Saved by the... (wasp!)

The Discipline Diaries #20

A reprieve from a most unexpected source…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an extended short spanking story about an actual event, (as 99.9% of everything I write here is), about Pre-lines, line lines & other kinds of lines and I left it about here:

Mon Prof: If I have that kind of result in the next test, then you will be punished.

Jacqui: Yes, sir.

Mon Prof: I expect these to work, or you would seriously not wish that to be otherwise.

Jacqui: No, sir.

Mon Prof: The old ones need to be at the same level as the newer ones. I think you’re probably good with the newer lists and you’re not so good on these older ones - there is some room for improvement.

Jacqui: Yes, sir.

Mon Prof: It’s not in an acceptable state, you need to repeat these. This is your fair warning. You’re lucky you’re not in the classroom with me right now. Last chance to prove to me that this isn’t going to be a problem in the future.

Jacqui: Yes, sir. Thank you.

I think it is fair to say that Mon Prof - my French teacher - was less than impressed with my vocabulary learning. Now, the reason I had to leave that short story there was because I hadn’t yet had the resit.

Yes, that is correct, the things I am sharing with you here are contemporaneous. (Where they aren’t that will be made clear - it is true I sometimes share some blasts from the past!)

So, don’t be complaining if I don’t get spanked every time… that is real life and frankly, if I were spanked every time somebody wanted to spank me, I’d have no backside left!

What can I say? I’m that kind of character!

Anyway, back to the present predicament… as I am sure you will appreciate, I was none too pleased about the situation. There I was, 486 French words/phrases to learn - properly - for the next lesson which was only a week away. That’s not to mention the:

Mon Prof: That was about half of your vocabulary, that didn’t go so well, did it?

Jacqui: No, sir.

Mon Prof: It was a bit disappointing. I think we are going to do a bit of this in every lesson until it works. Say 25 or 30-minutes of this, each lesson.

[Silent cussing from yours truly]

Mon Prof: But, seriously, Jacqui, it’s a bit disappointing. I have read your text about line-writing, you did that very well and I think you should put some line-writing into these vocab lists. I want lists #1 to #10 in your best handwriting and there had better not be any spelling mistakes. You have about a week. If I have that kind of result in the next test, then you will be punished.

Jacqui: Yes, sir.

Yes, that is correct, not only does Mon Prof occasionally read this blog (it’s fine, I still write precisely what I want and to hell with the consequences) but he also set me the unenviable task of writing out all 486 words/phrases and their translations to ‘help’ me to revise for the next test - ‘in your best handwriting’ too.

Of course, writing out stuff doesn’t really help one to prepare properly for an oral exam - it was purely punitive - similarly the handwriting thing is now a pain. This is because Mon Prof taught me to write cursive last year and as his lessons were so good that I became very proficient at it hence I now get to write all of my lines that way and boy is THAT time consuming!

So, imagine my state one week later…

Lines painstakingly written, huge amounts of repetitious exercises: French to English and English to French, flashcards, lists, tables and charts.

Sounds terribly swotty, I know, but believe me, if you were in this situation, you would be too.

Mon Prof means what he says. I knew full well that there would be no summer holidays until this test was passed and to an acceptable standard - usually about 95%.

No kidding. 75% and even 80% doesn’t cut it around here. He proved that to me last Christmas.

**SPOILER ALERT**

I didn’t get to knock off for Christmas until AFTER CHRISTMAS last year, as I kept failing pretty much the exact same vocabulary test.

So, I knew this one would be no different. How could it be?

It got to twenty to ten last Tuesday morning and I was tucking in my school shirt, whilst setting up my microphone and still going over the last 20% of flashcards - English to French - that I still couldn’t do PRAYING that most of these ones wouldn’t come up (they would have) when;

I was saved by a wasp!

I know, unbelievable, right?

There I was at about 80% of where I needed to be, on a spanking, more lines and yet another resit when an email lands. It was Mon Prof.

The poor man is allergic to wasp venom and he had just that minute been stung by one of those wicked little beasts!

I laughed my ass off.

