Burn ouuut

So Ive started my nanny job and lets just say: it's interesting. Not what I expected, could be worse, kids arent terrible, over in a month and half. It will be another fun, random chapter to the Asiankp Book of Life. I figure it will come right after the chapter on "Summer Job at the Stadium: Surviving Verbal Molestation" and before "I'm Never Having Children."
Kidding. I hope I dont have that chapter. But you never know. I may be so burned out on another people's kids that I wont even be able to consider my own brethren.

However, today we went to the park which happens to be near a school. Since its a school in the middle of the city, they use the public parks as the playground. Sure enough, when noontime rolled around, I heard screams and high pitched yells coming from the school. Suddenly a horde of plaid jumper wearing kids attacked us. This was fine and my litle charge, T, seemed to enjoy his sudden company. Of course, these 30 or so students were accompanied by only 2 teachers. And these teachers seemed to be more interested in their footwear than watching the kids. But I digress. I watched T, grateful that I had chosen a bright orange fleece as outerwear which clearly set him apart from the other plaid skirt and tie-wearing youngsters swarming him.

I heard some minor taunting behind me and turned to see a group of 6 boys surrounding a young girl. They must have been about 10 or 11. They followed her around the park, shouting her name and forming suffocating half circles and when she tried to escape they closed in tighter and laughed at her. This continued for about 10 minutes and it was clear that the young girl was growing more and more agitated. Finally, the boys cornered her into those orange tubes (you know the ones) and trapped her in from either side, pounding on the top and shouting. I began to feel a bit sorry for the girl and looked to the teachers to do something. Sure enough, there they were looking at their feet. I started to head over there, determined to do something and slightly aware that this was not my place. About 10 steps from the tube, I heard a whistle and the boys' heads cocked to one side and they scattered as quickly as they had gathered and joined the other kids forming a line out of the park. The girl crawled slowly out of the tube and looked around for her predators. She breathed a sigh of relief, shot me an embarrassed look and took up the last place in line. She stood apart from the other kids and shuffled her feet back and forth, keeping her head down. I watched her shoulders hunch over as she made her way back to the school.

I'm not sure what I witnessed but I can tell you that if I see that happen again, I wont hesitate next time.