Teacher's pain in the ass

[Tuomas]

I wrote this essay for school a while ago, and my teacher had a hard time with it. I'll translate it into English as well as possible so that you'll feel the way she did. Have fun reading it.


                                                          Dear Friends

”The first step. There you are, even though you're not entirely bad. But a smile I do not see on your loins , nor on your lips. Perhaps someone could touch your lips, I am not interested in it,  you surely are no fairyqueen, nor are you a canine.”
   ”Me?”
   ”No, it's not you who I'm talking to, I would never talk to a canine, do you know why? Because while speaking a canine won't bark, and when a canine won't bark, it can bite. Yes, maybe if I bit it first. But then how could I speak?”
   ”Last night, or was it the one before, yes, it is of no relevancy anyway wherther it is about what I would say to you, if I had a chance! After all, it is you turn to listen now, and therefore I wish that you would listen to me. Perhaps even pretend to do so, perhaps. Perhaps you would speak... yes, perhaps you would speak a foreign language.”
   ”AS I was saying: last night, meaning the night before, wherther it makes a difference. Or, what does your clock say now?”
   ”Oh mine?”
   ”No, not your's but your's! Yes, yesterday, or was it the day after, I, or rather we; I mean of course myself and my sun, were sitting in front of a clock. We talked about the clock in fact, most odd. WE do live one day at the time, you and me, when you are my sun. But as a sun also yearns for honey... what you say? Yes, honey, indeed, and can a day be divided into parts? Yes, I count the hours, you count the minutes, whereas my sun is concerned about seconds. On the other hand, if you should be my sun, by what would you count then? Well, if one should count minutes, then me and mymy sun would reach the conclusion, and do you not agree, that while we lived a minute at a time life would be longer. There are more minutes than what there are days?”
   ”You have always been this source of inspiration to me. Or not always, but at least since my sun moved in to live with me.That is why I have it harder and harder to understand, why do you take  my words for nothing, even boring you find them. Very well, I believe I speak fully subjectively at times, but it comes in me from the outside, and it is about you. It is my sun and therefore I would wish that you were my sun. Why woul dI talk to a canine?”
   ”Oh me?”
   ”Why, if it can bite but you can not? And why would I live a day at a time, if my sun lived a minute. I would die at once. A straight or a crooked hit in to the heart or the forehead, it only takes one. We could perhaps live foreverm once you were my sun, she does have enough honey with her, yes, perhaps... for to you I am talking to and I dare not love. Yes... perhaps...”

   ”The second step. Why did you bring me here? Maybe because I ask too much, yes, maybe that's why. Maybe because I have friends, maybe.No, they do not live there, they live here! Not in a fruit. They all live here and others do too; it makes me complete, and that is why I speak all the time. And surely you know what I feel, you are no canine.”
   ”Oh we?”
   ”No, not you, you are canine. You could bite. Yes, shout at me, even behind my back!”
   ”Did I see it, that some of you live, and some even in white houses? Very much like that one there! What does it think it is, that's what it calls itself. But it's making faces to everyone! And if I should lay my sun for it, it would spit her out too. Is it you who have made it white? It surely doesn't see for itself, as it spits away everything visible, as it shall spit you later. It is a house, but what is it? I doesn't think that, being a house, that is what you say to it. And it doesn't even say so, it is a house.”
   ”You all try to be wiser than what I am, otherwise I would be silent. Yet I am not. You make me speak, and I do not tolerate silence, unawareness. I am not wise by knowing you are quiet, though you don't notice it, and only because I always speak. I also know that I talk often, you do not know it, and it doesn't make me wise either. Then if I was wise, they wouldn't know it, nor would you, and do yo know, nor would I. I wouldn't, because I wouldn't tell myself it.”
   It's all about time. There are days already lived through, and those that shall be yet lived. Which one's are longer, that is but you choise. Not mine nor my sun's but your days. Surely I couldn't mean that someone would choose on our behalf, mine and my sun's, I am no house. On the other hand, I'm not wise either.”
   ”They say, that even fairies get wiser by time, but who cares about them?
They fly around our heads, whisoerin truths. They areally are something, like pesticides. Yes, that's what they are, but wise people do not know about them, they don't live in white houses. And I'm not afraid. Perhaps I would get along without them, perhaps wthout you. Yes, perhaps...”
   ”Oh us?”
   ”Yes, perhaps you...”

