Every morning when I get to school, I go up to my office and put my things down.  Then I go to the main office to sign in and then to school assembly.  This morning, same as usual.  My office is a tiny classroom that I share with Robin.  We teach the advanced students in there since their classes are small.  The classroom is one of a few air conditioned classrooms at the school.  Yesterday morning I was standing at assembly and Pat came up to me.  The past 3 months or so, if Pat comes up to me, it’s usually not a pleasant experience and it’s not just to say hi and see how I’m doing.  But this morning was a new experience for sure.  She asked if I had left the air conditioning on over night in the class room.  I said that I had not.  (I just came from there.  If the air conditioning had been on, it would have been on when I dropped my stuff off).  She just laid into me about how I need to be careful.  That I was careless, thoughtless and wasting energy and she was going to get in trouble, not me.  She went on to tell me that she even took a student over to verify with her that the air conditioning was running this morning.  She kept going and going and getting angrier and angrier until she was yelling at me.  I ended up apologizing for something I didn’t do and she stormed off saying “I’m sorry is all you should say”.  She was chastising me like a 6 year old.  I have no idea what is really bothering her that she is now making up reasons to be mad at me.  I am way too old for this game, what ever it is.  On my way back to the classroom, I asked her who turned off the air conditioning since it was off when I got to school.  She had no answer to that, but sent Q up to feel the room (which was hot, not cool).  Noi is the only other person with a key to the room and she wasn’t even at school yet.  I’m 46 years old basically being told to shut up and apologize for something I didn’t do.  Where’s the door?  I can’t wait to leave this school.  Noi asked the janitor if he turned off the air conditioner and he said he doesn’t have a key to the room so he hadn’t been in there.

By now I am so annoyed I can barely teach class.  Not to mention, I’m a bit scared.  I have no agent.  I don’t trust the company that placed me here as they have already showed that they will sell me out to make their agents happy.  And the person who is the head of the department I work in, has now gone from kind of unpleasant to scary.  All the people that are supposed to have my back, don’t.  I feel stranded, alone and unsafe.  Then I remember that I have Noi, Tip and Ging.  I honestly thought of calling Tip and asking her if she could help me get out of here as I don’t feel very safe right now .  But, I calmed down after Noi took me to lunch and told me quite a few times that I take teaching too seriously.

So, two points of inquiry come up from this.  One is that I hear all the time about how Thai people are the nicest people in the world.  But often, it is said by people that have left some other country to come live here and they say it in a way to imply that the rest of the world if full of horrible people.  So, I wonder what their lives and experiences were like where they came from.  My experience is that there are a lot of nice people in America.  I have a delightful, kind, and loving family.  I’m the crankiest person in my family.  I have some wonderful friends that would bend over backwards to take care of those they love.  And I have met so many kind and wonderful strangers along the way that were just kind because that’s who they are, not because they were my friend or family.  What if Thai people aren’t any different than American people or European people or any other people?  What if the entire planet has a fairly evenly distributed amount of nice and not so nice people?  What if one day you are one of the nice people and the next you are not?  What if this is just part of being human and not part of being Thai or Chinese or French……?

The other point of inquiry is that over the years I’ve worked on this issue where I feel the need for revenge.  I want those that have wronged me to see that they wronged me and to feel horrible about it deep in their bones for the rest of their lives.  I know where this comes from and I also know that life will never happen that way.  Even if it did, it wouldn’t solve anything.  The horrible injustice will never be undone with revenge or regret.  It will never be undone – period.  I cannot undo my past.  Being here in a high school has brought this up often.  I haven’t written about it yet because it comes up and I notice it and say, “hmmm, there it is again”, but nothing shifts.  Nothing new has been learned yet that I could share.  As all this drama is happening with Pat and I feel fear for my safety, this revenge thing comes up.  It’s a reaction to not feeling safe.  At some point, I realize I actually have the power to take revenge.  This woman has set me up to fail many times.  She is a huge part of why I’m not loving it here.  She might very well be a huge part of why no Western teacher will stay here for long.  I have the opportunity to point that out.  I actually have the opportunity for revenge that would get the desired result.  I  would never do this because I do understand that she’s not setting me up to fail on purpose – she’s just in over her head and managing two Western teachers, a whole department and teaching is stressful.  And, most people would struggle in her position.  But, if I think back, I’ve never taken a revenge opportunity either because I understood it would do no good in the long run or because I don’t want to be the bad person or because my mother taught me to be nice.  What if the reaction of wanting revenge whenever I feel unsafe doesn’t go away because I’ve never taken revenge?  Sure, I’ve said mean things in anger and I’ve done a half-assed job of creating drama that kinda of looks like revenge.  But, I’ve never committed fully to the point of irreparable damage.  If I did, would I then be free of feeling the craving for revenge?  What happens if I take this current opportunity handed to me?  What happens if I don’t?  The answer is that neither choice will change anything.  Really committing and going all in on the revenge might cure me of ever wanting revenge again or it might not.  We won’t find out because I can’t do it.  Suck it up and pretend nothing ever bothers me doesn’t work either.  I’ve been doing that my whole life.  So, there’s a third answer.  I can’t quite tell you what the third answer is.  I can kind of see it.  It’s just over there in a mist, a mist that keeps me from seeing it fully.  But since things are shifting and dissolving in my life, I’m sure that mist will lift in the near future and I can share that third answer with you then.