Faux Pas Of Online School - Part-1

DISCLAIMER

All the characters here are fictional, any kind of identification is purely a coincidence.

For the past many days, I’ve been suffering from pure terror. Terror from what, you may ask? Well, you see, there has been a peculiar parade of teachers during online classes which has been tormenting me to death.

Today, I fell asleep during a class (I won’t mention which, though). This was supposed to calm me down. And yes, it did.

You see, my online classes don’t start from 10, or 9, rather, we are expected to get up at 7 and emerge fully ready wearing the school uniform by 7:45. This is quite close to hell, I know. However, it is worse than that.

My day begins with loud groaning. I take about 10 mins to slither out of my bed to munch a very fine brush. By that time, my face becomes chalk white due to the very decent behaviour of my beloved toothpaste.

After 5 mins, the person who lives above me (I live in an apartment) wakes up from his “slumber”. I could hear his footsteps crawling through the floor, and smashing a fine piece of furniture. He has a hobby of something he regards to be – construction and furniture-sorting. We hear moving chairs and tables everyday from the ‘sky’.

Well, that is not the worst part, because another thing awaits me after – school.

 

This time, I shall talk about a peculiar teacher. Let’s call her Mrs. See. This, of course, isn’t her real name. I call her Mrs. See because she practically peeks through my computer screen to barge out a crumbling hand to grab my neck and shove it into her presentation.

Her class (I won’t mention that, again) starts at 8 am on a day. We (students) hesitantly open our laptop (or mobile) screens and as though to be bugged again and again about joining before 8, join the meeting at sharp 7:59.

Well, she can’t say anything about that.

Then, after a long period of about 20 seconds of silence, she roars triumphantly, a student’s name. Now, there’s a peculiar way to this teacher, that she grabs one student in particular. Well, the key to evade her grasp is, you join the meeting after that student does. If not, you get the position.

“Sereneeeeeee” “Sereneeeeee” She proclaims her existence. Sometimes, I feel, she does that because of a feeling of inequality – that she’s supposed to wake and speak, and her own students can sleep during class. This is rather a controversy among the elites of the school, for students say they study five, or rather, six subjects and teachers teach only one.

“Yes ma’am”, a silent, deep, bass sound echoes through the network.

(Now, remember, I’ve got some pretty excited students in my class as well, which I’ll talk about later.)

“Serene!”

“Yes ma’am……” The sound recurs.

“Have you revised the lesson?”

“Yes ma’am…”

A plop sound is followed by a question on the screen. Serene is unable to answer it.

“Serene, do you know the question???”

“No ma’am.”

“This means you have not revised the lesson.” Mrs. See hangs on to your hand and begs you to answer a correct question in a way that doesn’t seem like begging.

“Ma’am, I had tests to give yesterday.”

“This means my class is not important?”

“Ma’am.” At this Serene allows herself to snore back. Mrs. See concludes her failure to enrage her student to alertness.

 

Now, there’s another student, who rather sleeps during the class. No no, I’m not talking about me. I don’t do it regularly, of course. Let’s call him Brad.

This begins with a “Braaaaad” echo from the speaker.

He doesn’t reply.

“Braaaaaad”

No response.

“BRAAAAAAADDDDD”

“Yes ma’am” a sleepy voice is followed by sneezing and wiping of the nose.

“Brad, why didn’t you answer me when I asked you so many times?”

“Ma’am… I was… I was…” he drifts back to his dream of having a chat with a pretty girl.

“BRAAAAAAADDD!! If you don’t answer, I will mark you absent. You know that attendance during class has marks.”

We hear Brad’s mom shouting at him. “Brad! Wake up, you sloth!” “Mom, mom” And a sudden thwack erupts with the sloth’s “Yes ma’am”, enriched with rage.

Well, there’s one rule to this – if you don’t answer immediately, your case is filed.


-Krisha Shastri


Part II


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