Inspired by this comic by Fun Home's Alison Bechdel, I've been thinking about the big important books I really ought to get to reading. As an aside, I find it pretty liberating to confess that I haven't read this established classics but that I have actually trudged through each and every Harry Potter book and the accursed Da Vinci Code just so that I'd have some moral authority when I trash them.
Wuthering Heights has always appealed, but when I tried to read it at the age of seventeen I was pretty tired of overwrought gothic prose so I put it back down. The same issues struck me when trying on Dracula, but any desire I had to read that slips away more every day. A shame, but not unexpected.
Ulysses has a big reputation, but it sounds marvelous. I just hope I'll have time for it. Sheer size is what put an end to Don Quixote after all, and that's a fine book that I always mean to get back to. Gravity's Rainbow remains a work in progress, and I always enjoy it when I drag myself back to that end of the bookshelf. It's dense and wordy, but poetic and the dystopic setting is right up my dingy end of the street. Reading big books shouldn't be hard though, lord knows I had no trouble with Lord of the Rings or The Stand. Perhaps a film or TV show would help with them, but since the three books I just listed are allegedly unfilmable I suppose I should just get cracking those spines again.
After recently making the acquaintance of Kerouac and Bukowski, combined with a long-standing affection for William Burroughs, I've decided that I could stand to try some more American fiction. I enjoyed Of Mice and Men so why not The Grapes of Wrath. The same applies to some stuff by Neal Cassaday, Allen Ginsburg or Tom Wolfe, and Michael Chabon has really spiced up jewishy fiction for me in a way Phillip Roth never managed. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is apparently a work of genius, but doesn't fire me up like the mid-to late twentieth century stuff, and it certainly doesn't have the political edge of the Russian greats I'm missing.
Russian greats like Crime and Punishment or Anna Karenina sit on my shelf to this day, intimidated by the poor reception I gave to Resurrection and the high esteem I have for somewhat lighter titles such as Lolita and The Master and Margarita. I also have a strange uneasiness reading translated novels, with the nagging suspicion that I'm missing out by not getting the author's original text ever hanging over my head. I loved Things Fall Apart, but I've so far managed to avoid No Longer At Ease and Arrow of God for no real reason at all. The same motivation applies to my stockpile of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's entire catalogue, even though everything I've picked up has delighted me. Reading the translators notes on my Kafka short stories is like reminding myself I'm a terrible person for not speaking enough German. I thoroughly blame the Americans for this fact, as if it weren't for them we'd all be fluent apparently. Bastards! I've been racking by brain for a good French book to add here, but I can't actually think of one. This pleases me though I can't work out why.
So let this be my explanation as to why I'm reading Hamlet in between classes, and why I enjoy long-haul travel and frequent train journeys. Make sure that when I pause at the bookshelf on my way to the bathroom you realise that it's not a weird quirk, it's a conscious choice to spend this time furthering myself. Finally, if you ever see me reading some disposable airport fiction before I buy a copy of The Alchemist, you rip it from my hands and remind me that I still have a long way to go.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Fast Times at Apollo Education and Training
"If this were a sitcom office, we'd have a lot more hi jinx to fill all this downtime"
I didn't say this, but I'll be damned if it's not true. With up to twelve hours between classes I do spend a lot of time with my headphones on ignoring my co-workers. This could probably also account for the lack of hi jinx. So I've almost finished up my term here at work with just three and a half contact hours to account for. This is pretty exciting, and it's gonna be nice to leave a job on good terms again, as opposed to the somewhat unpleasant exit from the other tie-wearing job I had. It will be good to work in jeans again though, I think I'm much more pleasanter when my legs are all denimed up. Hell, I'm at my post pleasant in my boxers but that's a line most employers are unwilling to cross, especially those where I'd be working with kids. Probably sensible that.
So other than the final airing of my pink shirt (oh you can bet it ain't coming home with me, luggage space is precious and I have new books dammit) what has today brought? Well two of my classes had exams, so I got to spend three hours 'teaching' with my eyes closed most of the time. That was very 'me'. Sitting down for long periods of time is a luxury to me, and I'm not one to ignore them lately. Indeed, a comfy chair is second only to cheesecake on the list of things that get me through the week. Oh, and beer. Beer's pretty good. What? Teaching? Oh yeah. I got to use my awesome 'telling the time' activities, which have the slight weakness of sometimes teaching kids that it's half-to-eleven in the morning. That only ever gets the stupid ones anyway, and no amount of my slack-ass teaching is gonna save them.
Ooh, that sounded bad didn't it? Oh well. I do love most of my kiddies here, they're friendly and enthusiastic, and they don't mind when I make them act out any of the more amusing verbs in front of their peer group. It's tough getting adults to milk an invisible cow and teenagers are so apathetic and self-involved that they won't even pretend to sneeze. I have to say, I distinctly remember being a teenager and I'm damn sure I was both cooler and more willing to perform interpretive mime than these guys. It's not like I'm getting them to dress up like Marcel Marceau while they're doing it for Pete's sake. Also I've begun to think that 'wash the baby' would be an awesome metaphor for something, much like 'slicing the lemon' sounds dirty but actually just means taking a knife to some yellow citrus fruit. Plus, tickling as a form of discipline goes way beyond fun. British schools need to reform detention systems toot sweet.
Oh, and as for that little expression, I was watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or at least it was on while I didn't take the remote into the bathroom) and I decided that it needed less awful puns in the form of song and more pedophiles with over sized butterfly nets. Over sized butterfly nets are hilarious, far more so than big cages and 'zany' cars. The Herbie movies would also do well to remember this.
Wow, that wandered off alarmingly didn't it?
I didn't say this, but I'll be damned if it's not true. With up to twelve hours between classes I do spend a lot of time with my headphones on ignoring my co-workers. This could probably also account for the lack of hi jinx. So I've almost finished up my term here at work with just three and a half contact hours to account for. This is pretty exciting, and it's gonna be nice to leave a job on good terms again, as opposed to the somewhat unpleasant exit from the other tie-wearing job I had. It will be good to work in jeans again though, I think I'm much more pleasanter when my legs are all denimed up. Hell, I'm at my post pleasant in my boxers but that's a line most employers are unwilling to cross, especially those where I'd be working with kids. Probably sensible that.
