Update on Mrs Hyde...

So... I'm still angry about my students' behaviour, but it's a cold anger now. The Vesuvius has mutated.

Today was interesting.

As I informed today's batch of students that discipline wasn't "just" a word in the dictionary and that everything in my own rules (they got a copy of them at the start of the semester) would be enforced, a few of them looked profoundly lost (one still hasn't understood what's going on - yes, people, it's that bad).

One pointed out that she didn't want to imagine what the others had done to annoy me so much, and another one told me that in years, he'd never seen me be that angry and the situation was quite a surprise. 

Ah!

Apparently, they're more used to my quiet, kind and peaceful side, but a dose of Mrs Hyde can't hurt them (not the good, obedient ones, at least. The others.......... *cough*).

Giving an Inch?

Well, I'm done giving an inch, because of a "last straw" situation that exploded today because of people who keep taking a mile, or ten.

Oh, I'd love being like H.H. the Dalai Lama, but I'm not. Obviously.

Yes, I like it when everything's smooth and I don't have to bark at people, but things have been nutty and barmy these past few weeks, and I'm too exhausted to keep trying being nice.

The main pains in the... neck are a handful of students.

Most of them are nice. A few are delightful. A few have been raised by rabid gremlins with no social graces whatsoever.

Just today, I caught two students playing ping-pong texts right in front of me. When I asked the culprits what was so important (the rest of the class could see how furious I was - coz I was), the most annoying of the two answered that they had to share important things (Riiiight. Tiny lil' problem: mobiles are forbidden in my classroom, and they know it - well, to be honest, they should know it, but I'm not convinced that their brains are all there, so... you know). Important things? *snort* Whatever.

When I added that I'm not blind, the same culprit was all surprised. [Note to all students: most teachers may be older than you, but that doesn't mean that they're senile. Or blind. Or stupid. Or gullible. Thank you.]

It made them laugh that I scolded them. Lovely.

Oh, and earlier, they'd branded me a Scrooge because I refused to lend a piece of equipment (that I would need in the next five minutes) to a student I'd never seen before, and who was in Merlin knows which classroom. The visiting student was less annoying than mine, who refused to understand that my "No!" was final.

I could say that I'd like a word with their parents, but perhaps the poor parents aren't guilty and aren't to blame for the behaviour of their offspring.

Of course, I'm dealing with (so-called) young adults, but they can't be bothered to respect that I'm the one in charge.

Now, I'm just one teacher attempting to give them lessons in something that they view as minor, boring, and uninteresting.

I blame their head teachers, who see them once in a blue moon (and thus leave them all alone to their own devices), who tell them to treat them like friends (Probably because they want to pretend to be cool and so close to their young-ish students... Bloody hell! Since when did I give the students permission to be so buddy-buddy with me? Oh, wait! That would be never!), and who keep telling them that my class is useless.

I'm boiling.

Usually, I find quiet again once I get home, but not this time - hence the "last straw" situation.

I feel a Vesuvius coming up, and it won't be pretty.

I've tried explaining things nicely. I've been patient...

... I've had enough.

In years of teaching (not saying how many, but I didn't start two years ago), this is the first time that students manage to anger me this much - and that I keep being angry outside of my classroom!

The poor lil' bunnies are going to be all surprised, but life's freeking too short, and I'm not going to let them drive me nuts (I've got colleagues for that).

Time to get the rolling pin out and crack the whip - but I bloody shouldn't have to do that!

To paraphrase the great Dr Leonard H. McCoy: I'm a teacher, not a copper. And I'm not their mother.

[Recipe] De Lanor Pie

If this looks like something you know (because you're Italian or from the south of France), you probably know it.

Someone (who deserves to fade into oblivion) gave me the recipe, and I added a few things, making it my own. And so, this is a de Lanor pie. 

You'll need:

* 2 (big, but not giant) courgettes

* 1 big leek

* 5 small-ish potatoes

* 1 onion

* 200gr pâte brisée (or shortcrust pastry)

* oil

* salt

* freshly ground pepper

* Cayenne pepper

* Worcestershire sauce

These proportions are for my (23x23cm) square glazed clay dish. You might have to adapt a few things.

1 - Peel the potatoes, cut them into small cubes, put them into a pot with water on the stove and when they boil, add some salt. Softly boil until cooked, but make sure they're not too soft. Don't drain them just yet.

2 - Cut and slice the onion. Add to a pan, pour some oil (just a little bit) and sauté the onion on medium-high heat.

