THAT bad, are they?
What else did I see? Well in this shopping mall, I was there the first time. “How exciting!”, you say as you drop off your chair asleep. Well ha ha HAA – do you think it's FUN FOR ME? Of COURSE I'd like more to do here but hey – this is what it is!! Anyway, the styles of women's abbaya and hejab were much more varied here. Saw a more loose fitting kind of head scarf coupled with what I can describe as a 'face mask' across the mouth. And there were even SOME Arab women with no face covering at ALL! Possibly from Bahrain where it is more relaxed.
Getting a bit tired of just seeing women in this way. It must be so HOT and uncomfortable for them under these black abbaya and hejab combinations. Especially the Saudi one which is more tight fitting on and around the head.
But .... still enjoying the ice latte coffee ..... MMMMMM!!! :) :)
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