Half-Blood Kuwaiti

How Sitcoms Ruined My Life

October 10th is mental health awareness day, and I was going to post something about my mental health, but then I relapsed in almost every way and fantasized about dying. So I thought a more appropriate topic would be What’s Depressing Me Today.

The answer is sitcoms. Romantic comedies have a bad reputation for ruining women’s expectations of love but this is undeserved. Why would I want someone to pretend to love me on a bet or to stalk me and insist on marrying me despite the fact that I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO REMEMBER HIM? Rom-coms lie to men, not women, by telling them they will be forgiven for stuff like this.

Most of us grew up with sitcoms, so the brainwashing began early. First, they told us, you will grow up to have a group of attractive friends who want to spend all their time with you. As a teenager you will go out with them all the time without mentioning it to your parents, which is fine, because you see them far more than your own family, which is somehow also fine. I’m still trying to figure out how I as an “adult” experience more parental supervision than a sitcom teen. Even when my parents are in another country.

I also wonder where all of my friends are. To be fair, I also wonder this when I compare myself to other people in real life, not just TV shows. But I guess there’s a reason why no one wants to center a series around a grouchy introvert.

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Sitcom love creates the biggest unrealistic expectations, though. Purely romantic movies tend to paint a very undesirable picture of love. I mean, does anyone really want a man who lies in the street to make up for not having an actual personality?

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Or even better, a man who tries to live out literary concepts learned in elementary English class! That’s what gets the girls.

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I’m not saying these movies are terrible, but their weakness is always the banter that’s supposed to show two people falling in love. No one talks like this, and most people would not want someone who did. But this is what sitcoms get right. They’re less about exaggerating the love and more about the humor and friendship. So these relationships actually seem more realistic. But they aren’t for the following reasons:

Your partner is not going to be that funny.

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Your partner is also not going to remain your best friend for years after you break up and then get back together with you whenever it’s convenient later.

They’re not going to tolerate you dating all of their friends, either. The attractive friend group is not going to survive you dating everyone in it. Most friend groups don’t survive you dating even one of their members. It’s not about who gets the house in the divorce; it’s who gets the friends.

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Also, it’s just not this easy to convince men they’re wrong.

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Coming to the end of my favorite series saddens me because the illusion ends with it. These shows are the only place we find this image of companionship, and the episode format makes us feel like the characters are our friends. But I know it isn’t realistic. All you have to do is look at the lives of the actors who play these parts.

Topher Grace (Eric Forman), despite being incredibly talented, has never appeared in anything noteworthy again and was rumored to not have gotten along with his colleagues. Lisa Robin Kelly (Laurie Forman) died of a drug overdose at age 43 and Matthew Perry’s struggles with drugs and alcohol are well-documented.

Danny Masterson (Stephen Hyde) has been accused of rape by five different women, and as much as I would like not to believe it, that many accusers can’t be a coincidence. Both him and Laura Prepon (Donna Pinciotti) are scientologists, something I can find no rational explanation for. Yes, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis got married, but for some reason I like them much better as a TV couple. But I’m aware that this is probably due to a flaw in my own judgment.

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Mila, unlike me, is probably glad Ashton is not like this in real life.

It saddens me too that beautiful women like Courteney Cox and Mila Kunis thought they weren’t good enough and needed to change their appearance, when both, in my opinion, looked much better before. If the girl in the TV show constantly told she’s beautiful isn’t happy with how she looks, how are the rest of us supposed to feel?

All you have to do is look up the actors on Friends or That 70s Show to see stories about how one didn’t invite the others to their wedding or didn’t tell them they were engaged. They haven’t even been able to get the cast of Friends reunited for an interview. And the shows themselves had to end, because how long can the period of life last where you hang out constantly in your parents’ basement or your best friend’s apartment? Not very long—if you’re lucky enough to have it at all.

So excuse me if I cry over sitcoms, but I think I have a good reason.

