A Snapshot

Youtube is banned here now. Social media is bad media. It makes the country look bad. Indeed. I subbed a class today that partially depended on youtube working, so I did a last minute overhaul of the foreign lesson plan. It went fine until halfway through when the students started throwing tiny wads of paper at eachother and giggling. I ignored it. They just want to be treated like adults, students frequently tell me. Not like children. Right. These students will hopefully be voting in the local elections on Sunday. Every day lately, vans blaring uplifting music shadow me around the city, begging anyone within earshot to vote for the candidate plastered on the side of the van. Sometimes two competing vans will pass each other right in front of me and for 5 glorious seconds no other sound in the world can be heard. The prime minister has been campaigning, too. Apparently there's a video of him yelling about how awful social media is at a rally, but he had lost his voice so he sounds like a high pitched squeaky teenager. I'd like to watch that video, but I can't. Because social media makes the country look bad.