Probably the strangest exchange I've heard on the metro, between Farragut West and Foggy Bottom:
Dorky-looking guy "That's a nice crucifux"
Grizzled guy "Uh thanks."
DlG "What does it mean to you?"
GG "What?"
DlG "What does the crucifix mean to you?"
GG "It's just my chain, man, you know what I mean?"
DlG "Ah."
GG "Just my chain."
silence
DlG "I once met a Satanist. He was a pedophile too."
GG "Shit got real?"
DlG "I couldn't kill him and I couldn't put him in jail."
GG muffled
silence
DlG "Here. This is for you." Pulls something out of his pocket. Looks like a medallion of some sort.
GG "Uh thanks."
DlG "You better ask me what it is before you leave or you're never going to find out."
silence
DlG "Well it's the medal of St B...."
At that point the the conductor announced the stop, and the brakes prevented me from hearing the rest. If it were a movie, I know it would have been a super important clue, and I really felt uneasy at not having heard the end. So if anyone happens to have come across the patron saint of creepy metro wierdos and pedophile bashing, let me know. I'm pretty sure it was a 'B' but I could be wrong.
Update:
In the little bit of research I have done about 'B' saints, I have found that Saint Benedict is the patron saint of all of the following (ripped from Wikipedia, of course):
-Against poison
-Against witchcraft
-Agricultural workers
-Cavers
-Civil engineers
-Coppersmiths
-Dying people
-Erysipelas
-Europe
-Farmers
-Fever
-Gall stones
-Heerdt (Germany)
-Inflammatory diseases
-Italian architects
-Kidney disease
-Monks
-Nettle rash
-Norcia (Italy)
-People in religious orders
-Schoolchildren
-Servants who have broken their master's belongings
-Speliologists
-Spelunkers
-Temptations
Pretty awesome dude. Also, there are two patron saints of beekeeping.
Update 2:
I posted a version of this conversation on Reddit, which informed me that it was likely the Medal of Saint Benedict!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Tutoring
Modified e-mail that I sent the inestimable Christopher Micheal Young, with some parts removed to protect me from Google.
I've been tutoring to make some money while I look for more permanent employment.
Anyway, sometimes you have to tutor kids for really weird stuff. A couple weeks ago I had to tutor a six-year Chinese boy for his kindergarten entrance exam to some top notch elementary school. I ask him if he has any pets, and he responds that he has a fish. I tell him how boring that is and ask if he wants a cooler pet, like a snake or a tiger. He says no, he is quite happy with his goldfish. So I ask him "If you could have any animal ever, like a dinosaur or a dragon or a unicorn, what animal would you have." His response: "Maybe a bigger fish." It's going to be a long session
Since this is his first time at [redacted] I decide to just give him a varied run of subjects to see if there is anything he might struggle with. I hunt down some interdisciplinary packet "My Neighborhood" that seems long enough that I could ignore him for a while. When I tell him that he'll even get to draw a picture for me, he literally scowls and says that he won't. A six-year-old not wanting to color? That's effed up. So of course he aces all of the grammar and destroys the math and reads 80 grades above his reading level, but then he comes to a part in a worksheet where he is asked to come up with four words to describe his neighborhood. He looks up at me kind of lost and says that he doesn't understand. I tell him to write down any words that describe his neighborhood at all and turn my attention to some poor kid whose mother thinks that a 790 verbal is a disgrace to the family.
I come back about ten minutes later, and the poor kid has obviously written about twenty different word in the first blank and erased them. When I try to make out what they were, he suspiciously shields his paper from my eyes and tells me that he "doesn't have the answer yet". I try to convince him that there isn't really an answer, and that I haven't ever seen his neighborhood so he could just lie to me if he is having trouble, but he very firmly tells me no, he's going to get it. When I come back in another ten minutes, he has finally written something. And in twenty minutes, the only word at all that he managed to come up with that describes his neighborhood is "trees." Instead of telling him that I was really looking for an adjective, I decide not to overheat his poor brain and tell him to draw me a picture of his neighborhood. He tells me that he doesn't know what it looks like. Hmmm. Maybe, I think, maybe he is better at verbal communication than written or visual, so I flat out order him to tell me about his neighborhood. He says "It's boring." I ask him to be more specific. He says "It's just boring." Frustrated that I can't inquire if he has ever even been outdoors in his entire goddamn life, I say "Look. I don't care about your neighborhood. Just draw me any neighborhood. The best neighborhood. Draw me the place that you would like to live," and turn away again.
