The Week That Was
On Becoming a Teacher

This past week was so intense that I don’t even know where to begin.  What I do know is that I have gone through every range of emotion as I have tried to tackle the model of learning to teach TEFL.  It wasn’t in he slightest bit easy - but to be in front of kids was pure joy and something I would like to do again.  I am exhausted.  I managed to make it through three different 50 minute classes in the past two days - two as the sole teacher, one in a team teaching scenario.  The first one I was alone and scored a 4 - a failing grade in this course.  Today I did one team and one solo and I passed boh of them wih 2s.  I am so excited and so tired all at the same time.  I look forward to next week with a combination of exhilaration and fear.  Sorry this one isn’t very poignant either - this experience has really taken a lot out of me.

Day Three: Overwhelmed Already

Tomorrow I have to give my first presentation to a classroom full of students and I’m already overwhelmed.  I can;t believe how muhc information has been attempted to be crammed into my head in the past 72 hours.  this will be the dullest blog post I ever write - just wanted to keep you updated.  I’ll write again when poignancy strikes.

Kun Chew, Arai!
Thailand, I Want to KNOW THY NAME!

Okay.

You’re looking for a bead on what happened next and I’m going to give it to you.

I got my fat anxiety ridden ass off my bed in so-called “paradise” (Phuket needs a lesson in manners, IMHO, but that’s another story,) and hauled all of my belongings onto my back and headed out to the road.  From there I paid someone 300 baht, (a damn near criminal amount) to take me to the bus station, where I paid 720 baht to get a ticket to Bangkok via bus.  There were a lot of airport refugees there - how I managed to get on that 4pm bus is still a mystery to me, but I dropped 2.5 milligrams of colonopin and slept through the whole damn trip (fourteen hours) before arriving in Bangkok at 6am.

I was awakened as refreshed as one can be after sleeping in a bus SO FUCKING COLD you could’ve hung SIDES OF BEEF in the fucking thing, (the Third World apparently believes that extra-freezing A/C is a sign of wealth) and proceeded to watch the police hold back the yellow-shirted demonstrators as we poor tourists literally fought for cabs.  I tried to be polite about the whole thing, but in the end, I was fighting for a cab just like everyone else.  Cabs kept refusing to take me to the airport, which made me think the Bangkok airport was also closed -but then I remembered that there are TWO Bangkok Airports, and once I signified which one, a captured taxi agreed to take me.   200 baht later and I was there….(and it was a DAMN long ride.)

I arrived and hustled myself to the Thai Airways counter, got a ticket and got through security.  (Sitting here now, I am astonished to believe I pulled this off)   I got a ticket to chiang mai and called a friend on the ground to come get me.  And arrived in Chiang Mai *just in time* to get to the opening moments of my class in becoming a teacher of English in this goddamn crazy country.

In the class today, I learned a lot of things - that i am INDEED running out of a med (Abilify), that I will need “real clothes” like dress slacks and loafers which I do not have - but most of all, best of all, I learned the words “KUN CHEW, ARAI!”  This means….” (Thailand)” What is your name?  It’s like finding the key to a locked door.  And I plan to use it.  For as long as I can manage to be here.

The Mother of All Anxiety Attacks

Had it yesterday.  Feel quite ready to go home now.  Protestors have taken over the airports, making it damn near impossible to get back to Chiang Mai.  I can take a bus, but I’m concerned that I won’t make it with all the stress.  I’m running out of meds - I only brought enough for a week because I didn’t count on rebels taking over the airports.  I’m supposed to start class tomorrow but I surely won’t be back in time for that.  I’m really stressed, angry and disappointed.

PS: I have a choice now - either wait out the goddamn protests and hope that they someday open the airports or go to the bus station and take an 11-hour bus ride to Bangkok and then take a twelve-hour bus ride to Chiang Mai.  I can;t wait around.  I have to get out of here if I can.

Marooned in Phuket
A Revolution Can be a Damn Inconvenient Thing

So I got back from the island last night only to discover that the Phuket airport and several others around the country have been shut down due to massive protests all over the nation.  Thai Airways, the airline I am flying on, issued a decree yesterday that it’s 25,000 employees shoukdn’t show up for work and should join the protests instead.

