Student Mischief

I am taking a break from attempting to write my Europe blogs and have compiled a few student stories.

This is due to the fact that a student stuck his finger in my mouth today. I believe that he was either attempting to poke me in the cheek or was seeing how long it would take for me to notice that his finger was hovering near my face, but when I turned my head, his finger went directly into my mouth. I immediately said, "Your finger just went IN MY MOUTH!" Bleck. But he didn't seem to understand why it was a problem.

Yes, I did laugh a little bit.

I will number the stories for a clear separation. Some of these I posted on facebook, others I am just compiling now.

1. A couple months ago, one of my third graders had a snack. They were these cracker sticks and they had a (extremely) spicy powder to put on them, which was similar to a ramen packet. My student, who was quite small and adorable and difficult to get angry with, said, "Teacher, smell this!" and put it in my face. The packet exploded and went straight into my eyeballs.

I don't know how many of you have had spicy ramen powder in your eyeballs, but I can tell you that you do not know true pain until it has happened to you. I clapped my hands over my eyes. The following conversation ensued:

Student: "Teacher! You're crying!"
Me: I am not! AHHHH
Student: You are! There's water coming from your eyes!
Me: OWWWWW
*Runs to bathroom. Most female students follow*
Students: Can you see!? Are you ok?
Me: OWWWWWWWW

I banned that snack from my class after that. They're also not allowed to have ramen, so it fit into the same category.

2. I also had to ban the song, "What Does the Fox Say?" because I heard it at least 15 times a day. I also banned any words said to the tune of "What does the Fox Say?"

3. The other day, I closed the door after break time. My students were about to take a test. One of my students was looking at me, with an incredibly concerned look on his face. I asked him what was wrong.

He said, and I quote, "Teacher, I really need to fart."

I sent him to the bathroom immediately. Mostly because I know that he farted in humongous proportions in another teachers class. And in my class a few days earlier. As the other teacher described, "It went on for several seconds, ending on a final high note" which made me maturely laugh out loud.

I also had to teach the word "flatulence," which I tried and failed to teach without laughing as hard as my students. I'm so mature.

4. This same student asked me a question the other day, but unfortunately timed it just as I shushed the computer for making an annoying sound. So the conversation went like this:

Student: Teacher?
Me: SHUSHHHHHH
*long pause*
Me: I'm sorry. That shush was not for you.

Luckily, the student thought it was quite funny, as did another girl in the class.

5. The other day, our topic for the day was chimeras. One of the listening passages talked about Chinese researchers tried to make a human-cow chimera. One of my students asked, "Would it look like a human but only be able to 'moo?'" After he asked it, I imagined a person who would only be able to moo. I said "Moo" and then started laughing hysterically. The student who asked the question also laughed hysterically. None of the students heard his question, so all they saw was me say "moo" and then erupt in laughter for no reason. They laughed at my laughing. I'm sure they thought I was crazy until I explained the situation.

6. At the moment, I am teaching students "For Whom the Bell Tolls," which, by the way, is horrible. It is horrible for several reasons, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have to teach it to students who are learning English as their second language and the language is rather difficult for them.

And I hate Ernest Hemingway.

There is a hotel in the book called Hotel Gaylord. I can tell you I did not expect the comment, "Why is it called Hotel Gaylord?"

Gaylord is a strange name.

Also, I hate Ernest Hemingway.

I love reading and read constantly, but good heavens that book is boring. Luckily, we will be reading "The Book Thief" soon, which I love and we can actually enjoy together.

7. While teaching essay writing:

Me: Where do you explain your thesis? In the introduction or body paragraphs? 

Student: Librarian
*all students laugh
Me: librarian?
Student: yes librarian.
Me: someone who works in a library?
Student: yes...
Me: I think you misunderstood my question.

8. I had a student misspell "poor" as "poop" several times throughout an essay.

 Here is an excerpt, grammar mistakes not edited:
"You can help poop people by giving them relieves. If you do that, poop people will be able to survive from disease or hunger. This makes both you and poop people to become happy."

Also, a student wrote, "BOOB!" instead of "BOOM!" on a poster. 

Also, I accidentally mixed the words "Bell" and "food" together when discussing Pavlov's Theory and said, "When they ring the boob..." One of my girl students noticed and was dying of laughter.

9. I have a specific student at the moment who constantly whines and is a bit of a tattletale. And by a bit, he tattles his tales approximately 400 times a day. He's been in my class now three terms in a row. I have many stories I could tell. This is one:

He made dramatic noises leaning down to pick something up. I then saw him drop his eraser on the floor from a height of about an inch just so he could pick it up while he was sighing dramatically. Aka he was fake dropping his eraser.

When asked about fake dropping his eraser, he looked surprised but fully admitted it.

I won't go into detail about other things he has done, but I can just tell you this: It is WAY more disruptive to have a student yell, "Be quiet!" to another student than the other student ever was when they were talking a bit. Also, I have found myself saying a few times (a minute), "I am the teacher. I will handle the discipline." Or something similar.  

10. Student talking to me: Ok baby mama!
Me: I don't think you understand what that means.

11. I taught a World History class for 6 months, which was a lot of fun. We did a term-long competition where they could bring in something about the days' topic to help everyone get interested in the topic, ranging from videos, articles, writing a play, pictures, books etc. Sometimes the videos they bring are boring (a video about rocks which was narrated by someone who seemed to be 200 years old), sometimes funny and informative (look up the Crash Course in History channel on you tube), or just funny (Horrible Histories clips). One time the student didn't watch the video and it zoomed in on a specific part of Michelangelo's David statue and the student was mortified.

