“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, with Teenagers — Part 1
I’ve been asked on many occasions why I enjoy teaching adolescents. Sometimes, it is me who asks the question, to restore my faith. This occurs on days when I meet apathy in the classroom, either my students’ or my own special brand (middle aged complacency). This recurring apathy supports the theory, often whipped like a banner in “conservative” circles, that school teachers inhabit their rooms as they were hideouts. Their ambition neutered. Their workday rehearsed, curricula rote. Their highest achievement grading the methodically dull papers of teens.
“Why don’t you teach at a university?” the question goes. “Why don’t you write a book?”
“Why do you like teaching teenagers?”
The questions rub at the sore of mediocrity. And every school teacher has faced this perceived failing at some point in his or her career. But then, every career grooms its own questions of inadequacy.
Where the professor may suffer from egging ambition (or its partnering envy), the teacher suffers for its lack. Yet in either classroom the bud of teaching grows and this is where beauty is discovered, in scent, color and form. So it is that teaching teenagers a literature they care little for is beautiful.
No really.
I suppose the only means of answering the question is to enter the classroom. This is where we start the hour dull faced and end with a glow. At worst, we share a little laughter, and if unable to reach a platonic chord, there is always tomorrow. We build relationships in the classroom, that is what I want to say. But like a good teacher, I must do better than say it. I must show it.
We are talking about love.
My students have read Raymond Carver’s short story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. They are a vibrant mix of Polish and international students, set to graduate in a couple of months. We have spent three years together and developed a warm rapport. A kind of family. Chris, the eldest son, precocious, of age and ability to shove his father off the cliff (and eager to do so). Hakeem, the irrepressible kid from next door, visiting every day, asking Chris to shoot baskets, staying for dinner. Wiki, the eldest daughter, Chris’s nemesis and foil. Monika, the middle child and axis, balancing the more weighted sides. Paweł, the aloof dreamer, raised on the internet and techie gadgets. Maya the youngest, sneaking out to meet her boyfriend, making excuses to stay the night. And Filip…dark-eyed, delinquent. The prodigal son.
There are only seven (today)— an advantage of teaching in a small international school. If I had 27 students in my class, I’d have little time to write this story. I’d have a different question to ponder.
We must begin.
“What do we talk about when we talk about love?”
I have my coffee mug filled and sit on the edge of my desk, as it were a bar stool. My students face me as mild portraits in PTSD. Zoned out. Red-eyed. Grey bloodless cheeks and chins. It’s Tuesday, 3rd period. 10:15. If they look too grey I ask them how much sleep they got. If they ate breakfast. What they ate. If they had breakfast with their family. If they read a newspaper. The answers are always the same (5–6 hours, yes, cereal, no, no).
If that doesn’t work, I give them a 10 minute freewriting session. That’s what I did here. 10 minutes to pontificate about Carver’s story without the judgment of one’s peers. Or draw pictures. So long as they made contact with their minds.
I asked the question again: “What do we talk about when we talk about love?”
Wiki perked up by making a grinding noise between her teeth, like she had much to say but didn’t know how to say it.
“Wiki?”
“It’s too much sir.”
“Did you like the story?”
“Of course.”
“What did you like about it?”
“Well,” she started, “it was about love. And, I don’t know. It was true.”
“What was true?”
“Well, everything. How relationships are. Or love. But I don’t know what kind of love is true,” she said. “Or if it’s true. Oh, I don’t know…”
“It’s okay…it’s early.”
“I noticed that the light was getting thinner and thinner throughout the story, until the end when it was completely dark.”
I turned to the opposite corner to address Chris. He spoke with a casual assurance and sat with his long legs in front of him. Like he was sun-bathing.
“I think it means that the love they were talking about was getting weaker the more they talked about it. The more they revealed about it, the more it seemed that their own loves might be false, or maybe illusions. And then they were just left in the dark.”
“Wow,” I said. “I think you just summed up the whole story.”
“Great. Can we go then?”
The students chorused for an early end to the lesson.
“Chris said it all Mr. Krasner. I made notes,” Hakeem quipped. “The light got thinner until the end when it got all dark. That’s love sir.”
“No, that’s an aphorism.”
“What’s an aphorism?”
“It’s not love. An aphorism is something wise. Short, concise, with a lot of holes that need to be filled in. By talking.”
