Retard and retard-er

Teaching at a test prep center sometimes feels like volunteering at an instituition for underprivileged children. Not only do you get to feel sorry for kids who are absolutely pathetic at Math or English, but you also feel tremendously blessed that you went to good instituitions/ are skilled enough/ are just plain smart (if you really have that inflated a head).

I don't mean to sound discriminatory or snotty, but some of the things people say or write are absolutely apalling, and makes you marvel at their creativity. The end of IBA test prep was also the day that teacher evaluations were conducted. One of my friends got the following comment 'Sir Bilal comes in runningly, teaches runningly, and runs out runningly. He is always in a hurry.'

Even if the student aptly managed to describe the pace of Bilal's going-abouts, I would've slapped the kid for such apalling grammar. That too, after taking English classes for three months, and just  ONE DAY before the IBA test. If I had been his English teacher, I would've had a heart attack there and then.

Then there's Headband, who is turning out to be the bane of my existence. The other day I asked him if he had completed the handout on Sentence Correction and the review test at the end. Headband sheepishly scratched his headband-y head and muttered 'Yeah, I did. But I got 10 questions right out of 50.' (Read that with a wannabe American accent, rolling your 'r's like a retard).

 If only imaginary sparks emanating from me could set fire to his hair. 'Ok fine, what exercises do you have a problem with?' And I flipped his handout to check out his answers. After answering a couple of his questions, I interjected snidely 'You told me that you thought this was easy....?'

Headband made a pathetically confused expression. 'Er, yeah, but I don't know what's wrong. I get the concepts, but I don't get the questions.'

After suppressing all the insults and abuses I could muster from my limited vocabulary, I just blurted out 'Well, your English is pathetic, and if you want to improve, then you need to spend more time on this than whing about Math.' Ok I didn't say 'whining', but still.

 He continued asking me the dumbest questions ever, right after affirming that he had understood every bit of the preceding exercise. Anyway, I didn't mind since that's my job, duh. At least I had forced him to study my subject during class and not blabber about how bad he was at Math and needed Bilal.

Headband skipped class today. Bilal thinks that he's scared of me. And I think it's high time I give him a better reason to feel that way.