Reflections on Teaching and Living in Thailand (part 1)
Things I’ve learned
- How to create games and science experiments with practically no resources, such as making a Twister board out of Post-it notes and discovering how to light up a lightbulb with a balloon
- Looking for flip flops and a bathing suit in Thailand (after your luggage has been lost en route) when you are an American with big feet even by U.S. standards is not the most pleasant experience and leaves you with very few options. Case and point:
- Cross walks are life-threatening to pedestrians and must be traversed at a full sprint.
- Always look at worksheet pictures closely, even if it is a worksheet specifically designed for ESL students in Thailand and created by the organization that you took your TEFL certification course with… Otherwise, you may end up finding out almost too late that there is a cartoon of a woman with a short dress and exaggeratedly long legs that you have to quickly skip over, causing your students to plead the rest of class to be able to see question number 3.
- If someone else parks the motorbike that you started renting only a day ago, it is possible that your ignition will disappear. This was quite perplexing to me when I attempted to stick my key in and was met by unyielding plastic where my slot used to be. At first, I suspected that I was hallucinating. But then I realized I couldn’t move my handle bars, and after wrestling with my bike for a full 10 minutes, another foreigner finally appeared and took pity on me, communicating the useful information about the antitheft features on my bike which can be unlocked with the black plastic circle on the opposite end of my key.
- Never, ever, under any circumstance, try durian ice cream—people are not exaggerating when they say durian is an acquired (or, in my case, unacquirable) taste.
- Being tall is quite a liability, and I have narrowly avoided being decapitated by practically every sign and awning that I’ve walked under.
- Going to church in Thailand is always interesting and sometimes includes people taking selfies with you in the middle of the service, a woman trying to set you up on a date with a single Thai man, and someone announcing your name at the end of the service and prompting you to stand up so that everyone can clap. Thankfully, people are also very kind and are willing to translate so that you have at least a vague idea what the songs and message are about.
- Whether you are trying to check into a hotel or rent an apartment, if the staff doesn’t understand what you are trying to do, they will automatically assume that you are visiting another foreigner and will immediately call whichever white person happens to be staying at the hotel or living in the apartment complex.
- Trying to check in at a guest house that is also a restaurant is immensely confusing and difficult and results in the staff leading you to the bathroom.
- Taking a bus can also be very interesting. Sometimes they leave an hour late, and other times an employee will rush up to you 45 minutes early and ask, “Do you want to leave in five minutes?” Other times, your driver will be wearing an “I love cannabis” shirt, and sometimes your transfer bus will drive by without even slowing down, causing all the employees to run outside and chase it down the street.
- Do not buy fruit at the night market, unless you want hundreds of ants in a plastic bag that crawl up your arms as you convulse like a lunatic and try to carry the bags 20 minutes to your house. (I’m going to need therapy after that lesson.)
- If you need a banana for a science experiment, but all the bananas are gone that morning and the only substitute is a “butter sandwich” (I’m not kidding), the 7/11 employees will take the sandwich you are buying and toast your science experiment without warning.
- When a light turns red, all the motorbikes go to the front of the line of cars. When the light is about to turn green, it’s as if you are suddenly transported into the world of MarioKart because you can practically hear the “Duh, duh, ding!” sound of the 3-2-1 countdown as all the engines rev and the pack of motorbikes takes off in unison.
- Be careful about erasing the whiteboard with your hand and then absentmindedly touching your face while teaching, or you will be met at the end of class with shouts of “Teacha, you have blue on your nose!” and “Teacha, you have blue on your eye!”
- Monsoon season isn’t the best time to visit an island, although watching a hundred tourists screaming and running for cover as if they were experiencing an earthquake instead of some rain is rather entertaining.
- You can never predict how a day at school will play out—one week half of your students might disappear without warning, and when you ask where they are, a student will reply, “Teacha, they are camping.” On another day, you might find yourself watching Ice Age and making Mother’s Day cards in all your classes while watching your fifth-grade students go in and out of the classroom for an hour because they keep thinking their parents are coming to pick them up.
- If you smile all the time, you are considered cute by every Thai person you meet, and it is normal for strangers and even someone’s father to comment on it.
- Avoid ice cream that contains what looks like green and yellow candies because it is actually ice cream with corn and green beans.
- If you try to buy alcohol between 2-5 p.m. on the weekend, you will be met with looks of utter shock.