So other than the final airing of my pink shirt (oh you can bet it ain't coming home with me, luggage space is precious and I have new books dammit) what has today brought? Well two of my classes had exams, so I got to spend three hours 'teaching' with my eyes closed most of the time. That was very 'me'. Sitting down for long periods of time is a luxury to me, and I'm not one to ignore them lately. Indeed, a comfy chair is second only to cheesecake on the list of things that get me through the week. Oh, and beer. Beer's pretty good. What? Teaching? Oh yeah. I got to use my awesome 'telling the time' activities, which have the slight weakness of sometimes teaching kids that it's half-to-eleven in the morning. That only ever gets the stupid ones anyway, and no amount of my slack-ass teaching is gonna save them.
Ooh, that sounded bad didn't it? Oh well. I do love most of my kiddies here, they're friendly and enthusiastic, and they don't mind when I make them act out any of the more amusing verbs in front of their peer group. It's tough getting adults to milk an invisible cow and teenagers are so apathetic and self-involved that they won't even pretend to sneeze. I have to say, I distinctly remember being a teenager and I'm damn sure I was both cooler and more willing to perform interpretive mime than these guys. It's not like I'm getting them to dress up like Marcel Marceau while they're doing it for Pete's sake. Also I've begun to think that 'wash the baby' would be an awesome metaphor for something, much like 'slicing the lemon' sounds dirty but actually just means taking a knife to some yellow citrus fruit. Plus, tickling as a form of discipline goes way beyond fun. British schools need to reform detention systems toot sweet.
Oh, and as for that little expression, I was watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or at least it was on while I didn't take the remote into the bathroom) and I decided that it needed less awful puns in the form of song and more pedophiles with over sized butterfly nets. Over sized butterfly nets are hilarious, far more so than big cages and 'zany' cars. The Herbie movies would also do well to remember this.
Wow, that wandered off alarmingly didn't it?
Monday, May 26, 2008
A New Dewsbury
From Tuesday's Guardian:
Town's troubles
The Yorkshire mill town of Dewsbury, just west of Wakefield, has been at the centre of far more news stories in the past few years than one might expect for a town with a population of just under 55,000. Just before he blew himself up on a tube train at Edgware Road in July 7 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan had been living there. In June the same year, a girl of 12 was charged with causing grievous bodily harm following what was reported as the attempted hanging of a boy aged five at a housing estate to the east of the town. In February, Dewsbury again made headlines when nine-year-old Shannon Matthews disappeared after going for a swimming lesson in the town centre. Twenty-four days later she was found alive, hidden underneath a bed in a nearby flat. Her mother was charged with perverting the course of justice and child neglect. As well has having six Muslim councillors and Muslim MP Shahid Malik, Dewsbury has had a BNP councillor since 2006. This month, the councillor, Colin Auty, started campaigning to replace Nick Griffin as BNP leader.
It was tempting to love Dewsbury ironically for a while there much like one would wear a t-shirt with Stalin's face on it or claim to be a hardcore 'Going for Gold' fanatic. Yes, irony and my oft-derided hometown fit one another like two things that fit each other well. Alas, such harmless delights as the utterly pathetic Dewsbury-on-sea initiative (AKA Operation Dump Some Sand On Westgate) and a swift half of Stella in The Crimepiece (or Timewasters if you'd prefer) have been dumped into the background of my mental picture of Dewsbury in favour of fake kidnappings, terrorism and stabbings. Morbid fascination with this festering burg will soon grip the nation, as the national press cottons on to the fact that Dewsbury is filled with hate, smackheads, violence and more hate. The town is dirty and unpleasant, and the poorer areas are genuinely scary to walk though at night thanks to gangs of tracksuited teens who quite probably are carrying knives along with their bottles of cheap cider. I keep thinking that the only way is up from here, but if Dewsbury has taught me anything, it's that there's always more down to go.
So what next for Dewsbury? Race riots? The BNP's first MP? Jack D's opening a second venue? No. What I predict is an almost Madona-esque reinvention for Dews Vegas. Captialising on our anguish is the only way to go, and like Terry Waite we too can sell our suffering for a fistful of change. I predict one more news story, perhaps a twelve year-old crack addict will shoot someone in Asda? Maybe Maddie McCann will turn up in Chapel Town? Regardless something's going to tip Dewsbury's perception from a town getting more than its fair share of bad luck to a miserable basin of depression and poverty and when this happens, the good times wil surely follow.
I'm in Vietnam and it's booming, the former Yugoslavia is big with backpackers and even that former penal colony in the middle of nowhere Austraila seems to eb doing well for itself, so why can't The Dewsbronx cash in on this? Museums dedicated to popular local crimes, hostels in Chickenley providing that authentic ''war-torn dystopia'' feel and feel-good movies starring Robin Williams set in Dewsbury Moor! We can all write memoirs about our time in this misbegotten wasteland, where every drunken stroll home from the pub became a fight for our lives, and taxis were regularly shelled with half-eaten kebabs by yobs stinking of cheap lager. Display your mental scars with pride, as the smackhead on Sky News changes from a figure of fun to an inspirational story of hope and an Amnesty International campaign. All the tiny shining beaons of hope thrugh the darkness like Ali Baba's and that pound shop down the arcade will become huge retail giants thanks to the bonanza of sweet tourist's cash.
Yes, it's darkest before the dawn and surely the dawn in Dewsbury will shine all the brighter because of all we have endured. Maybe some time in the next six weeks?
