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First of all, Happy International Women's Day, friends! You are all wonderful, and I'm privileged to call you friends.
So. IWD. This is still a fairly new concept for me. IWD is not remarked upon in any meaningful way in the US, at least not in my experience. There are the Google doodles and a slew of ads that tell us how strong and amazing women are as they try and sell us Womanly Goods. We might have gotten an all-staff email in 2018, the last IWD that I taught in the US, although we were more likely to be feted on Teacher Appreciation Week. Which is cool!
At the school in China, where I taught from 2018-2020, we received roses and cookies (although not actually in 2020 because Pandemic), and students might bring in chocolates. Ferrero Rocher, with its gold wrapping, was the preferred gift chocolate in China. In Belarus, the Merci selection (pictured below) seems to be the popular choice for gifts for teachers or colleagues. It's a step or two above your basic Hershey bar, but it's affordable.
This year, our admin ordered fancy cakes from a French bakery and handed out tulips. According to a quick Google search, tulips, as symbols of spring, are the most popular flower to give on IWD in Russia (and Belarus was once part of the Soviet Union). Also, it is customary to give an odd number of flowers because even-numbered bouquets are associated with funerals. I got two tulips, but they were from different people, so I'm not going to be superstitious about it.
Anyway, the cake! We got our cakes in little boxes, and I waited a bit to open mine because I was finishing up some prep work for the day. When I did finally open it -- the box was empty!
Readers, I cried a little.
Okay, objectively this is pretty funny. I am a thousand percent certain that it was an accident, but somehow, seeing that empty box popped the fragile little emotional balloon I was trying to nurture AND made me laugh. I mean, seriously! Nothing is a better metaphor for the lip service paid to so many women amid the still-rampant, systemic misogyny than a fancy, empty box. But it also was a barb that popped that little balloon in my heart, which then startled the Brain Weasels and set them screaming. I had to hide in the staff restroom and cry for a few minutes, feeling ashamed that something so small and clearly accidental set of the shouting that , of course, I wouldn't get a cake! I'm too fat for cakes anyway, and this is clearly a sign that I'm not appreciated and in fact, I am hated by all and what am I even doing here besides taking up space??
Brain weasels are jerks.
So. Tears, laughter, all on par for a Monday. I emailed my boss and made a joke, because I kind of actually wanted a cake, but I didn't want to be a jerk about it. He brought in a cake with his profuse apologies. In his defense, the cakes turned out to be very light, so it wasn't that hard to see how a distracted admin might not notice the empty box. Then I opened the box.
Readers, I really laughed then. Because the nice, pink, heart-shaped cake was placed in the box upside down, so when I gazed upon it, it looked like a nice, rosy butt, flashing me.
So, if you want to see the box and the Butt Cake, take a gander below the cut. And Happy International Women's Day!
( Read more... )
So. IWD. This is still a fairly new concept for me. IWD is not remarked upon in any meaningful way in the US, at least not in my experience. There are the Google doodles and a slew of ads that tell us how strong and amazing women are as they try and sell us Womanly Goods. We might have gotten an all-staff email in 2018, the last IWD that I taught in the US, although we were more likely to be feted on Teacher Appreciation Week. Which is cool!
At the school in China, where I taught from 2018-2020, we received roses and cookies (although not actually in 2020 because Pandemic), and students might bring in chocolates. Ferrero Rocher, with its gold wrapping, was the preferred gift chocolate in China. In Belarus, the Merci selection (pictured below) seems to be the popular choice for gifts for teachers or colleagues. It's a step or two above your basic Hershey bar, but it's affordable.
This year, our admin ordered fancy cakes from a French bakery and handed out tulips. According to a quick Google search, tulips, as symbols of spring, are the most popular flower to give on IWD in Russia (and Belarus was once part of the Soviet Union). Also, it is customary to give an odd number of flowers because even-numbered bouquets are associated with funerals. I got two tulips, but they were from different people, so I'm not going to be superstitious about it.
Anyway, the cake! We got our cakes in little boxes, and I waited a bit to open mine because I was finishing up some prep work for the day. When I did finally open it -- the box was empty!
Readers, I cried a little.
Okay, objectively this is pretty funny. I am a thousand percent certain that it was an accident, but somehow, seeing that empty box popped the fragile little emotional balloon I was trying to nurture AND made me laugh. I mean, seriously! Nothing is a better metaphor for the lip service paid to so many women amid the still-rampant, systemic misogyny than a fancy, empty box. But it also was a barb that popped that little balloon in my heart, which then startled the Brain Weasels and set them screaming. I had to hide in the staff restroom and cry for a few minutes, feeling ashamed that something so small and clearly accidental set of the shouting that , of course, I wouldn't get a cake! I'm too fat for cakes anyway, and this is clearly a sign that I'm not appreciated and in fact, I am hated by all and what am I even doing here besides taking up space??
Brain weasels are jerks.
So. Tears, laughter, all on par for a Monday. I emailed my boss and made a joke, because I kind of actually wanted a cake, but I didn't want to be a jerk about it. He brought in a cake with his profuse apologies. In his defense, the cakes turned out to be very light, so it wasn't that hard to see how a distracted admin might not notice the empty box. Then I opened the box.
Readers, I really laughed then. Because the nice, pink, heart-shaped cake was placed in the box upside down, so when I gazed upon it, it looked like a nice, rosy butt, flashing me.
So, if you want to see the box and the Butt Cake, take a gander below the cut. And Happy International Women's Day!
( Read more... )
