Why I Like Fridays but not Mondays

This week in the high school class, the topic is giving advice. Part of the lesson is a game. There are twenty different problems and the students have to come to me in groups and perform little dialogues explaining the problem and giving a solution. For each dialogue I give them points. For a basic performance and advice, they get a single point. If they've gone the extra mile, they get two. What I don't tell them is that if there is blatant, unabashed sucking up, they get three points.

Generally, at some point in the game, one team will refer to me as being really nice or beautiful. I surprise them with the extra point. Usually word gets around pretty quickly and the sucking up becomes a whole new element to the game.

Friday's classes cracked me up. They found more and more creative ways of sucking up in the responses. Some of the dialogues went like this;

"I'm always tired when I'm at school." "Oh, you shouldn't be. When you come to school, you can see beautiful Melanie and you will get lots of energy."

"I don't know what to buy my (girlfriend/boyfriend) for Valentine's Day." "Oh, don't worry about buying them a present, you should buy one for beautiful Melanie."

"I don't understand my English teacher." "Oh, if Melanie is your teacher, it shouldn't be a problem, her voice is very nice. If Sam is your teacher, then you should go and talk to Melanie."

"I want to go to Tokyo University." "I think you should study very hard and when you study, think of Melanie's beautiful face. Then when you're doing the exam, think of her beautiful face again and it will give you power and you will pass the exam."

One that caught them out though was this;

"Every time I eat curry, I get a stomachache." "Oh, you should eat Melanie's curry because it is delicious and then you won't get a stomachache."

They didn't get the extra point as I explained that I don't cook. My husband does the cooking. This was met with shock. One girl churned over this news for about five minutes and then came and asked me "Do you really not cook? Does your husband really do the cooking?" "Yes" I told her. "So he cooks, and you watch TV?" Not wanting to get into the whole dynamics of our marriage, I simply said "Yes." She stared at me in disbelief, then simply shook her head and walked away. Another boy, at the end of class came up to me concerned, "I think you should cook", he told me.

One team worked their way around this problem though and came up with;

"My mum won't make me lunch and I can't cook." "Well, you should go to Melanie's house and have her husband make you a delicious lunch."

So that was Friday. Pure joy, so much fun.

Come to Monday. Same game, same lesson.

Not only did I get almost no suck-ups, but in the warm up exercise, I jokingly said to a student "I want a new husband. What should I do?"

The advice? "I think you should diet."

No wonder I don't like Mondays.