3 - Cut the leek in two (use as much green as possible) and slice it as thinly as possible. Add to the pan and stir.

4 - Cut the courgettes lengthwise in four or six without peeling them, and slice them as thinly as possible. Add them to the pan and stir. Add salt, pepper, Cayenne pepper and Worcestershire sauce to taste. When the courgettes are soft, drain the potatoes, add them to the pan and stir for a couple of minutes.

5 - Cover the clay dish with a thin layer of pâte brisée. Add the vegetables (be careful: if the courgettes give out too much water during cooking, get rid of the liquid with a spoon before adding the vegetables onto the dough).

6 - Roll out the remaining pâte brisée to the same thickness and cut it to fit as lid on the pie. You'll have extra bits of dough; use that to decorate the lid. Use a fork to make small holes (and a few pretty patterns, as well).

7 - Put the dish in the oven (mine goes from 1 to 10, and I set it to 7 for this).
In 20 to 30 minutes, when you get a nice golden crust, your pie is ready.

Bon appétit !

[Recipe] De Lanor Pasta Sauce #3

Here's another recipe. It makes enough sauce for three servings  - but I don't like my pasta drowned in sauce (freezes well).

You'll need:

* 3 big tomatoes

* 2 small sweet peppers (different colours are fun on a plate; you could even use green, red, yellow and orange sweet peppers and freeze the sweet peppers you won't use, or use more tomatoes and make more sauce)

* 2 small, very fresh peppers (one hot red, the other green - for fun)

* salt

1 - Dice the tomatoes and put them into a pan over medium-high heat.

2 - Cut and deseed the sweet peppers. Thinly dice them, and add them into the pan. Stir regularly.

3 - Cut and deseed the peppers (friendly note: even after washing your hands thoroughly, you'll have the "pepper fire" on your fingers - do not lick your fingers or touch your eyes). Thinly dice them, and add them into the pan. Stir regularly and add some salt.

When the tomatoes have mostly melted, your sauce is ready:

A Form of Quick Curry

Awful mediaeval pun? Check.

 When I say quick, I mean quick, but then again, I admit that I use Japanese curry cubes (Viva Chinatown!).

You'll need:
* 800gr cooked potatoes
* 1 big onion
* 250 gr chicken breast
* oil
* 120gr curry cubes. I use this:

* water

1 - Cut the chicken into cubes. Cut the onion in two and slice it. Cut the potatoes in four or six.

2 - Put some oil in a pan, and lightly brown the onion. Add the chicken and cook it thoroughly. Add the potatoes when that's done.

3 - Cover the mix with water and add the curry cubes. Stir constantly, and add water if needed. When the curry's fully melted, dinner's ready:

[Recipe] De Lanor Pasta Sauce #1 (and #2)

I've decided to share a few sauce recipes with you... ;)

I turned this into pasta sauce, but it was initially supposed to be a dish on its own.

It works extremely well as a sauce.

Pasta sauce #1:

You'll need:

* 3 turkey (or chicken) breasts

* 150gr small smoked bacon dice

* 50 cl crème fraiche

* 1 small yellow onion

* 20gr green peppers in vinegar

* some oil

1 - Cut the breasts in long, thin slices. Cut the onion in two and slice it as thinly as possible.

2 - In a pan, pour some oil and fry the onion a bit, then add the turkey. When the turkey's fried nicely, add the bacon until it's crisp. Add the cream, and then the drained peppers. The sauce is ready in about two minutes.

Make some pasta, and... Enjoy!

Pasta sauce #2:

Do exactly the same, but cut the turkey into small cubes and do not add green pepper.

Am I a Dinosaur or a Mutant?

Odd question, isn't it (though by now you know how I blog)?

This is because of my checking my students' assignments for this semester. I asked them to do something short (one A4 page, MLA rules - if possible, but at least spellchecked, and the text being justified) on an assigned topic. They had over two months to do that (yes, I did give them a <insert fake whimper here> deadline that was final).

And so, I'm checking everything now...

A few handed their assignments in early.

Most waited for the last minute, almost literally.

Amongst the assignments I got, most weren't spellchecked (because that's oh-so-hard??), and quite a lot weren't justified... Oh, and two weren't printed, but handwritten - and not on the assigned topic (yes, I'm going to read the riot act to the two culprits; that may not kick-start their three brain cells, but that'll make me feel better, because I'm fed up with them not listening to what I say).

They're not toddlers! I'm dealing with (so-called) young adults, but they're so mollycoddled where I work that they think they'll get away with everything (and some do by wearing my colleagues down).