The Expat’s Guide to Kuwait

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Welcome to Kuwait. Great choice! I, personally, have been trying to get out for the past 15 years, but to each their own. Here is my guide to this fair nation:

Clothing and Conduct

The first thing many Westerners learn about Kuwait is that there is no alcohol and that they have to cover up. The conservatism might be scary, but what you may not realize is that Kuwaitis don’t expect foreigners to fit in. Kuwait is not a melting pot despite the many nationalities because very little is melting. Each group of expats forms their own subculture, where they do many of the same things considered acceptable in their homeland.

So, Kuwaitis don’t expect you to cover up like them but just to look like you’re trying. Arab women are experts at wearing layers of clothing to hide everything they want to and you probably can’t compete with this sort of lifelong training. What you think of is modest is probably considered immodest here anyway.

When I was in middle school, a Canadian friend of mine told me her mother bought her a one piece bathing suit when they moved to Kuwait because, “No bikinis in Kuwait.” Looking back, this is funny to me. Anywhere you can wear a one-piece in Kuwait, you can probably wear a bikini. The general public disapproves of both.

But, you may say, plenty of Arab women wear provocative clothing. Yes, but if you do it it’s perceived as disrespectful. When Arabs do it it’s just because they’re slutty and raised badly. Many Kuwaitis assume your entire continent was raised badly so your job is merely to hide it.

It is ironic that a country so hot should require so much clothing. The climate suggests Kuwait could be the world’s largest beach party. But no. My personal theory is that the people are so religious because they live in a constant reminder of hell.

The Kuwaitis You Will Meet

Kuwaitis are not a homogenous group, despite the considerable external pressure we face to become one. Your impression of us could vary greatly depending on who you interact with. These are the groups I have identified:

The very conservative and not very educated group: This group probably disapproves of you the most, but you will also have the least interaction with them if you work in the places that typically employ Western expats. Most of their opinions of Americans are based on what they see on T.V. Someone from this group once asked my sister if she had met Paris Hilton when she was studying in the U.S. In general, they’ll be fine with you as long as you don’t try to marry their children.

The conservative and educated group: For the most part, this group will treat you respectfully. Many Kuwaitis study abroad and have a decent understanding of Western culture. You will even meet some very religious people who approach their beliefs in an enlightened and well thought out way. Plenty define themselves as moderate but still seem pretty conservative compared to the rest of the world.

The liberals: This group is very hit or miss. I am in this group. (I am clearly a hit.) Some members are truly open-minded and Westernized while others think Americans snort cocaine in their bathrooms. No, they aren’t judging you for it, they think it’s normal and expect you to give them your drugs. Some people just pretend to be “open-minded” as an excuse to do whatever they want. Then they have a traditional marriage to their cousin. Approach with caution.

Dating the Locals

If you’re an expat dating an Arab man, you may find people jump to some unflattering conclusions. Your friends may warn you about Kuwaiti guys. Kuwaitis may warn you about Kuwaiti guys. The interesting thing, though, is that these stereotypes don’t seem to exist about dating Arab women, but I know plenty of Westerners married to Arab men and far fewer Westerners married to Arab women. So, by all means be cautious, but I think some of the judgment here is unfounded.

The Racial Hierarchy

My purpose here is not to offend anyone but just to be honest. So I hope we can admit that like most if not all countries in the world, Kuwait is racist. And there is a bizarrely distinct sort of pecking order.

Kuwaitis are on the top in terms of power and influence, but white expats hover nearby. They are frequently preferred for employment and housing over Kuwaitis. Schools want foreigners. Landlords think Kuwaitis are bad tenants. They will discriminate, and they will say to you directly that this building is only for foreigners. The interesting thing is that I don’t think Kuwaitis particularly like Americans or vice versa. They don’t approve of how “loose” the culture is or many of the government’s political/military moves. But they’d still rather hire an American teacher than an Egyptian one. On the other hand, many Americans adopt a sort of white supremacist attitude towards Kuwaitis. But they stay. In fact, the less they like brown people, the more likely they seem to come here in the first place. I don’t know why.

