MISTAKES I HAVE MADE

MISTAKES I HAVE MADE by Michael Allhouse – International Student Engagement Coordinator

Part 1. The list of phrases to never use again
I sometimes, quite innocently say the wrong thing. I sometimes, quite innocently say the wrong thing to international people and get myself in to terrible trouble. There are now quite a few phrases on my ‘List of phrases to never use again’. One such phrase is the quite innocent seeming, ‘See you later’. ‘See you later’ is a pretty standard way of saying ‘Goodbye’ in Yorkshire and I suspect elsewhere in the UK, however, I guess it can raise a few questions. This first came to my attention as a significant problem when I tried to help a young Japanese girl on her first day of arrival in Bradford. Having explained to her where Morrisons was, or how to open a bank account, or something like that, just as she was about to go off to class I said “See you later” only to see confusion and something close to terror cross her face. I could almost see her thinking:
“I’m seeing him later? How am I seeing him later? Did I somehow agree to do something with him later? What did I agree to? Is it ok? Is he weird? Did I give him the wrong impression by talking to him? Maybe there is an event later I should go to? Is he teaching a class later? What have I agreed to?”
Ofcourse, what I really saw on her face was confusion and a little bit of alarm, but thinking about it afterwards, I’m pretty sure that’s what was going through her mind. I realized then that saying ‘See you later’ to someone new in the country is not a good idea, and I now no longer say it.

Mistakes I have made. No.2

The list of phrases not to use: - ‘I’m such an idiot’
So, last summer during the Pre-sessional English Summer Course, when trying to explain something-or-other (registering with the police or procedure for opening a bank account – one of the many hoops international students have to jump through) to one of the newly arrived students, I realized that my explanation had been rubbish and I’d clearly made the whole thing more complicated that it needed to be. In order to start my explanation again I said “Sorry, I’m such an idiot, that’s not correct” and then began my explanation again. So intent was I on my explanation that I hadn’t noticed the shock which must have passed across the student’s face. I carried on with my explanation, the student left and I thought no more about it……until, the next day when I received a phone call from the International Office informing me there’d been a complaint made against me by a student. Horrified, I went off to the International Office to find out what I’d done; - turns out a student had complained that I’d insulted him and called him an idiot. Clearly the incident from the day before. I have now added the phrase “I’m such an idiot” to my list of phrases not to use.

More Benjamin comics - not from me this time

Benjamin and Klee

Dora Benjamin bought Walter (on his birthday in 1920) a water color by Paul Klee titled Presentation of the miracle. A second work by Paul Klee, Angelus Novus, acquired by Benjamin the following year, played such an important emotional and intellectual role in his life that it has been anointed as Benjamin’s logo. Why has nothing been written by Benjamin or his friends about that Presentation of the miracle? It is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But how did it get there?

Who was Benjamin's son?

We seem to know so little about Benjamin's son; Stefan Benjamin, who died in London at age 54. He was married three times, his third wife a Chinese Buddhist.

Who was Benjamin's wife?

Dora Sophie (to differentiate her from Benjamin’s sister, Dora Benjamin) was born in 1890 in Vienna as the daughter of the Jewish Viennese Professor of English, Leon Kellner. Family life endowed her with a knowledge of English, which subsequently served her well; and she developed a passion for music while growing up. (Benjamin, in contrast, had only a rudimentary knowledge of the English language and almost none at all of music). At age 21, she married an affluent journalist and philosophical pedagogue, Max Pollack, who was a member of Benjamin’s circle in Berlin at the outbreak of World War I. Dora Sophie Pollack was so smitten by 22-year old Walter Benjamin’s inaugural speech as Chairman of the Free Students Union that she presented him with roses. A year later, they were traveling together, and after her divorce from Max Pollack, they married in 1917. During their marriage, Dora Sophie provided the bulk of their income, first as bilingual secretary, subsequently through journalistic work, later through editorship of the magazine Die praktische Berlinerin, and finally through fiction writing; her novel Gas gegen Gas appeared in 1930. Their only son, Stefan, was born in 1918, while Benjamin studied for his doctorate in Bern. As Dora Sophie wrote in a letter to Scholem, she wanted a partner who could give meaning to her life, while Walter needed protection from suicide. Neither motivation preserved their rocky marital relationship, which ended in 1930. The judicial record of their divorce proceeding presents a sordid melodrama full of sexual infidelities and quarrels over money. After Hitler’s rise to power, Dora Sophie Benjamin moved to Italy, where she first served as cook and later owner of the Hotel Miramare in San Remo. On several occasions she provided refuge to her penniless former husband at the hotel. In 1938, she undertook a marriage of convenience with a South African businessman, which enabled her to move in 1938 to London with her son Stefan. She died there in 1964.