Phardon Me?

It was the mid seventies and my second, and last year at boarding school in the U.S.  I would be returning to Canada to finish high school.  In order to graduate in Ontario, one must have at least thirty eligible credits, whereas in the States (or at least in Florida), the requirement was six or eight credits less.

Determined to get all the required courses I could get in this second year, I signed up for geometry.  Unfortunately,  this conflicted with an elective class that I also wanted to take.  Alas, a sacrifice was made.

Geometry was my first class every day.  The teacher was new to the school and unknown to any of the students.  Upon entering the classroom  for the first time, everyone noticed that all the window blinds were closed and there was subdued lighting emanating from the overhead fluorescents, making the room somewhat darker than what we were used to.  Granted, the morning sun was a bit blinding at that time of day, but the north side shades were also closed.  We were all puzzled.

More puzzling was the teacher.  He was writing on the blackboard as the class entered.  His back was toward us.  When he finished writing and after everyone had taken their seats, he turned around.  Oh my god, I thought to myself.  They've hired Dracula!  Standing at the front of the room was a tall, dark-haired man, dressed in a black robe-like garment and wearing sunglasses.

Yes, sunglasses.

None of us knew what to make of him.  He appeared very strange and ominous.  My first thought was that he wanted to intimidate the class with his appearance.  He certainly did achieve that effect.  That was until he spoke.  We were all expecting a deep, foreboding voice to accompany this somewhat daunting figure standing before us.  Instead, he sounded like my stepfather (a.k.a. Satan ) when Satan rambled nonsense to himself in a somewhat high nasal voice.  It took all I had not to bust out laughing. Some other students also chuckled.

After introducing himself , he told us that he was from the Philippines, and that the bright morning light and the chalk dust, to which he was allergic, would irritate his eyes.  Thus, the shades of both types were explained.  I assumed the black robe was to protect his clothing underneath from collecting chalk dust.

He also had a slight speech impediment wherein, for example, he would say "phlease" instead of "please".

It was my third week in geometry.  I was struggling not so much with the lessons, but with the voice of the teacher and the fact that he was becoming more phonetically challenged as the days progressed.  It was somewhat hard to ignore, but I stuck it out.

Then one fateful day in that third week, he dissected the triangle, complete with diagrams and explaining all the angles, sines, cosines and tangents.

I immediately knew that I would not be earning this math credit when he pointed to the blackboard and uttered the words, "Can anyone name this 'phart' of the triangle."

Bodies fell to the floor erupting in laughter, with me being the first.  I happily dropped geometry for drama.
  

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This Theme Thursday's prompt is:  Triangle

The Dot Club

It was in Grade 1 of elementary school when I became a member of the "Dot Club".

There were about six or eight of us - I can't really remember - that were set apart from the rest of the class.  At the time, I had no concept of what a 'browner' was or what 'remedial' meant, all I knew is that we were given different tasks and studies than those given to the remaining students in the class.  A few years later I would learn the meanings of 'browner' and 'remedial' and that I was one of the former.

Our group would become decidedly mischievous since we were left to do our own work without much supervision from the teacher.  This is not to say the rest of the class was of the remedial type and needed special attention, but that the teacher trusted us enough to work on our own.

Too trusting, indeed.

Our desks were situated in the back corner of the classroom.  We would talk quietly amongst ourselves and help each other with assignments.  When this got boring, which was more often than not, we would scribble on the desks, make up stupid words, fling tiny bits of paper across the room when teacher wasn't looking, or tried to hit one of the other kids in the back of the head with the tiny paper projectiles, and other silly stuff.  We were too young to know about spitballs then.

Then there was Steven.  Steven sat next to me all the time.  He was generally shy and I would have to goad him into having a bit of fun.  During the bore sessions, I would occasionally poke him with the eraser end of my pencil and, in kind, he would poke me back.  One day I caught him off-guard and jabbed him in the ribs which made him jump up and disrupt the rest of the class.  The teacher looked at him scornfully.  He apologized and sat back down.  In retribution, he jabbed me back.  Hard.  With the newly sharpened end of his pencil.  In the left cheek.  Of my ass.

Needless to say, we were both ejected from the classroom, but we laughed all the way to the Principal's office.

The graphite "dot" from the jabbing remains visible to this day.

Yeeeowch!

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Visit Magpie Tales for more of this week's prompt.