- In Thailand, there is a specific color for each weekday, such as pink for Wednesday, but if someone gets the wrong information about a color for that day, it wreaks havoc and causes Thai teachers to think you do not know what day it is.
- In Thailand, your name might as well be Hallo because that is how most strangers will address you to communicate any idea if they don’t know English.
- Long tail boats can be lethal—in two days, I witnessed a boat almost running over a tourist on a dock and then another boat colliding with a big wooden post and cracking it in half.
- Don’t ride over gravel too quickly on your second day driving a motorbike, or you will find yourself in the middle of the road with a bike on top of you and then limping into the nearest pharmacy, looking for several weeks like your elbows and knees have been through World War III.
- On that note, there is a very hot pipe underneath my motorbike that I was unfortunate enough to discover with my leg a few days later, earning myself a second-degree burn as well.
- At most restaurants, the staff has a disconcerting habit of standing right behind you until you’re ready to order, which is very unfortunate for someone who takes so long to decide that she usually didn’t go to a restaurant in America without looking at the menu online first, which is no longer an option.
- Do not say “one second” without thinking or at least one student will reply with a smirk, “Teacher, it has already been one second.”
- Don’t let the fifth graders draw the hangman, or they will start drawing other kids in the class, complete with labeled names.
- Many people in Thailand will simply decide when they have waited long enough at red lights and start driving straight through one that has another full minute before it turns green, even when there is oncoming traffic.
- It is far too easy to tell who is American when you travel around Thailand, especially when you overhear sentences such as, “This latte is legit; literally the best latte I’ve had in Thailand—it tastes like Starbucks!”
- Dogs are to be feared here, as I have been chased twice already, once on foot by a pack of dogs and once even when I was on a motorbike.
- You will be interviewed by every high schooler doing a school project if you are white and you go to the night market.
- Only greet someone once a day, even if you run into them several times, or you will be met by endless teasing.
- My fifth-grade students are quite fast, which I discovered after being obliterated in several foot races.
- If you’re on a tour alone, and a very nice French family asks you if you want to go to the heart of a floating city with them, always say yes, because you will see unique things such as a floating school and an entire floating stadium.
- My students enjoy scavenger hunts more than anyone I’ve ever seen—they are so competitive that they didn’t want to stop at the end of class, and one student managed to write down 128 natural and synthetic materials that she had observed in 45 minutes.
- Unfortunately, although most people are very kind, the majority of the people in the transportation business will scam you. On one occasion, someone tried to charge me four times what a taxi was worth and also tried to convince me that I was 13 kilometers away from my apartment when I was actually only three kilometers away. On another, I was directed to the wrong bus station when someone lied about it being a different company, and once I had paid, I found out the truth, causing me to have to argue adamantly to get my money back. Every time I’ve walked down that street since, they still try to trick me with the same scam, apparently under the impression that I have short-term memory loss.
- I vastly underestimated the popularity of an experiment with my fifth-grade students that involved letting them put their foot through a plastic bag to test its breaking point, and I should definitely have brought more bags.
The Story of How I Lost My Appendix
The day started out just like any other. Which is probably a blessing, because if I had woken up last Thursday and known that I would spend 30 hours in pain and have my first surgery the next day, I probably would have tried to go back to sleep. Instead, I made it through 2.5 hours of work until I went home with what I thought was the flu. Or possibly food poisoning–I had only eaten peanut butter that day, but you never know with peanut butter.
I spent most of the day lying on the floor, trying to find a position that was comfortable and debating about whether or not to go to the hospital. I decided to see if the pain would go away overnight, but I had no such luck and found myself in the hospital at 8 a.m. on Friday.
Upon examining me, the first thing the check-in nurse said was: “You look appendicitis-y.” After being cat-scanned, jabbed with a needle, and prodded in the stomach by another nurse, a physician’s assistant, and a doctor, the diagnosis was confirmed. That day I spent more time being wheeled around on a gurney through mazes of hallways than I ever had in my life. Thankfully, when it was time to put an IV in my arm, it did not take the nurse five tries–unlike my last hospital visit. To distract myself from the fact that there was a needle in my arm, I watched the end of Titanic on TV, which seemed fitting. Somehow listening to Kate Winslet say raspily, “I’ll never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go,” felt very appropriate for a hospital.