Town's troubles
The Yorkshire mill town of Dewsbury, just west of Wakefield, has been at the centre of far more news stories in the past few years than one might expect for a town with a population of just under 55,000. Just before he blew himself up on a tube train at Edgware Road in July 7 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan had been living there. In June the same year, a girl of 12 was charged with causing grievous bodily harm following what was reported as the attempted hanging of a boy aged five at a housing estate to the east of the town. In February, Dewsbury again made headlines when nine-year-old Shannon Matthews disappeared after going for a swimming lesson in the town centre. Twenty-four days later she was found alive, hidden underneath a bed in a nearby flat. Her mother was charged with perverting the course of justice and child neglect. As well has having six Muslim councillors and Muslim MP Shahid Malik, Dewsbury has had a BNP councillor since 2006. This month, the councillor, Colin Auty, started campaigning to replace Nick Griffin as BNP leader.
It was tempting to love Dewsbury ironically for a while there much like one would wear a t-shirt with Stalin's face on it or claim to be a hardcore 'Going for Gold' fanatic. Yes, irony and my oft-derided hometown fit one another like two things that fit each other well. Alas, such harmless delights as the utterly pathetic Dewsbury-on-sea initiative (AKA Operation Dump Some Sand On Westgate) and a swift half of Stella in The Crimepiece (or Timewasters if you'd prefer) have been dumped into the background of my mental picture of Dewsbury in favour of fake kidnappings, terrorism and stabbings. Morbid fascination with this festering burg will soon grip the nation, as the national press cottons on to the fact that Dewsbury is filled with hate, smackheads, violence and more hate. The town is dirty and unpleasant, and the poorer areas are genuinely scary to walk though at night thanks to gangs of tracksuited teens who quite probably are carrying knives along with their bottles of cheap cider. I keep thinking that the only way is up from here, but if Dewsbury has taught me anything, it's that there's always more down to go.
So what next for Dewsbury? Race riots? The BNP's first MP? Jack D's opening a second venue? No. What I predict is an almost Madona-esque reinvention for Dews Vegas. Captialising on our anguish is the only way to go, and like Terry Waite we too can sell our suffering for a fistful of change. I predict one more news story, perhaps a twelve year-old crack addict will shoot someone in Asda? Maybe Maddie McCann will turn up in Chapel Town? Regardless something's going to tip Dewsbury's perception from a town getting more than its fair share of bad luck to a miserable basin of depression and poverty and when this happens, the good times wil surely follow.
I'm in Vietnam and it's booming, the former Yugoslavia is big with backpackers and even that former penal colony in the middle of nowhere Austraila seems to eb doing well for itself, so why can't The Dewsbronx cash in on this? Museums dedicated to popular local crimes, hostels in Chickenley providing that authentic ''war-torn dystopia'' feel and feel-good movies starring Robin Williams set in Dewsbury Moor! We can all write memoirs about our time in this misbegotten wasteland, where every drunken stroll home from the pub became a fight for our lives, and taxis were regularly shelled with half-eaten kebabs by yobs stinking of cheap lager. Display your mental scars with pride, as the smackhead on Sky News changes from a figure of fun to an inspirational story of hope and an Amnesty International campaign. All the tiny shining beaons of hope thrugh the darkness like Ali Baba's and that pound shop down the arcade will become huge retail giants thanks to the bonanza of sweet tourist's cash.
Yes, it's darkest before the dawn and surely the dawn in Dewsbury will shine all the brighter because of all we have endured. Maybe some time in the next six weeks?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Cold Blooded Yet Delicious Murder
It seems to me that I've been doing a lot of eating out lately. Easy jokes aside, it's kinda liberating not having a kitchen because it takes a lot of the decision making away from me. Do I want to cook tonight? No! Beccause every time I go into the shared kitchen my landlady is there and she gives me funny looks! Since she's responsible for keeping me in clean underthings I usually leave well enough alone and slide on outta the guesthouse and into the city. Every street (this is probably an exagerration, it's more like every other) has at least one street vendor on it. They'll have a gas ring and then probably soom rice or noodles or bread. The rice is usually fried and a little spicy, so that's a safe bet. The noodles are either chewy and yellow, like they'd go well with some textured soya pieces and chicken and mushroom flavouring. Maybe in some kinda pot? They're good. The other choice is the thin white ones and they're a but more common, especially as a part of pho. Pho is what haoppens when you boil a cow's bones into a broth and then flinging some noodles in to boil. Then some fairly raw meat gets added on the way to your table, so it cooks in the boiling liquid. Oh, and it's the piled high with my arch nemesis: lots of coriander! Serve with beansprouts and something green to taste. That's the national dish, and it's wholly unsuitable for breakfast. Naturally it's at its best before ten am, because they cook it before any sane person should be out of bed. Also naturally I pretty much avoid it. Unlike these uncivilised folks I've been conditioned to think that bone marrow is best given to dogs and since dogs are two rungs below child molesters on my list, then I'm not touching no marrowbone jelly. I don't care how gloddy my coat would be.
Failing a street chappie, I could visit one of the city's fine fast food outlets I suppose. The number one chain is Lotteria, Korea's answer to McDonalds with grey meats and the oddly popular 'shrimp burger'. Not as tasty as it could be, and the 'Happy Meal' doesn't come with a toy. Fail. There's also KFC (and they still call it Kentucky Fried Chicken on the signage, or the Vietnamese for it anyway) and they do mashed potatoes! Crazy! Once was enough there, because they don't do hash browns in the burgers. Pretty sure they're losing out there.
So what this was all building up to is what I did on Saturday night. One of the ladies from work was leaving for Thailand (and then teaching Austrailians to speak correctly in Melbourne) so a few of us went out for a meal. A Vietnamese BBQ meal! Cue the pictures:
Here we see the table, festooned with beers, bowls, dipping salt and two big ol' griddle plate affairs. Heated from beneath by a gas tank (that I kept kicking by mistake, almost dooming us all to a fiery end) they get mighty hot. Probably best not to drink when using them...
So from the menu you pick out your dead animal of choice from a list going from mundane old cow and chicken to frog and eel. All the best weird animals were pricy (Frogs are tiny dammit, they should be cheap) so it was satay squid (pictured on the plate to the left) and dipping shrimp for me.
