It never fails. Somehow they sneak into beginning French even tho they've had umpteen years before. I don't know if they fake it on the entrance exam or what. They start out ass-kissing and speaking circles around everyone else and then when they realize that they're not going to be able to make an automatic A just thanks to their prior French study laurels they start giving me The Glare.
The one I have now realized she was not as great at French as she thought the day of our first in-class composition and decided to hate it from then on. She did 10% of the first chapter's worth of homework (which she should have been able to do no problem with her eyes closed and someone hitting her over the head with a baguette the whole time), has already been absent 5 days, and has neglected to bring a book with her all but 3 of the days that she has attended.
And yet when I asked her if everything was OK, whether there was anything I could do to help her classroom experience (and yes, you're right, I WAS patronizing her altho I hid it well), said, "Oh no, I'm sorry you get the feeling I don't want to be there. I love French!"
Hard to believe when her constant state is sitting curled up on the chair picking at her cuticles, never making eye contact with me, and without any books on her desk. Then when I call on her, she has to be told each day to please look on with others if she doesn't have her book.
To which suggestion of course she responds with a huff and a mini-glare as she grudgingly just barely scooches her desk next to her neighbor's to look off his book just for that particular question, then returns to the status quo finger-skin examination.
This, too, shall pass...
...Hopefully before I launch my impressively heavy teacher's ed. at her head.
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