Today in class, I asked my students a harmless question, or so I thought: “How do you like your eggs?” It was meant to be a light, easy warm-up. I imagined a couple of simple answers, maybe a bit of casual vocab practice. Instead, I got *existential dread.*
One student blinked at me like I’d just asked him to explain quantum physics, while another leaned in as if I was testing her on the meaning of life itself. And that was only the beginning. We started out with “scrambled” and “fried” – pretty safe territory. But as I ventured into “over easy” and “poached,” I saw confusion blooming across the room like I’d just thrown them into the deep end without a life jacket.
Let me tell you, I have never regretted a metaphor more. When I threw in “sunny side up,” one student raised his hand and cautiously asked, “Is this… philosophical?” By the time we got to “hard-boiled,” I had students jotting down notes like they were trying to crack the Da Vinci Code. To them, English breakfast preferences had apparently crossed into abstract art. And then there’s the *idioms.* “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” I said, thinking this would be an easy crowd-pleaser. You’d think I had unleashed a wild riddle upon the class. One student, bless him, asked if it was “an investment strategy.” Another suggested we might be “getting too personal.”
By the end of the lesson, I had students drawing flowcharts to map out the differences between “soft-boiled” and “runny.” Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking, “Do I even know how I like my eggs anymore?”
So next week? We’re back to the A,B,C.
By Farhanah Kamaludin