I come back to a long, orange rectangle protruding from an otherwise barren green horizon. I ask him what that is. He responds that it is a house. I ask him what is special about it, since this is presumably the best place in the world to live, and he proudly proclaims that it is "made of food." I figured that was a start, so I didn't ask him to explain what food had such amazing structural integrity, and by the time he left he had added a second, identical-except-in-color house that was "made of video games."
When I met with my boss, and she asked how it went, I told her that he was probably pretty far ahead of his peers in terms of the standard benchmarks, but that his creativity is startlingly undeveloped. I theorized that he would probably excel for a while in school until he was challenged to have and express his own, original, creative thoughts, at which point there was a good chance that he would fall short. He also, I told my boss, has already developed quite an ego, that he might end up isolated from his classmates, especially if the parents decided to try to bump him up a few grades. My boss nodded silently at all of this, and after I had finished expressing my concerns only added "Typical Chinese boy" and left it that.
Also, I was mercilessly mocked by a couple of Asian women who thought it was absolutely hilarious that I could possibly think that a red belt is a higher rank than a blue belt in martial arts. It's not.
I've been tutoring to make some money while I look for more permanent employment.
Anyway, sometimes you have to tutor kids for really weird stuff. A couple weeks ago I had to tutor a six-year Chinese boy for his kindergarten entrance exam to some top notch elementary school. I ask him if he has any pets, and he responds that he has a fish. I tell him how boring that is and ask if he wants a cooler pet, like a snake or a tiger. He says no, he is quite happy with his goldfish. So I ask him "If you could have any animal ever, like a dinosaur or a dragon or a unicorn, what animal would you have." His response: "Maybe a bigger fish." It's going to be a long session
Since this is his first time at [redacted] I decide to just give him a varied run of subjects to see if there is anything he might struggle with. I hunt down some interdisciplinary packet "My Neighborhood" that seems long enough that I could ignore him for a while. When I tell him that he'll even get to draw a picture for me, he literally scowls and says that he won't. A six-year-old not wanting to color? That's effed up. So of course he aces all of the grammar and destroys the math and reads 80 grades above his reading level, but then he comes to a part in a worksheet where he is asked to come up with four words to describe his neighborhood. He looks up at me kind of lost and says that he doesn't understand. I tell him to write down any words that describe his neighborhood at all and turn my attention to some poor kid whose mother thinks that a 790 verbal is a disgrace to the family.
I come back about ten minutes later, and the poor kid has obviously written about twenty different word in the first blank and erased them. When I try to make out what they were, he suspiciously shields his paper from my eyes and tells me that he "doesn't have the answer yet". I try to convince him that there isn't really an answer, and that I haven't ever seen his neighborhood so he could just lie to me if he is having trouble, but he very firmly tells me no, he's going to get it. When I come back in another ten minutes, he has finally written something. And in twenty minutes, the only word at all that he managed to come up with that describes his neighborhood is "trees." Instead of telling him that I was really looking for an adjective, I decide not to overheat his poor brain and tell him to draw me a picture of his neighborhood. He tells me that he doesn't know what it looks like. Hmmm. Maybe, I think, maybe he is better at verbal communication than written or visual, so I flat out order him to tell me about his neighborhood. He says "It's boring." I ask him to be more specific. He says "It's just boring." Frustrated that I can't inquire if he has ever even been outdoors in his entire goddamn life, I say "Look. I don't care about your neighborhood. Just draw me any neighborhood. The best neighborhood. Draw me the place that you would like to live," and turn away again.
I come back to a long, orange rectangle protruding from an otherwise barren green horizon. I ask him what that is. He responds that it is a house. I ask him what is special about it, since this is presumably the best place in the world to live, and he proudly proclaims that it is "made of food." I figured that was a start, so I didn't ask him to explain what food had such amazing structural integrity, and by the time he left he had added a second, identical-except-in-color house that was "made of video games."
When I met with my boss, and she asked how it went, I told her that he was probably pretty far ahead of his peers in terms of the standard benchmarks, but that his creativity is startlingly undeveloped. I theorized that he would probably excel for a while in school until he was challenged to have and express his own, original, creative thoughts, at which point there was a good chance that he would fall short. He also, I told my boss, has already developed quite an ego, that he might end up isolated from his classmates, especially if the parents decided to try to bump him up a few grades. My boss nodded silently at all of this, and after I had finished expressing my concerns only added "Typical Chinese boy" and left it that.
Also, I was mercilessly mocked by a couple of Asian women who thought it was absolutely hilarious that I could possibly think that a red belt is a higher rank than a blue belt in martial arts. It's not.
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