Silver Boy, You made my Day

veradapozzo8

8 hours ago

5 min read

[I wrote the article below yesterday night, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep and my article slept in the drafts; this morning, still in bed, I have read the draft and I have added more photographs before posting it.]

5th November 2026

Late lunchtime (2:15 P. M. is very late, for my standards), after enduring six long hours in Alcatraz. 99% of the students are nice, 80% are quiet, and those who try to bother me are the puppets of the Spineless Bastards who manipulate them because they are jealous. Halloween is over, but in Alcatraz it is Halloween all the time, as there are lots of zombies and vampires everywhere: Mr. Shankly, the Headmaster of Bullies, people of the direction staff and other équipes and teachers spreading negativity, gaslighting and false rumours; and more and more teachers absorb this negativity and become bitter, anxious, frustrated, angry and afraid of the pupils. I cannot stand hearing my colleagues complaining about the kids - and the irony of criticising the pupils, while they are themselves the absolute antithesis of exemplarity.

To the Zombies, I am the Public Enemy n° 1 because I am impervious to manipulation and negativity and I have clearly seen the system of bullying, gaslighting and all the other criminal behaviours that make this place extremely toxic.

Bastards are everywhere, but Alcatraz and the other workplace aka my complément de service - in fact, a complément de sévices - are particularly toxic and I am bullied for the same reasons:

1) I am an European citizen, I have a French PhD and the highest qualification (and par concours externe) for teaching in France. I was a poor student and had to leave my Home Country (if I had been rich, I would have happily stayed in Palermo) and I never talk about my CV and my professional achievings if people do not ask me about it, ans I do not care whether my colleagues are stagiares or titulaires, titulaires en zone de remplacement or titulaires en poste fixe, contractuels en CDD or contractuels en CDI, whether they have a PhD or just a licence or a Master...

... but curious and very vicious colleagues regularly ask me about my parcours in order to tell other colleagues that I am "arrogant".

2) I stand alone and firm, I think by myself, I am not afraid to tell the truth and nobody can manipulate nor intimidate me.

3) I stay human and professional.

4) I will never join the corporate mob and I will never behave badly towards students and other colleagues - it really takes guts to be gentle and kind, and I thank God for having made me as I am.

5) Even if I have always hated school and I still hate it, even if I would rather pays my way thanks to my real passions (writing and drawing), and despite of Mr. Shankly and his Spineless Bastards sabotaging my projects, I genuinely enjoy being in the classroom with my students and doing what few teachers do: showing kids how fantastic and fascinating is to use their own brain and to discover the beauty of culture, art, music and history hrough a foreign language (which is also my mothertongue) and how important is to develop both rational and emotional intelligence.

6) I am smiling, funny and I have a clever sense of humour.

7) During the récréation and the pause déjeuner, instead of enduring noisy and stupid conversations, rants, gossips and other bullshit in the salle des profs, I enjoy the company of trees and birds in a small courtyard, and the presence of students do not bother me, even if the courtyard is not as quiet as it is early in the morning and in the late afternoon. Last Spring a colleague asked me, out of the blue: "Do you talk with birds?"and I just looked at her without say a word. Even Saint Francis was considered an idiot by idiots, so I feel honoured to be in good company.

8) I am myself and I do not give a fuck about what other people think about me.

The Zombies' behaviour may vary, but they always act as they were one single person and not a group of individuals, for they do not have any personality.

During the last three years, and until this September, the main attitude towards me was overtly aggressive: stupid and very nasty jokes, like switching off the computer and the audio in my classroom, hiding my students' exercises books I had to check and even hiding my winter and cruelty-free jacket last December, in the miserable attempt to make me catch a pneumonia and a pericarditis by travelling back to Paris with just my sweater (I finally found my vest and the bullies were pissed, but I left Alcatraz an hour later than planned, with great waste of time, as I have a long travel by bus, train and métro or tramway), putting something toxic in my coffee, last June... and many, many other things that would make the girls who bullied me in middle school blush.

Now, these losers are back to the passive-aggressive attitude they had four-six years ago: pretending I am invisible and voiceless when I come in the salle des profs (in fact, a salle de beaufs) and say "Bonjour, ça va ?", as this could hurt me (LOL), ignoring my e-mails about serious things, and (both colleagues and direction staff) not giving me important informations. My only reliable source of informations are my students, and I always publicly thank them for getting me in the know.

The Spineless Bastards think they humiliate me, but they just humiliate themselves by showing how stupid and mean they are.

I do not even expect any solidarity from the colleagues who do not actively bully me, as I know they are too scared and too spineless to intervene: they'd rather not get involved, and I do not care about it neither.

I have worked elsewhere before arriving in Alcatraz and its twin lycée, and in every normal salle des profs there is always a gang of bastards, but also many nice people: few of them are now actually friends of mine since I moved away, as I did not have a poste fixe there.

While waiting for my Veggie sandwich and frites, I had a look at Morrissey Central for a new message and I was extremely happy to find George Rae's fan made video with the live version at Fort Worth of The Last of the Famous International Playboys, a song I do cherish since my childhood - my personal Starman I regularly listened to and sang-a-long before going to school and later to the University and I still regularly listen to it and sing it. I hope to hear this song live in Paris and / or in Tilburg and Brussels.

When I have enough time, I will write about its lyrics.

Thank you, Silver Boy! You made my day. :)

Always True to YOU

Vera da Pozzo

In bed, Paris, 5th November 2026

P. S. I have not yet had the time to post something about Morrissey's message in memory of Steve Ellis I found on Central this Monday evening, after the special event at the Irish Cultural Centre: it is a busy and exhausting week... and the weekend has not started yet.

Article above (with many Morrissey's and The Smiths' Easter eggs) and photos below by me, of course.

1) At the bus stop after lunch, happy for the new message from Morrissey.

2) In the courtyard of Alcatraz, early in the morning.

Photographs below taken in my favourite Parisian park. I was exhausted, but I needed so much to get there and spend some quality time before they closed the park for the night.

3) I love the mirror effect. Can you see it?