Ostriches

Every so often, I have an incident in class that is so outlandish, I feel the need to report it in my blog.

First, I have a very strict "no cell phones" policy. I hate when a student takes out a phone and blithely answers it when I'm trying to teach. I HATE it.

I also hate it almost as much when my students leave the room to answer the phone. They go in and out all day, and that's very distracting.

So I tell them they're in an American classroom, and we don't behave that way in America. I tell them they're gonna get the best American education ever, and if they ever apply to study abroad, they can tell the admissions officers that they've already studied in a western-style classroom.

And today, I had a student deliberately ignore everything I have lectured the class about over the last 6 weeks.

First, his phone rang loudly. "Turn it off," I said, continuing to write the assignment on the board. Rather than obey, he raised his bootleg copy of Academic Writing over his head and proceeded to answer.

I could hear the metallic voice on the other end before I could see who exactly was talking on the phone. Turning around, I saw the kid with the book held over his face, answering the little mechanical voice he was trying to hide. As if I wouldn't notice someone clearly hiding his cell phone usage behind a book.

Me: What's wrong with you? Do you think I don't notice you holding the book in front of your face? Come on! I can hear the person on the other end of the line. How retarded do you think I am? TURN IT OFF!

But I ask you: what would even possess someone to do that? We all made fun of him for the next 5 minutes or so.

*Another time, a student of mine suddenly bent forward and buried the top half of his body in his bookbag to avoid my wrathful gaze as he answered the phone. Like I wouldn't notice that, either.

Happy-Lucky Chinese New Year

This week is Chinese New Year. Even though Cambodia isn't part of China, it's still celebrated here as part of China's sphere of cultural influence. Although I'd rather be celebrating Chinese New Year in Cambodia than in China itself, it is nonetheless not without its challenges here.

First, most every institution gets the week off--except mine. The founder of this school stubbornly clings to the notion that he runs a Cambodian institution, dammit, not a Chinese one. Therefore, taking Chinese New Year off is an impossibility.

I like that attitude, actually, but unfortunately the Cambodian public does not share his sentiments. Most students don't even show up all week. Some teachers don't either, leaving the students who actually did show up wandering the hallways for an hour and a half, waiting to see if their next teacher will show up for their next class.

So far, I've cancelled two out of the three classes (you may guess that I'm typing this entry during one of my cancelled classes--because there's nothing else to do till my next class begins). In the first one, no one showed up at all. In the second, one student showed up--but she hadn't purchased her textbook yet, which she needed to do the exercises. What choice did I have but to let her go home? She'd been sitting there for an hour and a half, because her other teacher never came.

The classes you don't cancel, you're stuck entertaining about 2 to 5 students for an hour and a half. You can't teach them too much, or else you'll have to repeat it for the rest of the class, whenever they come back. You can't do too little, or else there's no point in holding class anyway. It's kind of a tough spot to be in.

I remember last year. I was just coming down with subacute thyroiditis, and I really didn't want to teach class. I was happy to see that in one of my classes, there were no students. The thyroid problem made me overheat, so I just sat underneath the air conditioner and waited for the next class.

Some guy from admin came in. "No one showed up to class?" he asked me, which I confirmed. "You have to stay here for the entire class, or else I'm not going to let them pay you for work today," he informed me.

That sounded like such bullshit to me, that I called my supervisor.

Me: Hey Barry. No one's in my class today.

Barry: Well then, you get paid free time!

Me: About that. Some guy from admin was in here and he told me that I'm not getting paid if I don't stay in the classroom. Please tell me that's rubbish.

Barry: He was from admin? Really?

Me: Yeah.

Barry: He was on his own little power trip. IGNORE.

And I did ignore it, only to discover the same guy had bothered a lot of other teachers in the same way. Not all of them were as graceful and dignified as me--some of 'em went down kicking and screaming! I guess it happens every year. No admin staffer will prevail over our right to get paid for slacking off, dammit!

And that's what I call a traditional Chinese New Year. At least they're not power-tripping this time!