The next tier is the non-Gulf Arabs. For some reason everyone seems to dislike Egyptians. Kuwaitis dislike Palestinians because they sided with Saddam Hussain during the Gulf War. Lebanese people are considered hot but too “free.” Lebanon is kind of like the Paris of the Middle East. My uncle once said to a friend of his, “Look at how ugly you are and your mother is Lebanese. Imagine how ugly you would be if your mother was Kuwaiti.” I guess that sums it up.

The lowest group is the South Asian expats. They are treated badly by almost every other group, but sometimes more so by the people who are constantly pushed around by Kuwaitis. They’re the ones everyone seems to kick around to feel better about themselves. It makes me sad.

In Conclusion

I don’t mean to suggest Kuwait is a bad place. It has its good points. It’s comfortable. I almost never have to leave the house to get groceries. The people are usually friendly and they expect to meet many foreigners. I’ve spent most of my life here while barely speaking any Arabic. I don’t think I could get through the day in the U.S. without speaking English. One other advantage is that I find it to be less fattening than other countries because you can’t really walk down a city street and look at all the bakeries. And the grocery stores have far fewer pies, although on some days I consider this a major disadvantage.

In some ways it’s a great place to live, but it can still be a big adjustment. This is my honest take on the stuff most other guides leave out. Feel free to ask questions!

Thoughts for October 1st

Just some things that have been on my mind.

The only reason we value love it is supposed to protect us. It is supposed to mean we will be cherished. So don’t expect me to appreciate a love I cannot are. Don’t expect anyone to be satisfied with the knowledge of a love that never touches them.

You can be sick, abused, or in all kinds of terrible situations that may make people feel sorry for you, but none of it means you’re a good person.

I have come to appreciate teenage boys in ways I did not expect to when I taught them: I never had to tell them to stop dancing. The girls fill me with questions: Why do you want to dance in break when your lunch area is outside and it’s 40 degrees? Why, when I tell you it’s time to go to class, do you dance around me in a circle? Why do you think the school bus is an acceptable place to twerk? WHY

I’m wary of anyone who seems to convinced of their own niceness. Too often their train of thought goes: I’m a good person; therefore, what I did cannot be wrong. Then it stops. For a long time.

There are plenty of people who care about your existence. The special ones care about your feelings. And the people who only care about your feelings when they aren’t the ones who hurt you definitely do not count.

The tragic events that make us lose our faith in God are the same ones that make us wish we still believed.

Reflections on My First Two Years as a Teacher, Part 3

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Here it is: the third and final installment in this series. I would write more but I’ve started my third year of teaching, and if I blog about my students and employers while I work there, I may get fired.Which I don’t want, since everything is going great. Except for the day when I got confused about when school started and showed up almost an hour late, which wasn’t my fault, although for some reason it didn’t happen to anyone else in the entire school. Not even the person I told to come at wrong time. There have been days in the past two years when I have felt unemployable, and that was one of them.

My new school is a big change, primarily because it does not measure success in staff and student tears. So far no one wants me to suffer, and no one wants me to quit. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel like they don’t know what I’m like yet, and when they figure it out, they too will seek to squash me like a bug.

But I’m trying not to let that happen. For example, apparently they can’t stand it when teachers come late. Late is my middle name. “Issues with time” is one of the top three personality traits that make me who I am. But I haven’t come late once in the past two weeks, except for the day I got confused, and while that doesn’t sound like an accomplishment, it is for me (yes, I am that bad).

Something I’m happy about, though, is the lack of discipline problems I’ll have to deal with. I told another teacher about Fire Boy from my last school, and she was horrified. “The biggest issue I’ve had to deal with was a couple years ago when a student spilled mouthwash in class,” she said.

Excuse me? I didn’t show how confused I was because I didn’t want to seem like the unqualified teacher who doesn’t get what’s wrong with mouthwash, but I did not see the problem. Was she throwing the mouthwash at someone? Was she drinking it for the alcohol content? If clumsiness is a discipline issue, I’ll end up sending myself to the principal. Also, I don’t think that teacher appreciates how lucky she is to have students hygienic enough to carry mouthwash with them to school. Fire Boy probably would have found a way to turn it into an explosive.