Even though the pain was dull compared to the day before, the nurse insisted that I must be suffering and gave me morphine and later Vicodin, which caused me to say groggily to my sister, “Now I’m House.” Unfortunately, the meds made me very emotional after I learned that I would need surgery. The person I feel the most sorry for was the nurse, who couldn’t figure out why I was crying and thought I needed more pain meds. I didn’t even know why I was crying, but I definitely didn’t want more meds. After several minutes of trying in vain to figure out what was wrong, the nurse finally made the wisest decision and left me alone.
When it was time for surgery, I was visited by at least five anesthesiologists, which made me wonder why so many people were needed just to put me to sleep. Maybe I looked like someone who was going to put up a fight. I was taken to a completely white room that looked like a morgue, where they put an oxygen mask over my mouth. They told me they were going to have me count down from 10, but I don’t even remember saying 10.
When I woke up, I was asked my name and my date of birth for what seemed like the 82nd time that day, and then I was taken to what would be my first room of the night. My family was there, and they gave me a stuffed monkey that they had found in the gift shop and named “Appendectomy Ape.” My dad, who does not lose his sense of humor even in a hospital, wasted no time in showing me gory pictures of my appendix that the surgeon had given him. Luckily, I was barely conscious. I was simply looking forward to going to sleep, but my roommate had other ideas. She was convinced that there was a conspiracy to imprison her in the hospital, and as a result, she kept trying to escape. They had attached her to an alarm, which kept going off loudly every time she tried to get up. After seven escape attempts, I requested a different room, and moved out of the frying pan and into the fire.
My next roommate was very nice–but she was preparing for a colonoscopy and the laxatives she had to drink caused her to explosively empty her bowels right next to me until 1 in the morning. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. On the bright side, we had a great conversation in the morning. It just goes to show you: there’s nothing like a colonoscopy to bring people together.
A Goodbye to London
“What are chicken goujons?” my friend Netty asks a bartender.
The bartender looks flustered and stammers, “Well… It’s chicken. It’s just…chicken.” She makes eye contact with a stocky, white-haired British man sitting at the bar as if for confirmation.
He turns from his cider to Netty and asks, “You like chicken, don’cha?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then you’ll be fine!” he replies with a grin.
Netty takes a chance on the goujons, and I order a pint of Strongbow wildberry cider. Although I don’t drink more than a glass of wine at holidays in the United States, in England I order alcohol with every meal except breakfast because I figure if I have to pay for water, I might as well buy something that I can’t get in America.
The frothy raspberry-colored pint is nearly overflowing, so I take a big sip before I start walking. It tastes like blackberries, and it is so sweet that I almost can’t taste the alcohol—just how I like it.
I walk carefully back to my table with my full drink, expecting a catastrophic event, such as someone bumping into me, every step of the way. Thankfully, I make it back to the table without incident and set my cider safely in its place.
Everyone has alcohol, but no one is getting drunk. Unlike America, people do not usually drink to become intoxicated in England; they drink to be social. One of the things I love most about England is the casual, yet responsible attitude toward alcohol. Not only is there no judgment if you order a pint with lunch, it is considered abnormal if you don’t. No one has to justify himself with the tired American adage, “Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
I think that one of the reasons the British have such a different attitude toward alcohol is that the pace of life is so much slower in England. Even in a giant city like London, sit-down meals usually take a minimum of two hours and people are content to sit and talk to each other. No one is tapping their foot or drumming their fingers on the table as they wait for their food. Unlike America, I do not hear anyone huffily saying that they are going to complain to the manager about the wait or write a terrible review of the restaurant on Yelp. The British have learned and passed down the value of patience throughout the centuries. Americans drive themselves crazy rushing around and chasing success, and I think that many people turn to alcohol as a respite from the stressful pace of their lives. In England, alcohol is simply a social tool instead of an escape, and I think that mentality eradicates a lot of problems with alcoholism.
As I watch the people around me waiting for their food, another thing I notice is that no one is on their phones. There are no tables with two people staring at their respective screens instead of each other—something I see all the time in America. People are actually experiencing the present, laughing and having real conversations with each other. So many of the things that bother me about America (rudeness, loudness, rushing around, and excessive use of technology and alcohol) are not present in England, and it is extremely refreshing. I feel more at home sometimes in London than I do in America.
