Chapter 8 English Class

"Phew I'm not dealing with that", said Marconi.

"Welcome", a well combed and mature teacher spoke out.

He was slightly under 6ft with a serious and fierce look, his nationality looked quite russian as his face had that serious physique with slightly older cheekbones and blue eyes. He had that not amused and I'm not getting paid enough face.

What was quite interesting about the classroom was pictures of him riding bears topless in the wilderness.

A few minutes later some people walked in and the teacher gave a fierce glare, some students just left, a few stayed. Then class started.

With a slightly thick Russian accent he said in a low gruff voice, "My name is Vyacheslav Mikhailovich and I will be teaching you literature. I will be frank and serious with you. I expect your best efforts most of the time.

This is not English class, I will not be teaching you 'English'. I will be teaching you literature, grammar, tone, intent, and if I'm feeling particularly happy, gloomy, or you manage to make me laugh we'll go over some political and espionage literature.

Make me laugh three times I give you an A+ and you can skip my class, and I'll let you know I've only laughed at 1 joke so far in my entire teaching career."

Then Mr. Mikhailovich turned to the board and wrote some very unusual characters

"Вячесла́в Миха́йлович, vʲɪt͡ɕɪˈslaf mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈunderneath were two labels, this is my Cyrillic name and the other is pronunciation.

Today we'll be learning to properly pronounce my name, this will be going into the grade book as the first class assignment. Later I'll give you the syllabus as you head out."

Marconi thought in his head "This is a 1 star teacher? These stars better be good and not people I should avoid."

They spent the whole class and they still couldn't pronounce it, they will be continuing this class next time. Everyone at least got the first part of the name correct, but the second part was difficult.

Another thing everyone dreaded was writing the teachers name on assignments. Sure they could write the Russian and they would get an extra point on homework, however who could remember his English name, much less his Russian one.

Marconi sighed, he really didn't want to write such a long name on his papers. As the class ended, Vyacheslav handed out the class syllabus.

It was surprisingly quite expansive, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Old Yeller, Tolstoy, and a few others. Also he gave out extra points for particularly hard authors such as Hemingway, Whitman, the Communist Manifesto and other famous works.

He particularly gave out Russian papers as well. Marconi was excited because he got a Russian teacher, at the same time the guy was scary so Marconi didn't really see himself getting any extra help from him. Then Marconi left the classroom and went to a more isolated part of campus. He ducked into the Janitor's closet and the passageway to the tunnels opened up.