The Psychology of Letting Go

Disclaimer:  Written from my salty place

Ever get the feeling that your life is being lived entirely within the four walls of a television screen?  Sort of like a nightmarish version of The Truman Show?  Although now that I think about it, I’m sure The Truman Show was pretty nightmarish for Truman when he finally got a clue. 

Anyhow, that’s kind of how I feel…except instead of The Truman Show, this is feeling like a supersized episode of Punk’d.  I realize what with his divorce from Demi looming like a giant I-told-you-so-cloud, Ashton probably forgot that he was in the middle of producing a particularly weird episode, but I beg you Ashton, please, please, please come out of hiding now.  I have no other explanation that makes any sense any more because “It’s the Thai way,” is one dead horse that has been beaten so hard his eyeballs are dangling by the optic nerve, and his head is facing the wrong direction.  If “It’s the Thai way,” is truthfully the legitimate explanation for everything then I must ask:  How has this society not collapsed under the weight of its own apathy? 

No one seems to care about anything.  Nothing worries them, and as someone who is regularly blinded and tripped up by her own neuroses, this worries me.  See how out of hand I’ve gotten?  I’m worried that they aren’t worried.  It’s like a brain teaser for the insane. 

They don't even seem to care that this poor
elephant looks like a victim of elder abuse.

I could make anxiety an Olympic sport, and the Thais are totally unconcerned that these crazy westerners keep pestering them about contract terms and using phrases like “stipulated in our agreements,” “null and void,” “expressly stated,” and “not a negotiation.”  

Sidenote:  Sometimes when I have to talk like a serious adult, I sound exactly like my mom J 

Sometimes I wish I could be as relaxed as them, but then just the thought of losing so much control makes my stomach tighten and my pulse race.  I have a lot to learn, or this place will give me hypertension. 

That we lack a kitchen in our posh new digs is a fact that is beginning to pose a small problem.  “Oh, the food here is so cheap!” we shouted to everyone who would listen in the beginning.  It is cheap.  But there’s the small matter that we have no money.  Not “we have no money” like, “this exchange rate is fantastic, but we should probably wait until we see what we’ve got left over before we buy that beautiful wood carving of elephants making love.”  Rather, it’s the kind of “we have no money” situation where we start to skip meals. 

Our rent is due in six days and we’re still not positive that we will be getting paid before that.  We have a better chance of correctly predicting the participants in the next five Super Bowls than we do of guessing what number our salary will finally work out to.  Our coordinator told us today that she secured for us a small raise and an assurance that they won’t try to make us move back to Aoluk, but a verbal commitment here (or a written commitment, for that matter) is about as valid as if we’d smeared mud on a post-it and tried to have it notarized, so we’ll see.

If there was a fixer for a situation like this, we would sure like to meet him.  Somebody with a thorough understanding of the idiosyncrasies of both our cultures, to swoop in and marshal a deal with the powers-that-be at this institution – if you want to call it such.  “Institution” implies a higher degree of organization and knowing what the heck is up than this place can ever lay claim to. 

When I ask a question, I generally have come to expect a definitive answer, one that will leave me with a distinct feeling of closure or information or whatever it was I was seeking when I asked the question in the first place.  Over the past month though, I’ve been fed a steady diet of, for lack of a better word:  bullshit. 

Seriously. 

I know they don’t mean for it to come off that way, but the fact remains that it does.  It seems no one wants to say “no” to my face for fear of upsetting me.  Instead they say yes, or nod, or simply grunt a strange throaty noise of affirmation that I think is something akin to one made by an old, out of shape man having sex with someone far too young for him.  It’s a noise that grates on my eardrums and my soul, kind of like when Americans say “HUH?!” in that loud, nasal, Fran Drescher way we often do when we’re not thinking instead of a far politer “pardon me?” 

My dad always says that I should never hesitate to ask a scary question because “The worst they can say is no.”  Except here, they’ll never say no.  The worst they can say is yes when they mean no and I don’t learn the truth for three days.  If you are going to say “no” and risk upsetting me, that’s fine – we can fix that.  If you say “yes,” but don’t mean it, that is not fine.  It takes a lot more to fix that, and there’s roughly 89% more of a chance I will cause you physical pain in the process.

It’s funny what they choose to have guidelines about and what is left to total chaos. The students get away with bloody murder.  I realize not speaking Thai puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding what’s up, but it’s pretty obvious just walking around campus that there is zero discipline.  No one is ever in class.  Kids are wandering around campus, screaming, fighting, hanging out of windows, and every few hours there is a noise that makes me think either someone’s been shot with a large caliber gun or a wall has fallen on a car.  As far as any of us can tell, there is no real means of punishing students for acting like chimps strung out on Pixi Stix – no detention or anything similar.  The place resembles a home for delinquents more than an educational institution.

Students of M2/10 with Flat Garrett, pretty much the only
class that behaves and acts like they want to learn.

Why they choose to have rules about things like sleeve length and which hand to eat with rather than important things is thus far a mystery.  It seems time would be better spent working on the discipline thing, or the massive waste management problem that makes the entire country smell like ass and leaves you wondering if God is testing our gag reflexes in anticipation of some sort of world-wide-doomsday-Porta-Potty-explosion, or the far more repairable problem they have of never saying what they mean.  I'm living in one giant grey area.  It’s infuriating.  If you mean to tell me that no, it’s doubtful my underwear will ever find their way back to me, then holy macaroni, just say it. 

The bush has been beaten around so much that there is now a moat around the bush.  It’s filled with sea water, and sail boats, and probably dragons, and a forty-foot waterfall.  We can continue to ride around the bush in our sail boats with the beautiful Brazilian skipper (Why is there a Brazilian here you want to know?  Don’t ask questions that have no answers.), or we can just start whaling on the bush.  Beat the hell out of it even if it starts spitting thorns in our eyes. 

Of course, unless I plan on spending the next four months with thorns in my eyes (or if I'm being a real Pittsburgh girl - jaggers), I'm going to need to learn to just let it all go, slide off me like rain.  I won't lie - it's gonna be hard, but the alternative is probably a stomach ulcer and I have a feeling that hospital bill would be expensive.