Sunday, July 02, 2006

Boyfriend advice

So far I've avoided talking about my work and the students I teach. Mostly it's because to me, work isn't the most interesting part of my week. I'd much rather talk about the fun things I've been doing. It's also partly because I don't want to get sued. This, however, was too good to leave out. Our students have 40 minute-long lessons with up to 4 students per class. If they want to have a man to man lesson, they can book all of the other seats in that lesson. At my school they tend to be low level students working on the principle that if they've paid four times the price of a regular lesson, they'll learn four times as much. It doesn't often work out that way.
The other week I had my usual lesson with this particular student, a lady in her early forties though she dresses as though she's in her early twenties. We started chatting, and I mentioned I'd gone to Inuyama to see my boyfriend.
"Oh! You have a boyfriend! Eeeh!" and delighted, she firmly shoved her textbook to one side. "Where from?" She launched into a barrage of questions, how old is he, where did you meet, what does he do, which actor does he look like, and so on; she put her point across in a mixture of English and mime and asked the sort of personal questions that would make Jerry Springer squirm.
"You, no work. Get married. Have children. You are young, young is best for children." Oh right, no bother. I nodded and smiled politely, thinking she wouldn't like it if I told her to stop stickybeaking and open her book. "What is he buy birthday?" I told her I got flowers. "And?" And he was halfway around the world at the time, and we'd only just started going out, but she didn't understand. "Pah. Only flowers," she scowled. "Christmas?"
"Books and CDs."
"Books?" She looked horrified. I thought she was going to tell me to dump him.
"I like books." I said, getting irritated.
"Humph. Books. No ring?"
"Why would I get a ring?"
"Pair ring." What? "You - " she struggled for the words and eventually settled on a beautifully executed mime of dragging poor boyfriend to a shop, pointing out the ring and wanted and shoving him at the till. "Nice ring. Brand ring, maybe Tiffany."
"What about you?" I wanted to talk about something else. "Are you married?"
"Eeeh! Secret. No no no no no," and with that the bell rang and I scarpered before she could give me any more life advice.

1 comment:

niche said...

you're not getting a sodding ring so stop hinting:)