If there's one thing I miss about teaching in a school, it's the foreigners I worked with. Sometimes I'd question what I was doing working with some of these oddballs, but now when I look back on it, these guys really did brighten up my day and give us normal ones something to talk about.

I was once in the staff room for a Monday morning meeting. The new young guy came to work on crutches with a broken ankle. He hobbles into the staff room and our boss asked what happened. He told everyone that he'd been drinking the night before with his friends, and he broke his ankle when running away from paying the bill. I just burst out laughing thinking that my school have actually employed this person as a teacher.

The second guy was 'the functioning alcoholic'. He admitted he was an alcoholic but he said he was 'functioning'. He was teaching some four year old kids who informed him in class that there was a snake in the shoe cubby. He took a look and told the students it what just a toy. 20 mins later the kids told him again. He told them not to worry, walked over to the snake and actually touched it. The snake moved and then he realized the snake was indeed real.

I've always imagined being in that class, watching him stumble around half-cut teaching terrified kids with a snake casually observing from the cubby. Like something from a Salvador Dali painting.

You can choose to take these kind of people seriously or just be entertained by them. They have certainly given me plenty of stories to share over a beer. Cheers, to all those nutters.

Henry