Netty’s mystery chicken arrives, and we realize that goujons are simply chicken tenders. I squirt ketchup on my plate, thankful that although the British do not have essential brands such as Jif and KC Masterpiece, they at least have Heinz. I swirl a chip through the ketchup and pop it into my mouth, savoring the salty taste and the crispy, yet soft texture. Somehow chips are so much better than fries.
Halfway through my BBQ pulled pork burger, I am already full, and I wonder yet again why Americans get so much grief from other countries about our portion sizes. I have just as much trouble eating all of the rich pub food on my plate in England as I do at any restaurant in America. However, I soldier through my meal, finishing every morsel because I feel guilty about wasting any food. In America, I almost always see abandoned food on plates in restaurants, but in England I don’t think I’ve seen a plate on a table left with one crumb remaining. Waitresses give you a concerned glance if there is a single bite left on your plate and ask, “Was everything all right?”
Even though we are finished and have already paid, we stay seated for 20 more minutes, dazed and content from our large meals. After taking the last swig of our drinks, we stumble out of the pub with our full stomachs, and my friend Danielle and I head to the King’s Cross Tube station.
As we walk, I stub my toe on an uneven cobblestone and it begins to throb. I had already stubbed my toe half a dozen times that day, but I love the cobblestones anyway because they are pieces of the past and they are so different than anything in America. Some of the cobblestones are worn flat and some have a rounded top. I can feel every hump against the soles of my feet through my thin flats—it’s like walking barefoot on history.
On the way, we pass one of the many beautiful green parks of London. These plots of soft grass and shady trees provide havens from the claustrophobia that can be caused by too many skyscrapers. What I like about these parks is not only that they exist, but that people actually spend time in them. I don’t think I’ve ever passed a park during the day that is not filled with people reading, eating, or simply lying in the grass.
The steps down into the Tube station take us past doors with my favorite sign in England, “These doors are alarmed.” Although I know the sign signifies that an alarm will go off if you open these doors, I can’t help picturing the doors being surprised. There are so many wonderful signs in England. I once saw a sign that says, “No parking on double yellow lines. Offenders will be clamped.” I suppose that means boots will be put on the car, but it still sounds terrifying. I’m glad that I have so far managed to spend time in London without being clamped.
When we reach the main part of the station, we are swept along toward the turnstiles by the crowd. The only time Londoners are in a hurry is in the Tube station. No matter what time of day it is, King’s Cross station is always packed, and it is essential to every Londoner that they make the soonest train (even though there will be another in two minutes). The only time I ever see visibly angry Londoners is when they are impeded by lost tourists standing in the middle of the flow of foot traffic in a Tube station. I’ll admit that it’s extremely irritating—I’m not even a native of London, and I’m often ready to strangle the tourists myself. I can’t even count the number of times that I have seen tourists go through the turnstiles and then immediately halt to look at a map, blocking everyone else. It’s worse than someone taking pictures in the middle of a sidewalk, which I have also witnessed several dozen times. The cardinal sin in the eyes of the British, however, is standing on the left side of an escalator. For some reason, standing on the right and walking on the left of an escalator seems to be an impossible concept for tourists to grasp, even though there are signs everywhere. I see the fury on British businessmen’s faces as they are halted on an escalator by a clueless tourist, and (although I haven’t seen it happen yet) it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them finally snapped and pushed the offending tourist down the escalator with an exclamation of “bloody tourists!” The English are almost always polite, but there are a few things that push them to the edge, and the one at the top of the list is getting in their way at a Tube station.
When I get to the card reader, I risk irritating the Londoners behind me (and therefore risk my life) by waiting until the little light on the pad changes from green to yellow and the gate has fully closed. On far too many occasions, I have touched my white plastic Oyster card on the pad too soon, which caused the light to turn red and my card not to work at any of the gates, and I was forced to find an attendant to let me through. Thankfully, this time it works.
When we reach the bottom of the escalator—after riding on the correct side—wind rushes through the hallway and blows my hair straight back. Whenever I spend time in the underground, my curls end up sticking out in every direction, which is why I’ve termed this lovely phenomenon “Tube hair.” Tube hair is like bedhead on steroids, which is probably why so many women in London cut their hair short. As the breeze continues to rush through the tunnel, I throw decorum to the wind and spread my arms because it feels like flying.
Thankfully, it is past rush hour, so there are not too many people when we arrive at the platform. Although I normally love riding the Tube, rush hour is an entirely different experience. I once rode on a train so full that my friend Jenna had to literally shove me against a man’s back so that the door would close without killing me. That Tube ride was like spending 30 minutes in a sauna wearing a winter coat.
