Mondays with Mattias

One of my Monday students, Mattias, has taken an interesting turn in the last three weeks.  He has bright long firey red hair, and sleeps up until the start of class every week.  He has never participated in class, and doesn’t seem that interested in learning English- until I walked home with him one day.  I was on my way to my Hungarian lesson, and he happened to be walking in the same direction, so I chatted with him and learned many things about him.  We had a nice conversation all the way to my language school – I told him that this was where I had lessons and asked if he lived near there.  He didn’t, in fact, he lived in the opposite direction, but walked with me anyhow.  It was a big awkward at first because I didn’t know if he wanted to come in with me or what – but what a nice kid.  The next Monday, he walked with me as well, though I stopped at the grocery store to pick some things up instead of going directly to my lesson.  I stood with him outside the store for a few minutes before he figured out why I had stopped – again I thought he’d want to accompany me inside, but he didn’t.  We talked about art, his weekend plans, his future and why he doesn’t like to do homework.   He told me he is a metal head (which explains the long hair) and loves American movies.  Yesterday, we left class at the same time, and hoping to avoid the walk with Mattias (sometimes I just need time away from small talk) I waited a bit after class… so did he.  I walked slow, and so did he.  When I passed by him, he sped up – I wasn’t winning at all, so we struck up the small talk again.  He amazes me – no enthusiasm for homework or studying (“learning” as they call it) but he’ll talk my ear off after class, when no one else is around.  Oh Mattias.