I tried to hide, but it was no good.

They’ve found me.

They know where I am.

It’s all over now, and now they’re going to make me go back. Back to- to… work!

NooOoooOOooOOOoooooo!

Alright, that’s enough melodrama, for now. Truth is, I’ve been back in town since the third, but I hadn’t told any of my students that I was back yet. I was enjoying my vacation (the second one, the one after my vacation in Karachi) for as long as I possibly could. I thought I could just blend back into the house after coming back, like I had never left, but eventually my dad noticed that I was home a lot more than usual.

“Beta,” my father said to me a few days ago as I sat reading the newspaper in my pajamas, “When are you going to go back to work?”

“Oh, err, um…” I fumbled for an answer, spilling coffee in my lap. “The guy from that website contacted me and said I could start writing for them, and they’d pay too, so I thought maybe I’d just work…from home instead?”

“You mean stay home and wear your pajamas until lunch and play video games all day?”

(Damn, I’d been discovered.)

“I can write in my pajamas…” I offered weakly.

“You should call your students,” my father said, shaking his head. “And tell them you’re back in town. It’s no good for you to sit around the house all day. You need to go back to work.”

Back to work? Nuts. And one of my students called me today, too. So now they know I’m back in town and I don’t have a choice. It’s back to work with me, back to getting dressed (pish-tosh!) and waking up before 10:00. (appalling!) Back to making a daily commute and pretending like I’m a responsible adult and teacher, preparing lesson plans, class work, homework. You know, the silly part is that I *like* my job. It’s interesting, it’s fun, and you meet great people. (I teach mostly adults- embassy staff) I don’t know why I’m so reluctant to go back, except that I’ve just gotten used to being home again, even though it is a bit boring until Aniraz comes back from work. Still though, I get to hang out in my pajamas, and what more could a [hu]man want?

If only I could start going to work in my pajamas. Problem is though, I only have one pair that I like, and if I wore the same ones every day, my students might get suspicious of me. What I really should do, is start sleeping in my work clothes. Then my work clothes would get that great bed-time look, the all-over wrinkles and the fuzz off of the flannel bed sheets. They still wouldn’t be as comfortable though, because no matter how nappy, how wrinkled, and how fuzzy they became, they still wouldn’t be made of flannel. –sigh-

Decisions, decisions.

*****

Right, so that half of the blog was typed yesterday, and today I’m home again after being to work. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, probably because I kept my long-johns on under my jilbab, and therefore did go to work in my pajamas after all. :)

I shouldn’t complain, because I had an interesting day. One of the classes I teach is with the wives of two diplomats from *insert country name here.* And sometimes, their children too. Like Maya, who is eighteen months old, and absolutely enamored with her mother while simultaneously being terrified of me.

Today Maya sat in on our class, pulling a chair up next to her mother and climbing on board. Then, with her head barely showing over the top of the table, she pulled out her copy of ‘Little Red Riding Hood” (it was in Russian) and opened it and lined it up with her mother’s book. When her mother read, Maya very carefully imitated, turning the pages (both forwards and backwards, hmmm) and looking over to her mother every few seconds to make sure she had done it right. Of course, she also looked up at me regularly, and nearly wilted in wide-eyed fear before looking back to her mother for the courage to carry on. (boo!) When Maya’s mother began writing flash cards, Maya grabbed one as well, and after studying her mother’s pens carefully, she picked one up, stared down the barrel intensely, and then put it to the card. Everything that her mother did, Maya did, and she did her best to make sure she was doing it right by turning and checking on her mother every two seconds.

Maya’s was a silent pantomime, until her mother began reading aloud what was written in her grammar book. Maya thought she’d join in, and so every time her mother opened her mouth, Maya opened hers and very solemnly said, “Bdp,dp,bdp dp, pppp, dp, bdp,” a sound not unlike the beginning to Porky Pig’s classic, “Bdp, bdp, bd—That’s all folks!” Well, Maya happens to be very good at it, so she kept on the whole time, giving her mother a most discordant and disturbingly cute accompaniment to the grammar lesson.

“Which of the following (bdp ppp dbp bp bp) best describes (dp dp) the theme of the passage on the (pbbbbb dbp dbd bd) following (ppppbbbbb) page?”

And when class was over, Maya dropped off of her chair and toddled beside her mother as we walked to the door. I waved goodbye, which was apparently just too much, so she gave me one last look of mortal terror, a few more bdp bdp’s, and then tore down the hall shrieking.

SubhanAllah, kids.

So yeah, work might not be so bad after all. :)

posted by Abez @ 12/15/2003 07:11:00 PM