| Rant : This Took Me 23 Minutes and 42 Seconds Quite often, I find myself doing something totally uncharacteristic of me. And instead of hating it or whining about it, I find myself masochistically enjoying it. Who knew there was to be so much pleasure from something deemed so painful? Today I did it, and for the rest of the week, I shall be doing this thing. It involves me getting up in the morning instead of in the afternoon. And before your thoughts flee to the �no, don�t go there� section of your brain (ie. the �ew� part), this �getting up� is actually, purely and simply, waking up at 8.30 am. See? I told you it was uncharacteristic of me. But of course, there is a reason behind the sudden relinquishing of my hitherto-unchallenged ownership of the �4 pm wake-up call� plaque. I�m taking one week of German lessons in my attempt to crash my way into understanding what went on in �Das Boot�. Yes, crashing in I will go. Anyhow, these lessons are held this entire week at the inhumane time of 9.30 am. And I need an hour because I will invariably press the snooze button 3 times, thereby waking up at 8.51 am. Then, I shall have to have a quickie breakfast (where did you think that was going?) because the lessons only end at 12.45 pm and the rest of the people in the course didn�t pay 26 British pounds to hear my stomach growl. And so today, I made it. The teacher�s name is Ingrid Scheiblauer (I�m not making this up), and she looks like a mix between Ingrid Bergman and Brigette Bardot. First, I know none of those two actresses were actually German. Secondly, she really doesn�t look like a mix of those two, because I have never actually bothered matching facial features. It�s just that I thought a rant like this will totally up its street cred if I make some tenuous reference to two legendary actresses. So, no, she doesn�t look like Brigette Bardot, please stop bugging me to take pictures of her. But this is a rant. So what has River Dawg got to complain about this time? Everything was fine, she was clear in her explanation, and she pronounced my name properly, she even gave us a break. And I�m tempted to forgive her for actually giving us homework, simply because the course is only for one week, and if I intend to get beyond �Guten Tag�, I�d better work on something in my spare hours. Ingrid-Brigette, consider yourself lucky, I'm showing my magnanimity and forgiving you for those 4 grammar assignments. The thing is, during the aforementioned break, she even deigned to amuse me greatly by asking the whole class if we would want a 10 minute, or a 15 minute break. The entire class sat in stunned silence. Having to choose between shrimp and lobster proved too much for us. She repeated, �10 or 15 minutes? Either way is fine with me,� and we were still thinking about the relative cholesterol levels. Finally, the least meek of the meek piped up, in a tone that reflected her fear that Ingrid-Brigette will chow off her head, �15 minutes?� Ingrid-Brigette agreed, and then, the killer. She announced to the class, �I shall see you back here, at 10.17 am then�. I was like, what? What the hell does that mean? 10.17 am? Here�s a lobster, you can only eat a pound of it though. Anyone read �The Merchant of Venice�? I stupidly actually contemplated this horrific affirmation of the German stereotype for punctuality and alacrity, and when I woke up from that, I forgot how many seconds of my 15-minute-and-no-more break time I had squandered. This being the greatest lesson I took away this morning, I�ve decided that tomorrow I shall wake up at 8.51 am, no more, no less. |