(Sorry, sir, but) three things were funny about this:

1. I was SAVED at the last minute by pure luck

2. Sir is about the size of an ox but his Achilles heel is a teeny, tiny wasp

3. After the year I’ve had*, I felt I deserved a small break

[*I don’t share too much of the negative side of life here as there is far too much of that about, especially online these days, however I promise you I’ve been through it this last 18-months in particular with work, health and more. I have battled extremely hard even to attend my lessons as on many occasions I have been genuinely too poorly to learn but wanted to at least keep one commitment in spite of it all. So, forgive me for feeling that I probably deserved just a little bit of luck… this one time.]

After I stopped laughing, I did a bit of worrying as although I hate French and I sometimes dread French tests, I certainly wish Mon Prof no ill. On the contrary, his classes have been my sea anchor (look it up, they are cooler than you might think) and I owe him a debt of gratitude indeed.

In case you didn’t look it up:

Sea anchor

A sea anchor is a device that is streamed from a boat in heavy weather. Its purpose is to stabilize the vessel and to limit progress through the water. Rather than tethering the boat to the seabed with a conventional anchor, a sea anchor provides hydrodynamic drag, thereby acting as a brake.

[This is actually a massive compliment to my teacher… even though it may take some thinking about!]

Anyway, sir emailed to let me know he had to attend to the potentially lethal wasp venom but never-the-less very calmly told me that he had a report card to deliver and that he would very much want to still do that face to face before summer.

There you go. Possibly dying of a wasp sting and still being a tyrant (I meant teacher, Freudian slip] to the very end!

I resolved to check in on him later (as if he was dead, I wouldn’t have to learn that stuff…) I’M KIDDING! I was worried about a) him and b) my sea anchor, so I made a note to email later.

****

Long story short, he lived.

We then arranged for a lesson the following Friday. Now, I usually have a German lesson, (or an ‘anything but French’ lesson on a Friday), so I half-wondered whether or not we were still going to do that rotten French test before he delivered his sentence (report card, I meant report card - my, oh my, ALL the truth is coming out today!!)

So, very much knowing it is better to be safe than sorry, I carried on swotting for the darn test. I knew that it wouldn’t do me very much harm anyways.

****

To my great surprise (and delight) there was no French vocab test on Friday. Mon Prof wisely decided to let it lie… with an embedded warning, of course:

Mon Prof: I have decided to reserve judgement, to wait and see whether or not your old vocabulary lists are going to become a problem. Very often when I tell you something it gets fixed. So, we shall wait and see what happens next term.

TRANSLATION: There’ll be a test on precisely this first lesson back next term and I will still have you punished if it isn’t where it should be - circa 95% accuracy.

See how that works?

Teachers and dominants have their very own language and occasionally it takes some decoding - I’ve worn the results of a few mis-translations, let me tell you!

Like he alluded to though, I’m getting better at translating ‘the code’ these days.

And so; saved by the wasp last week? Certainly. Well, at least temporarily. Now, it is down to me to fix it. In fairness, I was ready for Mon Prof last Friday. I’m fairly confident that I was on or around 95%… now, the challenge will be to maintain that over a looooooooooooong summer break.

I ought to be elated that I am off school now for 6 or 7 weeks and for about 5-seconds I was. However, I will miss my lessons as they, the interaction with Mon Prof and the wretched homework he sets all act as my sea anchor.

This summer I am not taking a holiday, I am staying home to work (very hard) instead and I sure don’t want to be coming up against too much of those kinds of ‘troubled waters’, especially without my sea anchor - dangerous, dangerous times indeed.

However, I have embarked and I must proceed, and so one way or the other we will find out what happens!

I might even share the contents of my report card with you… but I’m actually a bit shy about stuff like that. I know that sounds quite bizarre as I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about telling you how I was bent over the back of the captain’s chair with my knickers around my ankles for a dozen with the paddle…

… but it just isn't the same, you see?

Spankings are spankings, but the personal interactions that I have are matters of character and that is a far more personal matter to me.

All for now,

Best (s)Wishes,

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

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