I watch you siting at the bar, boring holes in the liquor display with your eyes. A man grinning ear to ear comes to order drinks and tell you the way of the world. You listen politely, laugh as he finishes and his grin widens, and you raise your hand in goodbye as he carries three drinks in two hands walking back to his group of friends. The man sitting a chair away from you, who was previously watching the game on TV with mild interest, turns to you and lets you know the first man is wrong. See, that guy didn't know what he knows, and he wants you should know the way things really work. As he talks, you nod and sip your drink at polite intervals.
It's a slow night. The first man is at a large table with several of his co-workers. They are animated and laugh at this and that. A few other groups are in various booths explaining their lives or responding to the happenings of their friend's lives.
The bar becomes quiet as the second man winds up telling his thoughts. Before the second man returns to his drink and the mildly-interesting game on TV, he looks back at you and makes no apologies for telling the whole truth and nothing but.
Another man standing near you by the bar who has an imported beer leveled in front of him and his eyes fixed on the television at the far edge of the bar says that Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun.'" He sips his beer and wipes his mouth with his hand before bringing it back down to his side. "If we didn't make new generations, we would stop falling for the same old shit."
You don't turn around when he starts or stops talking. You stare at the liquor display and sip your drink.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
When you drink with ice...
....you should have a cooler.
The cubes melt and inundate the marble floor.
The alcohol boxes inner ears.
Splash!
The cubes melt and inundate the marble floor.
The alcohol boxes inner ears.
Splash!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Wat Dusitaram Weekly Lessons(first in the series!)
Hello again from Thailand. This man aspiring for gainful employment, trying to remember what happens in his life from day to day, and hoping to share those memories with his loved ones (I'll be mushy. I miss my family and friends very much) is posting what he's teaching here in this post (Wow! I don't believe it).
Well, start believing it. I complain a lot about the work I have to do each week. I was told that I had to make three lesson plans per week that focused on speaking and listening. Well, I had no idea I had to actually make them. The internet has been crap when it comes to providing speaking and listening lessons that interest and engage my students without bending their minds too badly. Also I found it best to pretend that each class of 40 or so students is really a group of three or four students and make lesson plans for each of those teams. That way you can be assured more participation, but a lot more preparation like this lesson where I wrote about 32 different conversations.
Each conversation is supposed to hint at the relationship between A & B and simultaneously be entertaining to read. Some conversations are better than others. The drawback is that this lesson doesn't really involve speaking or listening. I argued that the speaking and listening part came from me trying to help the students complete the worksheet. During the lesson, I added a part where they not only had to circle which two people were talking but they also had to tell me why they thought that way. That cut down on christmas-treeing* the worksheet.
The other exercise that took a lot of preparation was an idea stolen from the internet. The teacher reads one prompt. The students have a different prompt and are supposed to knock when they hear something different. I thought that was too easy, and decided to make eight different worksheets with eight slightly-differing readings and eight different sets of questions. It worked okay. The worst part was reading the teacher part for each class louder than the kids were chattering amongst themselves. I think my voice is louder and/or hoarser these days because of it.
Alternatively, I play games in the classroom with an accompanying worksheet so that the students have fun in class and everybody still works rather than the common occurence: three kids play the game and the other kids do whatever they want. I thought I came up with a good way to play a game, have a worksheet, and make myself solely a referee of the game rather than the MC of said game (English teachers can only be an entertaining and educating MC to a part of the class at any one time while the other parts do what they really want to do). I took the basic points and categories format of Jeopardy and made it about common Who, What, and Where questions. I let the kids make team names, and they got into it. Took the worksheet, corrected it, and got 10 marks for final grades.
That's this here document
I had troubles with some classes because of poor rapport with kids. It still is a one group at a time exercise, so sometimes it's boring, and for some classes it's too damn easy, but I used it. I used it for my 8th grade and Sophmore High-schoolers. The more I do a lesson, the more I get a good flow or a good feeling about teaching it. For two classes, I hadn't taught the lesson in a week and so I wasn't able to be quite as good as my prime. At some point, I get tired of whatever worksheet I'm teaching or stop believing in the worksheet, and the kids pick up on that. So, the performance is as much a part of the worksheet as anything.
