People who place an emphasis on the needs of others, especially in a fussy or overprotective manner, are often referred to as Mother Hens. At times I've had students who neglect their work because they are too busy helping others. Bless their little hearts for wanting to help their friends!
Now picture it- Thailand 2015. A new group of volunteers enters the CCS Bangkok home base, one of these newbies will be rooming with me, Delainey and Dana. On the first night our new roommate goes out to meet a friend and returns around 3am. We later find out she was lost in a taxi for an hour trying to find her way home. The next evening one of the other new volunteers informed me that our roommate was sleeping because she had been out so late. Imagine my surprise when she wasn't even in the room. Fast forward to bed time and there's still no sign of our roommate. We figured she might be out again so we left a light on for her.
I am not a great nighttime sleeper. I can sleep like a hibernating bear during the day but I struggle to stay asleep at night. So at 3 o'clock in the morning for the second night in a row you can probably imagine that I was not happy about the fact the newbie's light was still on. My first feeling was anger that she was being inconsiderate of the others in the room. After taking a better look at the time I realised it was closer to 4:00am than 3 and that is when my Mother Hen instinct kicked in - what if she was lost? What if she had been hurt and couldn't contact CCS? What if something even scarier had happened? I tried to tell myself that I was overacting and force myself back to sleep.
It was pointless. If I did drift off to sleep my dreams turned into nightmares of things that could go wrong in a foreign country - thanks to TV shows like Locked Up Abroad and movies like Taken, there is no shortage of story plots in my head. I believe I woke up at every half hour to see if she had gotten back yet. Around 6:45am I gave up my attempts at getting some sleep and headed downstairs to see if anyone had heard from the Newbie. I asked one of the other volunteers and she was surprised her cohort hadn't returned yet. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it the day staff hadn't arrived yet and I had just missed our nighttime security guard.
Fact: Because the Newbie had left so early she hadn't needed to sign out. If she had signed out there's no way Sak, our guard, would have left without her being back in the house.
I went back upstairs to get ready and a few minutes later the Newbie bounded into the room loudly asking me if I could change a 1,000 baht. I felt bad for Delainey being woken like that when I was pretty sure my tossing and turning must have affected her all night.
I guess all is well that ends well. The Newbie was back safely. Surely that was the important thing.
Now picture it- Thailand 2015. A new group of volunteers enters the CCS Bangkok home base, one of these newbies will be rooming with me, Delainey and Dana. On the first night our new roommate goes out to meet a friend and returns around 3am. We later find out she was lost in a taxi for an hour trying to find her way home. The next evening one of the other new volunteers informed me that our roommate was sleeping because she had been out so late. Imagine my surprise when she wasn't even in the room. Fast forward to bed time and there's still no sign of our roommate. We figured she might be out again so we left a light on for her.
I am not a great nighttime sleeper. I can sleep like a hibernating bear during the day but I struggle to stay asleep at night. So at 3 o'clock in the morning for the second night in a row you can probably imagine that I was not happy about the fact the newbie's light was still on. My first feeling was anger that she was being inconsiderate of the others in the room. After taking a better look at the time I realised it was closer to 4:00am than 3 and that is when my Mother Hen instinct kicked in - what if she was lost? What if she had been hurt and couldn't contact CCS? What if something even scarier had happened? I tried to tell myself that I was overacting and force myself back to sleep.
It was pointless. If I did drift off to sleep my dreams turned into nightmares of things that could go wrong in a foreign country - thanks to TV shows like Locked Up Abroad and movies like Taken, there is no shortage of story plots in my head. I believe I woke up at every half hour to see if she had gotten back yet. Around 6:45am I gave up my attempts at getting some sleep and headed downstairs to see if anyone had heard from the Newbie. I asked one of the other volunteers and she was surprised her cohort hadn't returned yet. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it the day staff hadn't arrived yet and I had just missed our nighttime security guard.
Fact: Because the Newbie had left so early she hadn't needed to sign out. If she had signed out there's no way Sak, our guard, would have left without her being back in the house.
I went back upstairs to get ready and a few minutes later the Newbie bounded into the room loudly asking me if I could change a 1,000 baht. I felt bad for Delainey being woken like that when I was pretty sure my tossing and turning must have affected her all night.
I guess all is well that ends well. The Newbie was back safely. Surely that was the important thing.
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