The Continuing Saga of the Drunken Idiots

So, here's the next installment in the ongoing saga of drunkenness and pillockry (I made that word up. World, you're welcome) in the Stadtroda Fachschule dorms.

Yesterday we had another instance of middle-of-the-night banging on the common wall between my room and the TV room, but luckily only once and while I was still awake. Far worse was what the Hauswirtschaft students reported from the first floor...

Hearing the ruckus out the hallways, they had decided to stay in their rooms, which is generally a wise idea. However, at some point, some of the drunks got the idea to tie a thick piece of cord from one doorknob to the other across the hallway. Since the doors are directly across from each other and open inwards, this effectively locks the doors shut so they can't be opened from either room.

As far as I can tell, there wasn't too much trouble about it; another of the Hauswirtschaft students noticed the cord and cut it. Just think, though, the special kind of stupidity/besoffenness that it would take to think this is in any way funny or okay. What if there was a fire, in the room or out--and with all the cigarette smoking that goes on, that is not an idle concern--or one of the students had a burst appendix or other medical emergency?

The problem here is that there is absolutely no supervision or accountability for the residents after about 4pm, when the dorm manager goes home. Sure, there's a ban on smoking indoors, and a quiet rule after 10 pm, but it's completely unenforced, and is therefore completely ignored. In the classroom, the teachers have no power to control or punish the students, so they talk, text, or read magazines in class or talk loudly to each other, and all the teacher can do is ask them to please stop. If they don't, there's no way to enforce the school's authority. The students are simply told and expected to act like adults, apparently purely on blind faith, and when they act like spoiled children instead, oh well.

This is only part of the reason that I am not going to apply for a second year with the program. It is possible to request a second year, and that would definitely fix the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life question, as least temporarily. But I would either have to opt to stay here, in Stadtroda, or risk the lottery of schools out there. After all the freedom and responsibility that my mentor teacher has entrusted me with, I wouldn't want to risk being stuffed back into a smaller capacity.

More than that, though...I am way past the point of being an assistant. I volunteered and did a practicum in EFL classes for four years, and at the end of this year, I will have had a full year as an assistant to plan, observe, and learn. If I'm not ready at the end of this year to teach on my own, I never will be. And why should I continue to be an assistant if I don't need it, when there are lots of bright, talented, optimistic young Fulbright applicants who will be waiting in agony for that letter to come with good news? My claim on this place is weaker than theirs, and I'd rather they take it, whoever that might be.

And finally, I don't want to stay here. Stadtroda is too quiet and deserted for me; I really don't enjoy living in the dorm (as you may have suspicioned); and I don't feel like my presence here is making any difference. I'm just the latest in a long line of assistants, none of whom, as far as I can see, have succeeded in inspiring their students to strive. Like I said, there are lots of applicants vying for this place; let them have it, and I'll go somewhere where I'm needed.

I'm trying not to sound petulant, and I'm not really succeeding, so sorry about that. I am perhaps a little bit resentful. But besides that, much more importantly, I want to work doing something that no one else can do; I want to work with people who want and need to learn. I want to make a better life possible for people who would not have the opportunity otherwise. I've been considering trying to find a charity to work with; I'm especially interested in the victims of human trafficking and slavery who are rescued and then need to be educated so they can make their own way in freedom. I'll let you know if anything comes of that.

In the meantime, the guitar and the bed call, followed inevitably by the warbling of the alarm clock bright and early tomorrow. Tschüß!