Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Students - fuck off to where you came from

I apologise for the title but this is seriously aggravating the hell out of me.

I work in Dublin, Baggot Street to be precise, and we are edging towards the end of what has been a dismal summer. Once again the Irish prayed for sunshine and we were let down, the one thing though that we did get like we do every summer is the influx of students from across Europe, coming over to learn english.

So why is the location of where I work so important, I will tell you why, Baggot Street has always been a hub for business and the pathways during the day are full of suits and well dressed ladies busily rushing around with their briefcases, shades and mobiles. For some strange reason the students have decided Baggot Street is the place to be.

They really piss me off, yesterday on my way to get a sambo I was walking along said street with a gaggle of spanish students ahead of me shouting at each other, not in an argument or something but for a chat then they all decided to stop and carry on shouting (talking) to each other while blocking the footpath. People said excuse me to them to try to get through and were ignored. So people ended up having to walk along a very busy road to get past, how fucking rude.

To further annoy me I got lunch, went back to work, did some work then went home. As I have said way back in a previous post, I bus it in and out to work. Well myself and another work colleague got on the bus at Kildare Street, and at the next stop we could not believe our eyes 35-40 students and 1 teacher embarking the bus. My colleague just had this to say "Oh my god, please dont let them get seats upstairs and I hope they are not going all the way to Bray, my head could not cope".

Well I am sure you figured it out they did all get seats upstairs and immediately began the shouting to one another but because they were dispersed all around the upper deck I found they had to shout louder then normal. Why oh why do they have to be so goddamn rude. The teacher should have had some control over them to get them to shut the fuck up, but oh no she also got involved.

Lucky for us they got of at UCD but by that stage the damage was done, and I had a throbbing headache all night.

10 comments:

  1. Ooh, how annoying! At least you got on the bus! Growing up in malahide (student hub of the northside) I got well used to summers of the bus skipping my stop as it was too full of student passengers to allow anyone else on! However, I did go to Spain myself as an Oirish student to learn spanish, so I cant be too hard on them. Next time ROAR at them "Ah shaddapa ya face"!

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  2. Ah, familiar tunes - I grew up eound Greystones, student hub of the Southeast... the bus pehenomenon is well documented - you can tell who's Irish because they're huddled in their seat with bloodshot eyes while all around them, Spanish kids shout at eachother without stopping.

    I've had the misfortune to teach EFL for several years and have met some nice kids and some god-awful, rich,demanding, bitchy kids... they're not actually rude (well, actually some of them are) but the stuff we object to is cultural difference - it's a failure of their teachers that they don't learn:
    - not to dawdle across the road in front of cars
    - to say please and thank you - they don't do it in the same obsessive way at home - seriously, count how many times you say please/cheers/thanks' in any one short transaction, it's silly.
    -I don't understand the crowding round doorways/missle of the street thing, why do they do it, why?
    -Spanish people just seem to all talk at once. Loudly.
    -drinking one glass of beer between three people is normal in their towns!

    In fairness, I have met lots of really good kids, but they tend to be from the country or Catalonia, NOT the big cities, where their rich parents are just palming them off on Ireland so they can go on holiday, and they stay with lower class Irish families who have a very different hygeine standard and feed them Easy Single sandwitches with 'lo-fat spread'while they have roast chicken in another room (seriously). And it rains, and there's nothing for teens to do - and they get beaten up by scum a lot, and noone seems to care...

    Still, you don't know student-racist-fury until a bored Spanish 16 year old has whined 'Thees no is inter-esting' at you for the 5th time.

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  3. I should have also pointed out that I am in no way racist and grew up iin a family that took students for years .

    I also know that this shouting etc has been happening for years, maybe its because I am getting old that it irritates me more.

    Anyhow I did always say I am a ranter.

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  4. I think we get special dispensation to be allowed complain about students and make fuck off back where you came from comments - I didn't mean to imply racism, I know exactly where you're coming from, though I have observed and participated in much student- bashing (only the bitchy kind!)over the years.

    It's slightly unconfortable though if you think about it, because while the Irish are immensely put out by the students' proliferation and crap manners and behaviour, we also make some serious money off them as a nation each year.

    They get such real abuse from the scumbags too...

    but I'm still torn between defeding them and cheerful hatred - you might have been able to sense my didvided opinion from my coment!

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  5. I'm all for the anti-PC McCarthiasm movement but I do feel a little nostalgia for the Italian/Spanish students. They were the first post-free-State foreigners to land here, before the Swedish, Aussies, and celtic tiger economic migrants, they used to annoy me on the bus too but they haven't been out my way in years so I can look back in fondness.

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  6. Meant to say Shan (I feel I can call you Shan), I'm not far from your job, we could pass each other often and not realise: like two passing stars in the night, like two passing ships at sea, like two flowers flowing in the breeze, like two US news stations helicopters reporting on a car chase....ok, maybe not that last one.

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  7. Oh Milan...tsk tsk tsk...

    /walks away chortling under her breath

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  8. I'm with fitzy on the electrified cattle prod deely. Mostly. With me it's the lack of please or thank you in any given circumstances. Even when I've just failed to accelerate and run them all over. Do I get even a nod? No.

    Was on a path the other day where a group of 20 or so of them outside a coffee shop took up the whole path and refused to even acknowledge anyone when they tried to push through.

    I know it's the cultural differences but manners should be a global norm.

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  9. Have had further thoughts about this. Think we need to write a song with Shan's title. We could sing it when frustrated. Anyone know how to play the guitar? Loudly?

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