Lines or pre-lines? No, not those kind

The Discipline Diaries #19

Jun 26, 2022

The WORST kind of lines…

I’ve tried my level best to not complain too much about my French lessons this year as, broadly speaking, I gain far more than I lose which ought to be true of any kind of learning.

However, there have been two horrible by-products of undertaking classes with a traditional teacher.

The first by-product is line writing.

In January, I wrote 1506 lines - which is an obscene number!
In February, it was ‘only’ 200, but believe me 200 is enough, it’s more than enough.

Those of you who like to pour over (spanking) statistics will have noticed that I haven’t written another line since!

My spanking stats show that March-May 2022, I haven’t written a single line.

But that isn’t the whole story.

Learning a language is time consuming, humbling and to be perfectly frank; tedious.

Having only really studied English and German at school, I am pretty new to the demoralising world of conjugating verbs.

It is monotony on steroids and I have lost the will to live doing this activity many times. It takes hours and still I don’t get it all right.

Essentially, what I am saying is although it would appear from my statistics that lines of the written kind have all but dried up, in reality I am in fact writing ‘pre-lines’.

My options are crystal clear.

I can either be made to write lines (yes, I will be beaten if I don’t do them so ‘made to’ in this case really does mean ‘made to’), after I fail a conjugations test, or I can write ‘pre-lines’ which is entirely voluntary… kind of.

‘Pre-lines’ is where I write pages and pages of tables of conjugated verbs out, in the hope of remembering them the next time I must read, write, speak or take a test on them.

‘Pre-lines’ isn’t really much better than being set lines.

It just means that no one is pissed with me… yet.

Of course, there are times when I knock myself out writing unimaginable amounts of pre-lines, only to still fail miserably and then have to write lines anyway and sometimes wear them too! A kind of triple-jeopardy, if you will.

This year has been a huge iterative process, whereby I have attempted to figure out the exact minimum amount of ‘pre-lines’ required to ensure I remember something permanently.

I’m not there yet. Though judging by the forests of paperwork in the schoolroom, I really ought to have it all figured out by now.

My aim is to write the absolute minimum number of ‘pre-lines’ for memory purposes but without once earning real lines and then really real lines (of the cane variety) for having done too little.

This is not a fun experiment.

However, it would seem that I got better at making these judgements, and rapidly, as there has been no repeat of January’s 1506 epic, nor February’s 200!

The second unwelcome by-product has been my HoH’s adoption of my trad teacher’s line-setting policy.

Prior to undertaking languages classes with a professional disciplinarian, I had never written a single line in my entire life.

When Sir and I were courting, he once floated the prospect and I flatly told him that lines wouldn’t work with me. I wouldn’t take them seriously.

I was wrong about that.

I now freely admit that I’d prefer a caning (even a really nasty one) to line-writing, based on time alone. I loathe wasting time. Having my time deliberately wasted for me, is monstrous.

A caning, on the other hand whilst deeply unpleasant and outright painful, is at least over far quicker and doesn’t steal too much of the only true finite resource - time.

My HoH has watched this entire process with interest and now considers line-writing to also be part of his repertoire.

If that sounds like a double hit, it’s because it is.

Like I alluded to earlier, there have been two rotten by-products of taking French lessons with a very traditional teacher both of them along the same lines! (Deliberate pun… in case you were wondering).

The final question remains:

Q. What is worse, being set lines for failure or writing pre-lines to try to mitigate against failure?

I’ve honestly yet to figure this one out!

Best (s)Wishes,

Jacqui James
Live-Lash-Love
https://jacquijames.gumroad.com/l/sixofthebest2021