Gifts and Goodies

The natives are getting restless. Students are emailing me, waiting for their grades to appear, and showing up at my desk with chocolates and picture frames, perfumes and fancy make up, hoping that their generosity (soft bribery) might soften up their serious English teacher. Some might call it grade grubbing. But seriously, I am a rule-following North American teacher who knows how to separate business from nonsense, and although I am a sucker for lovely gift baskets, and some ribbon tied around a bunch of flowers, or a neatly wrapped department-store gift, I do manage (I am pretty sure) to blindly apply the stringent criteria to their projects, papers and presentations. One of my most difficult groups of students, who had such a hard time getting their act together, came around to my desk with a little speech prepared: 'We know we made you very tired Miss, but we are happy for you helping us'. And that about sums it up.