Who'd have guessed I'd be a role model?

Panthea greeted me today with her usual enthusiasm, 'I'm tired, I've got a headache, I need to go shopping...I'm reallly ill...' Half way through the lesson, after I'd persuaded her to do some ratio worksheets, she started questioning me about my job and whether I worked part time. Within minutes she had decided she would get an A in Maths and become a tutor too - 'If I work in the evenings I can spend the day going shopping'. She worked out the exact hour intervals when she would work and even informed me that she would earn more than me because she would 'work Fridays too'.

Before she could be persuaded to work again she sketched the shoe she apparently wanted to buy - complete with spikes, 5 wheels, a water bottle holder at the back and various doughnut carriers at the front, the shoe would make doughnuts. She is remarkably inventive, if a little crazy, and it almost seems a shame to teach her maths instead of English, which she loves. However, she cant be a Maths tutor if she doesn't learn, so hopefully she will be more keen on Friday.

Drama Queen

My pupil said to me today in the statistics lesson, 'I bet you're going to go home and tell your friends and family how crazy I am'. I replied, 'I've already written a blog about how mad you are and there are lots of subscribers....'

It got me thinking though, she is rather entertaining, and its fascinating how self aware she is, that she is analysing her behaviour with me and projecting my possible moves in the future.

She succeeded in distracting me from statistics for ten whole minutes of our hour lesson today by telling me about her boyfriend woes. She has recently broken up with her boyfriend because he kissed one of her friends. I wanted to know why she was still friends with this girl. Panthea was surprisingly pragmatic, 'Well I did the same thing to one of my friends, so I guess its just bad karma..'

Apparently the reason she couldn't concentrate on the lesson was because she was constantly thinking about him. Hmmmm

Another funny thing, my phone beeped a couple of times during the lesson and Panthea wanted to know if it was my boyfriend. When I said no she said, 'Oh is that because education is the most important thing in your life', she looked dead serious but laughed when my deadpan response 'Of course, what is more important than education?' came back at her.

She was, however, upset that she couldn't go a party on tonight because of my tuition - she was missing out on 'four hours' of dancing apparently. When I suggested people might be bored and just talking she said 'Talking's even worse!'. Panthea wanted to be at the party because her ex boyfriend would be there with another of his exes. When I suggested this was rather counter intuitive she said, 'I want to make her jealous, its my duty'. So its her duty to make herself upset? Should I feel guilty I wonder...

Well instead of the party she was off to watch a romantic comedy at the 02 centre with another friend, who happened to be best friend's with the friend who kissed Panthea's ex...and had a picture of her and the ex on her phone...Some people just want to be miserable