At the Cross Roads of Disfunction Junction - How's Your Malfunction?

I had my first pangs of frustration at work today. For those that don’t know, I am not much of a morning person. For me, the first few hours of the morning should be spent as a reflection time. A time when you shouldn’t have to speak with anyone, and you can reflect about the upcoming day. Sure, I can get up and go to the gym at 6:00AM, and sure I can be to work early when necessary. However, most people know not to speak to me until after 10:00AM, or when I’ve had at least have a cup of coffee in my system. It’s usually at this point that I have my wits about me, and I’m able to function like the Joshua we all know and love. If you catch me before all these prerequisites, I am a bit … on edge, and usually not very pleasant.

This morning, I decided to come into work early. My first class, Advertising and Public Relations for English Majors, is at 8:00AM, and it is the one I dread teaching the most. For starters, this is my largest class, with nearly 36 students in attendance. Second, this is my only college level course that I am teaching this semester. The remainder of my classes are high-school level. In addition to that, I don’t have a book or lesson plans to teach from for this class. That’s right, no textbook, and no resources to an ESL for marketing textbook. Additionally, trying to get these students to participate is like trying to get customer service at the DMV – it’s just not happening. I consider myself a rather fun instructor; I crack jokes, make funny faces, get animated in the front of the room – all of which is met with blank stares. I’ve decided that my humor must be lost in translation somewhere. Needless to say, I am always scrambling to pull together a lesson plan that has ANYTHING to do with Marketing, PR, or any aspect of business, really. Arriving early to work, around 07:15AM, I am thinking there will be very few teachers in the office, the internet will be working, and I’ll be able to plan out at least a few weeks of lessons during the 45 minutes I have prior to class. Shortly after I arrive, I discover that I am sorely mistaken about my planned period of productivity.

I arrive to school at 07:15AM, which meant that I did not have a chance to go running this morning prior to school. Already, the day is starting off bad. I walk into the office, only to find that nearly every teacher in my department is already there, apparently with the same idea of pulling together lesson plans for their classes, or simply putting in face time with the upper administration. No big deal, hopefully I can work on a computer without any bother. I decide my best course of action is having a cup of coffee or two. If you have never been to Thailand, let me tell you what I’ve discovered about coffee. Thai culture does not believe in coffeemakers. Mr. Coffee & Cuisinart are definitely lacking in their international marketing department. Though, I’m not sure how much good it would do them – coffee grounds for drip-coffee makers are like trying to find a Krispy Kreme donut at a Weight Watchers Meeting. Either, they’ve all been eaten, or they simply never existed. Same thing goes for coffee. You either get your coffee at a restaurant, where they make it Barista-style, a la Starbucks (but way better); or you get instant coffee. The coffee you get at a Thai restaurant is almost always delicious. Perfectly measured grounds, right temperature, brown sugar, and the always-present powder creamer. I’m learning more and more that it’s a good thing I’ve managed to live without dairy for the past few years, because in Thailand dairy is a gift from the Gods and only used on special occasions. Fine by me, lactose creamer usually expedites my digestive process way too quickly, and causes a “gotta-go, gotta-go” type situation nearly instantaneously. For my coffee lovers out there who are salaried employees for the corporate monster, you know what I’m talking about – that mid-morning “break” we all like to take on company time. Why not? – I’m getting paid for it! In some cases, it’s the most productive time you have all day.
I digress – for my stateside companions who consider themselves even semi-committed coffee drinkers, you know that instant coffee does not compare when you are used to the real thing. Whether your java juice comes from Starbucks, Caribou, Intelligentsia, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, or Folgers at home, you know when you’ve been duped with a cup of instant coffee, or worse yet, decaf. I would equate instant coffee with mud scraped from the bottom of the river, or something I find poured from a pan at an automotive repair shop. It is a near impossible science of concocting the right combination of water, instant coffee grounds, sugar, and creamer. Compile that with the hot water that is always gone from the hot water machine at school, and I’m left drinking coffee that is room temperature. Thankfully, it’s Thailand and room temperature is luke-warm on a cool day.

Here I am, almost cold sludge for coffee, a room full of teachers and administrators, and me trying to concentrate on getting a lesson plan together for my dreaded upcoming class. I am using one of the computers, diligently researching curriculum for this class, when the morning assembly begins. The morning assembly can be equated to a morning roster call at boot camp. The students are required to stand, facing forward, listening to someone bark random information at them in Thai, while someone else is going down the roster for attendance. Did I mention that each individual department does a morning assembly all at the same time? At any given time you will have at least 5 “morning assemblies” all occurring at the same time. What’s worse – they give them microphones and the audio speaker for our department’s morning assembly is situated right outside our department office. Additionally, our office is adjacent to another department’s “morning assembly”. Never fails – at 7:45AM you will be blasted with incoherent Thai shouting. Have you heard someone speaking Thai? That is, a true native speaking the Thai language? I used to think German & Russian were some ugly languages, but Thai bumps these two into the same caliber as the romance languages of French or Italian. As I’ve mentioned before, Thai is a very singsong language, in that if you have the wrong pitch, sound, tone, tongue placement, or breathing, no one will know what you are talking about. Well, it is also a language that is largely spoken through your nose. It makes the nasally accent of the US Midwesterners, sound like English fit for the Queen of Britain herself – Where’s your crown at? Painstakingly, I try to drown out all of this noise and furiously continue to work on my curriculum. After all, it is T-minus 20 minutes at this point, and I still haven’t a clue what to do with this class for 2 hours.

The morning assemblies have completed, but that only makes things worse. I now realize that I have about 15 minutes to make a lesson plan, and everyone from the department is back in the office. Compound that with students coming into the office to ask other teachers questions, all speaking through their nose, and an internet connection that is moving at the speed of dial-up; I am definitely on edge at this point. Part of me wants to turn in the direction of all the noise and shout, “Shut the %&!# up, I’m trying to work!” But I realize the effort would be futile, as only a handful of people would understand my request. Instead, I turn back to my workstation, curing myself for not taking that extra dose of Adderall this morning. Thankfully, I have not had to interact with anyone up to this point. That is, until one of the administrators comes over to me. “Aj. Joshua? Aj. Joshua?” (Aj. Is an abbreviation for teacher). Mid mouse-click, I turn expressionless and face her, “Yes?” She proceeds to update me about me taking over another class for the remainder of the semester. A class that I will be taking over … next MONDAY! Clearly an urgent matter for WEDNESDAY morning. Obediently, I take the text from her and foolishly ask about the curriculum. She quickly let’s me know that I will need to make up the curriculum for the remainder of the term – what a surprise. For those of you that know, I speak volumes with my facial expressions. Unbeknown to me, I must have been expressing myself facially at this exact moment, because she quickly apologized and rushed away. Pure frustration coursing through my veins, I close out of the workstation, grab my things for class and head up to confront the emotionless faces that are my students. Realizing that it’s futile to get upset, I make lime juice out of limes. The students were a bit confused with my activity – Heads-Up, 7-Up, but half the fun was teaching it to them!