For the times when I can't seem to make a game from the material, I'm stuck trudging the kids through the material. This happens a lot with the 8th grade kids. Basically, I make taking notes in class look like a worksheet, which is what I am doing this week to teach new vocabulary with the superlative form.
A few times I've been able to make a logic puzzle for the kids. Puzzles like solving Cryptograms with scrambled words (see last page)and Crosswords can be fun and still use English.
I have classes of seniors, and teaching them is a dream compared to all the other classes. I often just give them scraps of paper like this exercise where I gave each student a question, asked them to write the answer in passive voice and then present it to the class. or this exercise where I took lyrics from songs, asked the students to convert them to passive voice, write it on the board, and then figure out what popular song they came from.
I did something similar with m4 this week, and they heckle each other and me most of the lesson, which makes a simple exercise more interesting. So, this is an example of using students' misbehavior to help them learn.
This week I have remembered that most students will do anything to either make the assignment look stupid or avoid doing the assignment completely, but the students that can do it will do it. It is somewhat disparaging to learn how unwilling many students are to challenge themselves. Sometimes getting work from students is like ramming your head against a wall. Maybe the wall will crack, maybe it won't. There's gotta be a better metaphor for that, but I haven't thought of it yet.
I'm on food coma from a fried vegetables over rice dish. It was oily.
-Pray for learning. Pray for peace.
*When I was in high school, we took a silly scantron test twice a year. It took a day, was boring as anything, and the questions hardly changed from year to year. So, students (we) rarely paid attention to the test. Instead they (not me 'cause [1] I was always a good kid and do not karmically deserve the treatment I receive now for my misbehavior at that time ::wink wink:: and [2] because there was nothing better to do in the test-taking room than take the test) guessed randomly on the scantron sheet. The placement of the filled-in bubbles resembled a christmas tree. Christmas Treeing is marking random answers on a given assignment without paying attention to what the assignment actually requires.
**The songs in the passive voice song exercise are (in sequential order) from [1]Taylor Swift's "Fearless,"[2]Iyaz's "Solo," [3] Ke$ha's "Tick-Tock," [4]Usher's "DJ's Got us Falling in Love Again," [5] Justin Bieber's "Baby," [6] Enrique Iglesias' "Baby, I like it," and [7] Flo Rida's "Low."
Well, start believing it. I complain a lot about the work I have to do each week. I was told that I had to make three lesson plans per week that focused on speaking and listening. Well, I had no idea I had to actually make them. The internet has been crap when it comes to providing speaking and listening lessons that interest and engage my students without bending their minds too badly. Also I found it best to pretend that each class of 40 or so students is really a group of three or four students and make lesson plans for each of those teams. That way you can be assured more participation, but a lot more preparation like this lesson where I wrote about 32 different conversations.
Each conversation is supposed to hint at the relationship between A & B and simultaneously be entertaining to read. Some conversations are better than others. The drawback is that this lesson doesn't really involve speaking or listening. I argued that the speaking and listening part came from me trying to help the students complete the worksheet. During the lesson, I added a part where they not only had to circle which two people were talking but they also had to tell me why they thought that way. That cut down on christmas-treeing* the worksheet.
The other exercise that took a lot of preparation was an idea stolen from the internet. The teacher reads one prompt. The students have a different prompt and are supposed to knock when they hear something different. I thought that was too easy, and decided to make eight different worksheets with eight slightly-differing readings and eight different sets of questions. It worked okay. The worst part was reading the teacher part for each class louder than the kids were chattering amongst themselves. I think my voice is louder and/or hoarser these days because of it.
Alternatively, I play games in the classroom with an accompanying worksheet so that the students have fun in class and everybody still works rather than the common occurence: three kids play the game and the other kids do whatever they want. I thought I came up with a good way to play a game, have a worksheet, and make myself solely a referee of the game rather than the MC of said game (English teachers can only be an entertaining and educating MC to a part of the class at any one time while the other parts do what they really want to do). I took the basic points and categories format of Jeopardy and made it about common Who, What, and Where questions. I let the kids make team names, and they got into it. Took the worksheet, corrected it, and got 10 marks for final grades.