Our train arrives in two minutes, and it is nearly empty. When the doors open, I hear the familiar recording of a British woman saying, “Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.” I wonder how many tourists had to fall into the gap before they decided to make that recording.
We take our seats, and the train whirs slightly as it rushes down the tracks. I think about how much I will miss the Tube and how surreal it still feels to be in London. I press my arm against the cold metal wall beside me and remind myself, ‘This is real. This isn’t a dream.’
At every stop, the recorded voice announces, “Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. This is a Piccadilly line service via Knightsbridge.” I’ve heard the recording so many times that I can’t help mouthing along to the words. We get off at Leicester Square and walk toward Trafalgar Square, passing a theatre covered in posters of Carey Mulligan in Skylight. One of the best things about London is that you have the opportunity to sit a few feet away from major celebrities onstage. But unfortunately, we are not seeing Carey Mulligan tonight; we are seeing Richard III.
When we reach Trafalgar Square, I am dazzled yet again by the height of the Nelson monument. At almost 170 feet, it seems to be level with the clouds. I glance at the National Gallery as we pass by, remembering all the beautiful Monet and Van Gogh paintings I’ve seen there. Every time I am near the National Gallery, I am struck by the desire to go in, even though I’ve already visited several times.
As we get closer to the Nelson monument, I notice two people (most likely Americans, judging by their clothes and actions) attempting to climb one of the massive lions. A woman is straddling the lion as a man pushes her from behind, trying to inch her onto the lion’s back for a photo opportunity. I shake my head, knowing that it’s only a matter of time until they are stopped. Sure enough, a police officer rushes up before she is even onto the lion’s back and shouts, “No, no, get off.” They may not have gotten a photo, but they can certainly check “annoy a British policeman” off their bucket lists.
When we are near Trafalgar Studios, I glance back toward the National Gallery and see the inexplicable statue of a giant blue chicken marring the majesty of the nearby Nelson monument. I’m sure there’s a reason that it exists, but I have no idea what it is.
What I love most about London is the prevalence of theatrical shows. Not only can you see classic Shakespeare plays at the Globe theatre, but you can also see operas at the Royal Opera House and modern masterpieces like 1984, Les Miserables, and Wicked in the West End. You may be able to see Shakespeare plays in Canada and Broadway shows in New York, but there is nowhere in North America that I know of where you can see both in the same place at the level that you can in London.
As I watch the theatre fill with people, I think about an article in a British newspaper I read online about Richard III. In the article, English people were complaining about all the fans of Martin Freeman who were coming to the play and how they would applaud every time he came onstage. As I’ve learned in London, this is a dreadful breach of theatre etiquette. Unless you are seeing a slapstick comedy, it is proper to sit like a polite, reserved corpse until the end of the play. One British person was quoted as saying something like, “This play is attracting all the wrong sort of people to the theatre,” which I thought was hysterical and extremely English.
The British appreciate humor just as much as Americans; they’re just much more quiet about it. Every English person I’ve met in London has said things that are absolutely hilarious, but not one has ever reacted at all to what they’ve said—not one smile or eye crinkle or any sign of acknowledgement that they’ve said anything funny. In America, if someone said something half as witty and deliciously dry as a British person, they would be laughing as hard at their own joke as anyone else who is listening.
It is dark when we exit the theatre a few hours later, and we linger in Trafalgar Square to breathe in the cool night air. There is faint saxophone music coming from a street performer, and we climb a flight of stairs behind the monument to lean against a railing and get a nice view overlooking the square.
As I stand there, I think about all the things I love about the city—the delicious pubs, the historic cobblestones, the beautiful parks, the terrific plays, and my favorite form of transportation in the world: the Tube. I can see the lights of Big Ben in the distance, and I realize two things: 1. I never want to leave, and 2. I’ve never been in love with anything the way I am with London.
Sharks, and Other Fears
I have always been terrified of sharks. When I was little, I was convinced that sharks secretly lived in the Great Lakes as well as the ocean, and whenever I swam out to deep water with my dad, I was afraid that a shark was going to bite my toes. Even when I came to terms with the fact that finding a shark in Lake Michigan would be very unlikely, I saw a picture of a pike and my fear of deep water started anew. I will still swim in the Great Lakes, but the ocean is another story.