“What’s the use of talking about love?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know. I think Carver might be asking the same thing. They do a lot of talking about love in the story, don’t they?”
“They talk too much.”
“Mel talks to much,” Wiki said. “He does almost all the talking.”
“Because he wants to know what love is?” I asked.
“If he was in love, he’d know.”
“You don’t think he’s in love?”
“Oh, he says he loves but I don’t think he acts like it. He tells Terri to shut up.”
“You’re not allowed to tell your wife to shut up? That’s news to me.”
“No, I just mean, he’s kind of mean throughout the story. He’s not gentle about anything. And he sounds kind of bitter. Wait, let me find it.”
Wiki flipped through the pages of her Xeroxed text. The rest of the class kept their copies closed in front of them.
“I don’t think he was bitter,” Chris continued, sensing an argument. “I think he was experienced. He wasn’t afraid to tell her to shut up, or even to question what love is in front of her. I think he’s the most honest guy in the story.”
“Okay, here it is,” Wiki said. “Page 122. Near the middle. He says, ‘Just shut up for once in your life!’”
Wiki’s sharp words defied her tiny frame.
“Oooh,” Hakeem squealed delightfully.
“Mel said it, not me Hakeem. And I mean, yea, it’s honest. But it’s hurtful. I think he wants to hurt her.”
“He doesn’t want to hurt her,” Chris returned. “He’s just annoyed. He’s trying to say something and she’s butting in. Maybe she’s afraid of what he’s going to say.”
“Yea, like I don’t love you.”
“But he doesn’t say ‘I don’t love you’,” I slipped in. “He actually said ‘I do love you’. Didn’t he say that to Terri, multiple times?”
“Yea,” Wiki said with a questionable tone. “But he was sarcastic. Wait, I’ll find it.”
“Here we go again…”
“Be patient!” she scolded Chris.
“No, tell him what you really think Wiki. Go ahead,” I egged on, “tell him to….”
“Shut up for once in your life!” Hakeem filled in.
The class loosened up while Chris and Wiki blushed in equal degree.
“It’s like they’re in love sir,” Hakeem added.
“They do argue well. I give them 10–15 years.”
“Mr. Krasner!” Wiki objected.
The two of them, tall and small, pragmatic and sentimental, man and woman, had a knack for initiating classroom seminars, taking up opposing sides of the room and opposing positions. Sometimes, in the right mood, Chris would lift Wiki up in his arms, and almost throw her into the air while she playfully resisted. They constituted the heart of the family. We followed their lead.
“Love you,” Wiki picked up. “He says, ‘love you honey.’ Then says ‘I love you’ to everyone, to Laura and Nick too. He’s just being sarcastic. They’re just words.”
“Well, Chris?”
He licked his chops and sat upright.
“I think he’s not disillusioned, that’s all. He knows they’re just words. But he also knows that love can pass by. He’s divorced. He’s just being realistic.”
“He’s being a pain in the ass,” Wiki countered. “I’m sorry sir, but it’s not love.”
“What’s not love?”
“Mel’s love.”
“The one he’s talking about?”
“No, the one he feels. For Terri.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Well, yea. I think so. I think that’s the whole point of the story.”
“You think? Let’s find out.”
I moved from my position and stood in front the whiteboard, a blank canvas. The classroom itself was poorly painted, the walls half white and half yellow. A bright winter sun filtered through the windows which were partially cloaked by vertical blinds that no longer moved along their string.
“Chris began by noticing the ending. He said something about love getting more thin as the story moved on.”
“No I didn’t. I said the light got thinner. Until it was all dark.”
“Right. But do you think love is like that thinning light?”
He deliberated.
“I think there are too many kinds of love to say,” he answered. “Sometimes it’s the light and sometimes the darkness.”
“Oh that’s nice. And why do you suppose Carver ends the story with the line, ‘I could hear my heart beating,’ or, hold on…” I flipped through my own Carver anthology, stuffed through with at least a decade’s worth of post-it notes. “Or, ‘I could hear everyone’s heart beating’…there in the dark?”
Chris straightened up again.
“Because that’s closer to love than talking. The feeling in your heart and maybe in others people’s hearts. The silence and darkness of the heart.”
“Hold on…I have to write that down.”
