Seven years ago, University all over again. When I realised that in order to get a first in the course of English, I have to present my football world cup concerning project from the chair in front of everybody, well, I said ok, probably I need to settle for the very good grade and forget the excellence. Week in English wasn't I, just mediocre. You see, I turned my back in English before high school. In the third year of gymnasium I got my first degree of language competence. I framed it, I put it high on the wall, I forgot it. What a contradiction; it took the highest spot on the wall, while was my lowest interest. No inconsistency, remember how we were back then. We used to do extracurricular things, because that was the idea. Do things regardless if we like them or not. English, music and dancing lessons, second foreign language, did anyone ever ask thy opinion? And would he take this view into consideration? Of course not. There was no room for Q & A. Do what you have to do and maybe you get a job when you graduate. Study hard and learn some English.
At the end the bill was devastating. Seven years of English lessons, thousands of euros spent and one pathetic B2 degree in return. The Jesuits used to learn a language, whatever language, within two months. And with no cost. Just by living there. Why I didn't have this information back then, I could use it as a legitimate argument, I am dead serious, I would prefer to be sent in the jungle as a missionary than attend to those useless private language lessons. Apropos, movies, English sites and news, songs and the English courses in the public curriculum, I reckon, are enough. And on top of that, completely free. And if someone wants to spend money no matter what, he could send his offspring in abroad for gap year. The tab will be the half at least. And voila, your children will not turn to be like me. Who at that moment with that stupid English project in my fresh-year, I was feeling unequal, subordinate to my classmates, to my fellow students, to my friends, asking for empathy for fuck's sake, for my "awful" English, for my "unbearable" accent, for my not cool command of English. Can you imagine how unconfident was I, how brainwashed from the dominant general feel was I, I, who was feeling sorry, who was feeling the need to apologise to others, to others, damn them, to the hell everybody, who are they to judge me?
About one year later I was holding a degree of English proficiency. I admit it, it was sheer luck, I didn't worth it. Yes, I don't try to be modest or anything, I kiss the book, I am just trying to tell the truth here. Listen, I was studying one to two hours every time before we had class and that's clearly not enough, plus half an hour study while sitting inside the local bus until the cram school. God bless these long itineraries. I owe them my degree, if I have to owe someone except fortuity. If I took this exam hundred times, I might failed ninety nine. But that's life sometimes. Surprising, unfair and biased. In my favour. I took this biased result with my baggage and I flew to Warsaw the following autumn. On one hand hobnobing with a circle of Greeks, on the other hand experiencing a transparent state of maturity, a miserable state of blues and beers and vodkas, no, they both didn't help me a bit, neither in having fun, nor in improving my English. My language inferiority remained. Well consolidated. And then, after one and a half year, I moved to Barcelona. Things went slightly different. My English were better, my accent was better, my command was more certain, nevertheless, my first month in this new English-speaking environment, went exactly like the last time; flowing into the murky waters of insecurity. Until I find my English identity, my Spanish girl and my carelessness.
In all my journeys, in all my time I spent abroad, I came across to so many different cases. I saw the best English coming from the most loutish accent speakers. I saw native speakers not capable of engaging in one political discourse. I saw girls, successful working girls struggling to mumble one word besides shoptalk. I saw fine but silent girls not able to carry on one damn conversation and when they did, it was always too late, cause who wants to chat during intercourse? I saw people communicate perfectly in broken English and Oxford fellas who couldn't stand each other, argue about everything, and change at the end shifts in order not to meet again, both their faces and their English. I saw awful Danish people with perfect American English and perfect Dutch with no accent, yet with brio. I saw Romanian models try to speak flawless English, but then standing speechless during the charles. I saw my morning self in the office rising to the language occasion, whereas my evening head was bowing in order to spill some amorous lyrical with Shakespeare accent to an evanescent wanted creature in a random bar. I saw foreigners, native English speakers not mocking, not judging, not discouraging the efforts of non natives, but instead, trying to listen, to help and to respond. And I saw cowards who never speak, who speak most of the times worse than the ones that "rape" the English language, who when they have the opportunity to speak, they don't speak, they pretend that they speak, they are just out there to get everybody who strive to express himself. They are the worst. Losers who open their mouth to squirt venom, not even British phlegm.
However I feel sorry for these people, who are captives not captors, captives in their own lack of self-confidence, who tend to laugh about everything, who don't get tired of despise, scorn, disregard people and rules of proper behaviour. Who are always there, talk behind your back, stress your insecurities, remind you of your failures, indicate you the room for improvement. Giggler, troll, hostile, sciolist, a genuine sediment of every society, the austere English judge sees his power increasing nowadays due to eclipse of doers and the plethora of worthless, heartless sons of a bitch. Lumpen cocksuckers who will not hesitate to calumniate anybody just to have a laugh, just to feel for a moment superior, struggling the wankers to gain some recognition by recognising at the same time pure inferiority, by recognising unwittingly their shortage, their insufficiency, their idiocy. Yes, this is the shortcoming a dick wants to hit, to battle, to blame; not the broken English of Tsipras, but the shortcoming of his personal failure.
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