Now if only no one would show up for my high school class this evening... (then that would mean I would have to walk 40 minutes only to have to walk home again--but at least I wouldn't have to teach those brats)

Rant: Why I Hate My ID Card

School's back in session. It's been back in session for two weeks actually, but I haven't been able to muster the motivation to comment on it.

My major issue this term is that I now live twice as far from the campuses as I did before. And that's an unpleasant distance to have to walk.

My other issue is just my anti-authoritarian control issues rearing their ugly head again. People who know me, know how resistant I can be towards someone making a perfectly reasonable request--and I still don't know why I do this.

Somehow, somewhere, someone decided that they needed to have an "ID Card Check" at every entrance of every building. Now there's some stuffy looking guy from admin informing me that I have to wear my name tag at all times.

I don't want to wear the name tag. Why? Because it's a liability. It's the first thing that's going to be lost. I'm going to put it in my pocket, and it's going to fall out. I'm going to take it off and accidently leave it on the table at KFC. The same reason that I had to pay hundreds and hundreds of dirhams to the American University in Dubai after I kept losing the dorm keys. The thing is better off staying on my table at home. I'm completely irresponsible with my things, and I don't want to wear the damn ID card.

And, not to carry the gripe futher than it needs to go, but what is this? Nazi Germany? "Where are your papers, ma'am?" I'm a responsible adult; I don't wanna be treated like that.

In all honesty, though, it really shouldn't be the problem that it is for me, especially given that You must wear your ID Card at all times is posted in the sheet of rules I was given when I first started working here (and is posted multiple times in each teacher's lounge). So it's not like they're wrong. Everyone else wears their nametags; no one else seems to have issues with it, either, just me.

But how is it that I've managed to go for more than a year--AN ENTIRE YEAR--without anyone ever once saying anything about my missing ID card? And now suddenly, they've got a guy at every door, not letting people inside who don't have nametags? It's retarded. I guess the word must have gotten around about the renegade teacher who refuses to wear her nametag (because that's what they spend their time and money discussing)!

I really don't wanna do what they've been telling me to do...but on the other hand, I really don't want to turn such a retarded issue into some ridiculous conflagration. Crap, I hate being in this position, though.

*I somehow made it through grade school and high school without getting in trouble, in case you're wondering.

Brother Act

Monks and the Buddhist clergy play an important role in Cambodia's society, both historically and in a modern setting. They also play an important role, as it turns out, in my classrooms.

This was the case with the very first class I taught here. I looked down the roster, and the school had denoted the fact that one of my students-to-be was a monk. Beside each name is a gender notation--Male, Female, or Monk. I guess monks have a third gender.

Anyway, it totally freaked me out that I would have to teach an honored, respected monk. There is supposed to be a protocol for how I interact with them as a female teacher. For example, I can't just hand a paper back to a monk, because they're not supposed to accept something being held by me. There are some other points of etiquette, but I forget what they are, largely because none of my monks have ever observed the protocol. I guess to them I'm not a real woman. (Given that I sometimes forget I'm even female myself, I can't really raise any hue and cry about this one.)

Usually, I like teaching monks, because they tend to be devoted students who focus very hard and score in the high 90s on their exams. They make me look good.

I have this one class, though...where that's not quite the case. I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR. FOUR monks. Generally, the monks sit together anyway, but this is like the lower left 25% of my classroom is devoted to the clergy. And they're not actually some of my more talented students. But they've sort of formed their own brotherly comedy troupe to compensate.

It usually goes like this:

Every day, I walk into the room. The first monk will start in on me, "GOOD AFTERNOON, TEACHER!" He will then proceed to make remarks about me in Khmer, to the great hilarity of the rest of the class. I'm never sure what he says, and I'm not sure I want to know. But I know I'm the subject of the discussion because he starts with "Nek Gru", the term for a female teacher.

Me: I don't want to hear it, Chealy.

Monk 1: But TEACHER. I don't know the English words!

Ignoring his desparate bid for attention, I'll then put a short writing assignment on the board. The second monk will start in on me, "Teacher, ENGLISH IS SO HARD. How do you even speak it? I've studied it all my life and I DON'T GET IT. I can't do it. I can't do this assignment."