So the plate covered in squid and peanut ooze was brought to me, along with a lot of nice sticky rice and a couple of things to dip in it. Soy sauce is almost always served with a chilli in it, to give it more kick and this is a good thing. There was also a lime and some salt, but this was less random than I thought. It's pretty good for making the shrimp squirm...
Oh yeah, they squirm. You'd squirm too if you were plucked from your tank and impaled on a wooden stick. You'd squirm too if you were basted with chili and pepper while you were alive, and you'd certainly squirm if your final moments were on a very hot metal plate next to some aubergine and pieces of goat. You'd squirm too if your final legacy wasn't a family, a memorial bench or a three-volume-novel. You'd squirm if your last act on this Earth was being peeled and eaten. Personally, I think the squirming just made them tastier.
I could do without the eyes popping and tiny high pitched pleas for mercy though.
So I gave it my best. I negotiated the pieces o' squid onto the hot plate using my chopsticks. I plucked them off using the same chopsticks and then I shoveled them into my mouth along with plenty of rice using the same chopsticks again. One pair for the whole affair was pretty good going I thought. The rice does break apart when exposed to any stress though, so the more beer I necked the less rice made the trip safely from bowl to mouth. It was carnage.
Indeed, it was the pre-service skewering that made the shrimp the easiest to cook, albeit perhaps not from a moral standpoint. One of the teachers assured me that they didn't feel pain and, while this was wholly unbelievable since I'm sure they increase in twitching and squirming coinciding with the application of heat was less than coincidental, I clunk to it like Leo clang to that raft at the end of Titanic. Not even death would pry my icy hands of the comforting lies and without that bitch Winslet to push me off I kept my head throughout. Pictured above is the carnage I left in my wake.
Between us we ate a lot of goat, beef, chicken, squid, shrimp and rice. An awful lot. The table looked like the somme if the somme had been fought by delicious, tender animals instead of bland, stringy people. Hell, I'll say it now: the world would be a better place if all war was fought by meat. Someone get Cheney on the phone, and find me a chicken that can defuse a roadside bomb...
Failing a street chappie, I could visit one of the city's fine fast food outlets I suppose. The number one chain is Lotteria, Korea's answer to McDonalds with grey meats and the oddly popular 'shrimp burger'. Not as tasty as it could be, and the 'Happy Meal' doesn't come with a toy. Fail. There's also KFC (and they still call it Kentucky Fried Chicken on the signage, or the Vietnamese for it anyway) and they do mashed potatoes! Crazy! Once was enough there, because they don't do hash browns in the burgers. Pretty sure they're losing out there.
So what this was all building up to is what I did on Saturday night. One of the ladies from work was leaving for Thailand (and then teaching Austrailians to speak correctly in Melbourne) so a few of us went out for a meal. A Vietnamese BBQ meal! Cue the pictures:
Here we see the table, festooned with beers, bowls, dipping salt and two big ol' griddle plate affairs. Heated from beneath by a gas tank (that I kept kicking by mistake, almost dooming us all to a fiery end) they get mighty hot. Probably best not to drink when using them...So from the menu you pick out your dead animal of choice from a list going from mundane old cow and chicken to frog and eel. All the best weird animals were pricy (Frogs are tiny dammit, they should be cheap) so it was satay squid (pictured on the plate to the left) and dipping shrimp for me.
So the plate covered in squid and peanut ooze was brought to me, along with a lot of nice sticky rice and a couple of things to dip in it. Soy sauce is almost always served with a chilli in it, to give it more kick and this is a good thing. There was also a lime and some salt, but this was less random than I thought. It's pretty good for making the shrimp squirm...
Oh yeah, they squirm. You'd squirm too if you were plucked from your tank and impaled on a wooden stick. You'd squirm too if you were basted with chili and pepper while you were alive, and you'd certainly squirm if your final moments were on a very hot metal plate next to some aubergine and pieces of goat. You'd squirm too if your final legacy wasn't a family, a memorial bench or a three-volume-novel. You'd squirm if your last act on this Earth was being peeled and eaten. Personally, I think the squirming just made them tastier.
I could do without the eyes popping and tiny high pitched pleas for mercy though.
So I gave it my best. I negotiated the pieces o' squid onto the hot plate using my chopsticks. I plucked them off using the same chopsticks and then I shoveled them into my mouth along with plenty of rice using the same chopsticks again. One pair for the whole affair was pretty good going I thought. The rice does break apart when exposed to any stress though, so the more beer I necked the less rice made the trip safely from bowl to mouth. It was carnage.
Indeed, it was the pre-service skewering that made the shrimp the easiest to cook, albeit perhaps not from a moral standpoint. One of the teachers assured me that they didn't feel pain and, while this was wholly unbelievable since I'm sure they increase in twitching and squirming coinciding with the application of heat was less than coincidental, I clunk to it like Leo clang to that raft at the end of Titanic. Not even death would pry my icy hands of the comforting lies and without that bitch Winslet to push me off I kept my head throughout. Pictured above is the carnage I left in my wake.
Between us we ate a lot of goat, beef, chicken, squid, shrimp and rice. An awful lot. The table looked like the somme if the somme had been fought by delicious, tender animals instead of bland, stringy people. Hell, I'll say it now: the world would be a better place if all war was fought by meat. Someone get Cheney on the phone, and find me a chicken that can defuse a roadside bomb...
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Rainy season! Duck season! Rainy season!
Cripes, it's been a month. A month since I rolled out of the pub and onto a train and out of the country and into this ridiculous sentence. Cripes indeed.
While it's nice not to be in a country that could elect Boris Johnson to high office (you morons) it'd be nice not to live in constant fear of whatever bacteria it is that've given my digestive system a quick once over this week. That, however, has been but a blot on the (no longer literally) sunny skies of life here in 'nam. Did I slip a quick 'no longer literally' in there? Did I do so because it's rainy season? Do I ask too many rehtoric questions? Do my students assume all my questions are rhetorical or are they just slow? Will I ever get to the point?