   ”Two steps have been taken, do you see? Do you see? But we are in the middle of the road. This is the most dangerous... You did promise me, we're not on the other side”
   ”Oh but you wanted to count minutes yourself! Do you not enjoy you life long as it is? Perhaps with us?”
   ”Yes, perhaps... Yes, indeed, and I did not think of that. Are you my sun, now that I see you?”
   ”And you see! Because I stayed on this road and I counted minutes. Maybe now yo udare love, you do speak already.”
   ”Yes, maybe... I remember, but then I don't remember, but I snile, don't I. I can't see my smile, but I feel. I think, so I say so, but I still don't understand...”
   Why was it that he didn't understand then? Because he was wise, among his friends. And no-one was perfectly wise, they all had their fairies. He could be wise, for he needed not to cover himself, no canine comes in the middle of the road.
   ”So I am not dreaming? How many are there of you? Are we 'we'? When did you come?”
   ”Never you mind about that; I'm here now and the sun is shining. Look, has it ever been as bright?”
   ”I see it, as I see you and you. I can think again.”
   
   He remembered the sun as it once was, in the darkness, sometimes, yesterday, or the day before that, not that it matters now that you're in the middle of the road: there, where the light is the central. So bright, that you couldn't see it, but yet so weak, that it died and gave out no light. And they all were warm, forte grey surface didn't spit as white did.
   ”There on the other side of the road the sun doesn't shine, for it's in the shadows. There I would not wish to be.”
   ”Nor would I. Come, take my hand, it's easy.”
   They all took off in a gruop keeping up the conersation.
   ”Are we friends, are we here?!
   ”Yes. And we are not within your head, in your forehead, nor within your heart. Still loves of us what you have withnin.”
   ”And yes indeed, I might laugh, you're doing this to me, and you. Not the others.”
   ”That's certain. And the same thing you do to us, for you are a friend!”
   
   I wonder if a man has ever smiles like he smiled now. Most likely yes, but he hadn't, and the sun was also shining, like it had never before. And as it shone it also followed thier steps, minute by minute, and maybe somtime, tomorrow, or the day after, when he would be wiser, would it be easier for him to focus on enjoying it. Yes, maybe...
   ”And maybe one day I will talk behind my smile, and love. Maybe I will get back...”
   ”You know it already.”

                                                  END

Kindly she tried to figure this one out and comment on it, the poor sod... all in all I got 50 points when the grades were from 50 to 99, but I don't think she ever realized what I was after... Maybe even I myself didn't

I wanted to share this with you because I like myself pretty much. Feel free to say I'm stupid. My friends just say I eat too much mushrooms

[m0ds]

Well, I'm slightly confuzzled by it! You say it's an essay - but its more of an elongated poem to me. Is it for English, or something similar? It's all contained in speech marks. I'd say you got 50 because it's confusing & makes little sense, other than a bunch of thoughts.

Lets take the first sentence:

The first step:
- There you are (you exist) but, you're not that bad (makes little sense)
- I do not see you smiling, nor see your lips smiling (makes little sense)
- Perhaps someone could touch your lips, but I wouldn't want too (thats just mean! )
- You surely aren't a poof (I think )
- And you definitely aren't a dog

"Who, me?"

- No, lol, not you. Someone behind you.
- You're a dog and I'd never talk to you

Sorry... The whole thing is confusing. Maybe it's just because it translates oddly into English, or if it is perfectly translated, it sounds like random ramblings. Sorry dude :/ I wouldn't say your stupid - but you need to think about structure! I bet your teacher sat there and asked her/himself, "What am I reading, here??"

[Tuomas]

 ;DThe very response I was looking for... well, none of my IRL friend got it, so... but after a long night of studying it, I found a symbolic meaning to everything, ad then I was very impressed by myself... there are words such as canine that are not the same in Finnish which is te original language, but I translated so, that te meaning would stay. The word is yet mostly the same.

hmmm, I might add them here, as m0ds will suggest later on... I f only I could remember... If only I had written them down... it's such a long job, and I hardyl have the time now, but later perhaps...