Me: Yes you can.

Monk 2: Nooo....I'll never get it...

Me: Sure you will. You just have to practice lots and lots.

Monk 2: Too hard...brain...imploding...*rolls into a ball of angst and despair*

For the record, he's the first person I've ever heard actually say that English is "hard".

As we move on with class, the third monk--after staring at his blank sheet of paper for 5 minutes--will inevitably start in on me, too.

Monk 3: Teacher, I don't understand the assignment!

Me: Well, it's very simple. *explains the assignment again*

Monk 3: I STILL don't get it.

Me: Hey Sangha, do YOU understand the assignment?

Sangha: Yes, teacher.

Me: Ask Sangha.

If perchance he understands the assignment the first time around, you can count on Monk #1 not to understand. He double and triple asks about every single thing I assign (literally, every single day), even when everyone else in the class plainly understands. On some days, I think he just wants attention. He's usually the one I call on to share what he's written--and he's usually got some very interesting ideas and insights.

And he's always understood the assignment perfectly.

As for the fourth guy, well, he's a bit quieter than the rest. Still, when I gave them an assignment to develop an imaginary new product and a marketing campaign plan, he for some reason developed a plan for world domination.

Walking to the front of the class, he forcefully read the following statement:

To Build Up My Self

I want to destroy the power of a big country. The first point--All of my friendship close to the embassy. All of the economic fields, imports, exports, all products, and we begin to build up ourself and produce nuclear weapons and shoulder-fired missiles and all other weapons, and try to make relationships with other countries in the world and send the deploma to build the embassader [?] and invest all of economics.

When our country is stronger than the other country, offer that we should start making war with big countries and we'll call on our friends to help us.

His campaign plan was illustrated with a clenched fist, beneath which were inscribed the words, "powerful is my hand".

Lol, I can't make this stuff up. I thought I was supposed to be the entertainer.

The Ultimate Cat Food Serendipity

There is a cat that lives nearby my apartment. I've sort of befriended it, which means it thinks it can follow me around meowing. Like Siamese cats, Cambodian cats have very loud, obnoxious voices and are very vocal towards humans. So, to get it to shut up, I've been feeding it baby cat food left over from that one time when I had the baby sparrow.

I don't have a balcony-proof bowl, so I put the baby cat food into an old piece of tupperware and left it on the balcony for the cat to consume at will.

Now for you to understand why the next part happens, you need to know that the landlady has a maid who cleans up the balconies sometimes. Although this means I have less work to do myself, the maid inevitably comes at 7:45 in the morning, just as I am leaving for work. And there is no fixed schedule--sometimes she doesn't show up for weeks, and sometimes she shows up on two consecutive days. Then I have to either step all over her while she's scrubbing the floor, or else wait inside the apartment till she goes away. It's always very inconvenient.

This morning, I discovered her bent over on my balcony at 7:45 as I was trying to get downstairs. Then, as I rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps, I saw that she had commandeered my tupperware full of catfood. It was sitting with her other belongings. I wasn't sure if she intended to steal it or not, but I, for one, wasn't about to let it happen.

Running late for school already, and unwilling to climb back over her to get inside my house, I took the cat food with me to school.

I probably looked fairly ridiculous carrying a lidless piece of tupperware half-filled with cat food five blocks to school, but that didn't really occur to me at the time. I was saving that food from an untimely disappearance, dammit! My world was back in order, and nothing else mattered.

Of course this meant I was stuck carrying baby cat food around to each of my classes.

I found it made a pretty good conversation piece, and had students write about why a teacher would bring baby cat food to school. Certain that I would use it to illustrate a point, they developed elaborate theories as to why it was sitting on my desk. It was pretty funny when they found out that, like my propensity to walk around barefoot, there wasn't actually any reason for it.

Baby cat food is also pretty good for making people leave me alone. Case in point: I was sitting around during break and a student came up to me demanding "English practice with a foreigner".

Me: OK, but I charge for it.

Him: Are you a student or a teacher here?

Me: I said, You have to pay me if you want English Practice. No free lessons.

