Filed under: students
My little babies, the kindergarten kids, like to come flying at me with hugs, which is really adorable. However, they are at just the height that my stomach takes the weight of their head, and at 8:30 in the morning, after a weekend of food poisoning, I realllly couldn’t handle that. So the Thai teacher explained that today, high fives were ok but that hugs were not – so when we were doing our warm up, prancing about and such, and I said “show me your stomachs!” (we had just learned the body parts and OH MY WORD you should see their little 5 year old wiggles and sashays when they have to show me their hips) several of them decided to show me MY stomach. Rather pointedly.
groooaaann.
This next happened in my last class, and all of these things happened in a single 50 minute period. Grade one students. I have no curriculuum right now – exams are done and we’re playing the waiting game until end of term. So they all gathered around on the floor for storytime (you should see them RUN when I pull out the book, and 30 six year olds chanting and acting along with you – beat THAT, bedtime story!).
28 of them were sitting. One boy was lying on his back, giggling. One boy was massaging and grabbing said boy’s penis, also giggling. THAT’S RECESS PLAY BOYS.
Another boy grabbed my skirt and tried to pull it up as I walked by. KID’S SIX.
Then, because we had read “Where the Wild Things Are” , I sent them back to their desks to draw their own monsters. WELL. One boy drew enormous breasts on his monster. Kid beside him yelled “Teacher! Teacher!” but, being an ESL student, he needed to mime, so he told on the kid by demonstrating breasts on himself. I walked over, and walked away trying very very hard not to laugh audibly and several boys, upon finding that Hun was not in trouble (because what can you do, really?! Right now he just associates breasts with his mom) and that teacher was amused, all stood up and started demonstrating their rather large breasts. Anything to make teacher laugh.
Oh dear.
I just spent the weekend in the hospital. WELCOME TO THAILAND!
As part of the process to get a work permit and extension of stay for my visa, I need to take a course in Thai Culture. A two day course. The module on culture takes an hour and a half. I don’t know if that’s more insulting to me or to the Thais. I was signed up for this course, which was to take place in Bangkok very early in the morning – requiring a 4:30am wake up call and a 5:30 meet up. The gentlemen who were accompanying me and I had decided to travel together to split costs and to help each other find the way – one of them has a Thai wife that was coming along for the ride.
Both were shocked that I managed to make it to the meeting point without getting lost and, I imagine, simply giving up. The people I work with think I`m a helpless idiot, but that`s a story for another time.
At 2am, shortly before my alarm went off, I was curled in the fetal position in the bathroom, sure I was going to die. My stomach was killing me. However, this has happened before, where my grogginess in the middle of the night has led me to paranoia, and I went back to bed. In the morning I was rather sick, but I chalked that up to getting up at 4:30 in the damn morning and sucked it up.
By 7, I`ve taken a cab, a van, and another cab into central Bangkok where the kindergarten that was hosting the course was. The others went off to find some coffee; I wilted. And got dizzy. And couldn`t keep my head up.
Shit, I thought.
Finally, weighing my options, I went to the course instructor to ask him when the next time one of these courses would be offered: would it be worth waiting for the next one, or should I suck it up? He did me the enormous favour of having me sign in for the day and sent me home to bed.
However, not long after reaching home and getting to bed I realized that I was, in fact, dying. I won’t go into the gory details, but it turns out that I did in fact get food poisoning, and the stay in the hospital was not one of my high points. I needed help to shower, and that wasn’t the worst it got.
Now I’m at home, hoping I can go to work tomorrow, with a plethora of medications, each on a different schedule. The nurses were kind enough to get instructions printed for me in English, so I know when to take the pills, but I have no idea what they are. I have gotten used to taking mystery medicine from doctors who don’t have enough English to explain.
I wish that I was writing about some exciting Thai adventures or mishaps, crazy food or tourist attractions or trips but! alas – a hospital visit will have to do.
Gross.
I have incredibly unreliable internet at the moment. Why oh why do people insist on putting passwords on their wireless connections? It just makes it harder for me to steal.
(For the record, I do pay for internet. However, foreigners cannot legally sign up for internet and things in Thailand until they have a legit work permit. It could take me a few months to get all the paperwork through. )
In Thailand, you can buy pig uterus at the grocery store; it’s packaged up nicely next to the steaks. Fallopian tubes and everything. You can replace pieces of human heart with pig heart: could you do the same, I wonder, with pig uterus? If so, would a shiny new pig uterus stop me from Puking My Guts Up and Passing Out In Public every month?
If anybody has any ideas as to what you can cook with pig uterus, please – send them, and any recipes, along.
Today I went shoe shopping. I detest shoe shopping. I only own three pairs of shoes – I cut down from four when I left winter behind. I hate only one thing more than shoe shopping, and that is jeans shopping. I steadfastly refuse to go jeans shopping, and instead have my father periodically mail me new batches of the exact same pair. That doesn’t work as well with shoes, however, and I think I went into every shoe store in the gigantic four storey mall I found myself in today. Apparently, plain black flat mary jane shoes are not in fashion. Apparently, flimsy ballet flats in an array of ridiculous colours and with no arch support to speak of are in fashion. Apparently, everybody and their mother wears stilettos all. the bloody. time.
Listen: polka-dotted ballet flats are amusing, and I am sure look simply charming when one is prancing about with one’s friends. But I need Clothes I Can Wear To Work, and pink and yellow polka dots don’t cut it. Not to mention, I am on my feet all day, and I teach 5 and 6 year olds. 120 5 and 6 year olds. Who think, at times, that I am a tree, and try to climb me, or fell me. I would not last five minutes in stilletos or satin ballet flats, even if I managed to get them safely through the rain on the way to work.
A flat pair of mary janes in black leather, however, seems like it is Too Much To Ask.
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
I think that the activity I am engaged in might possibly could be construed as Flirting With My Married Boss.
Joking and banter in the staff room is one thing: when it switches over to gmail chat on a Friday night?
Erm.
Because the Drama at school needs to be Complicated.
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
My new apartment does not have a kitchen. Instead, I have a small balcony on which there is a sink. I cook there on an electric grill, and today I bought a hot plate.
I think I just gave myself a shock on my new hot plate. My hand really, really hurts. It may or may not having something to do with the thunderstorm raging outside and the water on the floor of my balcony, so it may or may not be a good idea to try again tomorrow.
I hope I don’t die cooking spaghetti. That would be a really shitty way to go.
Well, they’ve declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.
I have, as ever, perfect timing.
I can barely pronounce the street I live on well enough for cab drivers to understand me. I have to point and yell “THAT WAY!”, and that only works when I know where I am.
Now I might find myself in the middle of a violent protest, wandering around helplessly repeating “thank you” and “hello” and “delicious!”, because so far, that’s the only Thai I know. I didn’t think I’d need to know “Please, don’t shoot!”
Christ.
I have unreliable internet and no tv, so staying on top of the the news is difficult. I don’t know my way around or how to find my way home except for from a very few places. I haven’t found my feet yet. And now there is a bloody state of emergency.
They’ve closed the domestic airports. The international one may close as well.
On top of all that, I have found myself in a much different working environment. I was the youngest foreign teacher I knew in Korea, but at least we were all of the same generation. Here I am the youngest by far and one of only three in my twenties. The rest are career teachers, middle aged or near retirement, with families and wives and children. I don’t want to be desperate enough to ask the other two young ones to please, be my friend!, but I don’t know what else to do. I was always socially awkward, and this is not a situation where making friends is easy.
damn.
I also had a major setback in my war against the ants today. They got inside my sealed bag of sugar. The bag was ALIVE, people.
