Humiliation: Stories

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When it comes to written – rather than verbal – evidence of working-class queer lives, this is often ambiguous. For Stephen Hornby's last play, The Adhesion of Love, he researched a group of working-class men from Bolton who set up a Walt Whitman appreciation society in the 1880s. They entered into regular correspondence with America’s great queer poet – and two of them even travelled to New York to visit him. In the play, Hornby has inferred that the men were what we'd now call gay. "If we look at the record that does exist of the Bolton men’s lives with the assumption that they were heterosexual," he says, "we're just left with a lot of puzzles and unanswerable questions. If we flip it, and assume they were interested in men sexually and emotionally, then all those puzzles disappear, and all the questions are answered." Halloween was advancing upon us where it is also highly celebrated in Panama, 9 degrees north of the equator. I had baked Halloween cupcakes for both of my classes, but had brought only cupcakes for one classroom the day before Halloween and it was for the second class not the first. I was in the first classroom and left for two minutes. Upon returning, I noticed that the aluminum foil covering the cupcakes had moved. Meanwhile, the students were on their way out. As I moved towards the cupcakes and lifted the aluminum foil, I noticed half of them gone. I was so dissapointed! I could not believe my students had eaten the other group's cupcakes knowing they were going to receive their cupcakes tomorrow. Well, they must have been good as the cupcake holders were in the garbage. The lesson I learned was to never let the students know you have sweets for them.

Language: English Words: 141,910 Chapters: 11/11 Comments: 209 Kudos: 836 Bookmarks: 134 Hits: 34,224 In my first year of teaching English here in Turkey, I made all sorts of amusing mistakes. Here is one. I was teaching suffixes, namely -ish, as in "like". (Okay, I admit, a pretty lame point to be teaching but I thought it was neato at the time and I was very VERY green at that time)I looked around inquiringly.'ma'am she said 'for us , you are a Miss and for your husband you are a Mrs'. Oh Dear. Was she right in this?

I replied haughtily "I too am a 'sage femme', but I at least remember to collect my kids on time" It was only after some explanation and miming that I understood that sagefemme is a midwife. A good example of not doing a literal translation. Well, I handed out the photocopied material to my adult students and began the exercises. 1. I dont have a watch but I think it is twelve-ish. Very good. 2. She is 45 years old but she looks youngish. For the LGBTQ+ community, telling our stories and knowing our history is a matter of both self-discovery and survival.My list is shorter this time, but it's hard mode. Like half of these might not even work out??? But these are all bonus names anyway, so it's not as big of a deal if they don't. And besides, I've prepared for this. My anus has never been so determined. I’m ready. Stephen Hornby, national playwright-in-residence for the UK's LGBT History Month, argues that our stories have long been actively suppressed. "The only interest used to be in censoring or denying any queer elements of the records of the past. So, things were kept from public display, passages were omitted from books and sexual relationships were presented as passionate friendships. That was wilful and deliberate distortion." The other student, trying hard to control his laughter, proceeded to ask again if I worked out, and now, getting a bit annoyed, I again replied that I did not work out. I worked IN. I worked at an "indoor" restaurant, not outdoors. Finally the student explained to me that working out meant exercising. I had only been in the United States approximately three months, so this was a very embarassing experience particularly for someone like me who was always a perfectionist and had minimal tolerance for mistakes when I communicated with others. We were learning names of occupations, having students come to the front, I show him or her a picture of someone working, and they act out the job while the class guesses what they are, whoever guesses first gets to act next. I showed a boy a picture of a dentist, he nodded at me like he knew what to do, stepped up and took a golf swing.

One day, about eight years ago, I was teaching an advanced group and had them doing some conversation exercise, which I eventually wanted to bring to a close. I stood at the front, clapped my hands and waited as the group slowly got the message, except for two young women, who were deep in conversation. I then whistled and one of them looked at me and said, "We are not dogs!" Not being one to miss a vocab opportunity, I said, "No, you are bitches!" Fortunately, they still speak to me when we meet in the street. S2. I would have been very happy to receive your fak, but at the time I was faking somebody else- sorry. Fiction Writing | Blog Writing | Creative Writing | Essay Writing | Letter Writing | Poetry Writing | Technical Writing | Story Writing And thus I found myself facing a large class of seventy odd students 'all these will study English? "I looked around with baleful eyes, regions of sorrow, deep scars English stress had entrenched the pale cheeks, dismal situation, worse and wild..to study a foreign compulsory language is torture , endless..Ah my drifting thoughts ..stop. .or pandemonium will prevail. I teach both English and French and this usually isn't a problem but one time, it was... One day during my teaching practice I was quite ill and had a fever of nearly 39°C, but I wanted to go to school anyway because I had to teach 4 hours that day. So I was there, and after teaching one hour of English, I went to my French lesson. I started the lesson by asking pupils what TV shows they liked and one pupil asked me, in Dutch (my mother tongue), whether I liked 'America's Next Top Model'. Somehow, my brain became confused, and I replied in English that I didn't really like it that much. All 25 pupils stared at me like I was an alien and I didn't understand why until one of them said, Uhmm... This is French, miss... I was so embarrassed! But it's a good story to tell...But now society is becoming much more welcoming of queer people, there's a huge appetite to hear our stories. And there are so many amazing stories to tell.