That's this here document
I had troubles with some classes because of poor rapport with kids. It still is a one group at a time exercise, so sometimes it's boring, and for some classes it's too damn easy, but I used it. I used it for my 8th grade and Sophmore High-schoolers. The more I do a lesson, the more I get a good flow or a good feeling about teaching it. For two classes, I hadn't taught the lesson in a week and so I wasn't able to be quite as good as my prime. At some point, I get tired of whatever worksheet I'm teaching or stop believing in the worksheet, and the kids pick up on that. So, the performance is as much a part of the worksheet as anything.
For the times when I can't seem to make a game from the material, I'm stuck trudging the kids through the material. This happens a lot with the 8th grade kids. Basically, I make taking notes in class look like a worksheet, which is what I am doing this week to teach new vocabulary with the superlative form.
A few times I've been able to make a logic puzzle for the kids. Puzzles like solving Cryptograms with scrambled words (see last page)and Crosswords can be fun and still use English.
I have classes of seniors, and teaching them is a dream compared to all the other classes. I often just give them scraps of paper like this exercise where I gave each student a question, asked them to write the answer in passive voice and then present it to the class. or this exercise where I took lyrics from songs, asked the students to convert them to passive voice, write it on the board, and then figure out what popular song they came from.
I did something similar with m4 this week, and they heckle each other and me most of the lesson, which makes a simple exercise more interesting. So, this is an example of using students' misbehavior to help them learn.
This week I have remembered that most students will do anything to either make the assignment look stupid or avoid doing the assignment completely, but the students that can do it will do it. It is somewhat disparaging to learn how unwilling many students are to challenge themselves. Sometimes getting work from students is like ramming your head against a wall. Maybe the wall will crack, maybe it won't. There's gotta be a better metaphor for that, but I haven't thought of it yet.
I'm on food coma from a fried vegetables over rice dish. It was oily.
-Pray for learning. Pray for peace.
*When I was in high school, we took a silly scantron test twice a year. It took a day, was boring as anything, and the questions hardly changed from year to year. So, students (we) rarely paid attention to the test. Instead they (not me 'cause [1] I was always a good kid and do not karmically deserve the treatment I receive now for my misbehavior at that time ::wink wink:: and [2] because there was nothing better to do in the test-taking room than take the test) guessed randomly on the scantron sheet. The placement of the filled-in bubbles resembled a christmas tree. Christmas Treeing is marking random answers on a given assignment without paying attention to what the assignment actually requires.
**The songs in the passive voice song exercise are (in sequential order) from [1]Taylor Swift's "Fearless,"[2]Iyaz's "Solo," [3] Ke$ha's "Tick-Tock," [4]Usher's "DJ's Got us Falling in Love Again," [5] Justin Bieber's "Baby," [6] Enrique Iglesias' "Baby, I like it," and [7] Flo Rida's "Low."
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Heaven
Heaven is a book of photographs
by Sports Illustrated.
It glances back at you from its display case as you walk by
window-shopping
waiting for your girl to get off work.
It doesn't try to keep you.
You don't want to pay for it.
Heaven is something you could see on the internet for free.
http://www.amazon.com/Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit-Heaven-Walter/dp/1603201165
by Sports Illustrated.
It glances back at you from its display case as you walk by
window-shopping
waiting for your girl to get off work.
It doesn't try to keep you.
You don't want to pay for it.
Heaven is something you could see on the internet for free.
http://www.amazon.com/Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit-Heaven-Walter/dp/1603201165
Letter to the Thai Ministry of Education
One day, I'll find out who to send this to and actually do it, but I feel like I would be telling them what they already know. Cheating is bad in Thai high schools, and it should stop. That's easy. The teachers in the school need to be paid a lot more. Schools could also benefit from new technology and the training to use said technology. On the other hand, the government could also stand to pay its police and soldiers more.
It must be difficult for policymakers to attract foreign investment to Thailand, give kickbacks to their political allies, get paid themselves, and improve the standard of living for a large nation. One wonders what a policymaker does with his or her time on a daily basis. If someone paid me to do it, I would happily try to find out.
