Time Isn't On My Side

I am not passionate about my job as a language teacher, never have been, never will be. If teaching English as a second language involved leather and silk taffeta, I maybe could get more desirous about my job. But it doesn't. It involves neck ties and long sleeved shirts rolled half way up to my elbows. It involves  red ink stains on my fingers and epic clashes with merciless, paper jamming photocopiers. I have to contend with chatty students whose line of sight and powers of concentration are obstructed by their IPhone or Blackberry screens .  I lack the intensity and diplomacy a language teacher needs to be a moderator of subjects and verbs, making sure that they find common ground for agreement. No. No fires burn in me to make orphaned, fragmented sentences whole.

My enthusiasm for teaching English as a second language is an affectation I often liken to that of a hooker's beguiling exaltation of pleasure. If my students were ever to find out that I've been faking it, I might have to go back to bartending or worse, Korea.

This time of year, my dispassion for my work is felt in superlatives, as you may have noticed. These days, this desolate state of mind has insults added to injuries because I have a whole lot of bleak down time as we head into final exams. 


Unlike final exam time back in the world which, as I recall, was a time for generating  ingenious mnemonic devices while binging on coffee and running for days on Benzedrine and pizza , 'round here, the students, who, because of the nature of their faith, believe that all that has been and all that will be, has been written, do not sweat the small stuff like passing or failing a course. Besides, everything is negotiable.

Although I won't post final grades until sometime late next week, as far as they're concerned, their final exam grades were posted eons ago, way, way, way back in the before man time when The Mighty One penned his magnum opus, this book of being, this book of life.

So we dilly dally on, ex-pats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the vending machines and coffee room. Tick. Tick. Tick. Fingers drum. Doodles are drawn. Emails are checked, double checked and checked again.


We are still about a month away from being officially released from our quote unquote duties and our main responsibility from here on in is to loiter in our offices posing as last minute answer makers for students who do not come with heads full of wonderment.

There will be a few things to do between now and June 4th--the day we shall be released. We'll have to proctor an exam or two. We'll have to have a writing exam norming session, and we'll have to spend a day and a half marking those writing exams. One morning later this month, we're obliged to sit in a frigid auditorium wearing our standard issue academic gowns and sashes that do not flatter our figures while this grand poobah and that grand poobah give plauditory speeches in Arabic before names are called and diplomas are passed out. There will be finger sammiches after the formalities, which I consider to be my honorarium for showing up.

Following these exacting agenda items, we will no longer have to endure the excruciation of tedium. We will not have to sit in our offices streaming Youtube. On June 4th, we are allowed to head out. Tumble weeds will blow across our housing compounds, shudders will creak and a lonely wolf will howl in the distance.

But I 'll still be here.  We couldn't find a cat and Porkshire terrier sitter this year. So, first the missus will have her vacation, and when she returns, I fly out June 24th, or thereabouts, not returning until the end of July.

Until then, I'll probably work on my summer set for those hot and rainy Scambodian nights in which I'll spend time performing in backpacker pubs for free drinks and meals.

While waiting to leave, I may spend more time in the gym. Maybe I'll do a few practice not-too-deep water dives in the Gulf. I'll have a garden to not let die. A cat and dog feeding schedule to adhere to.  Why, there will be hundreds of things I can do to pass the time besides flipping between Animal Planet and the History Channel.


Like. . .?

OK. There will be dozens of things to do besides sitting at my computer trying to break through a firewall to download distasteful erotica.


For instance. . .?

OK,  there will be a few things I can do to bide my time besides meditatively sliding a glass tube affixed to my left pinky finger up and down the neck of a guitar tuned to an open G.


Example. . .?

Things can pretty ugly when I'm bored.

Did I mention I will probably start drinking more and more, earlier and earlier as I count down the days until I'm outta here?