Happy Birthday to Me (part 2)

If I hadn’t had the left over pizza to entice me out of bed, I’m not sure I would have made it to work. I had a chest cough and felt exhausted and I considered calling in sick. I had planned to give a morning workshop to my students in Umphium first thing on Monday, but I had given many of the responsibilities to the In-Camp Coordinator, so I briefly entertained the idea that she would be able to handle everything.

As it was, I somehow managed to get up and dressed, munching on my left over pizza as I walked to work. I slept the whole two hour drive up to camp and stayed awake just long enough to give the workshop. The workshop was a little bit of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants operation as I hadn’t really planned it out well and the In-Camp Coordinator was herself home sick for the day. When it was over, I took myself back to the girl’s dorm and fell asleep on the bamboo floor. I woke up in the afternoon and tried to get up, but my body wouldn’t let me, so I drifted off to sleep again, this time to the sound of the girl’s laughing as they came back after classes. When I woke again in the evening, my body still insisted that I keep sleeping, but I managed to rouse myself and get off the floor.

The students in the kitchen were cooking up a ridiculous load of food. When I asked them why we had so many different vegetables (and eggs! the extravagance!) they answered evasively, “vegetables were cheap today.” Uh huh. I was too tired to get on the case, so I curled up on a bamboo bench and read a magazine until dinner was ready.

When I went back in the classroom I had woken up enough not to be terribly grumpy. The whiteboard had been covered with elaborate drawings and a big sign that said “Happy Birthday Jonesy!” There was a feast spread out on the tables, in honor of my birthday.

After dinner, they kicked me out of the classroom and I waited in the dark outside, watching the stars until they allowed me back in. The classroom was ablaze with lights. Candles on the table formed the word “Jonsy.” There were two cakes there as well, cooked ingeniously over a charcoal fire, which proved to be both moist and delicious. The students were all sitting around in a circle.

My first surprise party ever had a Master of Ceremonies, also known as the Chairman, who started off the proceedings by announcing the agenda. My birthday party had an agenda! The agenda included a speech by none other than myself. I have to say that it was the first time I have been required to give a speech at my birthday and I almost couldn’t do it, my heart was so full. There was an opening and closing speech and songs by the boys and girls and speeches by students and the other teacher. I sat there watching the candles melt and feeling overwhelmed by all the attention and good will and love all focused on me.

The Chairman asked me, “what do you want for yourself for the next year?” I answered, “to feel as loved and as blessed for the rest of the year as I feel right now.”

After the closing prayer, they sung my happy birthday while the candles on my cake burned. I made to blow them out after the first verse, forgetting that here, there are three: Happy Birthday to You, Happy Long Life to You, & May God Bless you Always. The little candles had almost become part of the cake by the time I got to blow them out. There were 24 candles and 8 stayed lit after my first attempt. A good omen for my romantic life this year, I can hope. :)

After the festivities we hooked the television up to the car battery and watched a movie in honor of Halloween. My birthday celebrations therefore ended with a viewing of the most strange random movie I have ever seen: Hellboy. For those of you who haven’t had the dubious pleasure, it involves Nazis opening portals to realms where gods sleep, Americans trying to stop them, a guy in a mask who is really made of sand, a blond German named Ilse (or course), and, of all people, Rasputin. Oh, and Hellboy himself, of course, a red muscular creature with horns, a liking for cigars and a stone arm. Since there must be a love plot to every Hollywood film, there is the tragic longing of Hellboy for the unexplained beauty who occasionally spontaneously combusts and the unnatural affections of the lovely Ilse for the immortal Rasputin. Happy birthday to me!