Betcha you’re wondering what all the fuss is about.  I interviewed someone last night, a UK national who has made her home in Thailand for the past seventeen years.  From her perspective, what’s happening is this:  Once upon a time there was a Prime Minister of Thailand named Thaskin who did some good things for Thailand but also embezzled and was corrupt and was guilty of tax evasion.  In the last election, he was voted out but a new government came in that was sympathetic to him - answering to him, in fact, rather directly.  One of the things this new government proposed to do was re-write the laws so that Thaskin would no longer be guilty of tax evasion.

Along comes “PAD” (the People’s Alliance for Democracy) who started staging a protest in Bangkok last week that has spread throughout the country.  What PAD wants is the dissolution of the current government, (which supports Thaskin) as well as the return of Thaskin from England where he is currently.  In England, Thaskin has requested political asylum - I don’t quite understand if the UK government has granted it to him or not, but the PAD also want Thaskin extradited to Thailand to stand trial.

From what I can gather from the Bangkok Post, the PAD has not lived up to the proper “Rules of Engagement” when it comes to protesting, doing things such as threatening the news media with knives to get them to put the story on air.  As far as I can tell, that’s no longer an issue - the protests are streaming live over the Internet in various places, and are on most of the television stations as well.

I did just find out that the police and the military have used tear gas in Bangkok to disperse protestors who were amassed around the Prime Minister’s residence.

What all this means to me is that I am more or less stuck in Phuket until the protests are over or they decide to open the airports again.  It wouldn’t be a big deal except I’m supposed to start school on Monday, so I’m a little more nervous than I want to be at this point.

Ko Phi Phi
Beautiful But Tragic

Recently, I came to a decision about what my three wishes would be if I happened to stumble upon the genie in the lamp.  One, I would like to be able to breathe underwater; two, I would like to be impenetrable, like Superman, (in the event I ran into sharks underwater,); and three, I’d like to be able to speak all languages fluently, even computer ones, so I could communicate flawlessly with man, animal, and machine.  No use wishing for gobs of money - I could surely make a mint with all those other skills, and travel from one end of the earth to the other meeting people.

Wish #1 should go a long way towards explaining how truly crushed I felt when the PADI divemaster told me that lithium was a no-no on the list for potential divers.  I wasn’t even looking for a dive course just yet - I had promised myself a beginner’s course once I graduated from the TEFL, but fate intervened when I landed on Ko Phi Phi.  I was only searching for a place to stay, but I ran into a very friendly divemaster at one of the dive shops, and soon I’d signed up and paid my money when the issues of medications came up.  He made a call to the dive physician, and to make a long story short, I went from preparing myself mentally for my first underwater adventure to walking the sois of Phi Phi feeling sad.  Never had there been such a direct correlation with my illness preventing me from doing something I wanted to do, and it just all felt so unfair.

Moping about, I decided to go for the next best thing and go on a snorkeling expedition.  500 baht later and I had a ticket for one.  As I waited for the appointed hour, I wandered the many sois of Ko Phi Phi.  Literally every square inch of the island is packed floor to ceiling with shops, restaurants, Internet cafes, and massage parlours.  It’s as if someone discovered paradise, “in the name of civilization.”  True, there are no cars and motorbikes, which is truly a saving grace, but it’s still just such a horrid testimony to what can happen when someone deems that a place is “beautiful.”

These thoughts echoed through my mind when the boat took us to the beach where they filmed “The Beach.”  It is an absolutely stunning place, one you wish you could stay in forever, but even I have to admit that were I to be granted exclusive right to “The Beach,” it would only be a matter of time before I’d be trucking in ATMs and satellite dishes and discotheques in order to keep me company.

Scuba diving not withstanding, I’ve done some fairly cool things since I arrived in Ko Phi Phi, including:

* the snorkeling trip, where I saw beautiful irridescent fish underwater, as well as live monkeys on the beach;

* saw a killer fire show on the beach at the Hippie Bar;

* met a cool guy named Frederico from Italy on my snorkeling trip;

* drank a “bucket,” which came in a sand pail-sized bucket and consisted of Thai whiskey, Coca-Cola, and Red Bull (something I don’t need to do again)

* got my head shaved;

* finally got offered (and accepted) a “happy ending” with the Thai massage I opted for to get out of the rain.

