It’s almost 8 o’clock now, and I’m still sitting leisurely sipping coffee in front of the house, letting the silence soothe my mind, which is agitated from accidentally listening to the morning news. Who killed whom and how? Who will be the new era’s old snake group? Do they need a pact? And who has to die because someone drove drunk and hit them? This news made me even more depressed. I accidentally thought, if I were to die now with my wife, how would my two children continue to live? Even if there were endless money, it couldn’t compare to the longing hugs and kisses like when I was alive.
A bird came down to find food on the ground in front of the house, spreading its tail and swaying it enticingly. A squirrel was running up a frangipani tree, probably to eat the leftover young coconut I had cut open and was preparing to throw away. A pigeon, which has been my nemesis lately, was cooing moodily on the roof of the house.
Everything around makes sitting and sipping coffee delightful.
In the morning, the air is definitely cooler than later in the day, but it still feels warm. I guess it’s about 28 degrees Celsius right now… I thought to myself.
When I was in grade 7, I was really good at converting units of measurement. From Celsius to Fahrenheit or to Kelvin (which is the standard unit that the teacher said doesn’t need the word degree in front when stating temperature).
I continued to think and laugh, then wondered why I studied it… The answer is I don’t know. The teacher taught it, so I learned it. I took the exam, got the score, and that was it. I remembered some, forgot some, mostly forgot. But what I remember vividly to this day is that water has the chemical formula hydrogen dioxide or H2O, while the waste gas from the body’s oxygen combustion is carbon dioxide or CO2, and flatulence is probably in the hydrogen sulfide group.
See, I remember. This is general science from junior high school.
So what… well, I don’t know, but I remember. I started studying biology when I was in grade 10. It was very exciting. I started using a microscope, seeing many small living or non-living things, seeing my own sperm wriggling around. It was like a thrill, but not quite complete because the teacher said that the small glass slide cover, called a cover slip, must not break or be lost. Anyone who loses it will get an incomplete grade.
Scared to the point of shrinking, afraid of getting an incomplete grade (I wasn’t used to it, I really hated it. Someday I’ll tell you about my incomplete grades and my daughter’s. The latter will have to wait a bit. Thinking about it makes my heart race with her legendary incomplete grade).
Because one day, I dropped the cover slip on the floor, and it shattered when I tried to pick it up from the classroom floor. But for some reason, the teacher didn’t give me an incomplete grade. He probably just wanted to warn us to be careful and take care of public property.
In grade 10, biology made my life starry-eyed. It was the study of taxonomy, the classification of living things into different phyla. It was exciting because the teacher took us on trips to collect and classify living things by phylum. We went to Poda Island, snorkeling to see various living things. It made me fall in love with biology from then on. The next topic, the process of reproduction at the cellular level, made me even more fascinated. I learned about mitosis, meiosis, and simple genetic inheritance.
Oh, it was so good… but really, why did we study it?
The meiosis process that occurs after the father and mother have intercourse, allowing the sperm to swim through the mother’s cervix, sneak through the cervix, uterine cavity, fallopian tube, and meet the mother’s egg cell at the end of the trumpet, then fertilize. It wasn’t significant to our lives at that time beyond studying to pass the exam.
The teacher forgot to teach us something about life (actually, it’s the Ministry of Magic in the wizarding world that designed Hogwarts’ curriculum that forgot this. The teacher just taught what they were told).
The teacher forgot to teach us “how we have sex and how to prevent it,” which is important and more important than meiosis, right?
Yeah, we really forgot to ask ourselves why we study.
Nowadays, it’s even more distorted. My daughter studies taxonomy from elementary school. That day, I was very annoyed when I saw the book my daughter was studying. “Why study this?” I muttered softly, afraid my daughter would hear.
Yes, really, the teacher forgot to teach the most basic, tangible things: eating, living, having sex properly, and preventing pregnancy and disease.
We teach children to be so smart they can reach the stars, but we don’t make our children live as they should. Our children lack the skills to think for themselves, play, work as a team, and basic self-help.
Um… I’m not talking about self-help until orgasm. I’m talking about general life.
A simple example.
Do our children dare to buy condoms, and how should they choose? Answer me, please.
………………….
Once, I had to travel to a meeting in another province, so I took the opportunity to bring my wife and child along.
Trang Province
“Dad, mom forgot to prepare condoms,” she whispered to me as soon as she remembered.
“It’s okay, I’ll buy some at 7-Eleven,” I told her.
Buying condoms is fun for me. I like trying different types they produce for us. There are ultra-thin ones with terrible rubber quality. I’ve tried textured ones, flavored ones, loose ones (which aren’t good), tight ones (also not good). I’ve tried many, until I have a few favorite brands.
Standing there choosing until I found the condom I wanted to try and went to pay as usual.
“Sir, this is the large size, are you sure?” The 7-Eleven staff told me as soon as she scanned the barcode to check the price.
I felt a chill, accidentally rubbing my crotch, afraid I forgot to zip up and she saw my size.
The chatter in the store suddenly went silent. That girl stopped choosing bread and turned to look at me. That boy left the fridge door open, fogging up the glass while choosing frozen food. He stood still. I believe he was eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Embarrassed,” someone as shameless as me felt shy, which is rare.
“Um… Miss,” I felt a lump in my throat.
“Could you choose one that you think suits me?” I told her.
“Kingtex,” she chose the black box with a crowned lion standing on two legs, looking cute, and handed it to me. I glanced at the lion, but didn’t see its pride.
“Oh, little kitty, born a cat, just mounting a female and inserting is considered done!” I cursed in my mind at that lion. But strangely, I felt pity for myself instead of the lion on the condom box.
And then she and I parted ways from that moment. The legendary 7-Eleven in Trang.
Thanaphan Chuboon, that night, nothing happened, it was too tight.
April 21, 2019
https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/661290
Biology and Condoms, a story by Asst. Prof. Dr. Thanaphan Chuboon