Smoked Success

12.

Here I am, in this huge university called UCLA. I have the freshmen first, since I need to sort of explain how business economics goes as a major and all, it'll be two hours. These are the ones I do not need to explain my techniques all over again, since they've never got the chance to meet the other teacher. I go to the business economics room, where my freshmen are supposed to be. A not so horrible amount of students is inside, but guess I'll have to wait an extra 5 minutes to make sure everyone's here, I usually have 31 students as freshmen.

The meeting with the freshmen wasn't horrible, they're pretty ambitious and they're hoping for really good stuff. I have divided the class into six groups of five, since we'll have to do plenty of group work, whether it was for freshmen or seniors. They haven't commented on my age, which is fantastic for me, I do not need anyone talking about that. I currently have juniors, which is still the only class with no complete syllabus, it's not so bad because I'm halfway through, and I still have time.

"Good morning class, I am Jessica Styles," I start, I've practiced this thousands of times, "I ought to be your new Business Economics teacher, replacing Mr. Worthington-"

The whole class sighs, seeming not to care. I do not see that dynamism in this class, I have no clue why. They do look older, and I do notice I have troublemakers, oh my this is what I feared.

"Ought to be? Where are you from?" A student sarcastically says, making the rest of the class laugh.

"I'm British." I give him a competitive look. The laughing got louder, which annoyed me. "Excuse me." I shouted, knocking on my desk. Oh this class is going to be a pain in the ass.

"So, Mrs Styles-" The same student starts again, but I cut him off.

"Miss Styles, please." I correct him. "Yeah go ahead?"

"Where do you come from, from 'England'?" He asks, quoting England with his fingers.

"Cheshire," I start, "does that matter to our syllabus?"

"It does to me." He shrugs.

"What's your name?" I question, I wanted to call him off for annoying me.

"Andrew." He smiles at me.

I look at my list, to make sure if he's on it or not. If he isn't, I'd kick him out, never see him again, whatever happened in this period would disappear. And apparently he is, guess I'll need to handle him till next year and then he leaves, great. This class had 35 students, this is the biggest amount of students I have, oh god.

"Unfortunately, your class' syllabus isn't done. Therefor, I'll make sure to distribute it by next week, are we clear?" I inform them, or else they'd not give two shits about whatever I'll give them. They all nod, but I know they probably do not care whether they have it or not. "I'm not very similar to your previous teacher, I focus a lot on group work, which you will need a lot in the future." Everyone sighs, probably in disappointment. "I will have 7 groups of five, distributed randomly, I already stuck a paper with the groups, kindly note your partners."

Andrew raises his hand, I do not want to pick him but I do not want to ignore him. I guess I'll have to chose him anyways. "Yes, Andrew? Anything useful?"

"Why can't we pick our own groups?" He asks me, pretending to seem focused.

"I'll tell you something, in 2 years, when you go to work, will you be the one picking your colleagues?" I look at him in the eye. "Well no, because you pick persons based on their experience not their relationship with you, unless you're working in a company that has messed up conditions for workers."

And yes, I just avoided saying fucked up. I mean, it's still my first day with them, I cannot already show them my bad side. I might use profanity later, but not too close to fuck. I will probably let the students use it, because it'll be used one way or another later.