PDA--Public Display of Awkwardness

Travis insisted that we oversleep this morning. He said it was important that we be late to school.

"Ten minutes should be late enough," he said.

We were about 12 minutes late. It wasn't enough.

This morning we had a special staff meeting. Staff meetings are usually special enough as it is, but more in an "is this over yet?" sort of way than a "dear God, WHY?" sort of way. This morning, things were extra special.

The male teachers had to read poetic verses and quotes about love to the female teachers, who were seated in a circle around the edge of the room. Then they had to sing along to a CD of Elvis love songs, walking along the inside of the circle and "serenading" the ladies. The whiteboard in the meeting room was covered in drawings of hearts and sayings like "Together forever!" In theory, I suppose it might've been a bit amusing, but...it was just kind of weird.

One of my friends/coworkers was goofing around and trying to make the best out of a painfully awkward situation by just kind of yelling the words to the song, which in turn cracked up a good percentage of the women sitting within earshot.

Upon seeing this, the mastermind of this little V-Day show was inspired to start singing at the top of his lungs and trying to dance. At one point, he was laying on the floor.

Have you ever watched The Office on NBC, or the original British version of the show on BBC America? (If you haven't, you SHOULD--it's comedic genius and has awkward silences down to an art.)

This morning's meeting was like an episode of The Office. It reminded me of times when adorable office drone Jim would do something genuinely hilarious and his wretchedly uncool boss, Michael, would chime in and also attempt to be funny.

Michael's attempts at humor and wowing the crowd at best result in painfully awkward silences. It literally hurts to watch. However, because we're in Indonesia and Indonesians are infinitely polite, instead of uncomfortable silence there was uncomfortably polite laughter.

It wasn't pretty. I guess I should just be thankful there weren't any mimes.

My day did improve, though, especially after our grade 7-12 Valentine's Day party. It was pretty amusing to watch my 8th graders whapping each other with balloons for an hour straight. It seems that this was the preferred way to flirt if you're a 13-year-old: either whap the girl you like with a balloon or, if you're too shy, impress her by showing off how hard you can whap your guy friends with a balloon.

The 7th graders still stayed mainly segregated, as it's still "icky" to even be near someone of the opposite gender. This morning in my 7th grade homeroom, the headmaster came to give the kids a talk about how PDA wasn't really acceptable at school. (We've been having some issues with older couples groping in the halls and whatnot.) My little ones listened patiently and nodded respectfully. After the headmaster left, they turned to me with worried expressions.

"Mrs. Erin? Why can't we bring PDAs to school? Are regular cell phones OK? What about iPods?"

Oh children, stay young and adorably innocent for as long as you can. It's awfully cute.