I truly don’t have much else to say on this topic right now, almost as if I have come to peace with the last two years. That can’t be entirely true because I recently dreamed I took my boy’s class to a hospital and they trampled a disabled child, but I think I’m getting there. I feel like I’m already a better teacher than I was two weeks ago, and it makes me sad that I couldn’t be as good with my last students. I’m also sad because I miss them. You spend a year trying to get through to a group of people, and if you put your heart into your work, the sense of loss is inevitable. The teacher’s curse is caring about their students even when the students do not care about them.

On a lighter note, we had a professional development lecturer come and, since he was a math teacher, he used math problems in his examples. I left feeling great about myself since I know that 16 X 5 is not 400. I used to think this was a joke:

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It’s not. It’s definitely not. That’s all I’m going to say.

A Long Rant About “13 Reasons Why”

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*Mild Spoilers Ahead*

I still don’t know if I would say I liked “13 Reasons Why.” How can you “like” graphic depictions of sexual assault and suicide? It seems like the wrong word.

It’s definitely thought-provoking and well done. You know a show is complex when it creates conflicting opinions within one viewer. On one hand, I think people who believe the show should be banned are overreacting and unable to appreciate art, but on the other, I agree it is triggering. After watching the second season, I realized the show makes me want to kill myself.

To clarify, I am not suicidal nor have I ever been suicidal, and although I do own the same shoe box Hannah puts her tapes in, that’s just because I dress like I’m still in high school. I don’t think watching the show puts me at a risk of self-harm. But I also don’t think my feelings are the result of some flaw in my psyche rather than the content of the show. I feel this way when I watch “13 Reasons Why” because it treats victims of suicide (and trauma, to a lesser degree) like they are far more important than everyone else. Hannah Baker is mourned for two seasons by people who blame themselves completely for her suicide.

None of them seems to consider that maybe the tapes are vengeful and the product of an unstable mind. The message sent to the audience is that the revenge would work. All you have to do is kill yourself, posthumously blame it on others, and watch regret and remorse flood from your tormentors from a nice cozy seat in the afterlife.

It’s not an accident that viewers might find themselves wanting to be like Hannah Baker, or to get the attention she does. But imagine if Katherine Langford weren’t so gorgeous. What if the main character was an unattractive, weird teenage boy? I don’t think they could create a series about everyone being obsessed with Tyler if he committed suicide. I’d like to see if they could do it about any kind of boy. In a sense, Hannah Baker becomes a fantasy after she dies, a kind of myth. It’s a kind of objectification. Despite trying to break down barriers and create awareness, the show still perpetuates the dangerous idea that the only people worth caring about are beautiful. And that women get power and significance by being sexual objects.

Although the show is touted as raising awareness for mental illness, in my opinion, it does a better job highlighting the effects of bullying and trauma. Why does Hannah kill herself? Presumably because of everyone around her. But if it’s really their fault, why is Hannah considered mentally ill? If everyone else is to blame for her suicide, she must have made a rational decision. I mean, suicide can be rational. It’s not like everyone who kills themselves does it for the same reason. Hitler could have made tapes if he wanted to. I guess ISIS members actually do sometimes.

But mental illness is not logical or rational. Otherwise it wouldn’t be an illness. Trauma can trigger mental issues, but being devastated over someone’s death, for example, doesn’t mean you’re mentally ill. It’s just when the negative feelings go past what is a normal reaction that you may have a problem. So portraying Hannah’s death as the consequence of her treatment by others suggests she’s fine; she’s just been unbearably tortured by a bunch of high school students.

But Hannah is clearly mentally ill. Some viewers have theorized that Hannah has borderline personality disorder. If the show is really about mental illness, why are viewers the ones providing the actual psychoanalysis of what’s going on? I bet there are a lot of people who’ve never heard of BPD, and here where the show could have educated us about it, we get nothing. Instead we are looking at the events depicted through the lens of Hannah’s mental problems, and nobody ever seems to object.

