Am I Allowed to Laugh?

Since I had to teach today--Friday, the day after Christmas--and lots of my students were absent, we played some English related games before having our weekly independent reading time.

The game was Scattegories, the category was "things that will get you in trouble in class," the letter was "E," and the response from that one boy was "erection."

Thank You

ME: (cuddling up to K) Thank you.

K: (confused) For what?

ME: (grinning mischievously) For the salad you’re going to make me.

K laughs, teases me for my antics, and then eventually makes me a beautiful layered salad.

Two hours later.

K: Thank you.

ME: (expecting the worst) For what?

K: For the massage you’re going to give me.

Lojman PD

The school provides its residents with several buses each week to local shopping markets or places of interest.

The rules: 

• All buses leave from campus on time.
  
• All buses returning to campus are to wait 5 minutes if there are residents not yet on board.
  

The situation:

The bus to Via Port, the closest and nicest shopping around, was ready to leave campus on time when one of the passengers asked us to wait for her friend who, she was sure, wanted to come. No one complained when this passenger left the bus, ran up to the lady’s apartment, and came back a couple minutes later by herself. We waited another minute or two while her friend put her shoes on and waddled down the hill. We left campus more than 5 minutes late.

We only had an hour for shopping/eating, and at the designated departure time everyone was on board except for a group of four ladies, including the late passenger and her friend. More than one person on the bus had heard that the ladies were going to eat together and take a taxi back later. Someone else thought they overheard the ladies say they would be back to take the bus with us. We looked down the long walkway in front of the shopping plaza. We saw no signs of bodies hurrying towards the bus. Some people were annoyed. Some people were sure the ladies weren’t coming. Someone suggested that we leave. Someone else agreed. We discussed it a minute. We left.

Later that night I received a phone call from one of the four ladies asking me what had happened. She and her friends had been at the bus stop 3 minutes after the designated departure time and were upset that the bus was not there waiting for them. They had taken a cab back (5 minutes and less than 3 YTL each) and were not happy. I bit my tongue and refrained from noting that if we’d left campus when we were supposed to, we’d all have had more time to accomplish our various goals before departure.  I tried to sympathize with her, but I don't think anything I could've said would've helped.

After being scolded for several minutes, I finally got out of the conversation when the baby in my house cried louder than the one on the phone. 

The next morning I received an e-mail from another one of the four ladies telling me and some of the other passengers that she was “horrified” by our “impatient” and “unacceptable” behavior.

The lessons: 

• Synchronize your watches.
• Be on time.
  
• Don’t piss off the other passengers.
  
• Expect the citizen police to interrogate and berate you if you break the rules.
  

Baby Gifts

Today baby and I took the ladies out souvenir shopping. My aunt bought some carpets from a nice man that does a lot of business with the foreign teachers at our school, and after she made her purchases he bought us lunch and offered this free gift as a Christmas present for baby.


We arrived back on campus later that afternoon just in time to catch the end of a ceramics show that was being held at the director's house. I ended up buying three tiles to frame and put in baby's room, but before I checked out, the elderly gentleman there offered baby this turtle as a special gift.


Maybe I should take him shopping more often.