Dear Mr. Ministry of Education for the Kingdom of Thailand,
I am an English teacher from America working at a government school in Pinklao. I have worked as an English Teacher in Thailand for almost a year. I am writing today to ask you to think about a cheap and easily-implemented reform to the Thai public education system. Farang and Thai teachers have a problem with students completing their own work in class and many students also cheat on their tests. In the classroom, usually a few students complete the assigned work on their own and then these students share or are forced to share their work with the other students of the class. These students who copy the work scribble down whatever they think they see on their classmates’ papers and sometimes this produces almost unreadable work. It is not good that students do not do the work on their own. Many students play and talk in class instead of listening to their teacher. When handed the work, they have no idea what to do but have no problem copying the assignment from their classmates. Homework is often treated the same way. This defeats the purpose of the work entirely. The work is meant to challenge the students’ knowledge of the subject and to help them understand the subject by practice. Copying is not practice. It is a mindless activity that can and often is done in another class while another teacher is trying to teach another subject. I know that copying is an epidemic in my school because most worksheets that students return to me all have the same errors and I can see students copying each other’s homework while I am trying to teach. The worst part is that the students in the class who let students copy their worksheet are often not the smartest or most proficient at their subject, but rather the most confident.
The high school I attended to had a simple solution to this. It was not perfect, but it at least made us fear plagiarizing our work. On every assignment we completed we wrote, “I swear that I neither helped nor received help on this test or assignment,” and then we signed our names. There was also an honor council run by students and supervised by teachers that reviewed cases regarding cheating or plagiarizing work. Any student that broke the code and cheated on an assignment was sent to this council. Again, it was not a perfect system, but it did help to show students that the school was serious about students completing their own work. If the government implemented a system like this for its schools it could help to improve the education and discipline of students at little cost.
I think the Thai education system could also use a union or a ministry to control or standardize what Farangs (foreigners) teach, but I think that would be more expensive than the aforementioned "quick fix."
-I'm goin' back to lesson planning
It must be difficult for policymakers to attract foreign investment to Thailand, give kickbacks to their political allies, get paid themselves, and improve the standard of living for a large nation. One wonders what a policymaker does with his or her time on a daily basis. If someone paid me to do it, I would happily try to find out.
Dear Mr. Ministry of Education for the Kingdom of Thailand,
I am an English teacher from America working at a government school in Pinklao. I have worked as an English Teacher in Thailand for almost a year. I am writing today to ask you to think about a cheap and easily-implemented reform to the Thai public education system. Farang and Thai teachers have a problem with students completing their own work in class and many students also cheat on their tests. In the classroom, usually a few students complete the assigned work on their own and then these students share or are forced to share their work with the other students of the class. These students who copy the work scribble down whatever they think they see on their classmates’ papers and sometimes this produces almost unreadable work. It is not good that students do not do the work on their own. Many students play and talk in class instead of listening to their teacher. When handed the work, they have no idea what to do but have no problem copying the assignment from their classmates. Homework is often treated the same way. This defeats the purpose of the work entirely. The work is meant to challenge the students’ knowledge of the subject and to help them understand the subject by practice. Copying is not practice. It is a mindless activity that can and often is done in another class while another teacher is trying to teach another subject. I know that copying is an epidemic in my school because most worksheets that students return to me all have the same errors and I can see students copying each other’s homework while I am trying to teach. The worst part is that the students in the class who let students copy their worksheet are often not the smartest or most proficient at their subject, but rather the most confident.
The high school I attended to had a simple solution to this. It was not perfect, but it at least made us fear plagiarizing our work. On every assignment we completed we wrote, “I swear that I neither helped nor received help on this test or assignment,” and then we signed our names. There was also an honor council run by students and supervised by teachers that reviewed cases regarding cheating or plagiarizing work. Any student that broke the code and cheated on an assignment was sent to this council. Again, it was not a perfect system, but it did help to show students that the school was serious about students completing their own work. If the government implemented a system like this for its schools it could help to improve the education and discipline of students at little cost.
I think the Thai education system could also use a union or a ministry to control or standardize what Farangs (foreigners) teach, but I think that would be more expensive than the aforementioned "quick fix."