So my sweet little guesthouse is down a scrappy little alley (home to late night cockfights and a guy chasing off spirits with incessant clacking throughout the night. Being slightly off from the main road means we don't enjoy the privilege of huge open drains. Initially I thought these were disgusting and smelly and while these things remain true, I can in fact see the genius of their design. Much like the slanted curbs on pavements allow bikes to hop on and off the pavement easily (boon or bane? depends on where I'm walking) the huge open drains allow the copious amounts of rainwater to pour off the roads. Without them one finds oneself up to one's ankles in a very dark murky liquid that cotains almost as much rat shit and dirt as it does rainwater. This sludge first sloshed into my life over a couple of days off, so not leaving the hotel was OK. I consumed all my supplies (a few coconut cakes, some smints and six litres of water) and was feeling a lot like Noah (I have two lizards now!) when the rains receded and I could repopulate the Earth with my sons. Oh, the Bible, how may ways can I make you sound weird? So I goes out, I stocks up and I comes back. All is well.
Friday started with a very wet bang when after a shower, a shave, and a third sh sound I had to roll up my stylish trousers, remove my stylish shoes and slosh my way to a motorbike taxi through the potentially toxic breakwaters of the back alley I call home. It was pretty awful, but what you can't see can't hurt you and that water was far too murky for me to see any dirty needles or sea witches. The plumes of filth flying behind the bike, even at low speeds, were reward enough for this ordeal. Oh to have seen the faces we surely soaked as we sped swiftly schoolwards! Oh to gaze on their glares, glances and gawps as we (sort of) gallop away. Oh yeah!
To a western pig devil, the rain is about as predictable as a woman is to a man. To a loyal Vietnamese comrade the rain is as easy to read as a man is to a woman. They get this twinge or something and every bike in the city pulls in to the side of the road to put on a plastic sheet. Every street vendor ducks into a doorway and emerges with their wares magically changed into a variety of anoraks ponchos and umbrellas. Every westerner smiles obliviously, ensconsed in a fortress of blissful ignorance. Then they morph instantly into the drowned rats, scurrying for cover. See how they cower in fear! Bwahahaha!! I'm not excluding myself at all here, I just like to be all omniscient and third persony sometimes.
So that's about it for the rain. It comes twice a day or so and like the scene in Forrest Gump taught us all there is no limit to the number of forms it will take. I've yet to see it hit sideways because any kind of wind is rare here. This is where I'd put a tasteless Burma joke, but I think I know my friends (and Dad) well enough to let them do it themselves. On that ill-advised note...
While it's nice not to be in a country that could elect Boris Johnson to high office (you morons) it'd be nice not to live in constant fear of whatever bacteria it is that've given my digestive system a quick once over this week. That, however, has been but a blot on the (no longer literally) sunny skies of life here in 'nam. Did I slip a quick 'no longer literally' in there? Did I do so because it's rainy season? Do I ask too many rehtoric questions? Do my students assume all my questions are rhetorical or are they just slow? Will I ever get to the point?
So my sweet little guesthouse is down a scrappy little alley (home to late night cockfights and a guy chasing off spirits with incessant clacking throughout the night. Being slightly off from the main road means we don't enjoy the privilege of huge open drains. Initially I thought these were disgusting and smelly and while these things remain true, I can in fact see the genius of their design. Much like the slanted curbs on pavements allow bikes to hop on and off the pavement easily (boon or bane? depends on where I'm walking) the huge open drains allow the copious amounts of rainwater to pour off the roads. Without them one finds oneself up to one's ankles in a very dark murky liquid that cotains almost as much rat shit and dirt as it does rainwater. This sludge first sloshed into my life over a couple of days off, so not leaving the hotel was OK. I consumed all my supplies (a few coconut cakes, some smints and six litres of water) and was feeling a lot like Noah (I have two lizards now!) when the rains receded and I could repopulate the Earth with my sons. Oh, the Bible, how may ways can I make you sound weird? So I goes out, I stocks up and I comes back. All is well.
Friday started with a very wet bang when after a shower, a shave, and a third sh sound I had to roll up my stylish trousers, remove my stylish shoes and slosh my way to a motorbike taxi through the potentially toxic breakwaters of the back alley I call home. It was pretty awful, but what you can't see can't hurt you and that water was far too murky for me to see any dirty needles or sea witches. The plumes of filth flying behind the bike, even at low speeds, were reward enough for this ordeal. Oh to have seen the faces we surely soaked as we sped swiftly schoolwards! Oh to gaze on their glares, glances and gawps as we (sort of) gallop away. Oh yeah!
To a western pig devil, the rain is about as predictable as a woman is to a man. To a loyal Vietnamese comrade the rain is as easy to read as a man is to a woman. They get this twinge or something and every bike in the city pulls in to the side of the road to put on a plastic sheet. Every street vendor ducks into a doorway and emerges with their wares magically changed into a variety of anoraks ponchos and umbrellas. Every westerner smiles obliviously, ensconsed in a fortress of blissful ignorance. Then they morph instantly into the drowned rats, scurrying for cover. See how they cower in fear! Bwahahaha!! I'm not excluding myself at all here, I just like to be all omniscient and third persony sometimes.
So that's about it for the rain. It comes twice a day or so and like the scene in Forrest Gump taught us all there is no limit to the number of forms it will take. I've yet to see it hit sideways because any kind of wind is rare here. This is where I'd put a tasteless Burma joke, but I think I know my friends (and Dad) well enough to let them do it themselves. On that ill-advised note...
Monday, April 28, 2008
Working Stiff
Man, having a job is hard work. To illustrate this obvious-to-everyone-but-me fact, I'm gonna illustrate a single day. It covers about half of the crap I do, but it'll suffice because I'm lazy.
