Metamorphosis

I knew this day would come you know, and have been advised by the few people who give a shit about to snap out of it and grow a backbone, suck it up and try not to lose myself or sanity in the process, I appreciate your slap-awakes and will ask you for some more because I sure as hell will need some more,  but I reserve my right to moan, so brace yourselves people. Well, you can always consider it a subjective documentation of el mahazel elli hanshofha.

Sanaweyya 3amma.

I had my first Arabic private lesson today. The name of the centre and teacher will be left anonymous because I don’t wanna end up in jail for stating facts. This is what goes on behind closed doors people, insider edition knowledge, past all the sugar-coating and garnishing.

The entrance to that, supposedly renowned centre, is a ghetto-like side door in an obscure street, with an oblong entrance much like that of a garage’s parkway, after you get past that, with a guy sitting inside some sort of a cardboard knock-off imitation of a bullet-proof booth, which I tried to rationalize as protecting the receptionist from the angry crowd of sanaweyya parents, because for no other reason should a person be kept under such conditions, much like a specimen of human race put in a box for alien to gawk at and poke. I was directed up a steel ladder by that receptionist who has a phone instead of his left ear and a pen instead of his forefinger, with people sitting and waiting for God knows what in that same manner you’d expect outside of a hospital’s ICU. The ladder was like those you’d find past the emergency fire gateway, up a storey, then I had to bend and pass in a doorway, and as I did there was some sort of liquid dripping on my head. You know these little msn emoticons with the smiley walking with its own raining cloud? Yep, it was like that, except it was in no way as cute. The peeing clouds were the overworked air conditioners leaking, or at least I hope that’s what it was. In the rat hole and through the rat maze, and out of body guinea pig experience, 3 lefts and a right later, I got to the class where I was supposed to sit the Arabic session. Its architectural design was by no means equipped let alone predisposed for teacher-student interaction, in the shape of an ‘E’, with walls dividing it needlessly, the only way you could see the teacher was if he was standing exactly in front of that middle partition. If he goes too much to the left or right, you’ll lose visual. Needless to add, because of my short microcosmic nature, piano ear practices came in very handy, because I got through that class almost by ear all the way. There’s no such thing as a hallway, or passageway come to think of it; you couldn’t possibly pass between the chairs without having your butt slide someone’s copybook off the arm rest or your handbag square in someone’s face. Thank God for tolerance, or suppression, whichever comes first, with a little hopping and tiptoeing I got past in one piece, and found two familiar faces. Apparently my class found safety in numbers, and I huddled next to them. The chairs were some form of remnant from a hostage scene, they had signs of torture all over it, with stories carved out at all angles like radio SOS sent into outer space in hope that a form of life will come to the rescue, even the ones that couldn’t be reached judging man’s normal anatomy and bending direction at the joints. How did the scribble get at the lower back of the chair if it was at an angle that couldn’t possibly allow it unless you’d been sleeping under it, or holding the pen as if you would when you were scratching your ass, I had absolutely no clue. It had almost jelly-like resilience, bending to your back’s curves, and even enhanced to have that reclining capability you’d find in a dentist’s chair. In other words, it did not take the friggin pressure you apply with your friggin back without fuckin going all the way with it goddamnit! The armrests had bites out of them, much like the scribbles, I couldn’t get it through my head how someone would like munching on wood, but then again I didn’t want to think it was not a ‘someone’. The rodent/insect factor was too cringe-invoking, I mean, it’s not that I’m against co-existing in anyway, by all means a spider came out to welcome me as soon as I was seated, even though it was on its way from some hole in the wall which I reckoned was his habitat up to that lop-sided cabinet they had on the wall with a hole where its base should have been, which I calculated to be its working space, and how Feng Shui it is indeed. Unless they were performing astro-oriented gravity-free experiments in there, I couldn’t figure out how it would be put to work. I was glancing up the cabinet when the teacher glided into view Fred Astaire style, because of that architectural glitch I told you about. For the first 45 minutes of the godforsaken 120, his speech comprised of no more than the following: Self-advertising blown out of proportion which is better-put as the verbal equivalent of ‘pleasing himself’, a set of rules that could not be humanely applicable unless we were bots living in a Utopia with him dubbed as Sultan – which goes along the lines of the former analogy –  him offering his therapeutical as well as academic contribution with domestic disturbances and/or class transference – which provoked a lot of logical day-dreaming including pondering how accurately my knuckles would fit in the hollow bridge of his nose – him saying some scary analogy about a ‘cat eating its own offspring to protect them’ to himself – what the fuck was he thinking anyway? How could the thought of us being devoured/overworked by at all comforting even if his intention was to get us good grades, which isn’t because he’s a maniacal materialistic prick like all the rest of em, at least he’s a good one – followed by him chivalrously adding that he’d never cuss at us, and even if he did, he wouldn’t drag the mention of parents into it. Soothing eh?

A slip was handed around where you’re supposed to fill out your personal info. To my surprise, it involved inquiring about what both of your parents’ line of work was. What’s even more surprising is that no one else, but myself, my very own brain-fried self, found it the least surprising. Everyone was studiously filling it out with their heads down and nothing but the sound of the pen against the deformed surface, then one of the four hunky assistants passed around taking it back, with occasional manhandling if you’re not done with it already.

Since the use of your eyes is not much required if you’re not tall enough, I spent the rest of that class with my head down taking notes, and wholly-concentrating using hearing, as an inside joke, I mind-linked as if he was a giant trombone and I’m transcribing Groovin by J.J.Johnson, except that one was not as jazzy and way more dull. He was just as lively though. Meh. God I wished he were a trombone, he blows anyway.