They should object, over and over. Instead the only question they ask is if Hannah is telling the truth. So if she is, they’re all murderers? Why don’t they question that part? The tapes are essentially public humiliation, which surely falls into the category of the bullying that they are speaking out against. And everyone who receives the tapes before Jessica finds out she was raped before she even knows herself. Why does no one acknowledge what a terrible thing that is to do to someone? But somehow Hannah’s mistakes are just not as important as everyone else’s.

And this, I think, is why the show has a triggering effect. It reinforces negative, toxic thought patterns and deems them valid. The show is brilliant because it portrays life accurately enough so that we can see the truth despite what viewpoint is pushed on us, but for all the people who can’t see that because what is represented is how they think, it tells them that they are right.

Glamorizing mental illness is not educational because mental illness is not glamorous, poetic, or special. It’s an illness. It messes you up. It can make you unpleasant to be around and irrational. It can make you not shower for weeks and hurt the ones you love. It can make you victimize others. I’m only mild neurotic but I have to deal bald spots in my hair and eyebrows because I pull out my hair when stressed, and believe me, it isn’t fun. (But in the world of “13 Reasons Why,” someone can shoot themselves in the head and look better than they did a season ago.) Yes, many people with mental illnesses are misunderstood, and of course we should sympathize, but maybe the reason we don’t understand is because what’s going on isn’t normal and healthy.

I know there’s still a stigma around mental illness and I’m not saying we should go back to thinking of suffers as dangerous lunatics. But if we really want people to understand what mental problems are like, portraying them as “pretty” is just as misleading. Sure, some mentally ill people are beautiful, brilliant artists. But some abuse their children. And some are just morons.

In the end, I guess what bothers me about the show is the idea that Hannah couldn’t have done anything to save herself, and so it was fair that she destroyed everyone else. At the root of it, she was a damsel in distress, and Clay was the knight in shining armor who failed her. That’s not progressive, and it’s not realistic. No one is going to save you, and they wouldn’t be able to if they tried. And while we should always be kind to others and remember that we don’t know the demons they are dealing with, what we shouldn’t do, and what we shouldn’t encourage, is the idea that you are the reason another person refuses to help themselves.

Reflections on My First Two Years as a Teacher, Part II

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I’ve spent the last two weeks on vacation with my family at their house in the States. It was very educational. I already knew they thought I was anemic, but I learned that I’m also deficient in B12 and vitamin D, that my skin can’t possibly be as pale as it is by nature, and that I should stop using aluminum foil because it will seep into my food and poison me. My sister also related a newspaper article she had read about a woman who got a parasite from her contact lens that made her lethargic, and maybe that’s why I don’t move enough.

I don’t even know how doctors check for parasites. If it’s anything like how they check cats for worms, though, I know I don’t want any part of it.

My new job starts in a week, and I’m fantasizing about a career as a stay-at-home mom. I may be malnourished, worm-ridden, childless, and unmarried, but I’d be great at the staying home part. I’m hoping for the best though, because teaching does have its joys. After my last post, one of my old students told me I should write about the funny things my students have done. It was a brave request coming from someone who chewed on staples during an exam and then got scolded by his mother for eating in class. So, here is a list of strange things my students have said and done. It is by no means exhaustive.

When I told the class they should enter the school talent show: “Why don’t you enter, Miss? You can dress up as a girl.”
When I told a story about a man jumping into the bushes to avoid walking on the street with me, presumably because he was conservative or shy: “He was probably scared of you, Miss. You look like an MMA fighter. Have you heard of Ronda Rousey?”
After I complained about the boys class to the girls: “Do you…like men?”
“The capital of Finland? It’s Denmark.”
After several students stated that women should be encouraged or made to wear hijab: “I want to see them!”
When one student was trying to persuade me to supervise the girls’ sports day (so they wouldn’t have class with me) and I asked him why I would want to go: “To lose weight.”
In a journal entry one student wrote about advice to his future wife: “You should be 95% honest with me. The other 5% will ruin our relationship.”
After several students wrote in letters to their future selves that they hoped they would have beautiful wives and I asked them if this was fair: “Well, not right now, but after I get a nose job…”
After I announced a quiz: “Welcome to your tape, Miss.”
Some things don’t lend themselves well to quote format but still need to be included, such as when one student set himself on fire, when one brought a jar of ground coffee to school and ate it, when one student brought an emergency car window breaker to school and someone else used it on the classroom window and someone else pretended it was an accident (apparently I taught them teamwork), and when one student got another student to pretend to strangle him to freak me out. And that’s only the stuff that isn’t too inappropriate to mention!