Friday - six o'clock in the AM. That's right, apparently there's a six in the morning too, it's not just for evenings anymore. I find this development both terrifying and aunecessary, and urge society to return to the old model. Y'know, the one where days begin at eight (Eleven at the weekend). Regardless here in the misbegotten east everyone seems to have accepted this and gladly begin their day at the same time as the sun. This is why they lost the war... Oh.
Anyway, once my phone's alarm has been steadfastly ignored my iPod kicks into life and thus begins my ascent from the pit. NB, the pit is metaphorical; my bed is in no way subterranean. I crouch my way through a cold shower, since whoever installed my bathroom was some kind of inept midget, and proceed to spend too long on my hair. It's of the length where I can't do anything with it, and I'll be damned if I'm getting it cut here. Everyone has awful hair, it's like Springfield. Then I put on my underthings and face my tie rack. Is it really a tie rack if it only has two ties? Is it really a tie rack if it's just a wire coathanger? Does function define an item? It does if I say it does. So shirt on, tie on, trousers on, shoes on. Check the hair on roll out the door into this bizarre pre-Trisha world.
My Guesthouse is down a wee ginnel (or small alley\tight back passage if you're bland\creepy) and on my way to the main street I pass a dinkly little shop\family home. For serious, their fron room has three walls and a shutter. The shutter rolls up to reveal the family home and some fridges o' drinks. It's cool\surreal, I'll get photos. So because I like these guys, I buy a drink. Usually a tasty Orange thingy or a tasty Lemon thingy for they are tasty. Glug glug and I need to get to work. All I have to do is look vaguely lost for about five seconds and one of the dirtly looking older gentlemen in the alley will make vroom vroom gestures at me, asking if I want to ride their motorbike. This isn't a metaphor. For about a dollar they'll put me on the back of their bike and taxi me to work on the street I can't pronounce, and after poitning to it on a map and a small card in my pocket we ride!In theory I should agree prices before getting on, but these guys are here everyday and by now I know they're good peeps who won't rip me off.
Bumpety bump bump through the busy streets of Saigon, and at around Seven-Fifteen (why is it busy at this time of day? what is wrong with these people?) I pull up outside one of the city's numerous private schools. I visit two of their sites a week, and this one is my favourite of the two. Next to the entrance is a pho place (meaty noodles, I'll explain eventually) and over the road is an old lady selling drinks and gum. Handy for my break. Also cigarettes, which are handy for nothing except swift death and empty wallets. (See how I editorialise? Bwa ha ha!).
Half past seven means I'm stood in front a of a blackboard (oh chalk on my black trousers, how I hate thee) and being deafened by a chorus of seven year olds shouting "Good Morning Teacher!" as loud as they can. They don't know much English, but what they do know they shout. Books get opened, words get chanted back at me and we all pretend we're learning. Seriously though, my main job in these classes is speaking and listening practise. Their Vietnamese teachers drill them with lots of grammar and vocab, but their pronunciation is awful and the final consonant sound is missing from pretty much evrey word. This is because in Vietnamese it's usually silent, and it takes a while to get used to saying it (or filling in the blank yourself if you're Liam chatting with a local and looking like a particularly moronic tourist in the process). We play a C, we repeat everything on the CD then I draw stick men on the board to demonstrate new vocab. I draw an aweome 'My Grandfather' now, and have chalky crow's feet down to a freakin' artform. For serious. Lessons last thirty-five minutes, and I have a TA for around fifteen. They sit at the back and mark work while I engage in buffoonery. It's a lot like being back at the pub. That's the basics. The nitty gritties is that the younger the students the more problem students there are. There's always one kid that acts up and distracts the others (I remember that guy in my classes. He was devilishly handsome and had scruffy hair...) and since they know I can't actually discipline them (and that my TA certainly won't) they just mess around for the whole lesson. Usually it's possible to work around this, but sometimes I'll just give up on the meticulously planned lesson and play games on the board. Anything that scores points or allows the kids to write on the board gets them all hyper, and that's when I get to run around with them and shout. If I shout at any other time they just burst into laughter because losing one's temper here is very rare and very poor form. I'm yet to make anyone cry, but there's time to get my fury focused. Two lessons and I get to break for sugary soft drinks.Two more lessons and I get to break for lunch. Then it's another two and two (Fridays are my longest day by far thanks to this double shift) and I can eat. Only there's nowhere good to eat near here and I'm too tired to wander, so I take a bike back to Apollo (the school I work for, very nice building) and order in. Pretty much anything can be ordered in, but Friday is usually mexican stuff so I'll get something deep fried with cheese. Mmmm.
Oh Apollo. It's a sizable with three main floors and a mezzanine (try teaching that!) and pretty darn modern. Opened in 2000 and something by a vague member of the royal family. The company was the the first foreign language school in Vietnam and has one hell of a rep. It's incredibly well run and super professional. The teacher's room has four Vietnamese support staff, and then next door we have another dozen along with two IT guys (One's irish, the other's socially stunted and maybe some kind of shaman? They have hilarious adventures and a goth in the server room. Oh wait, no.) along with an actual kitchen with two women whose role here is a mystery to me. I think they arrange biscuits on plates and change the water coolers but beyond that it gets murky. There's a big resource library and we get poorly made backpacks provided for us (try putting more than two textbooks in and watch how fast they fall apart) so they clearly love their teachers. I can't stress enough how much like a huge corporation this place is, and it freaked me out at first. Now I'm down with it, because many of the teachers are cool, and the rest are never around. Plus there's nice fast interwebs for Facebooking...
Ok, after eating and Facebooking I have to teach. By now we're talking seven forty-five and I'm flagging. I wasn't built for this kinda day, even with prodigious amounts of snacking and breaks! My evening class is made up of a mix of adults and older teenagers, so we all get to have fun and speak some nice English. They also get sarcasm which is a major boon for me since I'm not sure I know how to be serious. They's good people. I flip open a textbook, I stand in front of them and chat and then we all do some talking. Lessons are mostly reading from a textbook, followed by discussing the piece. They sit around tables in four chunks of four, so they're easy to pair off or divide into groups and I like to do that a lot. Adults grammar is usually up to scrath so it's fun with new tenses (I draw a badass timeline these days), vocab (I also explain words well, with a delicate balance of stick men, a box of toys and inane had gestures) and lots of speaking practice. Finish those words people! These lessons last two hours, and when they're done we all file out and I scoot down to the teacher's room sharpish. There we all gather round eyeing one another uneasily. We slowly put our books away, and I change into comfortable shoes and hover. The silence and tension grow, no-one knows where to look. It's unbearable. Then the axe falls. It was always inevitable and it seals our fate.
