Peter came back to the Maths again. «Teddy Bear usually explained exercises for ten to fifteen minutes, as it took the other kids a little longer to understand his speech. Two or three more exercises took them another twenty minutes why the hell did this man demanded a further ten to fifteen more exercises for homework? «Teddy Bear didnt care how long Peter spent on this boring work and nor did the other teachers. Each of them thinks theyre the Lord of the manor and the pupils are mere slaves. Of course, they know more than the pupils, but homework always seems to be more than the lesson why? Why should they do homework tree-four times longer than at school? Again, theres no-one to explain.
Tomorrow theyll have six lessons, two of them would be PE. Alex told him once how long it would usually take to do this «boring Maths shit. However, Alex was a geek one of the best in the class, so Peter could only imagine the efforts that, Mary or Natalie, for example, would have to go through to do the same. Awesome. If they really tried to do homework theyd have to do it well into the night. And no night clubs and parties, of course.
Peter imagined a teacher making all these exercises alone. He wondered if there was anyone who could endure it? Highly unlikely. He thought of Dads stories about his old good times when they had only one teacher. The man taught them all the subjects for the whole year and there was another one who «inherited» them in the following one. Peter thought if there were such a system in this Russian school, the teacher would not be able to give them so huge home exercises. He simply wouldnt be able to check up the following day. Too much for one person. Even for «Teddy Bear. Peter tried to gauge how long it could take him to check up their exercise books. The result was shocking: three hours per each class daily. Five classes meant fifteen hours. It was impossible. Even if a teacher were a genius and were never tired, even if he could read faster than any ordinary person, even so he wouldnt be able to spend less than five-six hours per day for checking their home work. Without any coffee break and smoking! It was impossible to imagine. He understood now why his home works stayed unmarked so often. «If they do not care of what they ask for, why should we do then?», he sighed and fell to thinking.
It was China he reminisced about. Two years ago Dad convinced Mum to go altogether to China. He had some partners over there and planned to set up a business with Government in the South of China. It took him two years to understand it would be not so fast and his partners could not do all routine job without him. But life in China was a nightmare for Peter. Dad was crazy about his own childhood and the way he was educated in a John Deweys school. He wanted Peter to follow his way. He made Peter work at a factory in China for a while. On Sundays. There was no air conditioning and the food was lousy, always. But Dad said Peter had to learn life the way it was: no sugar, no sweets, just pure water, hard work and perspiration all over the body. The humidity was always 100% and the temperature was over 30 Centigrade all the day long. It was a disaster. Peter barely survived. At school they studied six days a week and almost ten month a year. But there was no home work at all in there. Strange. And now he was in Russia. Not much better but he had no perspiration every day at the very least. Dad said the future would belong to nuclear energy, and he was sure the Russians had some good ideas on that. Dad is a very smart man. But hes as stubborn as a mule. So, he even convinced Mom to teach in The University of Foreign Languages in Moscow to move about.
Peter smiled and eyed another pile of papers. Damn, Geography! In the afternoon he hesitated about how to fill in the maps and how to find the coordinates of some cities and mountains. He didnt, however, now. He knew Google Maps would never-ever let him down. He entered the data and got the first reply. With a safe conscience he jotted down all the necessary latitudes and longitudes on the maps and gave a stretch with delight. Even though he was against the boring homeworks he did not want to upset his Dad. Doing too much was not the right way to success, he thought. Peter was tired. Hed be better off leaving all this behind now. He was thirsty and died for some tea. But he kept one eye on the monitor. There was a flickering envelope in the right down corner. New incoming mail? His heart missed a beat. It was like email apnea. He could not say how but he was sure it was Marys email in there. He clicked the icon. Damn, it was her!
«Hi Pete, could you help me to translate the text below, please?» was number one in her «list of wishes.
H-m-m, she could do it herself But after looking through the pages Peter understood their English teacher alias «Dragon was in a very bad mood today: the text was about fiber optic glass and its physical characteristics. How could they translate it from Russian into English? Even he could not For some time this job absorbed him and he did not notice the second question in the message. After pressing the «Reply All» button he saw Natalies email in the address line too. There were also a few words about it down there: «Please, help us with Natalie because she is my best friend and we wont translate the text without your help. I owe u a lot, Pet!» My aunt! It was unfair. Peter wanted to delete the message but decided to scroll it down. And in the end he found one more thing.