TEFL Tantrum
We’re more or less in the same boat, we TEFL students, flinging ourselves dumbly into a city unknown. We gravitate towards each other because we simply have no one else to be with: we work together eight hours a day and congregate in our fee time together. We open up wholly to each other, hoping that the similarity in the pumping of our hearts is a good basis of friendship. This is when people found out about the open flat in Paul and I’s flat.
John and Paul lived together in Hotel Dum (pronounced Doom). John and Paul both disliked Hotel Dum. Both John and Paul wanted to move into Flat Paul and Avimaan.
Well well well. Tom first. Tom is a former waiter from Columbus who moved to Prague to be close to his fiancée, Tanya, who lives in Dresden. Blonde, goateed, a laid back guy. A good man on all accounts, and someone you’d definitely want as a roommate (You can see where this is going…).
To John: the youngest in our class and a college debater from Indiana. And you can tell. Smugness and sweat seep out of his pasty pores. The sarcasm that the rest of us shed in our late teens is a second skin for him. Upon hearing of our empty room, Indiana John says so much to me: “You might not want me there, but you don’t have a choice. I’m going to force my way in there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He’s joking, sure. Kinda. Half-joking. Half-he’s-like-this-all-the-damned-time. You want to feel sorry for him till you speak to him again.
John further exasperates the situation by “calling” the room before Tom, slotting himself into our extra room as if it was Shotgun in a car.
This does not sit well with Paul, who is old enough (31) to be done with dealing with juvenile bullshit. “I do not want that guy in here,” he tells me in his halting tongue. “That would not be very good. That would suck a lot.” Ever the man of initiative, Paul pulls his power play and asks Tom to move into our flat. He’s more than down. Paul’s more than down. I, too, am more than down, but state my ambivalence towards Tom and my disappointment at the pain John will potentially feel. I’ve watched enough Sopranos to know how much to say.
And with the exchanging of spare keys, Tom is installed in our chateau in Nove Butovice. “Tommy, where were you all night?” John asks gleefully the next morning. “Long night out?”
“I got invited to move into Paul and Avi’s,” he says.
Arched eyebrows and a “Cool, cool” are all we get from the normally loquacious John. And yeah, it’s nice to hear him shut up even for a second, and I would have gone batty living with him. And he’s going to have to fall, and fall hard. It might surprise people who have known me a long while, but at work and with these strangers I’m praised for being ever calm, unflappable, and very easy to get along with. And item number one for getting along with people is being receptive to their ideas, feelings, and requests. And John’s going to have to learn that by the rest of the class collectively dissing him. Which sucks. But damn it, sometimes that boy needs to shut his fool mouth.
John and Paul lived together in Hotel Dum (pronounced Doom). John and Paul both disliked Hotel Dum. Both John and Paul wanted to move into Flat Paul and Avimaan.
Well well well. Tom first. Tom is a former waiter from Columbus who moved to Prague to be close to his fiancée, Tanya, who lives in Dresden. Blonde, goateed, a laid back guy. A good man on all accounts, and someone you’d definitely want as a roommate (You can see where this is going…).
To John: the youngest in our class and a college debater from Indiana. And you can tell. Smugness and sweat seep out of his pasty pores. The sarcasm that the rest of us shed in our late teens is a second skin for him. Upon hearing of our empty room, Indiana John says so much to me: “You might not want me there, but you don’t have a choice. I’m going to force my way in there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He’s joking, sure. Kinda. Half-joking. Half-he’s-like-this-all-the-damned-time. You want to feel sorry for him till you speak to him again.
John further exasperates the situation by “calling” the room before Tom, slotting himself into our extra room as if it was Shotgun in a car.
This does not sit well with Paul, who is old enough (31) to be done with dealing with juvenile bullshit. “I do not want that guy in here,” he tells me in his halting tongue. “That would not be very good. That would suck a lot.” Ever the man of initiative, Paul pulls his power play and asks Tom to move into our flat. He’s more than down. Paul’s more than down. I, too, am more than down, but state my ambivalence towards Tom and my disappointment at the pain John will potentially feel. I’ve watched enough Sopranos to know how much to say.
And with the exchanging of spare keys, Tom is installed in our chateau in Nove Butovice. “Tommy, where were you all night?” John asks gleefully the next morning. “Long night out?”
“I got invited to move into Paul and Avi’s,” he says.
Arched eyebrows and a “Cool, cool” are all we get from the normally loquacious John. And yeah, it’s nice to hear him shut up even for a second, and I would have gone batty living with him. And he’s going to have to fall, and fall hard. It might surprise people who have known me a long while, but at work and with these strangers I’m praised for being ever calm, unflappable, and very easy to get along with. And item number one for getting along with people is being receptive to their ideas, feelings, and requests. And John’s going to have to learn that by the rest of the class collectively dissing him. Which sucks. But damn it, sometimes that boy needs to shut his fool mouth.
posted by Avimaan @ 9:09 PM
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