Filed under: idiocy (my own)
I’ve been gaining some weight, lately.
Teaching is not a physical job. I never had to work to consciously be active before, and when I got here, I didn’t think about it. I got too lazy to go swimming after a few months, and when I put on a few pounds, I thought: I’m not a big girl. I can afford a few extra pounds.
I knew that eventually it would be something I had to think about. I knew that once I could stop relying on a fast metabolism, I would have to start putting in a conscious effort. I know that if I gain a ton of weight, I will have a hard time getting it off -I have a family history of issues like that.
I’ve been avoiding being conscious of my weight for a few reasons. Most pressing: I’m ass-lazy. But I also cringe at the idea of dieting, of being concerned with my size. It shouldn’t be important, I think. I shouldn’t care if I’m a size 4 or a size 14. As long as I’m healthy, I think, who cares about size?
But the truth is: I am bigger than my natural size. For years I stayed at a certain weight without having to work at it. Now that I am less active, I am bigger. I am bigger than I naturally should be.
And today, I got a heat rash on my inner thighs from where they rubbed together under my skirt. And there was one day when I took the stairs up to my office instead of the elevator, and had to take a break on the fourth floor, huffing and puffing and clutching my McDonalds bag.
Time to cut back on pizza and get my ass back to the pool – at least until I can get back up the stairs.
Yesterday, I was playing chopsticks with one of my students. I have no idea how to play chopsticks. I lost before he told me the rules. Then he yelled “You LOST, you WAYGOOK!” He was delighted with himself.
“That was pretty rude,” I said. He didn’t get it.
“But…that just means you’re not Korean!”
“I know it means foreigner,” I said. “But listen to this: ‘you got the answer wrong, you stupid Korean.’ Same thing, right?”
“Oohhh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
(This is the same student who wrote ‘waygookin’ on my arm – in case people didn’t know that I’m not Korean. I couldn’t stand out more here if I tried.)
Knowing my luck, though, that was the precise minute that my boss turned the camera on in my classroom, heard only that line, and thinks I’m a bloody racist.
Awesome.
Last week, I walked into my classroom to find that my students had been writing on the white board. Amongst the usual monsters, pictures of ‘ugly teacher’, ‘we want pizza’s’, there was, in big letters the middle of the board, the following gem:
“Yellow Hair, go back to Canada!”
….Lovely.
Today, I walked to the back of the room while my students were working on their grammar exercises, and had been for 10 minutes. “WJ,” I said to one of my students. “Where’s your pencil?”
He looked at me like a sad cow. “No.”
“No? What do you mean no?”
He shrugged.
“Do you have a pencil?”
“No.”
“Were you going to ask for one?”
“No.”
“Were you planning on just sitting there for the whole three hours?
Sad cow eyes.
siiiigggghhhh
This is related, I swear. No, really.
The staff room at our school operates much like a high school cafeteria. The open hostility simmering just beneath the surface is gone, but the rude jokes, juvenile behaviour, and raucous laughter remain. We spend our day with children: we let loose a little in the staff room. Anuses get mentioned almost every break, my co-workers keep a daily tally of the number of times I say ‘vagina’, and I’ve lost track of the number of times somebody’s been told to fuck off through a mouthful of food.
This is all fine.
There is one gentleman I work with who objects to this. He is not a prude: he does not object to all of the rude jokes. No, he objects only to mine. And it is not only the jokes: I need only mention something that has to do exclusively with women and out come his barbs. I was telling one of the women today about Vaginal Tightening Cream, some disgusting little product I’ve just found on the intarwebs, and was busy proclaiming my disdain when he loudly bulldozed through our conversation. “Very nice, -’b,” he shouted. “Very nice.”
“I wasn’t really talking to you,” I said, turning away from my friend.
“Yeah, but I can HEAR you,” he snarled.
The woman I was talking to turned to me and said, “I don’t think he likes it when you talk like that,” she said.
I’m SORRY?
“He’s a grown up,” I said. “If he’s old enough to see a vagina, he’s old enough to talk about one.”
Look: I am not shy. I will talk about periods – they are, after all, a huge part of 50% of the population’s life, and when we are in pain because of them, it is effing. real. I will give candid sexual health advice, or ask for it, at the staff table. I will talk about my vagina and my breasts as much as, or more than, you talk about your penis. I can objectify with the best of them, and my dirty jokes will make you blush.
Why, when we are talking about subject matter that has to do with women, must we hush it up, pretend it doesn’t exist, go off somewhere private and out of the public sphere to do it? Why are men willing to put their penis in a vagina (and boast about it!) but not to admit their existence later? And why, why, WHY, does it reflect badly on my character when I am NOT shy about sex, sexual health, women’s rights, or my ability to compete with the boys’ club?
Here’s how this relates to the article above. 83% of the women in Egypt have been harassed. 2.4% of them reported it. Why? Because we are ashamed! We are made to feel ashamedin the public sphere of our bodies and their functions, of our sexual behaviour, of our comfort with ourselves. We are supposed to hide all that away until there are no men around to hear it. We are to be appropriate. And for as long as this is true, as long as my vagina and my breasts and my sex don’t exist as soon as I walk into a public space, then my safety, my health, my concerns, and my exclusively female voice will also not exist in those same public spaces.
And that is Not. Ok.
A few weeks ago, I had the weekend to end all weekends (until this one, when it is my birthday, and I plan to be drunk for a week). I met my Pilot in the bar, and promptly (read: after 5 minutes) stuck my tongue down his throat, texted my friends, and whisked him off to a dvdbang.
I like to keep things classy.
We were…watching a movie….when he pulled away from me. “I want to date you,” he said. I laughed and kept kissing him. He pulled away again. “No really. You’re too good for a one night stand.”
