You can have your brush and eat it too.

Thursday was a terrible day for me.

I went to school as normal. During lunch I was given my pay check. I'm part time at this moment and I calculated that I have 99 hours of pay coming. When I see what they are giving me (77 hours) I was mad. I asked why it was so low. I was told that I do not get paid for monitoring the computer lab.

That's a crock of shit. I was never told that at any point. If I had known that I would not have performed those duties.

I was so livid! I asked for the contract (they previously refused to give me a copy). The contract states classroom hours are what is paid. . . I pointed out that if I am teaching then it is a classroom and it has been required for me to help students during the computer labs. That means they owe me for that time. Additionally, they require that teachers be there for observations and for workshops. Unpaid.

After arguing for a little about this I completely lost my temper. I grabbed my things. Sent a message to Siew saying "come get me" and told the person who was doing this bullshit that I'm leaving, now.

The situation there is a bit rough. They are short on teachers. I am the only native speaker there as well. I have a better position there than they think. They seem to have the perception that I need the money they're giving me. I don't need it. I can earn it elsewhere. They, on the other hand, need me.

Just before I completely left I asked the person to talk, alone. I told her everything that she's done that has bothered me and explained that I do not like to be treated this way. I do not need this job. I do not want to quit, but I will.

Siew showed up during this meeting and sat in for a bit.

While we were in the meeting one of my students wanted to talk with me. I asked him to wait in the computer lab for me.

We talked things out and I am still employed, and they understand, I hope, that they need me more than I need them.

After the meeting Siew took my pay check and went home. I spoke to my student. He wanted to apologize to me.

The previous day he had been late to class and refused my punishments (dance for 15 seconds, sing for 15 seconds or do 10 push-ups). I do not make the punishments difficult, but they keep people from taking advantage of me. Since he would not do them, I sent him to the computer lab and counted him absent.

He and I talked a bit and I re-assured him that I am not angry with him. I was disappointed in him for being late. He said he felt shy to do the punishments, that he doesn't like those things. I understand that, but I did not choose punishments because people LIKE them. The purpose is that you do not like it and learn from it.

I had him in a class last month as well, so he knows my rules. I hold myself to the same rules. If I'm late I do the same thing for the students!

After school we went to Tesco and bought a few things and then went to a festival here in Penang.

We looked at a few of the shopping booths and spoke to someone selling local brand cars (we're thinking of buying a car in the very near future). Then we went to eat.

We sat down at a table, ordered drinks. The menu had something I've been wanting to eat for a long time. Nasi Pattaya!

Nasi Pattaya is basically fried rice inside of an omelet. I've been wanting to eat this for more than a year already.

Of course I ordered Nasi Pattaya. Everyone else ordered their food. Everyone's food was brought out, except for mine. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally they brought out my NP. I started to eat. It wasn't the best NP I've had, but it seemed to be ok.

Then I cut a piece off and flipped it over, ready to eat it. I saw what looked like some black hairs on the back of that piece. I didn't think much of it, took them out of the food and ate. After that I flipped each piece over. And started to find more of the same. I stopped eating (I had eaten about 1/3rd of it at this point).

We called someone over and showed them that it had whatever in it that shouldn't be there. They asked if we wanted it replaced. I said no. They took it away and refunded our money.

End of story? Not quite.

I started to cough and feel irritation in my throat. Apparently I had EATEN some of these think hairs. Later my wife suggested that they were bristles from a scrub brush!

I do not know how I didn't feel it and managed to swallow, but I did.

We went home and I tried drinking a lot and eating some bread to push it down. That didn't work.

When I got up the next day it was still there! I woke up around 3:45am. I read things online to find a solution. I tried eating bread with peanut butter, but that didn't help either.

I went to school. It's hard to teach lessons with a bristle rubbing your throat! The school, because of the previous disagreement, had someone observe me for a class so they can try to get me a work contract and work visa. They couldn't have had worse timing!

After my last class, I felt that the bristle had moved. I told Siew that I need to go to the doctor. I needed to get it out of me.