"So who's coming for a drink?"
Saturday mornings are bastards...
Friday - six o'clock in the AM. That's right, apparently there's a six in the morning too, it's not just for evenings anymore. I find this development both terrifying and aunecessary, and urge society to return to the old model. Y'know, the one where days begin at eight (Eleven at the weekend). Regardless here in the misbegotten east everyone seems to have accepted this and gladly begin their day at the same time as the sun. This is why they lost the war... Oh.
Anyway, once my phone's alarm has been steadfastly ignored my iPod kicks into life and thus begins my ascent from the pit. NB, the pit is metaphorical; my bed is in no way subterranean. I crouch my way through a cold shower, since whoever installed my bathroom was some kind of inept midget, and proceed to spend too long on my hair. It's of the length where I can't do anything with it, and I'll be damned if I'm getting it cut here. Everyone has awful hair, it's like Springfield. Then I put on my underthings and face my tie rack. Is it really a tie rack if it only has two ties? Is it really a tie rack if it's just a wire coathanger? Does function define an item? It does if I say it does. So shirt on, tie on, trousers on, shoes on. Check the hair on roll out the door into this bizarre pre-Trisha world.
My Guesthouse is down a wee ginnel (or small alley\tight back passage if you're bland\creepy) and on my way to the main street I pass a dinkly little shop\family home. For serious, their fron room has three walls and a shutter. The shutter rolls up to reveal the family home and some fridges o' drinks. It's cool\surreal, I'll get photos. So because I like these guys, I buy a drink. Usually a tasty Orange thingy or a tasty Lemon thingy for they are tasty. Glug glug and I need to get to work. All I have to do is look vaguely lost for about five seconds and one of the dirtly looking older gentlemen in the alley will make vroom vroom gestures at me, asking if I want to ride their motorbike. This isn't a metaphor. For about a dollar they'll put me on the back of their bike and taxi me to work on the street I can't pronounce, and after poitning to it on a map and a small card in my pocket we ride!In theory I should agree prices before getting on, but these guys are here everyday and by now I know they're good peeps who won't rip me off.
Bumpety bump bump through the busy streets of Saigon, and at around Seven-Fifteen (why is it busy at this time of day? what is wrong with these people?) I pull up outside one of the city's numerous private schools. I visit two of their sites a week, and this one is my favourite of the two. Next to the entrance is a pho place (meaty noodles, I'll explain eventually) and over the road is an old lady selling drinks and gum. Handy for my break. Also cigarettes, which are handy for nothing except swift death and empty wallets. (See how I editorialise? Bwa ha ha!).
Half past seven means I'm stood in front a of a blackboard (oh chalk on my black trousers, how I hate thee) and being deafened by a chorus of seven year olds shouting "Good Morning Teacher!" as loud as they can. They don't know much English, but what they do know they shout. Books get opened, words get chanted back at me and we all pretend we're learning. Seriously though, my main job in these classes is speaking and listening practise. Their Vietnamese teachers drill them with lots of grammar and vocab, but their pronunciation is awful and the final consonant sound is missing from pretty much evrey word. This is because in Vietnamese it's usually silent, and it takes a while to get used to saying it (or filling in the blank yourself if you're Liam chatting with a local and looking like a particularly moronic tourist in the process). We play a C, we repeat everything on the CD then I draw stick men on the board to demonstrate new vocab. I draw an aweome 'My Grandfather' now, and have chalky crow's feet down to a freakin' artform. For serious. Lessons last thirty-five minutes, and I have a TA for around fifteen. They sit at the back and mark work while I engage in buffoonery. It's a lot like being back at the pub. That's the basics. The nitty gritties is that the younger the students the more problem students there are. There's always one kid that acts up and distracts the others (I remember that guy in my classes. He was devilishly handsome and had scruffy hair...) and since they know I can't actually discipline them (and that my TA certainly won't) they just mess around for the whole lesson. Usually it's possible to work around this, but sometimes I'll just give up on the meticulously planned lesson and play games on the board. Anything that scores points or allows the kids to write on the board gets them all hyper, and that's when I get to run around with them and shout. If I shout at any other time they just burst into laughter because losing one's temper here is very rare and very poor form. I'm yet to make anyone cry, but there's time to get my fury focused. Two lessons and I get to break for sugary soft drinks.Two more lessons and I get to break for lunch. Then it's another two and two (Fridays are my longest day by far thanks to this double shift) and I can eat. Only there's nowhere good to eat near here and I'm too tired to wander, so I take a bike back to Apollo (the school I work for, very nice building) and order in. Pretty much anything can be ordered in, but Friday is usually mexican stuff so I'll get something deep fried with cheese. Mmmm.
Oh Apollo. It's a sizable with three main floors and a mezzanine (try teaching that!) and pretty darn modern. Opened in 2000 and something by a vague member of the royal family. The company was the the first foreign language school in Vietnam and has one hell of a rep. It's incredibly well run and super professional. The teacher's room has four Vietnamese support staff, and then next door we have another dozen along with two IT guys (One's irish, the other's socially stunted and maybe some kind of shaman? They have hilarious adventures and a goth in the server room. Oh wait, no.) along with an actual kitchen with two women whose role here is a mystery to me. I think they arrange biscuits on plates and change the water coolers but beyond that it gets murky. There's a big resource library and we get poorly made backpacks provided for us (try putting more than two textbooks in and watch how fast they fall apart) so they clearly love their teachers. I can't stress enough how much like a huge corporation this place is, and it freaked me out at first. Now I'm down with it, because many of the teachers are cool, and the rest are never around. Plus there's nice fast interwebs for Facebooking...
