'Tis the season

Wow, Christmas is over and I hardly even knew it was here. In fact, for the first time in my life I think I feel a bit alleviated to have it be finished. If I could tell you one thing it would be that Buddhist's do not, in any way, do the Christmas thing like we do. I never really realized it but once you take out all the love and sentimentality of the wonderful holiday, it can feel hollow and stale like old bread. People think that Christmas in the States is becoming way too absorbed in the commercial aspects but I think they should see it here. These people practically think that we celebrate the holiday because it was the first time Frosty the Snowman came to be.

You know, when I was a kid, Christmas was a really special thing for me. It stayed that way until I left home and had to celebrate it away and even alone. Now that I am a working man life seems to be much shorter after the work is done. There is less time for play and even less energy for that play I earn. I feel like it was only yesterday that I had dreams of being a famous robber or even better, a real live garbage man and now the reality is debt and work. (But it ain't so bad)

However, I suppose after all that banter about how everyone seemed to forget about the meaning of Christmas I will go ahead and describe the grand Christmas show that our school put on this past weekend. We worked diligently for about six weeks on the show and it our immense work load finally culminated in a bizarrely successful night of children running around, sweating from stage lights, and curses thrown out by various adults in just as many various languages.

Some how my "charm" or "ability to get sucked into too many things" led to my being involved as an actor in my classes' skit and MC of both the two hour shows. Hooray, more work for me!!! So we worked way too hard and by the end my new arch nemesis (aka my Chinese teacher Brenda) was bitching at me like she was my accidental wife and mother to my ill-gotten bastard son. I mean Christ chick we teach first grade chill your ass!!! So she was way too stressed and therefore I decided to be not really troubled at all and thus even more of a poisonous thorn in the side of all these caffeine jacked nutcase Taiwanese teachers.

Somehow we made it through most of the night despite our differing opinions about how fun should be had and I thought that no major catastrophe would happen. I was wrong. To give you an example of how things were going, the two other classes in my show were naturally doing skits about Christmas where all the children got some time in the spotlight to say "I want a big and fast toy truck for Christmas Santy Claaauuus." Who wouldn't love that? It's simple and sweet and you know that you are getting the hell outta this shitass cramped and stinky theatre on the fifth floor of the library at a good hour. Then you have the last skit come on; mine of course. Now, I thought some sort of Charlie Brownesque play would be delightful for all those darling parents in the gum and stain invested seats in front of us. Sound good Brenda? Ohhhhh nooooo.

"Alright audience, weren't the last two performances great? Let's give them one more round of applause and then welcome my class with the 2008 Hess School Science Fair!" This was all I had to announce to make most of the fathers in the crowd (who even understood English) think, "Jesus, give me a gun right now and I'll do it. I'll end this misery." No Santa, no reindeer, certainly no Herby the little elf who just wants to be a dentist; just me and fourteen kids in white lab coats and big... black... afros (Taiwan's idea of an Albert Einstein impression.) Oh yeah, and a long boring skit about the wonders of science.

[I'll give you, oh faithful reader, a little background on the scumbagery of the this idea. You see our school is the most expensive English school on this entire island. They give the kids every opportunity in the hopes that it will help them evolve into Asia's next great generation and what it really does is begin a lifetime of unattainable expectations added to a giant early hear attack giving mountain of stress. My class in particular, is the cream of the white collar crop so they have to do every "fun" after school activity from piano, French and English tutor, dance, and every other thing possible. Most parents drop their kids off in Porsche's, Jaguars, and even a Ferrari and one parent came the night of the show with her best friend, the "Britney Spears" of the Taiwan music scene.

These fanatical parents insist that their kids have all these useless and expensive science textbooks and that I deliver insightful and scientific lectures for their 6 year old sons and daughters each week. (Remember these are kindergardners learning a second and often third language.) Needless to say, our school manager felt that by pumping up the science at the show would increase other parents interest in science for their kindergartners and thus sell more books. Ah the beauty of "educational ethics."]

Pardon,I'm getting way carried away because it was a rough day and I found out that I have to work tomorrow, that's right Saturday, at 8 am.

So the story continues. We go through the boring motions of our science fair with some of the old, "matter is anything that takes up space and has mass" from one six year old and "this is called a physical change" from the adorable 2.5 foot tall Nini. I think the only thing that held people's interest was all the giant bouncing afros on scattered throughout the stage.

Then comes the dreaded last scene. I had worked really hard to memorize all my stupid lines and those of the others so I could help them when the influx of cycloptic (yes I know it isn't a real word) parents was too much to handle. There was not a single person who didn't have some sort of camera to his face the entire show. So things were sailing along nicely and then I forget a line. Oops, one girl was missing and I had forgotten to say her part about the chemical change. I can already see Brenda growing livid with dissatisfaction. Then, boom! and pop! "What was that? Oh just a light bulb has popped. Oh and what would you know, a fire is emerging up in the rafters.....WAIT, HOLY SHIT A FIRE" I am thinking all this while the cameras snap away and the kids look at me wondering how I have forgotten my lines.

I freeze. I am now ruining the show throwing gestures to the side of the stage mouthing "THERE--IS--A--FIRE!" The flames are growing and a white smoke is beginning to collect and all Brenda can do is grow red-eyed with disgust waving at me to go on with the now completely unimportant skit. I ponder "what is more important, these bored parents hearing the definition of a liquid and solid or their children not making headlines for being burned to death as the acrylic afros melt to their small craniums?" I feel that my panic is justified and yet everyone else seems to believe that the show must go on. Rain or shine or growing inferno.

I struggle through some more lines and even receive a kick from the little girl standing next to me who can't see the fire and thus believes that her teacher and mentor is a brain dead idiot who still can't remember his part after 6 weeks of grueling and excruciating practice. The smoke is visible and yet still everyone seems more interested in finding out if the robot toy has more mass than the dolly. What can I do?

Finally the teachers decide, "well if it will make him happy we will do something about the growing fire in this crowded theatre filled with small innocent children." They get the fire down by fanning it and preforming some other much needed remedies and my stress level declines to only two future ulcers status and I stumble through the end of the show.

I am now visably drained of energy due to my flipout session combined with a sudden fatigue, and the big furry afro make me out to look like the ideal junky crack addict. I am physically shaking and yet what do I get for all my troubles? "Why did you forget your lines?" Brenda is actually fuming more than the previous fire.

"Why don't you shove it right up your ass you evil demon bitch!" I was doing a lot of angry thinking that night that filtered out as a calm and collective, "I apologize but weren't you aware of the fire?"

"We took care of the fire but you still messed up the show." Brenda retorts.

"Well I guess it is the end of the the fucking world that all these parents don't get to hear some useless science shit three days before Christmas." My far past irate screams once again get squeezed out as, "I am glad you took care of the fire and it just got me a little freaked out."

Brenda had nothing to say to this and walked off probably to go bite the heads off of chickens just to get her fill of death and hatred of all things unorganized and spontaneous.

Of course in the end I desperately needed to go get some fresh air and was stopped by many adoring parents with nothing but nice things to say about my teaching, my friendliness with the students, and their enjoyment of our "well-rehearsed" science fair. No one was displeased and no one died. It was a fair evening and it didn't stop until I was polishing off a bottle of Saki on my rooftop at 730 the next morning with Guillaume, the French man I met and went out with that night.

That there is an entirely different story in itself but I'm tired and I must depart to joylessly arise at 730 am for my early Saturday classes. Life ain't so bad but it sure isn't what I thought it would be when I wrote my second grade report about the wonders of being a garbage man in the future.