“It’s the perfect ending,” he added.
“Do you guys agree?”
Monika had her head tilted to one side and her mouth slightly ajar, nibbling a pen.
“Yea, I do,” she said. “But I didn’t catch the light metaphor in the same way as Chris.”
I captured Chris’s words at the top of the board, after jotting down the date: April 9 2011— Love: The silence and darkness of the heart.
“Is this some kind of lesson objective?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know yet. It’s a great line. It could be the title of the story. Or maybe an essay.”
“Oh no,” the class moaned.
“Well you don’t think we’re just going to talk about love.”
“Please Mr. Krasner,” Hakeem led, “we love talking about love. Don’t make us write about it!”
“Later you will write — in your own silence, and hopefully with some light. And it will be a lot easier after all this talking.”
I continued.
“Let’s just say that Chris has given us a title and potential thesis of that paper. We don’t have to agree with it. But usually we start with the biggest ideas and we should note them down. Now we have to fill out the middle. This is the fun part.”
The moans….
“Do you have your notebooks out?”
They mechanically filed through their bags, reluctantly abandoned their slouched postures.
“And are you sitting upright with your pens in hand.”
“With our whats in hand sir?” Chris hinted at the Freudian slip.
“Pens…..I said pens!”
“Right sir.”
“Well just hold onto something you can write with.”
The class burst out again, the boys bellowing and the girls feigning embarrassment.
“Let’s start with another question. Chris and Wiki said there were many kinds of love in this story. How many kinds do you think there are?”
There was a slight pause. Everyone got settled. And then —
“Twenty sir?”
Paweł spoke disjointedly from the middle of the room. His remote nature split the class into its halves: Wiki and Monika to his left, by the window, Chris and Hakeem to his right, by the wall. Filip sat adrift to one back corner, if he showed up, and Maya closest to the door.
“Twenty? That’s a little high Paweł. Did you read the same story?”
“He’s thinking of the Kama Sutra Mr. Krasner,” Chris joked.
“Yea right.”
“Did you read the story Paweł?”
“Of course I did Mr. Krasner. Why would you doubt me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. History?”
“You should not pay so much attention to history Mr. Krasner. You might miss the present!”
He spoke with an earnest pretense of charm.
“Okay, so if there are twenty variations of love here, name one.”
“Well…”
The class let him stagger.
“There must have been true love in there sir,” he said cleverly.
“Why do you say?”
“Why write a story about love without talking about true love?”
“Well, that is a good question. Is true love in the story class?”
“I’m not sure,” Monika broke the silence. “Maybe he wants us to think about what that is.”
“Let’s do that then. Let’s do it by looking at the relationships in the story.”
I took out the marker again and wrote ‘Love Types’ underneath Chris’s potential essay title. Then I scribbled the first couple mentioned in story, Ed and Terri, but I couldn’t help making an association in my brain with the 80’s pop hit, ‘Love Shack’. So while writing, I proceeded to sing: “Love types, baby love types…..”
The class looked at me with concern. Dad’s gone over the edge.
“B-52’s? 1989? MTV?”
“We can google it later Mr. Krasner,” Chris said.
“What can’t you google?”
“Well, we can’t google love.”
“Sure we can,” Paweł countered slyly.
There was another round of furtive laughter.
“Confusing sex with love,” I said. “A common mistake at your age.”
“Well, we’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Maybe that’s why Carver doesn’t really mention anything about sex in this story, which is all about love. He talks about relationships.”
“He should have included some sex Mr. Krasner,” Hakeem couldn’t resist. “It would have made it better.”
“Boys,” Wiki said. She shook her head demonstratively.
“At least a paragraph Mr. Krasner. You have to admit.”
“Where would it fit?”
“Nick and Terri, in the kitchen!” joked Chris. “Behind Mel’s back.”
“Okay, we’re getting sidetracked!”
“It’s your fault Mr. Krasner. You mentioned sex.”
“I mentioned google. I mentioned pens. You guys put two and two together — ”
“Ahh, see Mr. Krasner?” Chris carried the digression, “two and two together? Nick and Laura, Mel and Terri?”
“He’s impossible.”
Hakeem and Chris were slapping high fives. The girls lowered their heads in mock disgust.
Is this why I love teaching adolescents?
