Frost

I entered the staffroom today and it was positively frosty. It wasn't because the air conditioner had been turned on the moment the first person arrived either. (Nooooo! "Zine air cohn vill be toorned on at sree o'clock!" proclaimed the gestapo last week. "Vee onlee haf two schtudents at too o'clock!" was the rationale. Nevermind I'm sweating like a chicken at KFC. Nevermind it takes over a good hour for the conditioning of the air to occur after the systems been turned on. What? Are you guys saving a whole ten bucks in that jungle hour? Nice work, air-con nazi.)

No it was frosty because I didn't "Yassum ma'am" and "Thank yah, ma'am" my manager for sticking me with another class. I guess. I don't know what the deal was, I can only assume, since I was not spoken to by said manager all day. Or looked at. And because I put the SUCK in "SUCKer" I ended up teacher the class anyways. One grade eight student.

It's not always super fun to be working with a bunch of women. I tend to have a lot of guy friends. I don't have a lot of patience for pissy women. Frankly, I don't have a lot of patience for me when I'm being pissy. But if I am being a pain in the ass, I'll tell you why. It turns out Sunny's having a mole removed. But, my boss explained, her mother is so strong, she insists Sunny have a week off back at the homestead to recuperate. Seriously?

My mother and I have an ongoing joke lately. If anyone's causing her some grief, I say "Let me talk to them. No seriously. Give me their number. I'll call them and tell them what the hell's what." My mother puts on her "mom" voice, "Now Jennifer, you nevermind. Don't go causing trouble."

Recently I've threatened to call her (ex?)boyfriend, my uncle, an abandoned restaurant/pub we used to enjoy visiting, her cat for not coming home when called, and some vegetables that were going bad in her fridge. ("SERIOUSLY! Give me the broccoli's number!")

But that's in jest. And I'm trying to remain calm and reasonable. (See: stuff my feelings deep deep inside so I can hash them out eventually with an Air Marshall in a spectacular burst of rage when I don't get my extra glass of ice quick enough in-flight.)

It's too bad my worried mom didn't make a call after my car crash or my surgery to get me a week off! Anyhow, I blocked my manager's icy assault today with my own wall of bricks. Like I said, I suck!

I spoke with my boss about the possibility of vacation time in August, and was kind of surprised how smoothly it was agreed to. BUT, no more than 2 and a half weeks, and the flight's on my dime. Which isn't enough time, really, and isn't really fair about the cost of the flight either. (Just so you know, teachers here have their return airfare covered by their employers. Last year, I paid my own two thousand plus dollar airfare home for a similar vacation. I was about desperate to get the hell out of here for awhile, and was just happy to have been allowed the time off.) That's like spending about a hundred and fifty bucks per day to be home. Worth it? Mmmmmmaybe. But then there's all the money I spend there, plus the salary I'm NOT paid while I'm away. I wonder if I can broker a deal where I'm paid in full for the time I'm gone? Might be worth proposing. It's not like any of the other staff is paid extra for covering my classes. (Nor am I when I cover theirs.)

So I don't know. But that's not unusual, me not knowing. The alternative is just packing it in. I could collect some thousand, pass go, go home for four weeks or so, which is what I want, and roll the dice on a new gig in the fall. But it's not that simple either. There's cat concerns and stuff concerns. You wouldn't believe what I've managed to accumulate in over five years in Asia.

Pack up? Pack it in? Pakistan? Pachyderms? Pac-Man?
Pack me!