My Mute Monologue

As a new teacher, there are a lot of things that I have yet to explore. One of the aspects is on teaching subjects other than English. I might know a bit on English but nothing other than that. However at the time being, besides teaching English, I am teaching (read learning) Visual Art Education, Physical and Health Education, and Moral Education. I feel that teaching the minor subjects are really entertaining. All of them give new perspectives on  how I perceive things around me.

As for teaching Visual Art to various types of students, I am able to explore things that I rarely appreciate in my life. I can hardly remember things that I have done in my schooling days. What I can think of were just drawing a village and  the sight in a sea. No more that that. Maybe I was too naughty in the class those days, which make me forget what I have formally learned in my art lessons. huhuhu

Teaching Visual Art is really entertaining. For this week, I did ‘Talking Frog’ origami with my students. Even the never-sit-still students were able to behave well do the activity in the class. Although my throat felt like burning after the lesson for you-know-what reason, I am really satisfied with the outcome as I was able to see students smile [read laughing, shouting and jumping around the class meaningfully (?)] at the end of the lesson; Miming with their puppets, the talking frog.  They called me thousands of time to tell this and that, show very single thing to me which I always ignore.

One of the funny ones was when out of sudden, one of my students shouted for my help, “Teacher, help me!!! This frog is biting me ear!!”. The boy said with pain showing on his face. His hands are holding the talking frog that he has made, pointing it to his innocent ear. I pretended that I saw nothing although it happened right in front of my eyes. Failed to get my sympathy, he went back to his table. Meanwhile, my heart felt like went out of my body and rolling on the floor laughing.

A few minutes after that, the same boy came again to me and showed the modified version of the talking frog. This time around the frog is already equipped with a Gladius sword on its right hand and a Parma shield on the other hand. I was like, ya Rabbi.. Subhanallah.. huhuhu..  Other few students have made a modern version of the talking frog warrior; a mob. They drew variety of weapons in the inner side of the clothes that the frogs wore.. Am I doing the right thing to the students?

Today, when I entered the same class for my English lesson, a few students were busy producing the talking frog. Perhaps they have got orders from their friends. Is this what is called teaching students how to fish rather than giving them fish? If only I can make students learn productively in my English class same like what is being done in the English class…

I was doing my work at the fume cupboard and I was alone in the lab. Suddenly somebody knock the lab door, I peeked through the glass and saw a tall and blond mid. thirty women, standing in front of the door. It was weird because she knocked the door. She must be from other department or totally an outsider. You don’t knock a lab or workshop’s door. You just come in and that how it plays, in my work place at least.

She asked me whether I know some guy name Christian *******. I didn’t pay a very good attention to the last name. Of course there is Christian in my lab. He is an intern. So I nodded my head and said yes. How tricky can it be? I didn’t see that hell will break loose. The women handed me a box of chocolate with a ribbon and a note on it. She asked me to pass the present to Christian. The note is written in German and translated like this “Thank You for your help and everything” “Love and Hugs- Mandy”.

I put the present on Christian table and continued my work. After a moment I already have second thought. That how low my self esteem is nowadays. What if there is more than one Christian work here? What is the last name that she said? What, what and what?

Frank, my other colleague came in from his lunch. I went to him and asked him how many Christian we have here. He said to me confidently, there is alone 4 Christian in this floor. He said don’t let him get started with Christian in this company.  He asked me what the problem was. I explained to him what has happened. He laughed like a crazy guy who never laughed for a long time. While Frank still laughing, my lab’s engineer, Dennis and other colleague, Rebecca came in. They asked what has happened, Frank told the story. As expected both of them laughed. I just stand there thinking what will happen next.

Dennis said some joke that I got hypnotized by the blonde woman. If the woman was not blonde, I would catch the last name just ok. I kept arguing to him. I said the woman spoke so fast. That was why I didn’t catch the last name. Frank said next time whoever speak too fast to me, I should throw them out from this lab saying we don’t speak that kind of language here. I said what if the people from third floor (executive floor) speak fast like that. He suggested to me, just say “Ich verstehe nur bahnhof.” The phrase the German will use when they didn’t want to entertain you. We kept on laughing while waiting for Christian.

After a while Christian came. We showed him the present. He said to us that he didn’t know any Mandy. Dennis asked him if you didn’t know Mandy, how come she wants to hug and kiss you as it appears in the note. Dennis accused Christian to have an affair with the woman. Christian kept denying it. The moment I describe as a crazy moment. Of course it is funny but how the heck I should go to every lab, ask a person name Christian and explain what happen. I will be laughing stock at the company.

Everybody kept giving so called solution. One of them checked the name in Company’s data base. There is a lot people there named Mandy. The same problem appeared. The woman didn’t write her last name on the note. I asked them to consider naming their children with my name. I guaranteed them; there will be only one Hafzan in this firma. Why keep giving the typical name I asked them. They replied to me there would be no problem at all if you pay attention to the woman in the first place. They got me. I was stupid when I tried to be funny. How can I come up with that stupid joke in this critical moment?

At the end, Christian himself offered help to find the right person and he did find it. Thank God. But the story will be told to everybody who came to our lab that day and if the person is normal they will laugh like crazy.  As for me, this kind of story will make me a little bit closer to them and will make my name appear in the department’s map. After seven year living in Luebeck, I still and always make a rookie mistake in the language. But Deutsch is not an easy language to learn let alone to understand the people that speak in dialect. I consider myself lucky because the dialect in North is not that hard to understand if you pay attention. But still, how come Feuerzeug became Feuchteuch? One more question, Where is my Mandy? hahhahaha

Hafzan Lazim.