12/17/2007

Yay and I

Teaching university students in a transnational school is not stressful—or, in today’s language, not toxic but benign. A teacher can set her own pace for as long as the London-moderated syllabus is covered.

But it can be frustrating. That is, if you get diligent students and indolent ones all together in one room. When you excite one group, you are likely to bore the other. When you tackle a point, you can either over explain or under explain, depending on whose point of view.

Yay and I share the same frustration. We teach the same subject, Marketing, and by a stroke of luck, we’ve been saddled with the same mixture of students.

So what do we do? We take coffee and tea in a nearby café and try to iron our wrinkles brought on by our twin piques.

There’s nothing a lazy after-class hour cannot cure. This photo was taken midway down the frustration scale. The laugh lines would come another half hour later.

“I’ll drive you home,” Yay offered when it was time to go. And so we buckled up our now-happy-again original selves. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

On the main highway, however, a traffic policeman signaled us to stop. Uh-oh, what now?

“Aaaakh,” Yay, cried. My car is color coded!” (Meaning, it’s against the traffic law for her car to be on the highway that day!)

“Your driver’s license, Ma’am,” the policeman asked. He looked forbidding.

“Please, please, Sir, we’re very sorry. Please, please forgive us, we forgot all about color coding,” we pleaded in perfect harmony.

(This duet went on for, uh, approximately the length of one song on a CD.)

Finally, Yay reluctantly handed him her license. The policeman handed it back smugly and said, “Okay, I forgive you this first time. Go!”

Whew!

I couldn’t wait to tell Tony about our close shave that afternoon. “That policeman was such a kind soul. He let us go,” I said tearfully, sensitive as I am to any act of kindness.

Tony laughed out loud, “There is no color coding ordinance in Las Pinas!”

“Aaaakh,” I cried, feeling the frustration kick in all over again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh I miss you both! Please send her a big hug for me! :) It's nice to read your stories about SFC once in a while. I guess the student mixture will always be that way. Teehee! Good luck! Have fun! I'm looking forward to more stories from you :)

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, that SFC comment was from me, Kris Villaceran. I forgot to type my name. Hehehe! :p

Frederick Delubiar Raz said...

i so miss my college days.. You and Ms. Yay inspired me a lot.. thank you very much for being a good teacher and mentor.. Merry Christmas!!

Grace D. Chong said...

Hi, Kris!

It is always a joy to hear from you. I will see Ms. Yay today and will deliver your big hug. I also get to read all your notes to Gianina on her site. You seem to be enjoying motherhood, too. See you around soon.

Grace D. Chong said...

Hi, Fred!

Ms. Yay and I have been talking about you and your batch. We do miss you a lot, too. The feeling is mutual - you've inspired us in many, many ways. Will you drop by the school one day?