-I'm goin' back to lesson planning
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
A recent mildly uncomfortable experience in a hospital
On Sunday night, I checked into Sirirat Government Hospital in Pinklao, Bangkok in preparation for surgery on Monday to remove scar tissue that prevented my right testicle from dangling normally. I laid in a hospital bed for a day eating pretty good hospital food and losing the hair I had between my belly-button and halfway-down my thigh thanks to the fine work of a nice ladyboy nurse who afterward invited me out for a drink and kissed me on the cheek. I met many different people who all asked me the same set of questions: What is your name? Do you speak Thai? How long have you stayed in Thailand? Where do you work? What is your major health complaint? Some of these questions were asked in Thai and were therefore difficult to answer. I could not even begin to explain my particular health issue because I have yet to be able to remember the word for testicle. When I explained the problem in English, I usually used some form of visual aid. I gave a friend two oranges and told her to hold them in each hand. Then I told her to swing the oranges back and forth. See, that's the way testicles normally work. I then asked her to hold the right orange higher than the left and to swing the left orange while the right orange remained relatively still. This model did not include many other vital parts of the scrotum, and thus failed to explain that the lack of free movement was causing dilated and tangled veins within my scrotum and that these too were painful. So instead of trying to explain the problem with fractured sentences and maddening hand gestures, I often just stood up and dropped my pants. This alarmed very few people as most of the nagging questioners were medical practitioners. From this viewpoint, they could easily see the left testicle hanging much lower than the right testicle and the dark varicose veins bulging from within the scrotum. I had the most difficulty with the Thai woman who wanted my family history (I struggled direly to explain the concept of an economist with my lacking Thai vocabulary) and the anesthesiologist who explained a spinal block and its effects in Thai. The conversation with the anesthesiologist necessitated a phone call to my girlfriend because spinal blocks are scary.
At night, you could see the lights of boats on the Chao Phaya river from the window next to my hospital bed. It was beautiful.
On Monday, nurses woke me up at 5 a.m., checked my temperature and blood pressure, and temporarily left me to my own devices only to cheat me of several more good hours of sleep with regular temperature and blood pressure checks. The same process of questioning from the previous day began again. The work shifts had changed so that there were now all new nurses and student doctors to ask the same questions that I had answered several different times with several other nurses and student doctors. Two or three times, these people traveled in packs and I was pushed into dropping my pants for a large group. I believe the experiences at this time have made it much easier for me to expose myself to others in the future, however, I do not think this is a socially-acceptable life skill.
At around 11 a.m., I was finally wheeled down to the surgical ward, and left on a bed in a cold room next to others on beds waiting to go into surgery. There was also one cradle with a crying infant. I waited restlessly for an hour until finally it was my turn to enter the OR and be transferred to the operating table under large pancake-shaped lamps. There were mild beeps, but I couldn't make a tune from it a la that old Levi's Commercial with "Tainted Love". The surgical staff was friendly and light-hearted. We had some trouble understanding each other when they wanted me to curl into a ball on my side so they could stick the spinal block needle into my lower back, but they gave a cheer when I figured it out. Then they stuck me, and it hurt. They gave me a mild sedative and put up a blue screen between me and where the actual surgery was performed. I complained about this for a while to the nurse. She laughed at me. I became bored and fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was being wheeled away from the OR and into another cold room where others lay on beds. This time, I had lost feeling entirely in my legs. I struggled half-halfheartedly (knowing that it was pointless) to wiggle my left toe, but there was no response from it or feeling that it was there. From the waist down, my body was stony and cold. I could feel the hard skin of my legs but could not feel the muscles beneath. I became mildly frightened by this and impatient at being stuck in another waiting room with no information whatsoever about the results of the surgery. For all I knew, it had gone well. I could see that I still had testicles. I assumed that things were successful from that alone. I leaned up and down trying to look for someone to ask, but none of the faces in that waiting room were the same as ones in surgery. Finally, I was taken back to the general ward where I stayed before. In an hour or so, I began to be able to move my feet and then slowly the use of my legs came back, and, finally, after seven hours, I was even able to empty my bladder. The return of feeling also brought a lot of pain and discomfort as my right testicle swelled and the surgical scar in the side of it hurt any time I tried to move in any direction. Families came to see other patients staying in my general ward, and I felt stupid for having surgery done in a foreign country where I knew of few people I could ask to visit me in the hospital. I had very little to fill my time but Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (which I'm disappointed to say is more of a dime novel than an interesting way to look at culture shock) and my view of a bridge over the Chao Phaya. In the morning the bridge had few cars and they moved quickly. In the afternoon, the cars were backed up and struggled to move inches forward. Thirty minutes before lights out and when I had managed to stand to brush my teeth before sleeping, my girlfriend arrived and I felt very soothed by the company of a person I could understand and be understood by easily. She left soon after, taking the keys to my apartment with her.
