January
2007
In which Julia goes to the theater
Remember my apprentice, Julia? She stopped being my apprentice for a while now, but we stayed good friends and continued to meet often. She teaches Timi Romanian for free to thank for her apprenticeship and until recently I didn’t had any means of thanking the thanking.
It happens that for her diploma she needs 7-8 horrifyingly long and ugly psychology articles translated, and it also happens that she’s overwhelmed by their difficulty. So she came to me for help, and me knowing (ahem) some English, and being accustomed to horrendous terms like “ANOVA”, “expressive suppression” and “gender-based bias” and their respective counterparts in Romanian, was glad to accept, no money involved of course.
So in the last week, instead of blogging, working on the SUPER-SECRET project I can’t tell you anything about (yet), snugging with the husband, playing with Timi or making some meals that involved more than defreezing the meat and the veggies and throwing them in the oven, we spent every common spare minute of our time on those bloody messes. We translated at work, translated in silence so deep her cell’s ringing scared the living soul out of us, translated with Timi running around screaming her cover of Jingle Bells as loud as she could, translated at 11:30 pm and at 10 pm. We translated on workdays and translated in weekends. And we still have two thirds of the abominations to go.
When we’re too tired, we interrupt for a quick round of chitchat, completed with lots of exasperation sighs and giggles. After all, she’s a primary teacher to a class of gypsy 4th graders. I’m a clinical psychologist in a huge Romanian county hospital. We always have new stories to tell, and most of them are either very saddening or very funny.
So today she told me how they went to the puppet show. She started teaching those kids in September last year, and when she met them, they were the problem class of the school - noisy, obnoxious and aggressive. The other teachers also didn’t had a problem with that, since they fitted the stereotypical profile of the gypsy kid in the Romanian subconscious. But Julia didn’t believe they weren’t able to change and she’s no gypsy hater. So by being firm, setting clear boundaries and rules and reinforcing them and arm-wrestling into submission the most aggressive kid in the bunch (and earning the class’s unconditional admiration by doing so), she has now one of the most disciplined and assertive classes in that school. Not to mention that the kids love her (just like I predicted they will, back in September 
).
…anyway, back to the puppet show. Her kids were briefed into what to expect and how to behave, went to the bathroom and ate their lunches before going, so they wouldn’t feel hungry or need to pee, and watched the show like a flock of content little angels. The other 4th graders were wrecking havoc in the meantime - running between the seats, throwing snacks at each other and generally not paying much attention to what was happening on the stage.
So J got angry for the fact that her kids couldn’t enjoy the show, even though they wanted to . And since the other teachers couldn’t care less, she switched to medieval mode and went straight to the two most obnoxious kids from the theater, engaged in a food fight.
Kid 1:
J: What do you think you’re doing?
Kid1: Ummm … eating my sandwich?
J: Does this look to you like a cafeteria?
Kid1: … No?
J:Then start paying less attention to the sandwich and more to the show, okay?
Kid 2:
(reaches down, sits back, reaches down, sits back, all while wearing a large smirk on his face)
J:Feeling smart today, hmm?
Kid2: Huh?
J:About the food.You have.On the floor.That you think I didn’t notice.
Kid2:Err ..sorry. I didn’t mean to.
J: You didn’t mean to reach down repeatedly to take another bite? Kid.Please.
Kid2: Uh-oh…
So after the rest of the teachers half-assedly take example and silence their kids, a little hand raises and two large teary eyes look into Julia’s. It’s a kid from another class, that was seated near the two troublemakers.
J:Yes, little one?
Kid3 (almost crying): Miss … can I please have one sip of water?
She had to bite her lip not to burst into laughter, before allowing the kid to drink. In the end, what matters is that those who were more into watching the puppets instead of getting chips entangled in their hair finally had a ball. A fair deal, if you ask me.