We are taking a high-level international language exam.

Exam Overseer: *Reading out the rules.* “As you have been warned, all use of digital devices is strictly prohibited. Breaking this rule will result in your exam result being invalidated. If you have any questions, you may raise your hand, and a member of the staff will approach you. The staff are not allowed to answer questions regarding the content of the exam.”

At this point, a cat nonchalantly wanders into the classroom.

Students: *Various exclamations of:* “Look! A kitty! Over there!”

Staff Member: “Oh… She must have gotten curious about all the people coming here on a Sunday…”

Exam Overseer: *Without breaking pace or changing his intonation.* “The cat lives here and is part of the staff. She will not give any hints regarding the exam either.”

Student: “Hey, kitty! Over here! Ps-ps-ps!”

Exam Overseer: “There is no use calling to her. The cat will choose one deserving of her presence as she pleases.”

As we begin the test, the cat wanders between the desks, surveying her new servants. Eventually, I am honored to have her settle next to my chair.

The ban on electronic devices feels extremely restricting now that we’re sharing space with a kitty we’re not allowed to take photos of.

After two hours, we go on a short break. As we file back into the classroom, the exam overseer goes to his seat… only to find it occupied by the cat.

Exam Overseer: “Oh… Well.”

He proceeds to stand for the entire hour-long listening section. When I was leaving the classroom after the exam finished, the cat was still sleeping undisturbed in his chair.

I live in Ukraine, and as most readers will know, lately, our days are frequently disrupted by air raid alerts. At this time, the subway stations also function as shelters.

An alert catches me in one of the stations on my way home, so I take out a book and prepare to wait it out.

Next to me is a young man who is on the phone.

Young Man: “Question one goes: ‘An assimilation or merging of two or more religious traditions is called: A) animism, B) syncretism, C) mythologism, or D) theologism?’”

He has to repeat the question several times because he keeps getting drowned out by the subway noise. Finally, the person on the phone, who I assume is his classmate, answers.

Classmate: “Aww, I dunno, man. Gimme another one…”

Me: “Syncretism.”

Young Man: “Huh?”

Me: “The answer is B) syncretism.”

Young Man: “Hey, there’s a lady in the subway telling me it’s syncretism. Let’s go with that! Question two: ‘Where would a ‘čeres’ be worn? A) waist, B) head, C) feet, or D) arms?’”

Following a few more repetitions…

Classmate: “S***, I’ve no idea! Never even heard that word!”

Me: “Waist. It’s a traditional leather belt from western Ukraine.”

Young Man: “Thank you! Hey, [Classmate], this lady’s smarter than you!” *Laughs* “Question three: ‘Which vegetable was the basis of a peasant diet in medieval times? A) potato, B) corn, C) turnip, or D) tomato?’”

A lady on the student’s other side answers.

Lady: “Turnip.”

Young Man: “Thank you, too!”

We work together to solve about twenty more questions, and we finish the last one right before the all-clear sound for the alert rings.

Me: “What class was that for, anyway?”

Young Man: “Ethnography, but we have missed half the lectures because of air raids. How did you know the answers?”

Me: “I’m sure glad at least someone could benefit from me taking that class all those years ago.”

I teach Japanese language classes online. In Japanese, many words sound very similar to each other, so beginner students frequently end up saying the most outlandish (and sometimes profane) things by accident.

In this particular class, [Student #1] was supposed to say, “I bought fish.” (Watashi wa sakana wo kaimashita.)

Student #1: “Watashi wa… sakana… ni… k… kikimashita.”

Me: “Okay, you started great, but then you ended up questioning the fish. How do you say ‘buy’?”

[Student #1] corrected herself.

Sometime later, I heard a notification go off on her device with a characteristic “blurb”.

Me: “Oh, what’s that bubbling sound?”

Student #2: “The fish must be back.”

Over a decade ago, when I was just out of university, I had one of my first jobs as a designer and retoucher at a photo studio. It was a tiny place where [Boss] was the owner, photographer, QA, Art Director, Alpha, and Omega.

His main clientele were newlyweds, and when he got too bored or overwhelmed with the number of people wanting photoshoots and albums, he hired first a [Secretary], and then me, as a designer.

My job was to go through a few thousand photos per wedding, choose a few hundred good ones, retouch all of the people in those photos, select twenty to fifty of the best photos of the newlyweds, and design a wedding album with their best photos creatively combined into something decent with a general theme.