The first time I went to the ocean, I refused to go in because I thought I would get stung by a jellyfish. My mother insisted that there were no jellyfish on such a populated beach and she eventually convinced me to wade. I enjoyed the cool water for approximately 30 seconds before I felt something slimy brush my leg. Screaming, I looked down and saw none other than a jellyfish sinisterly floating away. That was the end of my excursions in the ocean.
Throwing up is another of my slightly irrational fears. I would rather have any illness besides one that involves throwing up. After many years of self-reflection on why that is, I have come to the conclusion that I am too much of a control freak to bear the feeling of throwing up uncontrollably. This fear will probably keep me from ever getting drunk.
Speaking of activities that wear away the enamel on your teeth, I got five cavities when I was five because I would lie and tell my mom that I had brushed my teeth when I hadn’t. I had to get all the fillings at once, and judging by the number of nurses that had to hold me down (three), it’s safe to say that it was one of the most traumatic hours of my life. Not only was that experience poetic justice for my falsehoods, but it gave me an intense fear of going to the dentist.
My fear of needles is probably partly a result of getting so many shots in the mouth during that infamous dentist visit. Because of mysterious muscle pain that my family all experienced several years ago (that never was officially diagnosed), I had to get my blood drawn frequently. Now I’m also afraid of blood and just seeing it makes my feet tingle and ache (don’t ask me why—I don’t even understand the correlation). I used to believe that if you had to go through something unpleasant over and over again, you would eventually get used to it. Getting my blood drawn that many times proved me wrong. If anything, it caused my fear of needles—which was aggravated during my freshman year of college.
I have always been allergic to shrimp, but my reactions were never very severe. I would get a minor rash and my lips would swell a bit (nowhere near as much as Will Smith’s face in the movie Hitch), but I ate shrimp anyway because I love seafood. The week I moved into the dorms for the first time, I ate jambalaya in the cafeteria. When I finished, I walked to Bessey Hall to interview a professor for a class. Halfway through the interview, I started sweating and my skin burned and itched. Not wanting to be unprofessional, I carried on with the interview and pretended that I didn’t look as though I had just run a marathon. After saying goodbye, I made it into the stairwell before I frantically called my parents because I could feel the inside of my throat swelling. Since my dad works at the MSU computer center, he immediately picked me up and took me to Olin. If I hadn’t been afraid that I would stop breathing, I never would have gone to Olin because of all the horror stories I had heard. Turns out, the stories were accurate. We asked for Benadryl, and I started to feel better after I had taken the pills. Just as I was planning to walk out the door, a nurse appeared with a wheelchair and forced me to ride to an exam room. Once there, they jabbed me in the leg with an EpiPen. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had called an ambulance without asking us (or even telling us), which arrived as soon as I had suffered the indignity of being stuck with an EpiPen. Despite my many protests, they strapped me to a gurney and wheeled me into an ambulance. Let me tell you, there’s no better way to make a great impression at college during your first week than being the person carted off in an ambulance in the middle of campus. To make matters even worse, the EMTs insisted that I needed an IV (even though I was not having any trouble breathing) and tried five times to stick a needle in my arm without success until I finally convinced them to stop. Once we arrived at Sparrow Hospital, I had to be observed for two hours before I could leave.
Sparrow Hospital is also something I’m afraid of. On my 12th birthday, I got my ears pierced for the first time. What I didn’t take into account on that exciting day was that I was scheduled for an MRI in two weeks. When I found out that I would have to take my earrings out, I bought plastic studs to replace them so that the piercings would not close up. At the hospital, I took an earring out and my mom tried to put the plastic stud in. Unfortunately, the piercing had already started to close, and the stud was too large. After trying several times to shove the plastic earring through the tiny hole, my mom had to stop because she was feeling lightheaded (she’s also afraid of blood). An unlucky nurse came into the room and had to take over. After several minutes of pushing on the plastic stud and many exclamations of “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, this must be hurting so much! You’re so brave, you’re so brave!,” she finally managed to fill both the holes—and I learned never to buy plastic earrings again.
First-Born Traits
The memories my sister Hannah and I have differ dramatically. For instance, my sister swears that I was the one who clipped one of my dog’s whiskers with nail clippers when we were little, whereas I am positive that she did that—although I will admit that I was the one who painted his toenails blue.