Ok, after eating and Facebooking I have to teach. By now we're talking seven forty-five and I'm flagging. I wasn't built for this kinda day, even with prodigious amounts of snacking and breaks! My evening class is made up of a mix of adults and older teenagers, so we all get to have fun and speak some nice English. They also get sarcasm which is a major boon for me since I'm not sure I know how to be serious. They's good people. I flip open a textbook, I stand in front of them and chat and then we all do some talking. Lessons are mostly reading from a textbook, followed by discussing the piece. They sit around tables in four chunks of four, so they're easy to pair off or divide into groups and I like to do that a lot. Adults grammar is usually up to scrath so it's fun with new tenses (I draw a badass timeline these days), vocab (I also explain words well, with a delicate balance of stick men, a box of toys and inane had gestures) and lots of speaking practice. Finish those words people! These lessons last two hours, and when they're done we all file out and I scoot down to the teacher's room sharpish. There we all gather round eyeing one another uneasily. We slowly put our books away, and I change into comfortable shoes and hover. The silence and tension grow, no-one knows where to look. It's unbearable. Then the axe falls. It was always inevitable and it seals our fate.
"So who's coming for a drink?"
Saturday mornings are bastards...
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
One Week In...
It's been a whole entire week (and a day) since I arrived, and I'm still no closer to having my stuff. This is beginning to grate.
That said, I might almost be getting a hang f the city. I'm now entirely capable of ordering food (and not just menu pointing. I also mime a mean chicken.) and getting my taxi to take me home. OK, that last part is a half-truth. I got on the back of the bike, and told the bucktoothed driver the street name. He asked me something in Vietnamese, I repeated the street name and name of my guest house and he scooted off. In what was clearly the wrong direction. Rush hour traffic and terrible driving combined to glue my hands to my seat, and my English moans were dismissed as we scooted over a river of some kind into a decidedly seedy part of Saigon. Decidedly Seedy. So I managed to stop him (after we were well over the river since the riverbanks are crime-tastic) and then managed to spend a whole ten minutes looking for another cab to get home in. You know you've left the civilized part of this place when you can't find a barefooted old man to ferry you about. Those bastards are everywhere...
Right, so that little adventure aside I've managed to get my feet well and truly under the table. I even know which of my 100 channels are in English (I found Cartoon Network in the late 50s, just after ESPN). I learned that my toilet paper will destroy the very fabric of the universe or something, and so it should be put in the bin rather than down the toilet. This means that toilet cubicles smell worse than you'd want them to. In this heat a poop session of five or more minutes is presumably deadly. Good job I'm getting pretty blocked up! Yeah, who'd have guessed that left to my own devices all the balance would leave my diet and be replaced by noodles and cookies. Wow. This was a matuuuure paragraph.
Oh, I totally started at school this week, and it makes me feel even more hoboish than usual. Quite the challenge. I get to wear a tie and nice shoes and do up my top button. I hate these things. I don't think I've had my top button buttoned since I was 10. Yikes. Oh, and you should see my two new shirts for work. I have a lovely blue one and a snappy pink number. Oh yeah, Liam's wearing a pink shirt. Fashionable trends of 2002 here I am. Once I get some money I'll be taking advantage of the fashion pirates and getting some knock off trainers. I reckon that getting a pair of sweatshop shoes for two dollars is more moral than paying around eighty, right? Right? Oh well I don't care. Also on the list are a watch that'll look like it cost less than a quid and actually cost even less and a pair of sunglasses. I'll have to take off my beloved communist\emo looking cap, but apparently I should do that anyway.
Ooh, and my neighbours have a pet chicken!
That said, I might almost be getting a hang f the city. I'm now entirely capable of ordering food (and not just menu pointing. I also mime a mean chicken.) and getting my taxi to take me home. OK, that last part is a half-truth. I got on the back of the bike, and told the bucktoothed driver the street name. He asked me something in Vietnamese, I repeated the street name and name of my guest house and he scooted off. In what was clearly the wrong direction. Rush hour traffic and terrible driving combined to glue my hands to my seat, and my English moans were dismissed as we scooted over a river of some kind into a decidedly seedy part of Saigon. Decidedly Seedy. So I managed to stop him (after we were well over the river since the riverbanks are crime-tastic) and then managed to spend a whole ten minutes looking for another cab to get home in. You know you've left the civilized part of this place when you can't find a barefooted old man to ferry you about. Those bastards are everywhere...
Right, so that little adventure aside I've managed to get my feet well and truly under the table. I even know which of my 100 channels are in English (I found Cartoon Network in the late 50s, just after ESPN). I learned that my toilet paper will destroy the very fabric of the universe or something, and so it should be put in the bin rather than down the toilet. This means that toilet cubicles smell worse than you'd want them to. In this heat a poop session of five or more minutes is presumably deadly. Good job I'm getting pretty blocked up! Yeah, who'd have guessed that left to my own devices all the balance would leave my diet and be replaced by noodles and cookies. Wow. This was a matuuuure paragraph.
Oh, I totally started at school this week, and it makes me feel even more hoboish than usual. Quite the challenge. I get to wear a tie and nice shoes and do up my top button. I hate these things. I don't think I've had my top button buttoned since I was 10. Yikes. Oh, and you should see my two new shirts for work. I have a lovely blue one and a snappy pink number. Oh yeah, Liam's wearing a pink shirt. Fashionable trends of 2002 here I am. Once I get some money I'll be taking advantage of the fashion pirates and getting some knock off trainers. I reckon that getting a pair of sweatshop shoes for two dollars is more moral than paying around eighty, right? Right? Oh well I don't care. Also on the list are a watch that'll look like it cost less than a quid and actually cost even less and a pair of sunglasses. I'll have to take off my beloved communist\emo looking cap, but apparently I should do that anyway.
Ooh, and my neighbours have a pet chicken!
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