At night, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned the little I could. The pain in my testicles and my back (strained from the awkward exercises needed to perform simple tasks like drinking water or putting food in my mouth) prevented me from sleeping on my side as I am accustomed. A sick old man had also entered the ward, and he tossed and turned more ferociously, complaining loudly after great phlegm-filled coughing fits. I could not sleep. I hated him, but hated myself for my lack of sympathy. He stared me in the eyes and I think he begged for relief, but as I could not fully understand him or walk to actually help him, I just reached for the button to call the nurses. They came in before I had a chance to press it though, and seemed to yell at him until he calmed down. It was 3:30 a.m. I got barely an hour of sleep before the same nasty nurse who yelled at the old man demanded I sit up to take an antibiotic. Bitter and sleep-deprived as I was, I rebelled and took it lying down.
I was stirred from sleep several more times by blood-pressure checks, temperature checks, and packs of nurses. My doctor finally showed up and gave me the news that the surgery was successful. The scar was removed and dilated veins relieved. I was warned against sex for a week, which was a better estimate than previous by three weeks. My girlfriend arrived an hour or so later and I again felt grateful for her presence even though she teased me so mercilessly I threatened to leave her for a cute nurse. I was even more grateful to her because she got the ball rolling on getting me out of the hospital. For some reason, they insisted I go myself to pay the bill, so my girlfriend and I walked shuffling step by shuffling step (well, she can walk normally) to the elevator then I shuffled more, confused as to where to pay, and all of this in a surgical gown surrounded by many well-dressed police officers, doctors, and visitors ambling more gracefully. At the same time, my mother called me furious that I had not kept her informed. I apologized and promised to call her later, took care of the bill, and headed back upstairs. After a long explanation of how I should take care of myself at home, the nurse asked me for my e-mail so that she could take English lessons with me.
I grabbed my stuff, shuffled downstairs, luckily was able to grab a taxi mere yards from the elevator (although to me they were much longer), and headed home to my bed. I slept soundly, free of distraction from nurses, hospital administrators who never introduced themselves or their position, student doctors, and other sick patients. Unfortunately, the surgery caused my testicles to swell to the size of a tennis ball and become hard as a turtle’s shell, so I had yet to fully recover from my first surgical experience, but the worst seemed to be over. The doctors gave me a week off from work, and in watching John Goodman HBO’s “Treme,” I was inspired to stop forcing individuals to read about my life in dastardly long e-mails, and instead give anyone the chance to read about my life by putting it on a blog. And so, “No News Means No Bad News” began.
Take it easy, 9 to 5 cowboys and cowgirls
-Sean
At night, you could see the lights of boats on the Chao Phaya river from the window next to my hospital bed. It was beautiful.
On Monday, nurses woke me up at 5 a.m., checked my temperature and blood pressure, and temporarily left me to my own devices only to cheat me of several more good hours of sleep with regular temperature and blood pressure checks. The same process of questioning from the previous day began again. The work shifts had changed so that there were now all new nurses and student doctors to ask the same questions that I had answered several different times with several other nurses and student doctors. Two or three times, these people traveled in packs and I was pushed into dropping my pants for a large group. I believe the experiences at this time have made it much easier for me to expose myself to others in the future, however, I do not think this is a socially-acceptable life skill.
