One Out of Many

Part of my job here is to be a good, upstanding representative of America, to help counteract bad press. (Britney Spears, I'm looking at you here: knock it off!) While sometimes I'm great at this--"you think all Americans love free sex? Congress pays me to tell you otherwise!"--at other times I worry what sort of generalizations my school colleagues are going to make. I feel a list coming on.

If They Judge By Me, The Teachers Will Think All Americans...

• firmly believe orange and pink match
• are willing to sing Arabic pop songs if asked
• maybe even dance to them
  
• speak passable Indonesian, but with a tendency to over/misuse colloquial particles
• wear big, dangly silver earrings
  
• can talk really fast
  
• can't tell left from right
• gesticulate wildly while explaining things
  
• go to strange churches who, it is rumored, sacrifice newborn babies and drink their blood
  
• don't get offended when asked if they drink baby's blood every Sunday
• say the word "rad" with a straight face
• giggle every time anyone says "get off." Or "ball-peen hammer," but that doesn't happen nearly as often, more's the pity
  
• read, on average, a book a day
• act "flirtatious," which can also be translated as "vain"
  
• wear a pen behind their ear
• forget that said pen is behind their ear and start looking for another one
• complain endlessly about waking up so early
• drop the whiteboard marker every fifteen minutes or so
• don't like durian

(Actually, that last one may be true.)

I feel sorry for my replacement next year. Whoever you are, I just want to say this: have fun singing and dancing in the teacher's room. Brush up on your Amr Diab, if you can. Though they also like church songs--have you ever been to Bible camp? Oh, and don't try durian. You won't like it.