[m0ds]

Well, you have to explain a meaning to examiners - you can't just write it and hope they guess it.

[Ashen]

I think it reads like it's trying to be Shakespeare, the beginning at least. The bits like "a smile I do not see on your loins , nor on your lips" and " you surely are no fairyqueen, nor are you a canine" ('fairyqueen' might be one of the things that hasn't translated well - I read it as something like 'angel', as in 'of great beauty', so 'You're no oil painting, but you're not bad'), and (back to the Fakespearian tone) slightly further on "No, not your's but your's!".

Like m0ds (and everyone, it seems) I didn't get it, but then I didn't get half of the crap they made me read in English lessons, so maybe it's poetry - in which case, you don't have to explain the meaning, just act all superior when people don't 'get' you.

[Tuomas]

hah you pune little mongers, you don't get me, I am superior... well, the fairyqueen is teh very word for it, the leader of fairies, like those one's in Peter Pan, but more of a psychic character... as I read it again... the fairy resembles something the unwise have that is partially said to give them thier thoughts... It's mentioned somewhere in the end of the 2nd chapter with lots of typos... "whisper truths, that's what they do...

I did make lots of it poetical, then tried to translate them poetically, at the same time keeping the atmosphere... other parts are not even supposed to be so

[Becky]

”The first step. There you are, even though you're not entirely bad. But a smile I do not see on your loins , nor on your lips. Perhaps someone could touch your lips, I am not interested in it,  you surely are no fairyqueen, nor are you a canine.”
   â€Me?”
   â€No, it's not you who I'm talking to, I would never talk to a canine, do you know why? Because while speaking a canine won't bark, and when a canine won't bark, it can bite. Yes, maybe if I bit it first. But then how could I speak?”

The use of canine here (and throughout the rest of the piece) is very persistant...and rather out of place.  Dog or some other variant would work better.  (Although I guess this may be a result of you trying to translate poetically.)

I can see why you got 50 out of 99.  Trying to outsmart teachers doesn't gain you the marks you think it would.  The emphasis on making it so "poetic" (if my poetic you mean vague with pretty words and phrases)  has meant that it has lost a lot of meaning, dancing around the point occasionally is fine, but this easily loses the reader's train of thought.  So it does not make immediate sense.

I wonder how much of the confusion arises from translation.

[InCreator]

Tuomas,
when you live in North...
  ...keep your head cool.

This "essay" sounds interesting indeed, but doesn't make any sense to me either, and even if it did, it just doesn't qualify the standards of a student's essay.

Try writing a book, I'm sure there's people who totally dig stuff like this. Maybe you'll get rich and famous!

[Nikolas]

Ok. Apart the whole negative feedback in the previous posts ~I'm fairly positive.

I like it. It is kind of my writting.

Awarness. Love in vain. Failure.

I won't sit down and write another essay on what I understood from yours.

I can understand that the translation is indeed poor, but I got what you where trying to say, I got the atmosphere you where trying to create and the poetic feeling you where tring to give.

The teacher was right to give you 50. You haven't told us what the essay was about.

If the subject was "Drugs and Heroine: results" then you did a very good job. If it was though :"The political awarness of China of the fall of the Eastern block", then... Well...

[Tuomas]

Heh. basically, you asked what the essay was about, the teacher told us to write anything we like, to the subject of course, which I planted Dear Friends for. So, eh, this was not meant to be an essay worth any points, just basically some train of thought to make the teacher confused, and I guess I confused you too.

I read the translation through again, and it seemed as much confusing as the original, or, not more confusing... Well, I liked mixing up the poor teacher, she tried to comment and everything... I got 50 from this, 53 from a literature study, and lousy grades from the course as whole, but it was fun seeing her trying to add critique and comments into these

If the subject was "Drugs and Heroine: results" then you did a very good job. If it was though :"The political awarness of China of the fall of the Eastern block", then... Well...

Yes well you could find something referring to the fall of the Eastern block there too...