On bubonic plague day, one of my students brought this gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZy6XilXDZQ

A song about the Bubonic plague to the tune of Hollaback Girl... Watch it to the point they start spelling. (This plague is Bubonic. B-U-B-O-N-I-C)

12. My students discovered I had Snapchat and wanted to see what effects there were. This was the result:

I am quite sure that there have been many other funny stories, but I am out for the moment. I will post more as I remember them!

In which I finally return to Vienna

Our first day in Vienna, we arrived to our hostel just a little bit later than planned. I planned to meet Yu-ra, an old classmate from my German classes at 3. We arrived at the hostel at 2:30, which ended up being a little further away than I thought.

I ended up needing to practically sprint to the Starbucks where we were meeting. Well, we sprinted in the wrong direction by accident, then made it to the Starbucks. Yu-ra wasn't there. We texted a bit and eventually managed to realize that we were are 2 different Starbucks on the same street. I went to the one that was right next to my old apartment and she went to the one just up the street. We eventually figured it out, but weren't able to meet for very long. We met up the following weekend, so it worked out anyway. I was extremely proud of myself for having the entire conversation in German without any English, despite not having spoken in German for 4 years, apart from emails. The next week I had a 3 hour conversation!

Here are the Raders! Aka the family name.

We then headed to meet Liviu and Alina. We were supposed to meet by Stephansplatz, but I accidentally went to Swedenplatz, which was close by, but not the right place. Unfortunately, we missed each other that day, but we were able to meet the next day. I was a bit disappointed.



Adrienne and I got lunch/dinner afterwards. We got schnitzel, because I wanted to show her one of my favorite places. She kind of ruined schnitzel for me when she referred to it as a giant chicken nugget. At least she enjoyed it.

After eating, I showed her to all of my old haunts. We walked around the area I lived and looked at my favorite buildings.

We started here, which was near Stephansdom.

I also showed her my old school area, which was apparently not in the same spot because I couldn't find it. I also showed her my old apartment.

This was near Stephansplatz.

Stephansdom! It was just as enormous as I remembered!

Here's one of the shopping areas.

This was just on the side of a building. It was quite beautiful.

We walked by the Opera House!

Here's Adrienne and the Opera House.

Here I am with the Opera house.

Here wee are on the other side of the Opera House.

We looked at some pretty flowers.

Saw this...interesting sign for the International Dance Festival.

This building had a mustache the last time I was in Vienna.

Here I am with the formerly mustached building.

This was a bit of play on words.

We continued wandering around the various neighborhoods.

Here is Adrienne and David Bowie, her husband.

We walked by the Museums Quarter, which house the twin museum buildings-the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Art History.

We continued along, walking by Hofberg Palace, which is just as grand as it was before.

We then headed to my favorite place, the Hofberg Rose Garden. I checked to see if there were ducks in the pond, which I spent much of my time looking at 4 years ago. My ducklings. There were some the next time we walked by. But not this time.

This was new. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it was cool looking. It might not be new, but it was definitely under construction or something in 2009.

Here's the Rose Garden! I spent a lot of time here people watching, reading and hanging out. I love it!

It was just as rosey as before.

The side of the Burgtheater

The top of the Rathaus, aka the City Hall.

The Museums quarter.

Here we are!

Here we are in the other direction!

This is the Parliament building which we wandered about.

There is a horse.

Here is Adrienne with a statue and some birds.

There's a tiny baby and a fish spewing water.

You can vaguely see the mosaics here, which are very cool.

Adrienne vomiting along with a dragon.

Adrienne vomiting from afar.

Here i am posing along with a very serious man.

Looking casual with Vienna in the distance.

Adrienne relaxing again Dr. Renner

We continued walking and wen by the Burgtheater.

We continued by Minoretinkirche, which was my favorite church. Well, it's still my favorite church in Vienna.

We went inside on another day.

Just posing like an angel.

One of my favorite parts of this church is the fact that you can see the different layers of the church. It was built at several different times and you can see the different ages.

We continued wandering through the streets.

We ended up getting sucked into an Opera performance. It was cheap because we got student tickets. (Yes, since I am afraid of breaking the rules, I told them I was not a student. But, they gave me the student price anyway. Thank heavens.)

It was in the Hofberg palace. Adrienne was not excited about it because she "hates classical music and opera" but went because I wanted to go. She ended up enjoying it a lot.

It was actually several performances of various Strauss and Mozart operas and orchestra pieces. The opera singers were very talented, although a bit dramatic in their hand gestures. At one point, there was a man singing to a girl from the doorway. Adrienne, who was on the edge of the row, started giggling madly. I asked why she was giggling.

Apparently, due to the angle, she was only able to see his nose. So it was just a nose singing to the girl.

Adrienne and her crazy eyes.

Here are the performers.

The conductor looked a bit like Ed Bagley Jr. in a bad wig.

The man in the top hat was the one with the nose.

This woman had the crazy eyes when she was singing. The same crazy eyes Allison gets when she sees a mosquito.

This woman opened her mouth in amazingly wide proportions.

I definitely notice the important things.

I also noticed that she had a very beautiful and powerful voice, but seemed to be give no effort, which was really amazing.

This man was causing a ruckus throughout the performance. Among other things, he could blow a hose or bird whistle, looking quite cheerful about it. Clearly not a completely serious performance, but it was lots of fun!

At one point, he brought out a fake playboy and pretended to show it to some of the musicians, but when he turned it around it was a picture of a cute puppy. He also smashed the conductors wand.

The finale!

We took a few night pictures of the palace and Stephansdom.

We headed back to the hostel. I intended to go to sleep immediately, until I noticed that my feet were a solid shade of dark black and I needed to shower. Luckily that night, we had the bathroom to ourselves that night since there weren't any people in the other room of the apartment. The hostel was actually an apartment building. It was fine for this time, but we had a weird experience after returning from Salzburg.

The next day, we met up with Liviu and Alina, which I will write about in the next blog.