When we do agree on a version of events, it’s usually because I can’t even remember it.
“We used to play jail with Dad, and I would always get captured first because you made me be the spy, and so I’d go out and try to spy on him, and he’d just catch me, and it’s probably because you didn’t want me on your team and you knew he would catch me easily,” Hannah said. “He would hide under our tree house, and when I’d come down, he’d jump out and grab me. You’d send me out, and I’d get captured in, like, two seconds.”
Not only do I not remember playing that game, I don’t remember being such a diabolical child. Especially because, according to my sister, I didn’t have much of a mind for strategy.
“It was really poor planning on your part because you’d never even get a report on where he was because I would just get captured and thrown in jail. So the joke’s on you.”
To hear her tell it, I was something of a dictator.
“We used to have cows in the pasture behind our house, and you wouldn’t let me name any of them because you wanted them all to be named after the Unicorns of Balinor books.”
On the other hand, she admitted to moments where she intentionally provoked me.
“I remember the first time that you didn’t let me play with you when you were younger. You had a couple of friends over and you built a blanket fort, and I really wanted to come in, so I went and told Mom that you were taking up the entire room and that it was my room too, so I deserved to be in there, and you got in trouble and I got to just sit in there. I didn’t get to go in the blanket fort, but eventually you guys left because you were really mad at me.”
Whenever we’d fight, my parents would make us sit on the top step of our staircase until we apologized. I hated that punishment, but my sister usually enjoyed it.
“You would always be mad and you wouldn’t say much, and I’d always try to say what happened and I’d always blame you,” she says. “They’d tell us to make up, and I’d give you the biggest hug because I knew it made you mad.”
Although my sister and I have the same views on things and the same interests (we both play the piano and the guitar and write short stories), we have opposite personalities. She’s confident and doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and I’m shy and constantly concerned about other people’s opinion of me. Sometimes I think my sister should have been the older one, because when we were little and had to ask questions at a store or a restaurant, I would make her talk to the stranger. I’ve always worried about daily problems like being late for work or not getting good grades, whereas my sister worries about whether or not a tornado will destroy our house. Once her alarm clock was making a strange humming sound and she thought it would explode. When she watched a show about killer bees on Animal Planet, she asked our mom to buy her a beekeeper’s suit.
I had to move out of the room we shared before I could truly appreciate her. For fourteen years, I saw her as a nuisance who copied everything I did and always tattled on me. It was only when I left for college that I realized she was my best friend. She’s the only one who can read my mind and finish my sentences; she’s the only person who understands every TV and movie reference that I make. She’s the only one I can talk to about anything, and she gives me advice that is so wise that I wonder how she can possibly be younger than me. I used to wish I had an older sister to take care of me and explain things to me, but I realized that Hannah has been looking out for me all along.
Farewell to Innocence
My mom and I didn’t have “The Talk” until I was 11. Since I did not attend public school and wouldn’t find out from classmates, my parents didn’t see any reason to tell me sooner. The only reason I found out then was because a few of my friends began to hint at it, and I started asking questions at home. Before she told me, my mom apologized and said, “I wish I could have let you keep your innocence longer.”
It took me years before I understood what she meant. At the time, I just wanted to be treated like an adult because 11 was practically middle-aged. Patience has never been on my list of virtues. My parents hoped that I would develop some extraordinary talent for the violin, but I just wanted to play every song as quickly as possible—much to my elderly, headmistress-like teacher’s dismay. It just wasn’t any fun to play slowly, so I ignored her pursed lips and her glaring eyes behind her schoolmarm glasses. Unfortunately, I could not become Paganini, so my musical career came to an end.
Almost everyone wants to grow up quickly, but I was an extreme case. I have never had any friends who are younger than me because I don’t seem to have anything in common with people who are near the same age as I am. My closest friend is a year older than me, but most of my friends are at least three years older. When I arrived at college, I ended up with friends who were all seniors, and if many of them had not taken five years to graduate, I would have been friendless by the end of my first year.
My childhood was always a race to the next birthday because every age seemed more exciting than my current one. When I received my license on my sixteenth birthday, I finally stopped wishing to be older. I had no interest in buying lottery tickets or cigarettes, and voting seemed a little pointless. Turning 21 interested me slightly, but it was too far away to care that much about. I was content to stay sixteen forever. The only problem with that was when I started internally denying my age in future years, it became difficult to remember that I wasn’t sixteen anymore—which led to run-ins with airport security guards. One in particular I remember vividly:
“How old are you?” asked an ill-humored security woman.
