E-X-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-N in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

It was a few days before finals and I was reviewing the material with my youngest group of students, they’re between 11 and 12 years old. We were playing Hangman and they had gotten the first two letters, “E” and “X”, as well as the last one, “N”. I turned around from the whiteboard and everyone was laughing and pointing just beside me and I turned to look and there was Matthew, as usual.

I try not to have favorite students, but Matthew is my absolute favorite. He is hysterical. He’s the smallest kid in my class, he still looks like he’s about 9 years old. He always wears his hood up from this big over-sized flannel that he wears. He wears glasses and with his mask on because of Covid regulations, all I can really see are his gigantic eyeballs peering out at me. He looks a bit like that kid in the jacket from South Park. Because he’s so small, he’s almost imperceptible. The first time I noticed him, he kept creeping closer to me. I’d look out at the class and he’d be in one corner. I’d look away and he’d be in another corner, and that continued until finally, he’d pop up right next to me, tug on my sleeve, go “Hiiiiii, Mister J!” and then run away giggling.

Anyway, back to the game. Matthew is bouncing up and down, bending his knees and rocking his arms back-and-forth, screaming “EXPLOSION EXPLOSION EXPLOSION” (for reference he was bouncing exactly the same way Sophia bounces in this Golden Girls scene)

I started laughing so hard and barely croaked out, “That isn’t even one of our vocabulary words.” When he heard that, he stopped and looked up and said, “Oh yeahhhh…” and went and sat down.

I was still laughing so hard, I had to sit down. I couldn’t continue for almost 5 minutes because I was just so beside myself.

That’s not the first time he’s done that. And he’s not the only student to make me laugh. The honest truth is that I like all of my students. There’s not one that I’m not happy to have in class.

Even though the students are on break. the teachers still have to come in everyday, albeit we get to come in a bit later. I was on the train to work when suddenly one of my students rushed toward me. He said hello and leaned rather close to me. I asked where he was going and he told me he had football practice, but this was his first time coming to school by himself, usually one of his parents dropped him off.

He’s another one of my young ones, but unlike Matthew, he’s very developed. All the girls swoon over him, he’s long, lean, athletic and built like a little child model. But he’s kind of ditzy. He doesn’t completely understand English, but he turned in a very excellent project once that was obviously not written by him, so I asked him which girl he flirted with to get her to do his project and the whole class erupted with laughter, saying things like “Ohhhh, he caught you” while he just sat there smiling goofily and insisting he did it all himself.

One of my students wrote this long diary entry about how he has a huge crush on me and he wants me to marry him if it ever becomes legal in Thailand. He’s 15 so I know it’s just a normal teenage thing. One of my students around that same age always tries to get me to race him on the track because he’s almost as tall as I am.

And then the older students I’ve run into quite a few times. I’ve run into several seniors as they’re going to the movies with girls on their arms, or a few of the girls at the beauty parlor (“Mister J, you get faaacials?!”). I usually tease them about these interactions back in class. Most of the other teachers hate the 17-18 year old students, but I really get along with all of mine. They complain that they never do any work, never participate or are even remotely friendly. Well, all my students join in, do work, and they always enthusiastically say hi to me, in the halls or out in the world at large.

It’s very disorienting to have a job I enjoy. Every day I look forward to going to work. I want to see what crazy thing Matthew is going to do. Or hear what that 17-year-old girl thinks about Gatsby.

As I was planning the next semester, I realized something… I plot out my teaching the same exact way I wrote my stand-up comedy. They are almost identical. I think that speaks to why my students aren’t afraid to say hi to me.

The attack that happened a few days has rocked Thailand, but not as much as the response from the government. I am not a Thai citizen, and there are very strict laws here regarding criticizing the government, so I’ll leave that subject alone. However, to brutally murder 3-5 year olds in their sleep is absolutely monstrous and I’m without words to express my grief.

But I will say this, as long as Matthew is in my classroom, or any of the other students for that matter, I won’t let something like that happen even if I have to put myself in harms way. Children should be safe. Period.

Last updated October 08, 2022