I know that things change... I know. But hell, when I was given instructions by my teachers (and that wasn't back in the Middle Ages!), I did follow them, because they were a part of what I had to do in order to pass an exam.

Hence my question: am I a dinosaur or a mutant? Am I amongst the last people to pay attention and follow instructions or is there just something wrong with my DNA? All right, being borderline OCD probably comes into the frame somewhere, but not that much (and my own mates followed instructions, too, so...).

I'm not a brainless drone who obeys orders blindly, but I do follow reasonable guidelines, indeed, and I do wonder why it's so hard for my ESL students to listen to me.

Then again, their other teachers keep telling them that languages are useless (the first to have the guts to say so to my face will lose a kneecap), and a few of them come to class just to sign the attendance sheet (I've caught a few with no paper and no pen whatsoever - they're just physically present, but they're certainly daydreaming right in front of me).

I know that being a teacher means that you've got to be a good parrot repeating things over and over again, but this phenomenon has reached ridiculous proportions with my current students.

Even though I keep telling them that most employers, outside, in the real world, would flay them if they behaved that way at work, they don't seem to believe me - or care... Then again, if they end up working for people like my disparaging colleagues, perhaps they will find jobs (at least until they meet a "dinosaur" client who will stop doing business with them after just one glitch).

I love my students, and I really wish they'd pay attention. I don't know everything, but I've got darn good tips about the jungle usually called "world of work".

If they're the new species, this lil' dinosaur is happy to be the way she is... What kind of future will they have?

Oh, wait! I'm probably somehow an "ant" to their being "cicadas" (the La Fontaine way, I mean). It's going to be tough to show them that their careless bohemian ways could be damaging, and that they could still have fun and plan for the future, but this stubborn little ant shall try.

One pre-"winter" riot act reading coming up...

Even Valentino Didn't Make Me Stop (May Contain References to 'The Sheik')

Yes. Yes, I'm talking about Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, the man more commonly known as Rudolph Valentino.

Out of curiosity, I decided to watch The Sheik, because I haven't seen many long feature silent films and because I'd never seen anything with Valentino.

I'll admit that I picked The Sheik because I knew the title, and it was the first I located on the Internet.

So, I watched it.

I'd forgotten how much silent movie actors and actresses would have been awesome if they'd been cast as Vulcan characters: there's a whole "eyebrow moves" code there!

My nan liked silent movies, and I remember watching quite a few (shortish ones) with her when I was a little girl. Most of the ones I did watch then were five to twenty minutes long and they were comedies.

The Sheik is somewhat dated: it's full of cultural stereotypes about the Arab culture and tribes, and it's quite sexist, but there are good bits.

The central love story works (it's even somehow disturbing to see that the secretly gentlemanly "savage" being taught how to be a good man by a "civilised" lady has been recycled since then: Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) or even, up to a point The Mummy (1999); it still works in the minds of producers who have writers re-inventing the cliché).

And I can see why Valentino had so much success. He's graceful (the dancer shows through the sheik character) and he's far from being bad looking (understatement of the week).

For such an old film, it's rather good, and I'm glad I watched it.

Now... one of my jobs is to read scripts. Today, I cannot watch a film (or a series) without finding plot holes and continuity goofs (Mother has even taken to ask me to kindly shut up and stop over-analysing plots whilst we watch things together, but then again, I tend to yell 'Procedure!' at the screen when CSIs or police officers touch things without gloves and move things before taking a picture of the scene - it's just telly... I know). And so, as I was watching The Sheik, I did spot a continuity goof, and I sighed and thought 'it's a habit that comes from the job'.

It's become such a second nature that I feel like a sniffer dog with a talent for spotting plot holes and goofs. It's odd, but I got used to it - if not Mother.

On the Lack of Canon Slash

*points at prior post*

*whimpers*

*curls into foetal position*

T'was too good to be true, and the slash twist got twisted:

Spoiler (highlight the next line):

It got the Pam Ewing treatment: Bénédicte (José's wife) was having a massive nightmare.

By the way, that was a cheap trick... but still probably tongue in cheek, and... last week's episode was shot, so I'll keep drooling on that. 

I've seen many people call last Sunday's episode the "UFO" episode, but I loved it.

Well, the trick worked because I'll keep watching the series, but it would have been so nice to have canon slash in a big SitCom. *sigh*

It wasn't about a character dating a Martian. It was about two (male) friends falling in love, and I needed a dose of slash, and those two were too darn cute.

Well, I'll write my own canon slash.

So there!