“So, Ed and Terri!” I commanded. “We have to give their love a name.”
“Urrrghh….”
“Urrrghh love Wiki? Is that what we should call it?”
I wrote ‘Urrrghh Love’ on the board, next to Ed and Terri.
“What is ‘urrrghh love’ exactly? Sounds primitive.”
“They just make me angry.”
“Why? Because he beat her?”
“Well, yes. But also because she stayed with him. She even visited him at the hospital after he tried to kill himself.”
“Doesn’t that show love?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But what kind?”
“Maya?”
Maya had parted her hooded head from wall. She waited to be asked to speak.
“Um, I think they had a destructive relationship,” she said carefully. “Terri may have loved him, but it was destructive.”
“Did Ed love her?”
“Um, I think yes. But he didn’t know how to handle it.”
Wiki was listening and continued her original thought.
“I think Terri loved him because she loved the attention he gave her. He was stuck to her and willing to die for her. It’s crazy, but maybe this is what love is.”
“It’s a kind of love. We just have to name it.”
“I think their love was real but Ed was too immature to express it correctly,” Chris said. “It made him afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“I think he couldn’t stand the thought of losing Terri,” Hakeem joined. “So he beat her out of this fear.”
“Do you think his fear was greater than his love? Or are they the same thing?”
“The same thing sir?”
“Fear and love.”
There was some silence.
“I don’t think they’re the same thing,” Hakeem said finally. “Fear is not love.”
“Fear is what stops people from loving,” Maya progressed.
“So you don’t think Ed loved Terri?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Because a moment ago you said you did.”
“Um, I don’t know now. I guess I have to change my mind. Maybe to him it was love. But yea, to us it doesn’t seem like love but more like fear.”
“So love should be judged from the outside?”
“No, I mean. It can be looked at both ways, right?”
“Monika, what do you think? We need to get you back in here.”
“Well,” she said while deliberating her words, “I don’t think this is love at all sir, really. I think they’re both too young to know what real love is. I don’t think love should be violent.”
“Aha, that is the word. That captures Terri’s description of the relationship. Can we call this violent love then?”
I began writing ‘Violent Love’ underneath ‘Urrrghh Love’, but Monika shyly interrupted me.
“But I don’t think it’s love sir. How can it be violent and love?”
“I think it can be,” added Chris. “They think it’s love. That’s what matters. Terri said herself, ‘he loved me’.”
“That is true,” I echoed. “She was talking to Mel and she was adamant about this. She said, ‘He did love me. You gotta give me that Mel. He did love me.’”
“So if someone thinks they’re in love, they are in love?” Monika asked.
“Class?”
“Maybe,” Wiki said. “I mean, who is to judge such a thing. It’s emotional isn’t it?”
“It’s a good question, whether love is love if you think it’s love. Oh, I’m going to write that down!”
“There he goes,” Chris remarked.
“We’ll get back to these statements at the end and see if they add up to anything. Obviously, love is many things. Like the arms of Shiva. But I will call this one violent love for the sake of continuing, with parenthesis around love to satisfy Monika. Is that ok?”
“Uh-huh,” Monika said.
“I think love has to be violent.”
I spun around to match the baritone voice with Filip’s stoic expression. His sleek black hair was a wispy mess. He was napping with head down a moment before. Now he suddenly appeared coherent in his corner of the room.
“Where have you been?” Wiki turned to him.
“Dreamland.”
“Are you sure you don’t need more time?” I asked. “We could set the snooze.”
“No, really. I just needed another half hour this morning. Long night.”
“And you read the story?”
“What story?” he asked innocently.
More laughter.
“It’s called What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. It’s by Raymond Carver. He’s a writer. He writes stories. In English. We’re in English class.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. No, I didn’t read the story — but I think I understand it.”
I smiled at the apparent wisdom.
“That’s not fair Mr. Krasner. He should have to read like the rest of us,” Hakeem said.
“Actually, nobody really has to read,” I said.
“Really? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
“I’m not forcing you to read these books. You’re choosing to, or choosing not to. There are different consequences for each choice.”
I let the remark sink in a bit.
“So, Filip, go on — love has to be violent to be love?”
“Are you going to write that down too Mr. Krasner?” Chris asked.
“Let’s wait and see what he says.”
