Things

I had curriculum night on Friday, and all of the parents came to see the classroom, hear about the curriculum and grill me with questions. My favorite exchange was this:

Parent: "Why exactly are you in Nepal?"
Me: "New adventure, opportunity arose to teach here, blah blah."
Parent: "No, but why Nepal? What is your agenda here?"
Me: "I don't really understand, I don't have an agenda."
Parent: "Allow me to be frank; are you pushing your religion on my child? Is that why you're here?"

The gentleman was relieved to hear that I have no interest in indoctrinating his child, and the rest of the night was smooth sailing. Apparently a lot of white people come to Nepal as underground missionaries these days and attempt to convert people. The only white people I see are dirty hippies eating falafel; maybe it's part of an elaborate con.

School has been going well. The bad kids have become slightly less disruptive and we have started covering new material. I enjoy the teaching aspect but am not fond of all of the peripheral work. Designing bulletin boards and cutting out tiny shapes gets really monotonous, as I cannot cut things out to save my life. I still get tired at the end of the day but no longer come back and collapse for an hour. We are doing a bird unit in science and will be going to the zoo on Wednesday to observe exotic birds. I hope that things go well.

My second attempt at vegetarianism may come to a screeching halt soon. On Friday night Shehrish and I went to K-Too, a steakhouse in Thamel. I hadn't even thought of eating any meat until going there. All of the steaks that came out looked fantastic, and Shehrish ordered a chicken sizzler dish that was equally impressive. I was nearly salivating until my food came out. I ordered veggie fajitas, and my food looked and tasted like it was flown in from a Golden Corral buffet. The next day while out I had eggplant lasagna, which had no flavor and hit my system like liquid Drano. I am going to tough it for now, as I have noticed a slight increase in energy and stamina, but will revert back to eating meat if I continue to crave for it.

On Saturday night while heading back home, a little kid jumped out from behind a pile of rubbish and grabbed my arm, yelling something in Nepali. I later found out that he was calling me a 'sister f***er'. I still don't know whether to be amused or offended by it, but at least it's better than having to chase down a runaway cab or getting hassled by aggressive drug dealers.

Nothing much else is new, except that I have been listening to a lot of rap music lately. I last went through a rap phase in 8th-9th grade (DMX, 50 cent, Master P etc.) and haven't really listened to it since. I only enjoy listening to it while walking to school in the morning. I always get stared at on my way to school and usually avoid eye contact, but I find myself glaring back at people if I have rap music playing in my headphones. Hopefully this doesn't end up with me getting jumped or worse, but it's fun to have a ridiculous Lil' Wayne song in my head all day. Peace