Two funny moments come to my mind from our TESOL time.

Moment #1

This is just an embarrassing moment for me, but it still makes me laugh. Let me introduce you to Doug. This is our TESOL instructor, the same one who taught me back in 2010. He’s a one-of-a-kind teacher.

Doesn’t he look like the kind of guy who deserves a noogie? If you knew him, you would agree. He likes to crack jokes and tease so he really does deserve a noogie.

Well he was being his usual self, teasing me for something or other, doesn’t matter. I’ll just tell you here that I was not in my right mind, I had just returned from a crazy bus ride that lasted all night and I was still reeling from the lack of sleep.

Doug made some smart remark and I simply responded with “Oh I just want to give you a noogie!” At least that’s what I said in my head. What actually came out was not noogie, but wedgie. Two very different things let me tell you. We had a good laugh about that one for quite a while.

Moment #2

Now that I have described Doug a bit you might also sympathize with what happened one day in class. Doug was teaching along, doin his thang. My fellow ruffians, Allison and Joanne, and I had had enough of his jackaboo antics and thought ‘we’ll teach him!’ We stormed the classroom and took over! Mutiny happened in Ternopil!

Yep, this really did happen. We tied him up, duct taped his bearded face, shoved him to the back of the class and took over the classroom. We taught for the rest of the day while he had to just sit there and listen.

The only referendum I have to make to this story is that it was actually Doug’s idea. Yeah, he wanted some fun way to change gears in the teaching and to introduce Allison, Joanne, and I to teaching the class. We taught on what it was like to use English in missions. He talked us into the mutiny idea, but we sure enjoyed doing it though!