There were many oddities with my boss being an old, conservative, non-tech-savvy guy, though I will be telling only the last story. Just for a general idea of what kind of man he was, his favourite joke was to buy me and [Secretary] lunch which had lamb brains as the main ingredient. Because it wouldn’t hurt two girls to have more brains, of course.

It was another Monday after another wedding, after roughly nine months of me being unofficially employed there. I got the flash drive with approximately two-thousand photos.

Boss: “[Husband] specifically said that his mum needs to be beautiful in the photos. Go through all the photos and make her look young; she’s the old cow in the leopard print dress.”

I was already annoyed with his attitude, but what could I do? He was the boss. I opened the photos and quickly found the mum in question. She was a regular lady in her sixties who looked normal for her age.

Me: *To [Boss]* “Making her look young would make her a different person. I think the best approach would be to do the normal amount of retouching, with removing some of the wrinkles and skin imperfections, but not going too far or it would look unnatural. Let’s make her a happy old lady, not a blow-up doll.”

[Boss] was immediately annoyed, condescending and talking to me as if I was an idiot.

Boss: “Did you hear what I told you? I specifically said that [Husband] wants his dear mommy to look young. So, you will make her look not a day over forty-five and that is it, are we clear? Do you hear and understand me?”

I shrugged and went back to my PC to absolutely butcher that woman’s face to the point of next to no wrinkles, a thinner face, no skin pigmentation, and other atrocities. It took me twice as long to go through that wedding, since normally even the bride and groom don’t get THAT much editing. When I was done, the boss approved the set and told me to proceed with the wedding album, which was nothing special.

Fast forward two weeks, after the album and the CD of additional photos were delivered to the clients. An angry man stormed into the office, past me, and into the room where [Boss] was. After some muffled shouting, he left, and [Boss] came up to me.

Boss: “[Husband] was very unhappy with what you did to the photos of his mum.”

My thoughts were somewhere between “I told you so” and “No s***”, but I just nodded.

Next Monday was my payday. I was not officially employed (yes, super illegal, but it was extremely common back in that day back in that area for people of my age), so I was receiving my salary in cash. I got my money, and I was $50 short. I shrugged it off, since sometimes [Boss] didn’t have enough cash and paid what he had on hand, to add the remaining amount the next day.

Tuesday came and went, and on Wednesday, I went to ask him when I was going to get the rest of my paycheck. It was not an insignificant amount for me.

Boss: “You are not getting more; you don’t deserve it. You mangled that poor lady in all the photos, I had to refund him for the retouching and give him unedited photos. You have ruined their wedding!”

I silently went back to my PC, unplugged the mouse and headphones that I brought from home, and walked out, my only two words to him being “I quit”. He followed me, trying to shame me.

Boss: “People don’t just leave like this! You have a job to do! There’s an unfinished pack of photos to retouch… You have responsibilities! Decent people don’t do this. And what about two weeks’ notice?!”

Well, I was never employed there, so there was literally no way he could make me do anything else.

A month later, I was in a different city, studying in a different industry, with an entry salary three times higher than my previous one. I never heard a word about that guy and his business again. Good timing, good riddance!

I am with a group of volunteers doing work in Ukraine. We have just landed at Boryspil Airport and gone through customs after a long flight from San Francisco, with two transfers along the way, so we are all tired, and we are trying to make our way to catch a train for the next leg of our journey to the southern coast of the country.

Several of us have packed extra suitcases full of supplies for the organization we are working with. My suitcase with my personal items arrives at the baggage claim, but my extra suitcase does not, so the group leader and I make our way to the baggage office. There is a long line there and we spend about an hour until we are able to speak about the issue to a harried-looking woman at a desk somewhere in the middle of a large room. There is a single chair across the desk from the woman, and I offer it to the group leader so she can sit down, while I, a generally large man, stand. I am not sure if my standing feels imposing to her, or if the woman senses that I am tired and wants to let me rest. Either way, she gestures over to a wall against which are parked a few chairs and says, “Take a seat.”

I walk across to the wall and select a chair as close as I can to the desk, settling down into it to wait for the baggage agent and the group leader to handle things. After a couple of moments, though, the baggage agent waves me back over. I get up and approach the desk. She gestures to the wall again and repeats, “Take a seat.”

Somewhat confused, but trying to follow directions, I head back to the wall and sit down again. The baggage agent again waves me back. As I’m about halfway over, she says, louder, enunciating each word, “Take. A. Seat.”

Suddenly, the light bulb goes on. I go back to the wall and literally take one of the seats there, bringing it over to the desk to sit down next to the group leader, where I somewhat sheepishly go about helping with filing the report for the missing suitcase.