At around 11 a.m., I was finally wheeled down to the surgical ward, and left on a bed in a cold room next to others on beds waiting to go into surgery. There was also one cradle with a crying infant. I waited restlessly for an hour until finally it was my turn to enter the OR and be transferred to the operating table under large pancake-shaped lamps. There were mild beeps, but I couldn't make a tune from it a la that old Levi's Commercial with "Tainted Love". The surgical staff was friendly and light-hearted. We had some trouble understanding each other when they wanted me to curl into a ball on my side so they could stick the spinal block needle into my lower back, but they gave a cheer when I figured it out. Then they stuck me, and it hurt. They gave me a mild sedative and put up a blue screen between me and where the actual surgery was performed. I complained about this for a while to the nurse. She laughed at me. I became bored and fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was being wheeled away from the OR and into another cold room where others lay on beds. This time, I had lost feeling entirely in my legs. I struggled half-halfheartedly (knowing that it was pointless) to wiggle my left toe, but there was no response from it or feeling that it was there. From the waist down, my body was stony and cold. I could feel the hard skin of my legs but could not feel the muscles beneath. I became mildly frightened by this and impatient at being stuck in another waiting room with no information whatsoever about the results of the surgery. For all I knew, it had gone well. I could see that I still had testicles. I assumed that things were successful from that alone. I leaned up and down trying to look for someone to ask, but none of the faces in that waiting room were the same as ones in surgery. Finally, I was taken back to the general ward where I stayed before. In an hour or so, I began to be able to move my feet and then slowly the use of my legs came back, and, finally, after seven hours, I was even able to empty my bladder. The return of feeling also brought a lot of pain and discomfort as my right testicle swelled and the surgical scar in the side of it hurt any time I tried to move in any direction. Families came to see other patients staying in my general ward, and I felt stupid for having surgery done in a foreign country where I knew of few people I could ask to visit me in the hospital. I had very little to fill my time but Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (which I'm disappointed to say is more of a dime novel than an interesting way to look at culture shock) and my view of a bridge over the Chao Phaya. In the morning the bridge had few cars and they moved quickly. In the afternoon, the cars were backed up and struggled to move inches forward. Thirty minutes before lights out and when I had managed to stand to brush my teeth before sleeping, my girlfriend arrived and I felt very soothed by the company of a person I could understand and be understood by easily. She left soon after, taking the keys to my apartment with her.
At night, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned the little I could. The pain in my testicles and my back (strained from the awkward exercises needed to perform simple tasks like drinking water or putting food in my mouth) prevented me from sleeping on my side as I am accustomed. A sick old man had also entered the ward, and he tossed and turned more ferociously, complaining loudly after great phlegm-filled coughing fits. I could not sleep. I hated him, but hated myself for my lack of sympathy. He stared me in the eyes and I think he begged for relief, but as I could not fully understand him or walk to actually help him, I just reached for the button to call the nurses. They came in before I had a chance to press it though, and seemed to yell at him until he calmed down. It was 3:30 a.m. I got barely an hour of sleep before the same nasty nurse who yelled at the old man demanded I sit up to take an antibiotic. Bitter and sleep-deprived as I was, I rebelled and took it lying down.
I was stirred from sleep several more times by blood-pressure checks, temperature checks, and packs of nurses. My doctor finally showed up and gave me the news that the surgery was successful. The scar was removed and dilated veins relieved. I was warned against sex for a week, which was a better estimate than previous by three weeks. My girlfriend arrived an hour or so later and I again felt grateful for her presence even though she teased me so mercilessly I threatened to leave her for a cute nurse. I was even more grateful to her because she got the ball rolling on getting me out of the hospital. For some reason, they insisted I go myself to pay the bill, so my girlfriend and I walked shuffling step by shuffling step (well, she can walk normally) to the elevator then I shuffled more, confused as to where to pay, and all of this in a surgical gown surrounded by many well-dressed police officers, doctors, and visitors ambling more gracefully. At the same time, my mother called me furious that I had not kept her informed. I apologized and promised to call her later, took care of the bill, and headed back upstairs. After a long explanation of how I should take care of myself at home, the nurse asked me for my e-mail so that she could take English lessons with me.
I grabbed my stuff, shuffled downstairs, luckily was able to grab a taxi mere yards from the elevator (although to me they were much longer), and headed home to my bed. I slept soundly, free of distraction from nurses, hospital administrators who never introduced themselves or their position, student doctors, and other sick patients. Unfortunately, the surgery caused my testicles to swell to the size of a tennis ball and become hard as a turtle’s shell, so I had yet to fully recover from my first surgical experience, but the worst seemed to be over. The doctors gave me a week off from work, and in watching John Goodman HBO’s “Treme,” I was inspired to stop forcing individuals to read about my life in dastardly long e-mails, and instead give anyone the chance to read about my life by putting it on a blog. And so, “No News Means No Bad News” began.
Take it easy, 9 to 5 cowboys and cowgirls
-Sean
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