Breaking Sad

Breaking Sad: An epic tale of bad days that made me so insane, I lost patience with sadness and became happy

A reflective tale about my experience teaching in Abu Dhabi, and its crazy ass 

By: Sarah Optimistic Wun

Living, teaching, and just existing in Abu Dhabi was hard. Everyone looked at me like I was an ugly celebrity; they wanted to look because hell, it’s a celebrity, but they looked with a slight hint of disgust because I was ugly or different or something. Nobody understood me. My whole life changed. Things had to change. I had to accept the roaches and the heat. I had to accept that my style of teaching would simply not work in the environment I was put into. I had to understand that things would not get done even if I wanted them to.

It was Christmas break. I took this opportunity to do absolutely nothing (I think I watched three seasons of the Bachelor on YouTube, I swear to you) and just be. Bernard and I housesat for friends who had a house 8000 times better than ours, so we pretended like we were vacationing there for the Christmas holidays. It was excellent. No work, no need to leave the house and face the scary Arabic world, no expectations, no need to hate oneself for napping on and off for 6 hours for two weeks straight. We both enjoyed the Christmas holiday. We did nothing, and I had learned to accept nothingness as a positive experience.

From September to December, I had been sucked into the busiest whirlwind of my life to date. Up at 6am, work with shrieking howler monkeys, stuff after work which consumed both my time and my sanity, and then generally a good cry which exhausted me and let me pass out into an unsettled sleep. As I sat in bed, my aching tired ass body ready to fall asleep instantly, but my brain would question everything: “Why did that kid say that today? Why did I do this this way today and not yesterday? Why isn’t anyone smiling? Why am I only happy for like an hour at the beginning of the day? How can I keep myself smiling even when dumb shit is happening constantly and everyone is complaining around me? How do I survive this? Am I a teacher? Not even a good teacher… just a teacher. Am I? Can I last? Is Bernard happy? Does he want to do this? Will this get better? Is this better? What will I eat tomorrow? Will I have a successful bowel movement tomorrow HAH shut up brain; we all know that isn’t a realistic ponderance. Idiot. Will I feel comfortable tomorrow? What should I eat? What shouldn’t I eat? HOW WHY WHAT BAAAHH?!?!?!”

So naturally, I didn’t sleep for about four months. Much like a new mother of octuplets, I didn’t sleep for months. It felt like years. So come Christmas holiday, I slept for like a decade and enjoyed every minute of my lazy ass routine of slumping out of bed into a big, comfortable couch, watching at least 4 episodes of The Bachelor, then eating and probably continuing to eat until I fell asleep. As I think about it now, I’m like EW SLOTH! But trust me, if you are an overseas teacher, you are not thinking sloth. You are thinking, bitch knows what she’s doing! Take ANY opportunity to escape from the hell that is lesson planning for a school that doesn’t know the meaning of the words lesson or planning and watch reality TV!

Anyway, this was approximately three months later. I was refreshed. I felt zen. I felt new and alive. I felt like I could do this. Around February of that year, the bank decided to just take a bunch of our money after we attempted to transfer some of it back home. The transfer didn’t work, so instead of being normal and saying, “You missed some info”, the bank was all like, “I’m going to steal your dirhams and you’re going to accept it BWAHAHAHA.” So I raged with the bank for months. Very little happened. A bunch of other things that I have blocked out happened. Lots of bad things happened. I started becoming accustomed to bad days with all things bad and thought this was excellent! Let me explain: If things were always bad, not only would my spine become stronger, but also, as an optimistic person, I KNEW a good day was around the corner! It always happens like that.

Nope.

My sunshine started to fade. I became irritable and I just didn’t care anymore. Period. I was so “happy” (read as: not incredibly sad) at the end of the day when I could go home to Bernard and we could lose ourselves in the beautiful world of the stupid Internet. I loved my shows and my funny videos. Whenever I had a really bad day, I’d come home and crawl into bed and Bernard would find a video of a puppy at the beach or something and show it to me.

