Timişoara. Should have been one of those times when we took Mire and Baja to get their supplies as well. We'd fill the škodilak's trunk so much that it took some packaging skills to close the hood, and some muscle power to get it out of the parking. We'd top it with a potty, which was the trick we accidentally developed last year, when we bought one for Go. The romanian customs officers simply wouldn't consider us smugglers but rather morons - who else would smuggle a potty. The trick worked beautifully, and it's amazing how many potties we needed. One for us, one for her to have when at Oma's, two for each of them for the same reasons. And then one would break, or we'd buy for some other friends.
We usually did these trips on fridays, because of my schedule. On mondays I'd have all six classes in Perlez, then four in the afternoon in 13.. Four in the afternoon on tuesdays, on wednesdays six in Perlez and three in the afternoon, and the remaining two or three on thursday afternoon. All three of my classes did their practice work on fridays, so I had nothing to do all day. I did visit once, as a classmaster, my class when they were doing that practice in the hats factory, where those three guys were at least doing the job they're learning, while the others were either passing the raw materials, or cutting the safety belt ribbons (over a hot wire), and there was once a case where one girl's palm got caught in a machine. Nothing big, no wound, just a squeeze and a rush of fear. I drove to her village to check on her the next day. Ouch... there are still such places, the low ceilinged house of pressed clay and tamped soil floors, pigpen the century ago style, a museum. Even worse than my grandfather had 20 years ago. Come on, girl, finish this and pull yourself out of that.
In Perlez, after the first tests I held, I noticed the cheating trails, by simply the same error being replicated down the aisles. The unspoken assumption is that the one you copy from knows it better than you do. Well, maybe if you're the only one clueless, but with majority no, he doesn't know any better, he just scribbled it faster. So you copy his rubbish and pass it on. So I started writing down the sitting layout. Partially to learn to memorize their names (and then, in the following years, learn to forget them), partially to grade them along the cheat lines - likewise taking points off from the recipient (these are not yours!) and the donor (you gave, didn't you?). The culmination came a couple of months later, when I had to fail one guy who actually was among the 20% who'd honestly earn a passing mark, because of sheer stupidity. He forgot the carbon copy paper among the sheets.
That's when I found somewhere the mantra "if you want to do something wrong, do it right" (from Mad magazine few years ago, but emerged as relevant now).
After the written tests, by the calendar I had to write and officially submit to 13. back in september, I should do the first parents' meeting, and so I did. What a disconnect. The blank stares, the... „what's this bearded youngster doing here being classmaster to our kids“. And I really didn't know what they expected from me, until they started talking - at least there I got something out of the whole show. They thought I should get their kids in order, they imagined me, being a professor, as some kind of legal authority. Well, no such thing, folks, your kids are not minors, most of them aren't, and the rest will reach maturity by the end of the year. So, adults they are, and thus responsible for their actions, and mind you, they already have a diploma after the third year, and the fourth year is optional. If they complete it, fine, they'll be technicians and everything's dandy, if not, well, no big deal, they have a profession and can get a job.
In all that confusion I failed to notice a guy in the back, who was hiding behind someone's back, playing dead or invisible, whatever works first. The gatekeeper of 09-IX-1978.. Again, by the end of the next day, half the factory was abuzz with the new installment of the story. Not that he bragged to everybody like the last time, he just confided to one guy... and that guy spread the news. He was the target of lots of darts for the whole week. The guy whom you made fun of two years ago is now your daughter's classmaster...
Of course, this did not reflect on the girl at all. If her father was an idiot, he is not she, and she showed all signs of growing into a regular person.
1-III-2020 - 4-VIII-2025