Monday, January 10, 2005

Bloody hell (school food, again)

I talked with Killeri yesterday, and with Kaius and Mio today, and they all said that in their schools (at least in the primary school) one had to eat everything as well. Bloody hell. Never imagined that some things were better in Russian schools than here.

In the first grade we were all taken to the school cafeteria during the lunch break, and we were sort of supposed to eat. Problem was, I never ate anything except rye bread, bologna and frankfurters as a kid (that's lauantaimakkara and nakit to you Finns), and the cafeteria usually had some really stupid food that I wouldn't touch with a long stick, like porridge. The teacher usually told me that we'll (herself and me) have to sit there until I eat. I told her that then we'll sit there forever, and we did usually sit until the end of the lunch break. After a semester she got tired and told my parents to stop paying for lunch, and this I was forever rid of school lunches.

After the beginning of the fourth grade we did not have organized class lunches anymore, and we could come to the cafeteria on our own and buy a lunch if we felt like it, and I sometimes did, when they had something I liked, but after a little while I realized that all the food is recycled and stopped eating anything that could be recycled.

So school was easy in that respect. Daycare was less so. Every day, three times a day, somebody yelling at you for not eating. I could never see what's the point in trying to force somebody to eat. What do they expect to gain, except a plateful of porridge in the face? Or a fork in the eye, if the kid is in an especially vicious mood.


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