I remember one of my worst days. I was in bed for hours. Bernard made a playlist of dog videos (puppies salsa dancing, pugs making adorable snorting sounds, malamute puppies crawling all over each other, shih tzus making hilarious faces, other cute baby animals taking baths and stuff….). Anyway, it took a good 20 minutes of videos for me to finally smile. That’s pretty outrageous. Generally, I smile immediately upon seeing a dog. For those of you who know me, it takes a lot for me to NOT be happy. I’m like a golden retriever. So when THIS happened, it was weird:

I’m going to guess it was March or April. We had been back at work for a few months after break, so naturally the high of the time off had worn off and everyone was pissed at everything. The kids were being assholes and I was trying my best to adopt my style of teaching and prove it was successful. When I failed to rock my smiley mchappy dance routine, I did a 180. I wore a long black skirt, a dark shayla, and a stern frown to work one day. I looked at my students. Correction: glared. I said, “Let’s go” in the most un-Sarah way possible, and I led them upstairs to class. I managed about an hour of hateful mcfrown pants until someone said something cute and I smiled. DAMN IT! I attempted my scariness in the hopes that it might actually succeed in making my students listen to me. When it didn’t work, I was beat. I couldn’t be myself and I couldn’t be the person that I didn’t think existed within me. My soul had been eaten by these kids, and worse, by the authority figures in the school. On two separate occasions, one of my kids stabbed another with scissors. Another time, someone peed on the floor. This happened three times. One of my students said he wanted me to die. My students are 6 and 7 years old!! Light fixtures fell from the ceiling. No one cared. I just about threw up my kidney when this happened. I began to worry about Bernard in the high school section! Were the girls eating him alive? Probably. Him and I would exchange, “I want to punch a baby right now I’m so angry” texts back and forth. It was becoming brutal.

All the angst of school and the admin and heads going “Yeah yeah yeah… get back to work. Who cares. No problem. Enshallah someone will help you…” was driving me to depression. I would wake up every morning dancing (because I always love the start of a new day and its unpredictability) and within a few hours be absolutely miserable. It was taking its toll. Mix that in with other life happenings that I could not control and I was just lost.

I sat at my desk one day while the kids were supposed to be doing seatwork. They were howling and just beating each other up and all that and I didn’t care. Another kid took out a pair of scissors (which they are not allowed to have, by the way) and started poking violently at another kid’s arm. “MIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!!” THIS I could not ignore. I called the office. They didn’t bat an eye. Finally, another teacher strolled into the class to teach the kids religion and I took the two boys down to the VP. I was shaking. As I type this, my heart is beating rapidly as I remember the feeling of HOWWHATWHYWHATISTHISIDON’TEVEN?! I marched them right into the office, waited for the conversation between her and someone to finish, sat patiently and respectfully as someone else barged in and interrupted me, waited again, and then started to explain. “Yes, yes, Ms. Sarah. You boys sorry? Okay, they will not do again.” I was livid. I stormed right out, the students in tow. They were terrified. I used this terror to my advantage and tried to speak to them about the matter. They didn’t give 67 shits and a flying fuck. It was useless for me to impart my words of wisdom…

I walked them back to class where they proceeded to act normally (aka like crazy ape children). I didn’t understand. I sat at my desk paralyzed. Tears began to form in my eyes. I went into my office (the tiny ass kitchen space in the bachelor apartment that was my classroom), and started losing breath. I was having a minor panic attack. I texted another teacher who I had become good friends with and said, “I need you now”. She came into my office and told me she would take me outside for air. She led me into the hall but I couldn’t wait until we got outside. I fell down and just lost it. The tears, the screaming, the panic, the dry heaves because I wasn’t eating properly because I couldn’t digest because of the stress. The pain. The weakness. The assistants came over and started freaking out. They tried to help me up and undo my shayla. The teacher ran and got another one of my friends, a badass teacher who I trusted and confided in. She came over and I said, “I can’t take this shit.” She smiled. She understood. I was told to go home. I said no. I went into the nurse’s office to lie down for a bit. She asked me what was wrong. I said I hated Abu Dhabi and complained to her. She said, “You from Canada? Why for you are here?! You go Canada if I were you.” I laughed. I felt like I was in a movie. I felt like I had made this decision to come work at this school, and that it was the wrong one and as punishment, I had to deal with bad days and shitty not-consequences for terrible behaviour, which I really couldn’t handle. The behaviour and zero discipline was my issue and the thing that ultimately led to me not wanting to return to AD at my school. I believe children should respect EVERYONE and violence is never something I expected to encounter in kids. And most of all, I never expected it to get brushed off. Twice.