“Stop with the bullshit,” I said. “Just have some fun.”
Later, afterwards, we were….I cringe to say it….cuddling, and talking. I KNOW. He brought it up again. “Really,” he said. “I would like to take you out on a date.” I sighed. “You don’t believe me?” he said.
“No. You picked me up in a bar, and we had some fun in a dvdbang.”
“Well, I really want to take you out for dinner.”
Listen, I said: I like sex. I don’t need sex to be tied to a relationship. “But women – ” Bullshit. I like sex – I’m not stupid. You don’t need to say any of this to get me into bed: I’m here already. At least I’m honest about my one night stands.
He shook his head angrily. “You don’t understand,” he said.
And maybe I didn’t. I gave him my number. “Prove me wrong,” I said as I got into a cab. And before I got back out again, he’d texted me.
Maybe he will call me again. Maybe he does want to take me out, for real. And maybe, if he does, I’ll even say yes.
But I like my cynicism – it keeps me warm and safe.
Filed under: being foreign
I went to get my hair cut today. The hairdress took one look at my hair and said, “oh, no!”. She ran her fingers through my hair, clucking disapprovingly.
“Cut off?” she said. “Very damagee. Cut off?”
“Anniyo,” I said. “Just trim.” My hair is damaged because you bleached the hell out of it, I thought.
“But your hair is so weak and thin!”
THAT’S BECAUSE I’M WHITE, ASSHOLE.
This weekend I was in Daechon – a town on the coast that I’ve never been in before. I was there for the mud festival – a two week party on the beach.
We were walking down the street, covered in mud, carrying beers, when we saw a bar with a Korean man standing outside. “NO FOREIGNERS” said the sign on the door.
“Really. REALLY?” my (drunk) friend asked.
He glared us, nodded.
I have no words.
No wait. Yes I do. Here they are: FUCK. KOREA.
Filed under: being foreign, idiocy (my own), idiocy (other people's), moral outrage
I just got the scare of my fucking life.
This morning, I saw the sun rise for the third consecutive morning. It’s like I’m nocturnal! But with a day job.
I was not at a bar all night yesterday. It was a work night. Seriously, I would have been home by 3am. I AM RESPONSIBLE. No, I was in the emergency room all night with my friend. Middle of the night scares are never fun: try them in a foreign fucking country.
I left her there at 9am, sure she wasn’t going to die, happily drugged out, no longer awaiting any scary tests, and with someone new on the way to take over for me (I left, but I’m not the callous bitch I felt like, ok?). I slept for 4 hours, slept through my alarm, and took a cab to work.
Moral Cursader and Hero To The Masses that I am, I then led a (slightly sleepy) protest to make sure that said friend’s classes were covered. I work at a school with no supply teachers or back-up plan for when a teacher is sick. That means: I have taught with a bleeding urinary tract infection and with food poisoning. The girl who spent the night in the emergency room, had a meningitis scare, still didn’t know what was wrong, and had a choice between debilitating pain or being seriously drugged out and high was told “not to worry” as she could miss an hour of her prep time.
No fucking way. Annnnndddd – Moral Crusader wins again! Which really means, I have a semi-reasonable boss who realized her mistake when I told her, In No Uncertain Terms, that there was no fucking way in hell that said friend was ok to work. It helped that I had, without consulting either the teachers who were to teach, the friend who was on her way to work, or the boss, drawn up a possible schedule for coverage. (I swear I’m not a control freak under normal circumstances)
Then I drank six pepsis and I don’t remember much of what happened in class, except that I’m pretty sure I was upright for most of it.
Which is all a LOT of backstory for why I am so fucking tired and susceptible to scares tonight.
Because of the six pepsis, I was finding it hard to play the Passing-The-Fuck-Out game, which is one of my favourite games. I finally did: an hour and a half ago. Sweet, sweet release. Then, half an hour ago, Stupid Motherfucking MSN Messenger (SMMM) ran an ad for “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Yep – I left my computer on, my MSN running, and the volume turned up. The video clip of the explosions started at approximately 3AM IN THE FUCKING MORNING.
“HOLY SHIT!” I thought, sitting bolt upright, “KIM JONG IL IS HERE.”
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
If I told you about my weekend (slash, three day bender), you would not believe me.
Let’s just leave it at this: I heard about retarded alien babies coming from a different galaxy to fuck monkeys on Earth. I have blue poop. I had sex with two strangers in two nights, once in a bathroom at the bar. I drank vodka out of a bag on the street. I took a cab to the McDonalds that’s a ten minute walk away (fast food nation!). I stopped my friend from sleeping on the street. I put my crotch on all of my friends.
What would my mother think of me?
Filed under: travelling
I got a job in Bangkok.
At the end of the summer, I’ll be moving to Bangkok for a year. I like tell people that I’m going to Bangkok while I point at my crotch, because I’m pretty awesome.
Things I am excited about:
- Tigers
- Temples
- Beaches
- Elephant camps
- Getting the fuck out of the city
Things I am scared about
- 40 degree weather
- an alphabet with 44 consonants, divided into three classes, 15 vowels, and 5 tones.
- getting there only to find that I am not working at a school. “Welcome to the brothel!” they’ll say. “You’re Mommy!” *
I am trying really really hard to sound worldly and slightly bored when I tell people this. So far, I’ve failed because I keep dissolving into expletives or squeals (or I point at my crotch). Still working. Nonchalant. Worldly. Bored. Nonchalant. Worldly. Bored.
Bangkok. EEEEEEE.
*clearly, jokes about the sex trade in Thailand or child prostitution in general are unnecessary, inappropriate, and entirely unfunny. I am sick and disgusting.
