blodeuedd

I'm so exhausted. When do the holidays start? *whines*

Now, I know you're all just dying to hear my take on The Return of the King, but first, .

A student in one of my classs is probably about the most messed-up person I've ever met. She's fundamentally insecure and seems to have gone through life on the assumption that she is disrespected and unloved because she's different. How is she different? Aside from being selfish, negative, demanding, childish and forever unsatisfied, I'm not sure. Hints of a troubled childhood were given to someone in management who had an "Aw, poor widdle girl!" attitude and I wouldn't be surprised if she's played the victim of racism card, or at least attributed someone's dislike of her to racism when it is untrue (she's Chinese). The thing is, she's at least 35, probably nearer 40 but the way she talks and acts often remind me of a teenager more than anything else. Her face doesn't look young, but she's very small and from a distance, you can't tell her age. And she's made sure to keep it a secret, saying she didn't want the other students to know, ostensibly so they wouldn't exclude her. However, I now think that if I were her age and acted the way she did, I'd be ashamed if others knew my age, too.

She has no sense of humour about anything, cares deeply about equal rights and health but expresses her concerns only in negative terms. In fact, she's so obsessed with physical health that she seems to have conveniently forgotten about mental health. She's got plenty of problems in her head but focuses instead on the quality of the air, the amount of germs exchanged when using public transit and the unhealthiness of sitting in a classroom for seven hours a day. She spends many hours a week practising tai-chi and it doesn't seem to have helped her much. Though what do I know? Maybe she was worse before.

She thinks the younger people in the class (those that are between 23 and 30) are immature, when in fact they are all incredibly sweet, nice and funny people. She just doesn't appreciate their sense of humour, since she can't take a joke. They're so nice, in fact, that they've spent the past two and a half months trying to include her in everything, only to be given the cold shoulder. She won't participate in anything outside of classroom textbook or textbook-related activities because she's convinced that she's being marginalized and since the others aren't doing it for her, she has to marginalize herself. It's frustrating watching the other students; they've been so very patient with her, hardly ever letting their dislike for her show, always polite and friendly and they have to put up with her every day.

The worst, or possibly the best thing, is that she is a genius when it comes to languages (best because I hope she gets the hell out of there as fast as possible). She has an incredible memory and is very smart, but because she started training a month after they did, she's decided that she'll forever be behind the group, even though she's ahead of them all now. When we're reviewing things, she says things like, "Oh, I'm glad we're seeing that, because I didn't learn it." First off, that's untrue because she was supposed to catch up on her own (she has all the textbooks and besides, she's caught on to everything we saw in the first month just fine) and secondly, the other teacher and I gave her extra hours after class for the first month. Not that we did it out of the goodness of our hearts, we were paid, but it would have been nice to get a thank you, not a complaint about how it wasn't enough.

When these problems started I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking she didn't realise what she was doing, but now I'm sure she knows full well and that she's antagonizing everyone on purpose. I mean, it's hard to play the victim when everyone is nice to you, so you have to get them to dislike you first and *then* you get to say you're being harassed. It seems that being a victim is the only thing she knows how to do.

Another thing is that in the mornings with me she acts all right, but she's really disrespectful to the other teacher. I'm not sure why, it's probably because she doesn't think she could get away with it with me; I doubt it's because she actually likes me that much. She keeps mentioning respect in the classroom, but she's the one whose lack of respect causes problems. She seeks attention the way a child does: when she can't show off or be told what a good girl she is, she disrupts things. I'm of the let-her-stew-in-her-own-misery school of thought, but it's tough when the others are so miserable.

Thankfully, I won't be teaching that class after Christmas anymore. Still, I hate that this whole thing is bothering me so much. It's just that I've never met anyone so... wrong.

Hear that sound? That's the sound of me heading for bed. Stay tuned for my comments on Kick-Ass Eowyn, the amazing Missing Saruman, Gollum the Master Manipulator and the Fall of Denethor (or, It's a Long Way Down).