DHS, IPO's and Dubya .... by Adam (2000)

_________________________________________________________________

My main irritation teaching at my Thai Catholic School is with nun-policy. There is no air conditioning in the mornings. We are apparently waiting on a part. We have been waiting on a part since last August. I believe the school has hired two elderly women to push the part from Uzbekistan in a shopping cart. So it could be a while yet. I am not too sure why we don't need that same part for the air to work in the afternoons. But, hey, I'm no engineer.

The problem for me is that Thai humidity makes you sweat like Joerg Haider at a Bar Mitzvah.  Teachers often begin days with their chests and backs soaked through to the skin. Call me sensitive but I am a little uncomfortable with a room full of adolescents looking at my nipples. Perhaps the nuns would have similar concerns if they were in my position. The situation is doubly offensive when I walk past the nuns' office and see people blowing into their hands and cleaning frost off their desks because the "part" that controls that section of the school seems to be working just fine.

I haven't given an update on creepy coworkers for a while. Where are things now? Well, out went Troy, the compulsive liar, freakoid who vengefully spewed diarrhea onto his roommates' beds. And in came 65-year-old Howie. With the body of Godzilla (the old, Japanese one) and a face one chromosome short of grandfatherly, he looked harmless enough. But he was a piece of work. When not in class he would sit staring at the floor with his ripe, moist lower lip hanging down past his chin.

My introduction to him was in the elevator. I had never spoken to him before when he reached over,
fingered my goatee and said, in his Brooklyn accent, "Been ticklin' alotta pussy w'dat?". I reacted with an
embarrassed giggle and tried to change the subject to the bucket in the corner of the elevator. I wondered
aloud if it was an ice bucket. Howie responded with "I should sit my ass in it. They don't call me numb-nuts f'nuttin." He was fired when the bosses figured out that he could barely see three feet in front of him and that he was drawing women's breasts on the white board for his grade fives. But given his defence, I think his behaviour was understandable: "I teach by drawin' pick-chas an' I'm awlmost outta pick-chas"

I got a new teaching partner (we teach the same grade, but different students). My previous one, 58-year-old Shiela, was both hilarious and sweet but she suffered a health problem, as the elderly are known to do, and went home. My new one is a nice enough guy but a severe drip to work with. He is a 50-year-old nerdy ex-nurse who spends about half of each class angrily enforcing discipline (whereas I never discipline, in my quest to be every kid's favourite teacher. It IS TOO a popularity contest!) He also has a shocking cough-and-snort habit that I can hear echoing through the halls like sniper fire. 

I like to approach work with a certain amount of laughter and playfulness but our interaction has basically been reduced to his nasally articulations of things like "I..I..I just don't think we (snort) should use the word "questions" on (hack-snort) the "true and false" quiz when (snort-hack), they are, in actuality, statements."

We had a fire drill a while back. I always wondered when I heard about Asian mall/school/boat/karaoke/disco fire tragedies, how so many people could be killed. Well I am no longer
curious after witnessing our practice-tragedy. The alarm rang and 1700 students, teachers and staff
simultaneously sprang into the halls and shoved each other towards the stairwells. The chaos culminated in the head nun screaming over the PA, "RUN - don't walk, RUN FAST". It took some convincing for her to realize that orderly walking might result in less burnt students.

Anyways, I have signed up for another year. But I have something else in the works, but I will have to wait
and see.

Did anyone notice that I was home for Christmas? Well, I saw about two-thirds of the people I wanted to see. I started in Vancouver where I stayed with the recently married Chris who hasn't changed a bit. Well
except for the fact that he has gained about 55 pounds, never shaves nor leaves the couch and stays
home every night cuddling in front of the Suddenly Susan Library on Video Collection. 

Warren and Holly also played host. Warren is currently sifting through stacks of legal documents looking for tax loopholes for multinational corporations, or something like that (what is corporate tax law anyway?). But I still think fashion law is in his not-too-distant future. I spent the next week and a half in Ontario where I saw a ton of old friends. Most of them still interesting, despite a slight gravitation of discussions towards kitchen flooring and IPO's. Actually, my friends in Vancouver and Ontario kick serious ass. In a world populated by human pylons, how did I meet so many awesome people?

It was likewise good to see my family. My sister's family is just about perfect. And Mom and Dad seem
happy. They love me, you know. And of course I love them, even when my Dad does things like rage out of the car, face reddened with anger and arms swinging about, cuz I took too long to buy a muffin. But those incidents are getting fewer by the year. And I always appreciate my Dad's candour, humour and common sense. And my Mom is an angel, of course.

My sister's family bought a dog. It looks a bit like a pile of soiled tissues but it is a sweetie. I guess
their dog (Lady or Missy or Judy or something) is kind of the canine equivalent of a doily when I compare it
to the ever-populous stray mutts of Bangkok. Actually, there is some kind of skin disease going around my neighbourhood's canine population. I guess its a form of mange but some of these dogs appear positively raw. You could make a hearty soup out of the flesh falling off of some of these pooches. 

I'd like to help them, but short of chasing them down and rubbing moisturizer into their minced backs, there's not much I could do. After watching students throw turtles, squeeze fish and kick dogs, I have come to the conclusion that Thais don't have the same kind of love for animals that we do. I guess when you grow up surrounded by growling slabs of fur-patched ground beef you gain a different sensibility.

I am also frequently confronted by the disturbing sight of Dogs Having Sex (DHS). Anyone living in
Bangkok has become inured to the site of dogs in various states of undress and sexual arousal. On a
regular basis I am exposed to the sight of two DHS stuck together, rear-to-rear, walking in circles like
they are having some kind of lewd tug-of-war. I am fully serious about that: after finishing "the act"
the DHS often can not separate themselves from each other. This post-coital dance is performed until
something is jarred loose and they are free to find a new partner. These are VERY active dogs. There have been times at my local market when I could not finish my meal after catching an accidental glimpse of a dog's swollen, crimson-coloured vagina, or whatever that protruding, aggravated hump under the tail is.

Another disturbing story: a coworker said he witnessed a canine gang rape outside his building. One dog was on top of another while several others stood in a circle barking him on. The top-dog finished,
dismounted, fell back into the pack and then the next one climbed on top. It's a strange neighbourhood
sometimes.

They don't eat dogs in Thailand (well, mostly). But when I was in Hanoi in Vietnam they had a section of
town for dog restaurants. The restauranteurs are known to wander onto the street extolling the succulence of their respective breeds and recipes. I never actually dined in the area but I heard the Border Collie with snow peas is delicious.

Anyhow, time to go. I will finish with a couple quotes from the man who may be the next leader of the free
world. George W. Bush's ignorance and stupidity is unmatched in the political arena. But he is dashing
and has lots of money so get used to such borderline retarded utterances as:

"This is preservation month. I appreciate
preservation. It's what you do when you run for
president. You've got to preserve." - Bush praising
students at a high school for their "theme of the
month", which was actually perseverance.

"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and
you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them
and it was clear who them was. Today we are not so
sure who the they are, but we know they're there."
- Bush in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Jan. 21, 2000.

"I propose that every city have a telephone number 119
- for dyslexics who have an emergency."
- Bush being inclusive

"Is your children learning?"
- Bush on education, Jan. 2000.