“Well, I think it does,” he said more committed. “Love isn’t simple. It’s connected to sex and power I think. And nobody likes to be powerless, which is how it feels sometimes. We don’t know how to deal with these primitive emotions. We can kill with these emotions.”
The class was listening. Filip’s comment exposed a new more mystical point of view. Even Chris’s agile intellect lacked this complexity.
“You’re saying that love is hate and hate is love,” Chris challenged. “How can we kill because we love?”
“I didn’t say that necessarily. But maybe love is hate. They’re just like different colors.”
“Of the same thing?” I asked.
“Yea,” he assured. “Why not?”
“But hate is like resistance,” Chris pressed on. “It’s closed. And love is open.”
“Wow,” Wiki said impressed. “How about Chris!”
“What?”
“I didn’t know you could be so sensitive!”
“It’s not sensitivity; it’s logic.”
I took a seat on my desk and enjoyed the back and forth.
“Maybe hate is an instinct, a kind of reaction to love when it hits us,” Filip went further. “It resists love, so they’re kind of the same thing, because they’re connected to the same thing. They are part of one thing.”
“As in, I will hurt you before I get hurt love?” I offered. “That kind of love?”
“Maybe. I mean, you have to be competent to love.”
“Wo.” I began writing immediately. “Competent in what?” I asked.
“In life. I don’t know. I think most of us aren’t really competent. Most people are weak and sex and love get all mixed up and it’s expressed mostly by fighting.”
“I don’t like this,” Wiki said eager to get back into the talk. “Love is all about fighting? This is crazy.”
“Maybe I should call it crazy love?”
“You’ve never seen couples crazy in love and constantly fighting?” Filip asked. “Put it this way — have you ever seen a couple crazy in love and not fighting?”
“Well…” Wiki thought helplessly.
“But that fighting comes back to fear and insecurity,” I helped out. “Isn’t it a sign of insecurity to be fighting all the time with the person you’re supposed to love?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Filip said. “Love has to hurt for it to be real.”
“Oohh,” I noted the dark wound. “Now we’re drifting into tragic love.”
Wiki shook her head.
“And Ed did kill himself, over love,” I continued. “I don’t think this is unreal. It happens.”
In stacked layers of blue ink, next to the names Ed and Terri, we had now gathered: Urghh Love, Violent (Love), Crazy Love, and Tragic Love. And this was just one couple! Maybe we would get to twenty.
“It’s funny,” Hakeem noted. “It’s like we have to believe Filip because he talks like he knows what he’s saying, because it’s like he has felt love or something.”
“I don’t believe him,” Monika said under her breath.
“So you agree Hakeem that if you think you’re in love you are in love. That it’s all subjective.”
“I think so,” he said.
“But you also said that love and fear are not the same thing. And that Ed therefore did not love Terri.”
He leaned back in his chair, combing his wild hair.
“Complicated, isn’t it?”
“But Filip didn’t read the story sir!”
“Doesn’t seem to matter. Love’s all about experience.”
“Then why are we talking about love!”
“Because it’s fun! And is there anything else to do in English? We can’t really experience love.”
“Oh, ho, ho, ho,” Chris hinted at another digression.
“It’s outside of my curriculum,” I finished. “Listen, it helps to have some experience in love to talk about love. But a lot of people would say that what Filip just said about love, that love has to hurt, that love is pain — a lot of people would say that this is dark and romantic, even tragic. And you can disagree with that, even if you haven’t loved. Right? We all start out with our ideals. We all know things.”
Hakeem settled down.
“Do you disagree with Filip, Hakeem?”
“About what sir? Can you repeat it?”
“That love is pain.”
“Yes, I do,” he said without hedging. “I don’t think love is pain. Maybe when you lose it, it is pain. But real love I don’t think is pain.”
“Monika?”
“I agree with Hakeem. I mean, maybe it’s inexperienced, but it doesn’t make sense to me that love is pain and anger. I know we’re human and weak and all that, but love is what makes us happy. I don’t think people chase love because it makes them sad and crazy.”
“Well……” I thought aloud.
“Mr. Krasner has something to say?” Chris poked.
“I agree with Monika,” Wiki cut in. “I mean, I understand what Filip is saying. I think love is painful. But I think that’s part of a bigger thing. Like a woman giving birth to a baby. You can’t just say that having a baby is painful. It’s beautiful. There’s just a part that’s painful.”
