Hi lovely people!
I decided to write another post today because I kept thinking of stories that I had either been too stressed to talk about at the time (and that I now see the humour in) or ones that I had just forgotten to tell here.
So, without further ado...
The time when a strange man walked into my flat
whilst I slept
On the first afternoon
that I lived in this city, I decided to take a short nap since I had flown
through the night and then taken the train for two hours immediately
afterward. I was sleeping peacefully for
a few minutes before I awoke with a start to see a strange middle-aged man
standing by my bed. In my groggy state I
was more confused than afraid. He began
to apologize profusely to me and to back out into the corridor saying that he
had thought that the flat was empty as a tenant had moved out the day
before. I sleepily replied, sounding
more perturbed than I meant to “but I moved IN toDAY!”
It turns out that he
was my landlady’s repair man and he had come to see that everything was in
working order in the flat. He apologized
about fifteen times before finally leaving and I could tell that he was
mortified that he had walked in on me.
Unfazed by the whole situation, I went right back to sleep. This shows you how exhausted I was when I
first arrived here.
The time that my Canadian bank account got
frozen
I was trying to get my
funds transferred to my UK account and it turned out to be a much more complicated
process than the agency made it out to be. When I was finally able to transfer my funds
the bank believed that someone in England was trying to steal all of my
money. Thankfully, a quick call to the fraud line got this all fixed.
The time that my UK bank account got frozen
Last weekend I tried
to pay my landlady three months’ rent at once through online banking (since she
had failed to give me her banking information until I had been living in the
flat for almost six weeks). I had tried
paying it at the bank initially to avoid a situation like this but the teller
said that there would be a £20 charge unless I did it online. I followed her advice and I ended up having to
call the fraud line and then having to go to the branch the next day to get it
all sorted out. Luckily I still had my
Canadian Visa card to use for the day while I could not access my accounts!
The time that I got on the wrong train on the
first day of school
It was my first day of
teaching and I was planning to arrive at school at 8:00am before the 8:30 staff
briefing. I walked to the train station
and got there at approximately 6:20am which gave me just enough time to get to
my 6:30 train. I bought my ticket and
rushed to the platform across the station so as not to miss my train since any of
the later journeys would have gotten me to work too late.
When I got down to the
platform the train was already there. I
hopped on and was about to find a seat when I thought that I should just check
to make sure that there was not another train right before mine. I peeked out the window the screen and sure
enough the train that I was on was the 6:25 train which was going in the opposite
direction that mine was! I tried to
press the button to get off but as soon as I pressed it the light went off and
I was locked in.
I frantically ran
through the train with all of my school bags (looking like a complete madwoman
I’m sure) to find someone who worked on the train and finally I found the man
who was giving information over the loudspeaker. We were still beside the platform and the
train was moving slowly so in my head I was still holding on to the hope that
they could stop the train for me. I was
not thinking completely rationally at this point. I was going to be late for my FIRST DAY of
work! The first day of my real career
that I had been training for over the past FIVE YEARS!
I shouted at him “I
NEED TO GET OFF! I AM ON THE WRONG
TRAIN!”
He shouted back “You
can’t get off! The train is moving!” He was quite nasty about it too which I
resented at the time.
I got off at the next
station and tried to figure out how to get to my destination as quickly as
possible. I went to the ticket office
and the sweet lady there printed out the train times for the ones that I would
need to take. I had to take three more
trains that day in order to get to school!
After this I made a
quick phone call to one of my co-workers and asked me to pick me up at the
station because my train was going to get in only ten minutes before school and
it was at least a twenty minute walk between the train and school. He came to my rescue and I got to school on
time! I was pretty stressed and flustered at the
start of the day but at least I made it in one piece.
That evening the same
co-worker introduced me to the teacher that I now drive into work with. I have not had to take the train to or from
work since. PTL!
The time when there was no power in my flat
I woke up one morning
and tried to turn on the lights and none of them worked. I tried the outlets and none of them had
power either. Using my powers of resourcefulness I got ready in the dark by the
light of my school and personal laptops.
I even did my makeup and ended up looking like a normal person!
I called my landlady
and it turned out to be what she called the “trick switch” which was just the
main breaker for my flat which was in a box by my front door. I figured this out after being home again for
an hour or so after everything in my fridge/freezer had been left to thaw all
day because I did not have time to deal with the issue before school. Oops!
At least now I know to check that first.
The time when my students were convinced that I
had a secret husband
One day when I was
teaching my Maths class, minding my own business when the Head of the Maths
department who I team-teach the class with brought a young man into my room. He told me that this guy was a Maths genius
and was training to be a teacher and that he could help me out with my class
once a fortnight. He then introduced
this young man to the class as Mr. Hutchinson.
At first, the kids
just stared at him in disbelief and confusion.
I knew exactly what was coming but I waited for the first student to
call out “Mr. Hutchinson! But you’re
Miss Hutchinson! Is he your husband?!?”
I insisted that I had
never seen the man before in my life but kids kept on asking me if we were
married and/or in love whenever I came around to help them for the rest of the
hour. I thought I had them convinced
that I did NOT know him by the end of the lesson but sure enough the next day
one of the boys looked up at me completely innocently and asked “where is your
husband?” *sigh*
The time when my classroom became a haven for
Yu-Gi-Oh card players
I don’t even teach
these kids. On Friday they just asked me
if they could come into my room at lunch so that they could play their game and
not get bullied. It was so cute! I told them that they could come back any
time that I was in my room at break or lunch time. I love that my classroom is seen as a safe
space.
There you go! Some more snippits from my days here. Some of them are pretty ridiculous but with so much going on I just had to repress them for a while before bringing them out for your amusement.
-Heather <3
