School Stories- Part 2- Crazy Mrs. T

I spent a long time looking at myself in the mirror today (yes, even longer than usual).
Specifically at my nose.
Yes, The Nose.
Always with The Nose.

I frowned at the mark that Kelso's vicious little teeth had left on my already slightly-disfigured nose.
You see, I love sneaking up on him, and then incessantly sniffing at his face.
He hates it. With an exasperated yelp he turns to shoo me away- in the process knocking his canine against my nose (hence the mark) and slightly stunning me with his his high pitched yelp (you know like how fish get stunned by high pitched squeaks emitted by whales?).

Gingerly touching my nose, I found myself wondering if my own kids would cause me this much bodily harm.
And then thinking about kids made me recall what a teacher told me about having babies.

Let's go for a walk down memory lane, shall we?
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.
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The year was 2000 and I was in 9th grade.
My English teacher- Mrs T, jauntily walks into the room, throws her stuff on her table, proceeds to stand in front of classroom, puts her hand on her hips and says :
"Okay so my husband and I had sex and now I'm pregnant."

-Cue stunned silence-
40 girls stunned into silence. Do you know how rare that is?

"Yep. I'm pregnant. And yes I still have sex at my age."

-Cue slow, hesitant, cautious clapping-

You see we here at uptighty, prudish Singapore convents didn't always have 40-something year old teachers bombarding us with this sorta info. It was new. We needed time to digest what we had just heard.
"That's great Mrs T!"
"Congrats, Mrs T!"
"Oh my goddd I LOVE babies!" Squealed Arpu.

Mrs T slowly turned towards Arpu and suddenly took on a very sinister glint in her eyes.
"You like babies, huh? You think it's fun when you're pregnant and your back hurts all the time? You think it's fun when you're trying to squeeze your baby out and along with that you end up shitting too? You think its fun when your breastfeeding your baby and your nipples are too sore and bleeding and cracked and painful? You think its fun when your boobs grow so huge and saggy that you have to virtually flip them over when you're washing yourself? Oh Yes, my dear, that's SO. MUCH. FUN."
(At the last bit all of us looked down at our chests. The slightly less endowed of the lot beamed with delight. The slightly more endowed of us looked uneasy.)

Arpu sat there, open-mouthed, looking she wanted to cry after that traumatising tirade. I could imagine her shakily taking off her rose-tinted glasses, packing them into a neat little box and the burying that box forever. Poor Arpu.
I was just shell-shocked at the possibility that you might poop while giving birth.
"You can SHIT while giving birth!?!"
"Yes Mahima."
Well, there go my rose-tinted glasses.

So as you can tell, Mrs T was quite a character.
When girls would talk during her class, she'd turn around and with the skill of superbly trained ninja, she would throw perfectly-aimed pieces of chalk at you.
They hurt like a bitch.

I once got back a badly graded essay from her.
"Mahima R! (surname witheld coz I just watched an episode of the Tyra Bank's Show where internet creeps stalked girls. Moral of the story is don't give away too much info. Well I guess I'll just have to delete my entire blog then hahaha. Uh..those of you who know my surname, please don't put it up. I don't want my future in-laws landing on this blog after Googling me. I like saving the rude surprises for later.) How on EARTH could you hand in this crap? You're Indian! Indians are supposed to be good at English! I had a professor at university also with the same surname as you! How do you think he would feel about you handing in this rubbish??"
"Uh..contrary to popular belief, Mrs T, not all R's are related so I doubt he'd feel anything and not all Indians are good at English."
(And then I pointed at Arpu and Roohi.
Hahahahaah KIDDDING...
I am SO dead.)
"Whatever, Mahima, WHAT-EV-ER."

She used to call me "The Rahamah."
Don't ask. Seriously. Don't.
Coz I still have no idea where she pulled that one out of.


Fastforward to 2004.

I went back to my old school to do a relief (substitute) teaching stint there, coz I had too much time to kill before uni started and the pay for relief teaching ROCKS.
(Plus you don't exactly have to be a rocket scientist to relief teach *wink wink nudge nudge*)

I sat in my cubicle pretending like I had work to do when Mrs T popped her head in.
"MAH-HEE-MAAAH."
"Heeey Mrs T! How are you?"
"I'm good I'm good. Listen, was I ever mean to you in class?"
"Yep. All the time."
"Oh okay...did you severly despise me?"
"Oh not at all. I loved having you make fun of me all the time! It was very entertaining."
"Okay great so that means I can ask you to help me grade some essays. I have too much bloody work to do and since you actually liked me, I won't feel bad about asking you to help me with this nonsense."
"Haha sure Mrs T."
"Oh and later, if you're free you can join me with my class. We have CME period."

CME period.
'Civics and Moral Education' period.
This was basically 40 minutes of reading out of book that told you that stealing was wrong and helping an old lady across the road was right (in so many words).
It was a glorified free period.

"Sure!"

I went up to her class where she introduced me as Miss R.
"She used to be a student of mine and she used to sit in that very corner there."
Wow. She actually remembered where I sat. This was sweet!
"She used to have the WORST bushy hair, terrible acne-fied skin and she thought she was such a smartass..."
"Thank you Mrs T. That bought a tear to my eye. You've touched my heart."
"...and now look at her. If someone like THAT could clean up so nicely, then there's hope for all you losers."
"Aww you love me. You REALLY love me."
"Oh shut UP."



Ahh I love that woman.
She was smart, rude, inspiring and funny all at the same time.


So you see..we started off talking about Kelso's teeth which made me think of kids which made me think of Mrs T which is now making me wonder if all teachers start going a bit batty after a few years of teaching.

*Shrugs*

As Mrs T once said : "You're a very disturbing girl, Mahima. Very Disturbing."

:D



***
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