Dark sarcasm in the classroom never killed anybody. However teachers could leave those kids alone every now and then.
I liked my schools. More social-wise than educational-wise. Fun was better during the breaks. Although i never had any problems with imbibing knowledge. Some classes were ok, some i genuinely detested. Because of the teacher or the topic of study. I think “ethics in business” lectures in my college were pretty dull. And by the end of the term our professor acted not so … ethic.
Elementary school went smooth. We played handball. We had success in that field. Now, it is the least favourite ball sport.
In high school our major was maths and phisycs. There were two classes profiled like that. We, class C and they, class B. We shared the same biology teacher. A very eccentric lady. Or maybe a lady with a passion for biology, for teaching, for her students. When we had the first test, we just took it seriously and aced it. The biology teacher was so ecstatic, declaring in delight:
Dear students, you passed this test perfectly. Lots of maths and physics class students go to the medical academy after high school. I will treat you like a biology-profiled class.
Well, i do not remember her exact words now, but that was a gist.
We were doomed. As far as i was concerned, biology class was the last on my “favourote class” list. The truth was we just asked people from class B what was on that goddamned test as they had had it wee earlier. Hence we knew what was coming. Know your enemy, right?
For the next 3 years there was a mind game between us and class B about who got the test first. We always had a very serious excuse to postpone any kind of our teacher’s activity regarding checking our knowledge of biology. We won that war, though we happened to lose some battles.
Maths was hard but i liked it. I was a solid B student. Our teacher was passionate about her job, about passing the torch to younger generations. Thanks to her I never had any problems at the Białystok University of Technology and Białystok University. The former school was my first choice. I studied marketing and management. We had maths, statistics, operations research. Mathematics was hard but i truly enjoyed it. I was taught new things. Stats was easy peasy and that was my only exam i … failed. I really ignored that test. I thought super Maciej would pass it with flying colors (in Polish we say “with a finger in a nose”). To err is human. That was a pure lesson of humility. I re-take that test and got 100%.
At the Białystok University i studied financial mathematics. Briefly 🙂
Today i had a dream. It was a memory, a reminisce, as my night vision really had happened in the past. It was college days. French classes. We had to take two foreign language courses. I had only really one year of Russian class in my elementary school. In general there were four years. But after the first year our Russian teacher went on a sick leave and substitute teachers were not so interested in teaching us. So i knew little Russian although in high school i decided to continue it. After a month i transferred to German class. It was a bad bargain. I did know neither Russian nor German so good to continue any of them in my college. My first foreign language class was obvious – English, later business English. The second one – French for beginners. It was a good choice. Something new is always appreciated. However that language was so damn hard to learn! We had a good teacher. Truly devoted. But the language? Geez. Pronunciation was hard. But the grammar was hell. 90% exception from the rule. From almost every rule. How could you adjust verb conjugation as similar words had different versions? But French was fun. And i remember one class. The madame teacher asks my friend to read something (a homework?). He starts to stammer, i mean read. All of the sudden madame interrupts and asks my friend in delight
– you speak French! You have learnt French before!
– no, i have not – answers puzzled friend
– no? You read with an accent. You have just read “i have read” in French so well and we have not learnt past perfect tense yet. How do you know that? – our teacher continues
– i just stuttered i guessed – admits my friend
School was fun. I met awesome people there. With some people from high school i am still in touch. And, funny story, i am seeing my “French” friend today. Dreams are weird. Brain is mysterious.
I never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don’t just say
And nothing else matters