“What part is that? I mean about love.”
She thought for a moment.
“I think being open in some way. You’re so vulnerable.”
“Very nice. Very true.”
I slipped into a little daydream, then noticed Maya with a similar expression, using the wall as a pillow again.
“Maya? Your thoughts?”
Everyone in the class was aware that Maya was in a new relationship and in love. Maybe even crazy love based on the collage of wall photos on her Facebook page. She again chose her words carefully.
“Um, I think we should just call it what it is: violent love. It’s just one kind of love. It ends badly.”
“That’s a good point. Real love, or true love, would be a love that ends well?”
“Well, yes, I think so,” she said hopefully.
I found another patch on the board and wrote, ‘True love = love that ends well’. Nobody stopped me.
“Chris, what do you think of Filip’s comments?”
“I think it’s tragic and that’s his opinion. And I think everyone is entitled to his own version of love. But maybe there is no real love, or true love. The story doesn’t really say. It ends in the dark.”
“Well, the story ends with the sun setting. That’s not quite darkness.”
He thought about this distinction and did not care to rebut me.
“So maybe it’s in between,” he said finally. “But he doesn’t really say what true love is.”
“But we’re going to!” I asserted. “Paweł? Are you still here?”
“Still here sir!”
“What do you think?”
“About what sir?”
Another eruption.
“Does love have to be painful to be love?”
“I didn’t really say that,” Filip said. “I said love has to hurt. Maybe there is a difference.”
“Maybe you’re right. Paweł, does love have to hurt to be love?”
“Well,” he searched for words. “Why should it have to hurt? Love’s a good thing.”
Some in the class chuckled at his apparent naiveté.
“What?” I came to his support. “If LG can remind me every day that life is good, I think we should be able to accept Paweł’s slogan.”
I uncapped the marker.
“Not terribly complicated,” Chris smirked.
“So you really think that Paweł? That love shouldn’t hurt, because it is good?”
“Yes, really. I do.”
“The philosopher amongst us! Spoken like a Platonist.”
Nobody got the reference.
“Plato. You’ll read him later, if you choose. Oh, he has a whole dialogue on love too. I wonder if Carver considered it when writing this..”
“Mr. Krasner?”
I was contemplating assigning Plato’s “Symposium” and having them write a comparative essay, maybe throw in “The Wife of Bath”. I was having an English teacher’s moment…
“Uh-huh?”
“Can we move on?” Wiki asked politely. “I’m tired of violent love.”
“Got it. Thanks Wiki. I’ll just write down Filip’s line since it spurred so much talk. You could use this in the essay.”
I scribbled ‘Love has to hurt to be love’ with an arrow drawing back to Ed and Terri.
“Mr. Krasner?” Chris asked while I still had my back turned. “Have you ever felt this kind of love?”
The arrow hit its mark.
“I was young once,” I said with my back still to them.
“And? Did it last? Did you beat her?” he progressed.
“No. I can’t hit anyone, even someone hitting me.”
“She hit you!”
“Oho,” Hakeem joined in. “Mr. Krasner was a beaten husband.”
“Right, I was,” I turned around and faced him off. “And she loved me. She did love me Hakeem. Hakeem, you gotta give me that. She did love me.”
“Okay sir, okay. I get it.”
There were many red faces in the room. Everyone had spoken and everyone had laughed. It was no longer 3rd period. It was no longer Tuesday. We were in teaching time. And the bell rang—
“BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!”
“Five minutes!”
The chairs began to rumble and screech. Doors broke open and the halls became a sudden clamor.
“But we want to hear more about your love life sir,” Hakeem prodded.
“Hakeem! That’s personal,” Wiki butted in. “Leave Mr. Krasner alone!”
“You will tell us more after the break sir. You need to tell us about love.”
“Why? You guys are doing such a good job telling me.”
“Awww….”
Both Hakeem and Chris joined the melee in the hall. Wiki turned to Monika and they chatted amiably. Paweł gave his full attention to his iPad. Filip leaned his head back down to his folded elbows. Maya reached into her bag for her iPhone. It’s amazing how seamlessly they shifted gears from an intimate talk to their unaffected airs.
Is this why I enjoy teaching adolescents?