Reflections on My First 2 Years as a Teacher

One of the first things that surprised me when I began teaching was how absolutely exhausting it was. I’d never experienced such exhaustion in my life. Other teachers told me I would adapt, which I did, and to improve my diet, which I didn’t.

Then, my tiredness was replaced by difficulty sleeping due to anxiety and nightmares about my colleagues. Now I no longer worry about teaching depleting my energy since I discovered I never had any in the first place. I’m on summer vacation and I’m still tired, and believe me, I’m not doing anything. Since I have a new job coming up and I am hoping it will be much better than the last one, I should probably get myself checked for the anemia people keep telling me I must have.

My last job. Where do I begin? It was my first job and my introduction to teaching. It also destroyed my self-esteem. But I learned a lot from it.

On a positive note, I learned that teachers really love their students. I never knew I would care about my students the way that I do. I certainly never cared that much about any of my teachers when I was in school. I can’t say I’m not flooded with joy because I never have to deal with a certain difficult class of mine again, but I have a soft spot even for some of my most irritating students. I cherish memories I have with all my classes, even if I don’t want to/probably couldn’t live through them again (but that is a post for another day). Students are truly the best part of teaching. I wonder if they know how much even the smallest nice thing they say or do means to me.

The worst part of teaching—and this was a surprise to me—is other teachers. Is there something about the profession that attracts the mentally unwell? Are many teachers not actually caring adults but individuals so insecure they get satisfaction from having power over children? I’ve met many great teachers, teachers that are organized, professional, disciplined, and respected by their students, and I’m in awe of them because I am none of those things. But then there are the others. I have never met a teacher who didn’t think they were great at their job, which is odd, because I certainly didn’t have many good teachers growing up. In fact, I barely remember most of them. They can’t all be good. But they are quick to defend themselves against any criticism and even quicker to give it out. Is the subject matter we teach our students really more important than teaching them to be kind, humble, and above all, self-aware? We are supposed to be an example, but some teachers are worse bullies and gossips than most of the students. It’s very sad. I don’t think many students know just how messed up things are behind the scenes. But it shows in the end, because a school can’t really be any better than its teachers.

I guess this kind of behavior comes from insecurity, which puzzles me a bit. Where are the teachers who manifest their insecurity like I do, in a raging case of imposter syndrome and by hiding from people who scare them in empty classrooms and under desks? Maybe arrogance is a better coping mechanism for low self esteem when you have to tell teenagers what to do for a living. It’s exhausting to be unsure of yourself/convinced you don’t know what you’re doing and be hoping your students don’t notice. Especially because they do notice. However much they can seem like blockheads, they are good at reading their teachers (if not much else). This became very clear to me once when a student asked me if I was an adult. Much like wild animals, students can smell fear.

Ironically, when I was a teenager and participating in school activities like bake sales, the children thought I was a teacher and said they were scared of me. Now I actually am a teacher, and no one is scared of me.

I am proud, however, that I have gone two years without crying in class, thereby proving my brother’s predictions wrong. I have almost cried in class multiple times, and cried in front of other teachers and school administrators, but not in front of students. This is partly due to not having lost all of my pride and self-respect (yet), and partly due to not wanting them to laugh at me. But whatever, I still haven’t done it.

Part two of my reflections on my first two years of teaching will be coming soon because I still have a lot more to say about it, and writing about it is cheaper than the therapy I desperately need.