I am a words of affirmation person. Sometimes pathetically so. My pathetic example that I pull out to illustrate my patheticism is that when I cooked in Bible School I didn't know whether my meal was good or not unless someone said, "Mmm, good (whatever I cooked)!" It didn't matter that I had the same thing in my mouth, and could taste for myself whether it was good or not. Someone else had to tell me for it to be true.
That being said, I've had some severe non-aff words hurled at me recently. But somehow I remained unscathed. Why? They were words of aff in disguise. And I loved them!
The first instance of this was in a Christmas card, from a girl I've TOTALLY bonded with this year. It read, "Dear Miss Murray, Even though I hate your algebra, logic, and literature class, I decided to give you this anyway. I hope you have a WELL (underlined) Christmas." Hee hee hee! I laughed so much and read it to all and sundry. I usually don't approve of negative joking, but somehow this one just captured my heart:)
The second instance came today in Lit class. One of my students was trying to stump me by giving me initials of famous authors and making me guess them. The first was EAP. I was stumped. One of my other students came up with it: Edgar Allen Poe! Then he asked CD, LB (with the clue that the first letter isn't a name) and RB. I came up with Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, and Robert Browning. (Don't be impressed - I'd just taught all of those authors to him so they were fresh in my mind.) "Aha! You'll never get this one!" he crowed. "JS!" As he was repeating "you'll never get this," I came out with John Steinbeck. And he retorted "I hate you." That saying has been the TABOO-ist thing in the WORLD all my life, but this time it was incredibly gratifying:) It came across as high praise. Of course, what he doesn't know is that he gave me a clue by saying I'd never get it. I knew it must be someone I didn't like, and there are very few of those that he knows about... So maybe the "I hate you" wasn't deserved. But I'll take it anyway.
And now, just like that, after a two-day week, it's the weekend! Hurrah! Basketball game tomorrow night...
3 comments:
You are a VERY sick woman and I recommend some serious help/intervention :-)
Happy Sabbath...
You know you have arrived and accomplished veteran teacher status when you can see "negative" things said about you as positives! One of my most delightful students recently told me I had made her mad because of a lie I told them in class (for a hortatory purpose, mind you, and only for part of class) and for giving them so much work. I take it that complaints about hard work mean I'm doing something right! So keep up the good work, inspiring all that hate! (And that student will complain one minute and then laugh at me and smile the next, so I'm not worried about much permanent resentment being cultivated towards me...)
: )
I love you
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