Sorry for the lack of updates. The novelty of traveling has worn off somewhat as I’ve been situated here in Saigon for three weeks now, and will be based here for at least the next 12 months, and potentially longer.
I finished my TESOL class last week the same way I finished college; by doing the bare minimum necessary to graduate. Linh, my Vietnamese language teacher for the last two weeks of the class told me that being lazy “isn’t good.” I told her that I’ll still get hired as long as I smell good and look handsome, so there is no point in doing extra work.
With that said, I had my first interview recently. The school had me do an initial interview, which wasn’t a real interview per se. It was just a simple meeting so they could authenticate that I was white and spoke English.
After that, they wanted me to come back a couple days later and do a demo-teach, in which I teach a 30-45 minute mock class to four employees of the school. Staying true to form as a lazy piece of shit, I didn’t start getting dressed until 1:45 p.m. the day of my 2:00 p.m. demo-teach (the school was right around the corner). When I was initially going to China to work, the school there told me I didn’t need dress pants, or even dress shirts for that matter, so all I packed was everyday clothes. Here in Vietnam, essentially every school requires the male teachers to wear a shirt and tie, so a couple days before my interview, I went and bought two shirts and ties at a department store/grocery store. (Yes, the best place to buy clothes is inside the grocery stores here. “I’d like some bread, some milk, and why don’t you throw in one of these button-down shirts for me?”)
After getting fitted for my size at the grocery store, (yes they had a dressing room next to the Dairy section), I ended up with two shirts and ties, despite only actually trying on one of the shirts. The shirts were in plastic packaging, so I didn’t bother trying on the second once once I figured out my size.
By the way, I wasn’t able to score any slacks while shopping. The biggest pants in the entire store were too tight for me. Either I’ve put on the travelers fifteen, or every Vietnamese male is smaller than E from Entourage. Either way, I had to get my pants custom tailored.
So, as I was frantically getting ready at 1:45 they day of my demo-teach, I quickly realized I had a problem. I opened up the packaging of my second shirt to see that I had purchased a short-sleeved dress shirt. This in itself was very shitty. Only cheese-dicks and computer programmers wear short-sleeves and ties. To make matters worse, my shirt was pink. Pulling off a pink shirt is hard enough on its own, but a short-sleeve pink shirt with a tie? Yikes. I couldn’t wear the other shirt I bought either, because I wore it for my initial interview just two days prior. I was screwed.
I was also counting on my roommate to be home in order to tie my tie for me. I had never tied a tie in my life. My dad tried teaching me once in high school, but I got lazy and gave up.
“Don’t worry Dad,” I assured him at the time, “I don’t need to know how to tie a tie right now.”
“But what are you going to do when you have to go to work?
“Who cares? That’s like nine years from now,” I kindly reminded him.
Well nine years was now, and my roommate was nowhere to be seen. I kept my tie I wore at the interview tied, so that next time I wore it I wouldn’t have to ask someone to re-tie it. It was green however, and when I held it up to my pink t-shirt, I about threw up at what was staring back at me in the mirror. I had no choice. I had to wear the blue tie that was staring at me untied on the table.
1:52 p.m
I pride myself on never getting overly worked up, but I was about a second away from full-on panic mode. I tried thinking back to what my dad had tried telling me all those years ago. “Move your hand like this, and then swing this part over. Put this side blah blah blah blah. Kyle, are you listening to me??”
1:55 p.m.
Damnit! This wasn’t working. I had to go to the internet. I bolted downstairs with my short-sleeve pink shirt tucked into my pants, along with my crumpled up blue tie in hand, and opened up my laptop.
Black screen.
Ahhhh, why did I shut my computer down earlier? I booted up my piece of crap Acer and agonized over the longest two minutes of my life as the computer loaded. I tried tying the tie a couple times again while pacing back and forth as Microsoft windows tormented me by not loading faster. I was highly unsuccessful.
1:57 p.m.
Finally the computer loaded, and I fired up Mozilla. I googled ‘how to tie a tie’ and clicked the first video I saw. I followed it step by step, and once I copied what the guy on the video did, I was literally screaming at him to move onto the next stop. “Talk faster you goddamn piece of shit!”
Yeah, I pushed the panic button.
1:59 p.m.
To my astonishment, I was able to form somewhat of a knot within two minutes. I then bolted for the door with my crooked blue tie secured around my neck but not before looking at my reflection in the door. One of Lloyd Christmas’s lines from Dumb & Dumber came to mind.
"I don't mean to be harsh, but let's face it, you are one pathetic loser."
