STOP CALLING ME FAT!

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So it's been a long time since my skeletor days of high school. i know that. However, I don't think i'm delusional in thinking that i'm not fat. I know that there were a few dicey times in college when I could easily have been termed "pleasantly plump" or "just big boned." However, most of that beer weight came off in the post-binge drinking years. I've managed an added bonus of shaving off a few more in the past couple months as well. It's a funny thing: when it's one billion degrees on a daily basis and you teach at a school with no air conditioning that serves food that looks strangely similar to dog vomit, you can't really stomach as much of the sauce as you used to. This two factors have led me to feel pretty okay about the current state of the junk in my trunk. SO WHY DO THAI PEOPLE KEEP CALLING ME FAT?

I was teaching opposites to my 6 year olds. The standard "Pretty/Ugly; Tall/Short; Fat/Thin" stuff. So when fat/thin came up, the thai teacher came over to me and said "Teacher...fat!" and jiggled my belly. Um, what? Note to future teachers, if you show the slightest bit of annoyance over something, small children will cling to it like leeches and use it against you at every possible opportunity. This was a case in point. Immediately i had thirty small thai satan spawns yelling "Teacher Fat! Fat Teacher! Teacher baby! (i.e. i'm pregnant)." NO. TEACHER THIN! THIN TEACHER! So for the past two months, there are at least 6-10 fatcalls (similar to catcalls: equally annoying, but not as secretly ego-boosting) a day. They also call me "big milk" because one of the boys pressed on my arm and saw it turned white, so they all think that whitey is filled with milk inside. There was a bright beacon of hope the other day. One of the kids came up to me in class, looked up and said "Teacher thin?". What? What did you say? Say that for everyone? REPEAT "TEACHER THIN." I hugged him and gave him a sticker and let everyone know he was my favorite. I feel no moral qualms with this.

So I thought the tide had turned. Little did I know that it was just making a circle to come back and fat slap me in the face. I was out in Bangkok for my birthday last weekend. I spent it with a couple of the other teachers going to the World Karaoke Championship. It was awesome. Big outdoor event. What a strange little subgroup of society. There were even karaoke groupies from different countries there to support their representative. I'm talking decked out with face paint and all. I guess everybody's got to have a hobby. Anyway, I digress. We hit the town that night and on the way back to the hotel, I stopped for the obligatory fifty cent pad thai from the street. As I was eating my first few bites, a thai woman came over and patted my belly! I was slightly "impaired" at the time but I distinctly heard something about a baby. I was furious. I was so angry I felt like throwing away my food and going on an all lettuce all the time diet....which I clearly didn't. It's pad thai, that stuff's delicious.

There's no real point to this blog, but after five months essentially on your own most days, it's the little things that start to get to you. T minus two weeks until school is over and traveling starts.

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Comments

[Danielle]

pad thai noodles
were you feeding yourself? or was andrew hall feeding them to you?