Patience is a virtue...

It's only Wednesday, and already I know that this can be written off as a bad week. I've been called fat, directed to wear a clown costume, been turned away from Thai costume shops that don't stock my size, and been poked and prodded at for being shaped funny. Naturally it only gets worse.

This morning as I walked into school after raising the flag, the secretary pulled me aside and spoke to me about my clothes, which are apparently inappropriate. I would like to point out at this juncture that I am wearing a non-revealing black top, three-quarter pants and sandals, the same thing I wore at Cambridge for almost three years.
It is not acceptable to the owner of my school that I wear flat shoes AND short pants on the same day. I can wear short pants, but must then wear heels or closed shoes. If I want to wear sandals I must wear long pants or a skirt.

Now, if you know me, you know that I am physically incapable of moving at anything faster than a crawl when wearing heels. I just can't do it, God knows I've tried. In the interest of efficiency in doing my job, heels would be a hindrance.
The other issue is that I have big feet, by Thai standards, and so cannot find shoes to fit. So I wear open backed sandals so that my heels can hang off the edge. Naturally, with closed shoes this would not be possible. The options here are therefore either to be really slow at getting anywhere (and uncomfortable within an hour) or in agony all day and develop ugly blisters on my heels.

The pants issue also presents a problem for several reasons:
1) I live maybe 15 degrees north of the equator, in Southeast Asia. It is SWELTERING hot, every day.
2) Thai people don't make pants my size cos Thai people don't wear pants my size. So they are nowhere to be found, except in the very expensive places.
3) Number 2) also applies to all skirts that are not of the wraparound variety.

You can see why I feel like a behemoth all the time, with my self esteem swiftly eroding. Feet too big, too tall, boobs too big (I get stared at on the street), hips too wide, hair too curly... I mean I'm foreign!! Of course I look different! Although I think they would find my foreign-ness easier to accept if I wasn't brown. Ai.

So it would appear that I have nothing to wear, again, and no money really to rectify the situation. Because who came to Thailand expecting to have to buy a whole wardrobe? Certainly not I.