stds could build up mind-maps

The other day I missed Heath Ledger so I decided to celebrate Australia’s fête nationale, which marks not the independence but rather the colonization of Australia...my kind of party. On my way home the denizens of the poor immigrant neighborhood of Noailles (I prefer to think of it as “vivant”) started pointing at me in glee, the way we usually objectify and aestheticize them, and I was like yeah yeah I know franchement je suis ravissante but then I remembered I had Australian flag tattoos plastered on my face.

The next day, hungover and overcome with nausea, I skipped my private lesson, which considering my stated state should garner near-catholic sympathy; I duly protested when John questioned my work ethic. I'm really out of ideas for lesson plans. The ESL website I most frequent abbreviates "students" as "stds"...why?? The truth is the only thing I can stand to do with my students is teach them bad words, so they think I'm cool, or make them write and perform skits in which the sexual dynamics of the class will inevitably play out. For example, even after a casting announcement on the board titled RECHERCHE: BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, with fields for NAME, HEIGHT, POUNDS, SEXY OR NO?, and PRETE A AVOIR DES ENFANTS?, Yannick and Medy were forced to modify their script about UFOs:

Humain: Why you come in Earth?
Alien: For meet beautiful girls and make babies and some films.
Humain: OK, but only if I come too!!!
[...]
Humain: I am sorry, there are no beautiful girls. You want candys?

Meanwhile Manon, to help put that je ne sais quoi back in our relationship, has been leaving me little notes on my desk:




The messages warrant re-writing, literally, as they are not quite à la lettre:

“Nettoyer le bol de MANON! Ce n’est pas un cendrier”
“Faire la vaiselle [sic], tu n’est [sic] pas toute seule!”

I washed the stupid bowl, and am debating whether, risking sounding like an old gramaphonemanon, to re-post the notes with corrections and/or point out that the second note is doubly redundant: she's already told me to do the dishes, and evidently I don't live alone; see, the leaving of notes in and of itself establishes that. For revenge I ate one of her precious manondarines...when I peeled it the flesh was flecked with red striations, a veritable mandarine sanguine, which if not for my sanguine disposition might have struck me as ominous.