Him: I bet you're a teacher!

Me: I charge for English lessons, OK?

Him: So how long have you been in Cambodia?

Me: * ! * Would you like some American food? It's REALLY GOOD.

I also found out that cat food can be used as a disciplinary measure. Like lumps of coal, it was distributed to noisier members of my "special" class, who were then forced to eat it. In all, I'd say it was pretty serendipitously wonderful.

The glorious adventure of the baby cat food came to a somewhat inglorious end when, on my way home, I inexplicably dropped the tupperware and the little pellets spilled all over the parking lot of Sacombank.

Day 25: Why I Will Never Be Able to Hold Down A Real Job

I regret to inform you that it is once again exam week. I had to fail a student today, who blithely decided it was time to pull out his cell phone and start flipping through it, mid-exam. He said his brother had sent him a text message. Despite the fact that I repeatedly said never to do this for any reason, and despite the fact that he signed a waiver that says being caught with anything that can be used for cheating will give you an automatic zero, he still thought I was going to think this was OK. It wasn't.

I told you how women in authority are.

Now I have lots and lots of papers to grade over the next 48 hours. But lest you think I am going to complain about that, I'd actually like to tick off a few reasons why I will never be able to hold down a job in the real world, or even work at another institution.

• I have no "boss" per se, other than the head of department, and our interactions are generally limited to him asking if I'd like to cover another class
• I have a three hour lunch break, guaranteed
• I often start 10 minutes late and/or leave early, and it doesn't matter as long as I teach them what they need to know
• I control my own curricula beyond the requisite textbooks--and if I don't have any creative ideas, I can just go straight out of the book
• I can call in sick at the last minute and not catch any hell for it
• I can enforce or not enforce whatever rules I want
• I can gab away for 90 minutes about absolutely nothing and call it a lesson
• I can force people to write outlines with titles like "Monsters: An Identification Guide" or "Bombs: We Can Prevent Them from Exploding"
• We can do zany things like draw pictures, put on plays, and hold classroom olympics
• I don't have to have to call anyone "Sir" or "Ma'am" or tolerate any rudeness
• Paperwork consists of signing the attendance sheet (which is also how they know to pay me for working that day)
• "Going home early" is an incentive to make people work harder, faster.

So you can see why I sometimes ask myself: How will I ever be able to hold down another job?

The answer: I WON'T.

Now, if only I could get more ink from that durn bureaucracy...

Day 4: Exams

We're taking exams this week in all General English classes.

You'd think exams would be easy--you don't have to prepare anything, you don't need to think of a lesson plan, you don't have to talk and demonstrate. You just sit there for an hour and a half and chill.

Truth be told, I find exams more annoying than not--you have to show up early in order to control the positions of the desks and which ones different students sit in; you have to make everyone respect the fact that silence means silence; and you're stuck with nothing to do for 1.5 hours but carefully watching them and stopping them from cheating.

I like to slip off my shoes and sit on the teacher's desk, resting my excruciating hawkish gaze on each and every one of them. No one cheats in my classes--and gets away with it. I've failed students for it before.

On the other hand, some students aren't incorrigible cheaters. Many do their own work because they are incredibly perfectionistic and terrified of making a mistake. It's almost funny to watch them work. They finish incredibly quickly because they have over-studied all their lives; they then spend the next hour frantically re-reading and re-re-reading their answers, rooting out any mistakes, actual or perceived, and becoming increasingly stressed as time goes on.

I find it almost funny in light of the fact that for all their perfectionism, they still make mistakes such as forgetting to capitalize the pronoun "I", forgetting how to use English punctuation, forgetting the -s on 3rd person singular verbs, or just writing trite expressions like "he will be go" or "In Cambodia have many problems." They spend an hour whiting-out and re-writing a paragraph that I'm going to spend 10 seconds reading. There is no forest, only trees.

I shouldn't laugh at them...but my attitude towards academia and test-taking has always been flippant at best. I can assure you I'm not going to grade them on how perfect their letter "d" looks.

And then you get the students who ask bizarre questions. This evening, one of my students asked me, "Teacher, do I have to capitalize a word at the beginning of a sentence?"