“Sixtee— Seventee—,” I started to say before finally landing on: “Eighteen.”
After looking at me suspiciously, she sneered, “Okay, Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen, follow me.”
Apparently, not remembering your age signals that you’re making bombs and need to have your fingers swiped for explosive powder.
As soon as I started dreading birthdays, I finally got my wish for time to move more quickly. Now I’m three weeks away from being a senior in college, and I’m terrified.
Most periods in life seem perfect as long as you’re looking backward. Although there were plenty of times that I was unhappy in the past 20 years, I realize more every year how insignificant my problems have been. Not a single one of my immediate or extended family members has died during my lifetime, and I have never had a serious illness or health problem. My parents are still married, and I’ve never had to move. Besides the occasional broken heart, I was mostly sheltered from any pain.
I’ve always believed that life has a tendency to balance out. If I have a fantastic week, the next one is usually terrible. Sometimes I worry that the next 20 years will be filled with death and sadness to counteract the years of happiness I’ve already experienced. Despite its moments of unpleasantness, my senior of high school now seems like the best year of my life. College has been filled with a lot more heartbreak than my other years, but sometimes I worry that it will eventually seem like the best time of my life and that it’s all downhill from here. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had every year planned through college, and now I’m facing an abyss—and it scares me.
As I officially say goodbye to my childhood and prepare to venture out and find a job after graduation, I long for the past instead of the future. I want to be a small child again who can curl up under her covers and hide from any pain or sadness. I want to run barefoot through the grass catching fireflies and perch in my treehouse, safe from the world. Even being a toddler clad only in a diaper dancing around to Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ‘69” in my living room seems preferable to facing life on my own. Now I understand what my mother meant that fateful day: she just wanted to keep me safe and let me stay a child for a little bit longer.
Herding Cats
“It’s like herding cats,” my dad always says as he tries to corral my family out the door. My dad believes that being late is a serious crime—right above armed robbery and right below murder. But much to his dismay, being late is a matter of routine for my mother and sister. Despite his best efforts (and his many shouts of “All right, troops, let’s move out!”), my mother almost always succeeds in delaying our departure. There’s always one more dish that needs to be cleaned or one more counter to be scrubbed before we can leave. Every family vacation I can remember began with tears or complete silence—everyone fuming in their seats after the battle to get out the door. Eventually my dad would apologize or make a joke, and we would forget the stress of embarking on a vacation that was supposed to be relaxing.
My mom and my sister were too stubborn to be swayed from their insistence on being late, but I developed a compulsive need to be on time. As a result, I am cursed with the problem of always being twenty minutes early—which is especially inconvenient when I hang out with friends who are always twenty minutes late. On the bright side, I’ve become an expert at Sudoku because I have so much time to play it on my phone while I’m waiting at restaurants and trying to avoid sympathetic glances from waiters who think I’m being stood up.
Our tendency to be late is usually at the top of my dad’s list of complaints about being the only male in our family. However, whenever he voices that complaint, I remind him that he was destined to have girls because he grew up with four sisters and no brothers, so he should be used to it.
Strangely enough, my dad did not inherit his impatience to leave the house from his family. Whenever we visit that side of the family, we make sure to say we’re leaving 45 minutes before we actually plan to—because that’s how long goodbyes take. Every visit to my paternal relatives ends in being hugged and kissed on both cheeks by an assembly line of Italians on our way to the door.
Although much of my dad’s hatred of lateness stems from impatience, part of it comes from the importance he places on being polite. From the time that we could talk (and probably before then), my sister and I were taught to use good manners and always say please and thank you. As a result, my meals at restaurants usually include a waiter or waitress remarking, “You say thank you a lot.” Once I was even told that I say thank you too much. “But that’s a good thing,” the stranger was quick to add.
Even though I don’t entirely agree with my dad’s obsession with being on time, I do agree with his emphasis on politeness. It’s discouraging to see so many people surprised by common courtesies such as saying thank you, and after working at a fast food restaurant for more than a year, I know how inconsiderate and rude many people can be to total strangers. Although I will admit that I’m guilty of tailgating occasionally, driving would be a lot more pleasant if everyone would be a little more polite. As my dad always said, “A little consideration for other people can go a long way.”
Sarah Anderson 