Back to school, and a boy.
This boy is difficult.
He decribes himself as "cocky and uneventful". A young man who travels a long way to get to this establishment... from the Flemington high rise flats in NewMarket to the flat dryness of Delahey. Being "on time" is an issue. He is being roasted for it.
Boy told me today that he was "almost always" on time... except for when some teachers make him get a late pass. Sir doesn't make him get a late pass... for this he is grateful.
Boy uses the staff toilets. Boy stays behind to talk to adults. Boy loves to crack a joke, and when Sir realises that it is an asperges asian joke, she laughs... and he smiles. A rare occurence. "But do you get it, Sir, do you get it?"
Boy is an abberation. New teachforaustraya staff have trouble with him... well, hell, we all have trouble with him. There is a difference here with the definition of "trouble" though. In the badlands of 9 & 10's Sir found that "trouble" was the naughty mouthy smart smoking defiant teen. At the Senior Campus "trouble" is quite different. Trouble is the sometime naughty often lazy no good lacklustre liberalist.
Over the year, Boy Trouble slips and skids, but stays on the path with the other kids. Halfway through, Boy Trouble is struggling to keep the last of his schoolmates in view. At the end of semester, Boy Trouble is lost.
Sir asks his classmates: "How is Boy going? Is he okay?"
Classmates answer: "Boy is having a hard time. Boy is forever lost"
At the start of the year, Boy drove Sir nutty nutty nuts. Forever with the questions and the interruptions and the non cylindrical conversations somehow spiralling out of control. After a while though, the formula became apparent. It was the x times cubed formula. One question = three answers... and not necessarily in an order. How many questions?? Depends on the day...Nuts!!
Sir is left wondering quite a few things from this intense relationship. What does the conversation formula mean? Is boy Aspberges? Or if not, why the need to focus so intently on safe adult relationships, to the extent that he will shift his whole timeframe of a day to be with safe adults? Why indeed, should Sir be so concerned with the "way things should be"?, which is certainly the slant that Boy puts on things.
However any extrapolation and hypothesis in Sir's world is a means to an end. Boy and Sir can now communicate. It has been an positive and eventful year.