I told the nurse I couldn’t handle this school and its idiocy, but I wanted to finish the day. After a few hours, I went upstairs to my class. Puffy eyes and a beat red face, I hobbled in like a 178 year old and stood tall. The substitute that they got for me (because I was clearly sick and had to leave work) looked at me like I was a ghost. She asked, “Are you sure you want to stay?!!” and I said yes. She took me into the office and told me I was doing great and that people cared about me. It felt really nice to hear her say she was proud of me for having a good cry (even if it was at work) and getting back at it. She was impressed that I didn’t give up.

It was a rough day, but I did it. I felt really weak and a little off my game, but gradually as the day continued, I felt better. I just taught my ass off. Every period, a teacher or an assistant would come in and say, “Are you okay? Do you need me?” and smile with pride when I said I’d be fine. Another teacher came in, pulled up a chair to my desk and said, “You know, you basically did what all of us are feeling. We’re all stressed and fed up with this place, and that needed to be shown. I’m glad you broke down. I’m glad you’re okay! But I’m glad you showed how it really is.” This made me feel great. I was epically embarrassed, panic attacking like a jackass in the middle of the hallway; but the assistants and other teachers were worried and concerned. It was very sweet. The kids and the heads didn’t give a shit, but you know what? Who cares! I didn’t need them. I felt much better. I felt like I needed to break down.

I continued feeling very weird and that if something terrible didn’t happen, I was uncomfortable with it. I was so used to having bad days that were so terrible they brought me to tears, so if the day was just bearable, I was uncomfortable with it. It became really easy to have a good day!! I’d come home and Bernard and I would get Subway and I’d be really happy. I’d go to work and I’d have a really cool idea for teaching addition and I’d be really happy. When the kids drove me to want to chainsaw my face off, I played music and danced around the room like a crazy maniac in order to keep myself smiling. Eventually, the kids started to come around and realized I wasn’t going to be sad anymore. I even told them, nope, won’t work! I’m too damn happy. I faked it and it made it almost real. When a kid tried to push my buttons, I’d laugh at him and be like, “HAH! No break for you! No art either! DO YOUR WORK!” and then walk away and ignore him for 20 minutes.

I literally felt so sad that happiness was something I felt I didn’t deserve. Sure, I had friends and we’d do things and it was excellent and I’d be really happy, but for a while I was very uncomfortable with this feeling of giddiness and excitement. I know it sounds weird but I seriously felt this way.

I remember the first time I had a decent bowel movement after months of discomfort and stress. Dude, I came out of the bathroom prancing, put on an upbeat song and literally danced. Then I started giggling with happiness and cried. Psycho? Yes. I was just so happy to be regular! Forgive me if that is TMI, but shut up! You know the feeling of happy digestion, and unfortunately I found it hard to digest whilst living in hell (AD) so suck it! Applaud my ability to feel ecstasy in a common body function.

The point of my insane ramblings is that good things come from bad things. It’s okay to be sad. Know that happiness is on its way because the sadness you feel will get tired of itself and peace. I promise.

If you’re having a bad day, think about what would happen if every day for months you had the worst day ever and you couldn’t “go”. Seriously. Then think about how you CAN “go” and how usually when you have a bad day, it gets better or it’s not all bad and life is actually pretty damn cool.

At the end of the day, I see it like this: I was in freaking Abu Dhabi, teaching and experiencing a new culture! I am the luckiest girl in the world! So many people would love that experience! I am very blessed to be able to have taught overseas and I’m really happy with how much I’ve grown and learned about myself that I otherwise would not have learned. What an experience! The good, the bad, and the ugly. And, of course, the beautiful. Abu Dhabi really is a beautiful place. I had to look hard, but I found it. Teaching is a beautiful profession and I applaud anyone who dares to get up every day and face a room full of animals, civilizing them into incredible members of a fast-paced, crazy ass world. Teachers. Sweet Jesus, we rock.

Oh, so I think this school is hiring. Who’s in? HAH! Didn’t think so. ;)

Keep shining,

Sarah HAPPINESS IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT, SWEET JESUS I’M SO HAPPY AND THERE’S NO REASON – WHY DO I NEED A REASON?! Wun