Me: "Yes, the first letter is always capitalized."

Student: "But teacher, I don't want to capitalize."

Me: "Then you'll be wrong."

Student: "But do I have to capitalize??"

Me: "If it needs capitalization, do it." (By this time other students are taking advantage of the situation and beginning to exchange whispers).

Student: "But teacher..."

Me: "If it needs capitalization, then capitalize." (Sits stoically and refuses to respond to any further inquiries).

I'm still shaking my head over that one. And I get to go through this every two to four weeks.

Day 2: Teeching is Fun!

I have now gone to the internet cafe no less than three times today, for all the same reasons as yesterday.

When I wasn't running away from the sounds of construction, I was teaching. Teaching has taught me first-hand what comedians mean when they say, "tough crowd." Some groups of people are just hard to handle, for whatever reason. But I'll save the cross section of my five classes for a future date--believe me, you're gonna hear all about my Gang of Monks, as well as my frustrations with the 20-year-old junior high schoolers in my morning class. But another day.

Today, I had a classroom observation. Usually this means you are under scrutiny for doing something wrong; in my case, I was showing a new teacher how to teach. I wish I'd been afforded that luxury when I began teaching--instead, I was rather brutally placed in front of Chinese kindergarteners and their vicious mothers, along with an assistant looking on at all times and judging my every move. And I had no idea what I was doing. AWKWARD.

So I'm always glad to help out a newbie. I enjoy mentorship. I'm probably more flattered that they chose me than I should be. (I have a paranoid friend who tried to insist the new teacher in question was a mole designed to judge me; the thought that that might be true hasn't been able to break through the wall of flattery yet.)

I teach for six hours a day, every day; I earn more than a lot of Khmer teachers who work harder than I do under far more deplorable conditions. Yet despite my relative luxury, my salary is low enough, and my skin white enough, that I will never be able to afford to go back to America. That's the thing about EFL--once you begin, you're essentially stuck in it for life. There's really no escape.

Damn, I just depressed myself.

The Day of the Dead, and a Day in the Life

Hello all,

My two weeks of (mandatory, unpaid, uneventful) vacation are over and I have begun yet another term of school.

In some ways, I'm glad. Sitting around the house with nothing to do was starting to seriously fray my nerves by the end of vacation (like I was walking around in circles and biting my fingers).

For some reason, though, all my classes are seriously under-populated. This may be the reason--we're starting the term in the middle of a holiday which culminates this week with Pchum Ben. That's basically the Day of the Dead, Cambodian-style, and we get 3 days off for it (which for me means 3 days of sitting around with nothing to do while everyone abandons the city and closes all the stores). So we have 4 days of school sandwiched between 3 weeks total of time off. Wouldn't blame anyone for not showing up for the first week.

In other news, my internet has been severed since the people moved downstairs moved out. This way I don't have to drown my existence in a cyber stream anymore; I'm also not going to have anything to do when I don't feel well enough to go out, but am not totally bedridden. Like these upcoming 3 days.

My thyroid (or lack thereof) is still crushing my existence--how is it that I can sleep for eight hours, take a morning nap for an hour and a half, and then still feel so unbearably sleepy during the break between my evening classes? And the dark black degenerate rings under my eyes make me look like what I am--an EFL teacher in Southeast Asia. There are some days when I don't even want to look at myself in the mirror, because I know my appearance just confirms the stereotype that all of us are drug-addicts and alcoholics, even though I'm not.

I'm starting to think my hypothyroidism is in fact permanent, just like my EFL career. D:

Hopefully, though, my students will at least be awesome this term--I'm already having trouble with a monk who's older than me and isn't afraid to talk about me, loudly, to the rest of the class, in Khmer. I can never tell if students like that like me a lot, or if they're just bullies disrespecting and dehumanizing me. Given the intense, abusive bullying I suffered as a child, I tend to viscerally assume the latter, and I don't have much of a sense of humor about it, either.

Oh well, at least I'm getting paid. And it's full-time, too.

Here's hoping your Day of the Dead is good, no matter which culture you are a part of.