Statistics, Frosting, and Wishing I was Anonymous

This week, I have gotton in trouble 3 times, been reprimanded for conduct at least once or twice a day, fallen asleep zero times (huzzah!) (actually maybe I should restate that as, number of times almost fallen asleep... the numbers would be much higher...), hit 2 people, fallen/tripped/run into things/people 4 times, been not understood almost every second of my life, had things repeated to me by at least 5 different people (all about the same thing, every day), read the same passage for some English classes about 6 times (just this week. last week I read the same passage 10 times), been inturrupted by students who call my name out then giggle and run away about 10 times or more a day, and been accosted by people I don't even know every time I walk anywhere. Man oh man, it seems like the water level is rising faster than I can swim.

To address getting in trouble. I wouldn't specifically call it getting in trouble... more like, getting the stink-eye and being told never to do it again. One: Never wear colored socks. I figured that I was wearing sweatpants, so no one would care about my sock color choice. How wrong I was. Not only were the teachers horrified, but every goody-two shoes student I came across felt the need to tell me only white socks were allowed. Whoops. Two: Painted nails are not allowed. See above explanation except double the number of reminders and 'Looks'. Triple Whoops. Three: Never stand with legs far apart, or put one foot up on bench to lean on arms when talking to a teacher. Just, don't do it. The teacher was actually seriously pissed that I did this.

Being reprimanded for not properly acknowledging a teacher is just a fact in my life it seems. I always 'wai' and 'sawadika' them, but for some reason they never seem to see me do it. So they walk up to me and look at me, (while I smile, because I have no idea that they didn't see me) and then speak Thai to the student/s around me, basically telling me to do what I just did as a way of respecting them. Once, I tried to explain that I knew I was supposed to do it, and I did, they just didn't see me, buuttt.... that didn't go over too well. Now I just accept that everybody's going to keep telling me what I already know every time I run into a 'kru'. So now whenever I spot a teacher I look around for some place to hide, or I have a sudden Space Attack.

Mostly I this week I have almost fallen asleep in only one class: Thai. It's actually more of a personal lesson in Thai. Just about every single period of every single day. On Monday, I actually calculated my life in numbers. I spend 17.5 hours (a week) learning Thai (that's 21 class periods of Thai vs 14 other), 11.6 hours in other classes, and I have 138.9 hours of 'free time', roughly 56 of those hours spent sleeping. Statsically speaking, learning Thai is about 10.4% of my week, and other classes is 6.9% of it. During my free time, 33.3% of it I'm asleep, and 49.9% of it I'm awake. I'm just going to let the numbers speak for themselves, as I think that the fact that I actually took time calculating this on my phone pretty much sums it up...

What's next? Ah, yes... Hitting people. This also includes: Other classes. On Tuesday, I had Thai Cooking. Sounds cool, but when I walked in, I discovered that NO ONE, not even the teacher spoke even a little English. So I was basically oogled-at for 2 periods, and then force-fed the salads they made (they were 7th graders) while I rated each dish. Which basically meant that the amount of salad dressing I consumed vastly outweighed the actual salad. In my career class, the same teacher who woke me up last week and gave me a piece of gum, gave me his sunglasses to play with while other students gave presentations. He is a pretty cool guy. During Thai Dancing on Wednesday, I actually smacked the girl on my left and ran into/hit the transsexual on my right. The teacher eyed me dissaprovingly and emphasized even more the hand motions and the stepping of the feet. Needless to say I still didn't know what the heck was going on after about 2 hours. Hmm... As for my other classes, they either don't exist (poor scheduaing) or there is no point in my going there (such as Judo) because it's all in Thai.


Tripping/falling/running into people/things has happened far to many times for me recollect. For example, yesterday morning, I was looking, (okay, okay...) staring at this really cute guy behind me when I smashed right into some random dude and, like, kinda knocked him over. I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it really happened. The guys in my class thought it was hilarious. I blame this lil' incident on my bad luck.

Speaking of bad luck, today is was particularly strong. I woke up late, so that I left the house still dripping wet from the shower and I realized in the car that I had left my schedual in a book that I kicked under my bed in my haste. I got to school and had no idea where I was supposed to go, or even what my classes were. After being thrust into another Cooking class (this time they were learning how to frost cakes) I sloshed through the rain back to the English department, only to realize that a big glob of frosting had somehow ended up on my shoulder. And then some teachers told me that the buttons on my shirt were off. And then when I was walking back from lunch, I stepped in a large puddle of mud, dying one sock brown. And then towards the end of the day, some boy pointed out that the frosting had also somehow made it onto my back in the form of a large bright pink blob. And then it seemed like everywhere I went, someone else had to point out that I was "so dirty". People actually asked me who did my laundry, like, they were implying that I didn't wash my clothes or something... And then I was playing vollyball the last period of the day, got dragged to another kid's class, and was forced to run laps because of being so 'tardy'. I am not even in that class.


And finally, the giggling/inturrupting/being accosted by random people is the MOST ANNOYING thing EVER. By the end of the week, I can practially hear Handel's 'Sarabande' playing in the background as I attempt to smile and be pleasent for the zillionth time that day. I either want to kill myself everytime I hear a "Hey! Hey! Helllloooo!" or an "Anchallee! Hee hee hee!" or take my stack of papers and try to kill them. It really is a drain. I just want people to leave me alone: no more touching, no more grabbing, no more waving me down and trying to talk to me in broken English, no more staring, no more "Hey! Hey! Look at me!"-ing and then running away, no more catcalls, no more "I love you!"s, no more "Your eyes are beautiful", no more laughing everytime I look at anyone, no more people going into hysterics when I say "Hello"; no more anything. People think I'm doing work when they see me brooding over at my desk in the English Department Teacher's Lounge, but all I'm really thinking about is how much I just want to stand up and scream, "LEAVE ME ALONE! I HATE YOU ALL!" and then run pell-mell for the door. Although, they wouldn't understand me. They would probably just giggle to themselves and point at my retreating form before running away themselves. Sigh. Good thing we are going to Bangkok this weekend... Otherwise I think I'd go ballistic.

Oh, and currently in Thailand, people are celebrating the Chinese holiday for the Dead. I don't even know what to say at this point.

Muching on chocolate and expecting it to smear somewhere I least expect,
Anchelee

ps my spell check isn't working, so I apologize for all the atrocious spelling I know is lurking in this post somewhere...