I Am Not A Shrew.

I know all about The Taming of the Shrew and that's not me. I'm just blunt. But today, I couldn't help it. Thai people think they are not direct, they act as though they like to talk around things, acting very demure and shy about certain topics but then they don't hesitate to ask "How much money do you make?" or "What is your weight?" My favorite might be like "What is that big red mark on your forehead, it looks like a pimple." Why ask when you just answered your own question?

Anyway, there is a kid in my class, a Korean named Okyu, who drives me nuts. As a person, I like him a lot. As a classmate, I want to kill him. Day after day, he asks questions constantly and then cannot explain anything, so basically I spend half of my three hour class listening to him drone on and on and then congratulate himself for being smart, when really, he is sort of stupid. I tried to explain to him nicely that he should share the time, etc. etc. The thing is, he married a Thai woman, but doesn't ask her questions because he says she's not his teacher.

Today we were told that to continue, students had to be diligent, doing all of their homework and studying constantly or else they would have to retake the class because fellow students would not want to wait for a slower learning lagging behind and wasting their money, especially when the higher level classes were even faster-paced and more difficult. Basically, the teacher stared at Okyu the entire time. This was after we had an exam and he lamented that it was so, so, so very difficult. The thing is, I'm not pissy because of immature schoolgirl competitiveness over something as inane as grades and being a teacher's pet or anything. Living in Thailand, you need to learn how to speak the language in order to survive and I'm on a deadline - speak Thai well before anymore of my old geezer relatives pass away.

So...today, I said to him loudly in Thai:

"Okyu, I just want to thank you so much for helping me to waste a lot of money. You see, I had tried to explain to you before why I would get irritated with you but you only ever said, 'Oh well, not a big deal.' But now that the teacher has explained all of this to everyone again, I wanted to thank you for helping me to waste mine this month, because everyone knows, I must have an infinite amount somewhere."

Okay, it was bitchy, but it was true and since when have I ever beaten around the bush? We have to pay for these classes in CASH. Besides, the look on everyone's face was priceless, especially the teacher's.