We tried going to a clinic, but it was closed. We found one that was open, they said we need to go to ER because a clinic doesn't have the facilities for that kind of thing.

We went to a government hospital and paid 1RM (apparently I get government benefits to a certain degree since my wife is Malaysian :-) ). We went into te waiting area and waited. And waited. And waited.

There were people who'd been there 5 hours waiting already. Since it's ER, anytime an ambulance comes in that gets priority. That day a lot of ambulances were coming in!

Siew managed to get ahold of the doctor who helped me when I was sick previously. He said that since it had moved, it wasn't likely that the bristle would hurt me. That it would be ok for it to go into my stomach, be digested and passed on out.

I said fine, let's leave. We don't need to wait forever here. We lost 1RM and a several hours. I didn't want to lose anymore.

When we got to the vehicle I ate another piece of bread and drank some water. Siew was also hungry so we went to Gurney Mall to eat.

I said we should eat at Kim Gary in honor of our dentist friend (she previously used to be an un-official spokeswoman for Kim Gary). I said I would eat Cheese Rice in her honor as well.

We ordered, Siew's food came out. I waited for a long time, again. Finally they brought out our Cheese Broccoli and then my Cheese Rice.

We commented on one of the staff to one another. He was horrible! Still in training, but grace is not something he has any ability in at all.

Clang! Bang! Thump! Anytime he put a dish down I was worried it might break!

After that we spent a little money buying a new powered tooth brush because we have the same brand but our chargers do not work here (wrong voltage) and an adapter we had previously broke. A new adapter : 50RM, a new tooth brush with charger: 129 - 10% = 116RM. Nothing else we have needs a voltage adapter. So, this gives us a backup toothbrush an extra brush head and the right charger so it's a better option.

My throat was still irritated, but I couldn't tell if this was because of scratching or the bristle itself. I felt that it had passed out of my throat by this time though!

I went to sleep.

I woke up around 4am, again. This time I couldn't sleep because my right side was hurting. Laying on my left side made the right hurt, it hurt laying on my back. I got out of bed.

Searching online for a bit revealed that location to have three possible organs (I only knew for sure that the liver is there, that's from martial arts though) being there that could cause me pain. Liver, kidney or large intestine.

Great.

I had taken a lot of things to numb my throat (most of a small bottle of breacol, 2 sore throat tablets and 2 throat numbing "candies") which could damage my liver, although not so likely that it would happen so fast.

I drink quite a lot of water and the pain was in front not towards the back, so I doubt it was my kidney.

That leaves me with large intestine. Great, that fucking bristle is still at it. I really want to kill the people who served me bristle NP.

Any movement of my body makes it hurt. I sat watching tv for a while, then played a game on the computer. Anything to avoid moving my torso, since that hurt.

Siew was really worried, but I didn't want to go to the doctor. I felt bad though. I know she is worried and cares for me and I was being insensitive to her. I was causing her more worry. She said that when I move I was showing a lot of pain on my face.

I took 2 of the pain killers that the doctor gave me when I was sick previously (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and rested as much as I could.

I didn't rest around lunch time however. I had agreed to make lunch for the family.

I made a soup using a little bit of fatty pork (less than what most people who call one serving) then added potato then mushrooms and a little seasoning then some butter.

They seemed to like it. I had a separate bowl because I like Tobasco but didn't think they would like it much that way.

I drank a lot of fluid yesterday as well as resting.

Siew wanted me to go to the doctor. I told her that there's not a lot they can do at this point, not yet. I didn't have a fever. The area that hurt was not warm to the touch. It was inflamed, but not infected, or much infected. So, I'll be ok. This didn't really re-assure her, but she stopped trying to take me to the doctor. I still feel bad for that. I know she cares. I love her all the more for it, but I don't like to cause her any sort of discomfort.

By night I felt somewhat better, but very tired from too many nights without enough sleep. I slept early and woke up this morning feeling a lot better.

It still hurts but not as badly. I'm getting better on my own.

Luckily this is a 3 day weekend so I have an extra day of rest, hopefully I can manage not to look like a fresh surgery patient to my students!