First day of lessons

I arrived late. I missed the first bus - but it was unrealistic anyway and would have got me there 30 minutes early but too sleepy to do anything. I chose it to be the first bus, because missing it allowed me to catch a second bus which would still mean I'd get there about 10 minutes early (or perhaps 8, as I never know exactly where I shall emerge from the ground when I leave the underground and I rarely choose the right exit - making the experience rather like a mole coming up to have a look around, then burrowing back down again and then re-surfacing to find that he was going in the wrong direction... except that moles cannot see well, and so probably do not do this exactly). I caught the second bus, but it was late and meant that I then missed my train and arrived instead at 9am exactly.
Tragically, I found a crowd of people waiting for their room numbers at reception and so I joined the back of it. By the time I received my instructions, I got to class at about 9.15am. I loitered for a moment, plucking up the courage to go in. A Spanish-sounding girl arrived during my loitering time, and so we went in together.

I didn't enter as glamorously as I might have wished.

The teacher looked at us with some disgust at our lateness. Her expression was not softened when I slammed the door accidentally off a table, moved back in surprise and shame at the noise I had made, and in doing so turned off one of the lights with my schoolbag. In trying to turn the light back on, I turned off the remaining light. I eventually got them both on again, and sat down in one of the few seats still available - beside a man wearing the sort of shoes that are given out at 10-pin-bowling alleys. I put the emphasis on the wrong part of "Nordirland" when saying where I was from, and risked being from somewhere else entirely, but eventually we overcame the confusion and could re-start the class. I pulled out my textbook which, as it happened, was the wrong one and so I had to share with a russian girl whose name I cannot remember and could not pronounce.

Things improved to some extent after that. I had an opportunity to build a rapport with the teacher when she said something about Irish literature, but I chose instead to look baffled and like she was talking nonsense. 30 minutes or so later I untangled her question, and decided it was something I could have answered more coherently but I thought it was too late to bring up the subject again. It was something to with "longing" being a theme in Irish literature - I believe now she meant longing after being home again in beautiful, green, magical Ireland, but at the time it just seemed a vague and odd thing to say. I would have needed the "beautiful, green, magical" bit.

My book was wrong because my book was for the "Mittelstufe" (middle level) and I should apparently have had the one for the "Oberstufe" (upper level) - not necessarily because I'm any good, but because it's what everyone else had. There are 3 levels, the other being the beginning level ("Grundstufe). It wasn't my fault that my book was wrong since it is the one I was given when I enrolled, but it did seem odd that I had so quickly gained a level without any discernable improvement in my language skills. Particularly to the Oberstufe, which I don't think is where I belong. Last I knew, I was doing a Grundstufe exam. Nevertheless, the class was fine as I'm not certain any of us belong there, and there was a sense of belonging to be had from being in a place where no one belongs. I had worried about the Mittelstufe book being too difficult, and so the Oberstufe book was simply similarly too difficult. But the Oberstufe book has the glorious benefit of an answer key.

None of us could string very many words together without murdering the language horribly, and the people who could say things which made me think, "Flip, they're a bit good" then later did things which made me think, "Ah they're just like the rest of us deep down...". The teacher explained all the difficult words in the texts - that being most of them - and so it ended up being at an ok sort of level. Nichola, the man with the woman's name, was one of the few humble enough to suggest that it was all a bit much for him, but he was told that he should stick it out because a lower class would be too easy. This was said without any apparent regard for how much Nichola did or did not know, and so a suspicious mind might wonder whether the other class was just too big and didn't want him. But I didn't get the feeling Nichola had a suspicious bone in his body.

He was further reassured when he was instructed not to fear the Russians to the left of the room because they had been at the language school for ages and it was only to be expected that they got more answers right than anyone else. Knowing that helped us all a bit - except the russians, who lost a bit of their glory. He was also told, quietly and on the sly, that he could look at the answer key if he wanted when he was doing the homework. This seemed to suggest the teacher had the outrageous belief that the rest of us wouldn't be doing so.

All of this did also create the impression that, rather than progressing through the levels (Grundstufe -> Mittlestufe -> Oberstufe), all that really needs to be done is to wait until the levels themselves descend to the stage at which you are already. I had always thought that, by the Oberstufe, one should be able to say something vaguely coherent and even interesting, and of more than 2 sentences in length. Because there isn't much further to go. But, alas, that is not the case.
Nevertheless, there is apparently one class higher than ours (the upper-Oberstufe, rather than the beginning Oberstufe), which presumably contains the good people.

Yet I do not wish to speak too soon. Perhaps I'll yet get kicked down to some other level when she corrects my homework. If so, I hope I can take Nichola with me. And possibly the man with the bowling alley shoes.