Still, something about Ko Phi Phi makes me feel dreadfully lonely and disconnected.  I’ve really missed Lauren since I’ve been here, and called her on my cellphone this morning.  I even called my godfather Bob and it was good to hear his voice.  Travelling alone just feels lonely, and for the first time since I’ve been here, I’ve started to have serious doubts about whether or not this “month-in-Chiang-Mai-TEFL-course” business makes any sense.  I sorta want to go home now, which makes me wonder if I shouldn’t get off this island immediately, in hopes of dispelling such thoughts…

p.s. I wrote all this this morning, before I met Anu, a new friend from the U.K.  We spent the day wandering the island together, and I just spoke to another divemaster who said that if I talked to my doctor, perhaps something could be done about this dive issue.  I really hope so, because now I really want to do it!

The Thai Revolution
I Don’t Understand a Word of It

But I understand a feeling.

Tonight I walked along a lonely soi that was filled with Thai workers having beers and fish after a long day’s work.  In every place, the television was on with live telecasts of the demonstrations going on in Bangkok.  The people’s passions are so aroused by what is happening there, that \i felt chills and my neck hairs standing on end as \i sat with them and watched.  The Thais want an end to corruption in their government, and they sit rapt listening to the speeches. Earlier today, I watched as workers with computers kept the live demonstrations streaming in a corner of their screens.  There’s something significant happening here.  I don’t understand a word of it - but it’s a revolution and it makes me proud to be here, now.

Color Me Devastated

I need help from readers of this blog, particularly Mark, Canton, herebox and anyone with time on their hands.  I am on an island in the middle of the Andaman Sea where Internet time costs two baht a minute otherwise I’d do it myself.  Today, I was REFUSED by a PADI dive school because I take lithium.  I want a second opinion.  I want to know if there are takers of lithium who also scuba dive.  If anyone has five minutes to kill googling this, I’d really appreciate it.  I was DEVASTATED that my meds would keep me from doing something (scuba diving) that I always wanted to fo.

Cast Adrift in Chiang Mai:
Killing Time in Shangri-La

(Swimming Pool at the Shangri-La Hotel)

Yesterday morning, I canceled my return trip home, and I immediately had a mild anxiety attack.  “I am CAST ADRIFT with NO DIRECTION HOME!”  What am I really doing in Thailand?  Will I really stay here and teach?  Only time will tell…

So through some fluke of fate, we found ourselves with four days to kill in Chiang Mai between returning from Laos and going to Phuket, and it’s been a restless time.  I already know I’ll be returning to Chiang Mai after Phuket to spend a month at the University so I’m done thinking of CM as anything but  akind of home-base for me in Thailand.  I’ve already done all the tourist stuff but I’m not yet settled into my new hotel so we’ve just had time to kill.

Yesterday we decided to kill it in grand style, hanging out at the pool at the Shangri-La Hotel, by far the most expensive hotel in CM if not all of Thailand.  The President (that’s our GWB) spent a night here on his recent trip to the country, but we were able to get a day pass without background check for 300 baht.  (That’s $10 to you and me.) The place was truly opulent, but like most places for the rich, it was fairly sterile and above all…empty.  For most of the day we were the only visitors there, with a big empty pool to play in.  In between swims I read a helluva of a book called “The Sorrows of War” by Bao Ninh about being a North Vietnamese soldier during the Viet Nam War.  I can’t recommend it enough…

Today, I decided to go downmarket and get a pool pass at the much less grand Top North Guest House for 100 baht, partially in hopes of meeting some fellows travelers on a similar budget.  As I wound my way up Soi 1 off Moon Muang Thannon (street) I couldn’t help but overhear the unmistakable sounds of some fine old southern flat-pickin’ guitar and a banjo playing bluegrass airs in the middle of Thailand.  As I write this now, they’re playing “I Saw the Light” in perfect pitch, and my body is covered in chills…

And it got me to thinking, as I made my way into the bar for a soda water, (it’s noon) - Do we travel to find something new or do we hope that no matter where we go we find ourselves a little bit of the familiar so we can see a commonality with the rest of humanity?  I mean, shit - when I decided to come to Thailand I felt a little bit like I was planning a journey to Mars, it seemed that foreign to me.  And then I arrived and I find that everyone wears trousers and Nike t-shirts and they’re rude in traffic and their food is spicy by palatably so and so good - in other words, Thais are a lot like us but different in subtle ways like spirit houses and elephants and wats everywhere and saffron-robed monks walking the streets.  But even still, I never would’ve expected to get a little bluegrass with my poolside ramblings - jesus, it’s just such a trip to be here, even when you’re restless and killing time…to the sound of an old time American rag…