Playing Line

On August 27, 2016August 28, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today I woke up and looked at my phone to find a text from Noi telling me we should go to the Dam to see the festivities and she’d pick me up at 9:00. I was planning on going up there anyway to watch Robin race. She was late, as always, and we missed Robin’s race. There was only a small part of the race at the finish line that you could see anyway and they were going so fast that I might have missed Robin if I had been there on time and blinked. We walked around and she told me “food is over there”. I said I knew because I came up last night. She was so shocked. How did I know? I came by myself? How is it so difficult to figure out that if you tell me there is a festival that there might be stuff going on? Now, I’m just angry all over again.

It takes about 5 minutes to see everything at the festival. As exciting as having something going on is, it’s actually boring. We walk by a booth selling food and it also has a giant fountain made of black jelly. Black jelly is popular dessert all over Southeast Asia made from leaves. It was big bowl with a square of black jelly in the middle. Black jelly juice came trickling out the top of the square. Noi likes black jelly so she ordered two. It looks disgusting, but I’ve heard about it and you don’t say no to Noi, so I guess it was time to try it. I like the black jelly bubble drinks so hopefully this is the same thing. The lady poured a thick dark liquid in the cup. Again, I assume this is some form sugar. Then she dipped the ladle in the fountain and pulled out black liquid and black worms of jelly. Half the cup was black jelly worms. She threw some ice on top. It tasted like very watered down licorice and the black worms were awful. I’m not sure why jelly balls or jelly squares are ok in a drink and jelly worms are not, but that’s my opinion on the subject. Black jelly drink gets a thumbs down.

We sat by the river for at least an hour while Noi “played Line”. Line is what Thais use instead of texts. It’s kind of a mini facebook. Then we went to lunch. Noi spent all of lunch on Line. Then we went for coffee – another half hour of just sitting there while Noi was on Line. I literally spent 5 and a half hours with Noi today and about 4 and a half of it she was on Line. At one point I asked her if there was a place she recommended I get my hair done. I was just looking for a recommendation. She asked if I wanted to go now. No, any time is fine. She took me there anyway. It was one of the places I had been to before to get a pedicure. The lady said to come back in an hour. Noi asked where I wanted to go next and I said home. I got to do laundry although I think half of it will need to be redone – things won’t dry and then they smell like mildew.

I went back to the hair salon, not really looking forward to it. Before I left Colorado I had gone in to have all the red in my hair dyed black. My natural hair color is black so I wouldn’t have to dye it again here. But, the lady in Colorado dyed it a dark brown. The dark brown has turned to a dull frizzy lighter brown that I don’t like. So, I can live with it, dye it black or not care what people think and go back to a fun color. I know this lady probably has no idea what to do with curly hair and I’m not sure I can convey what I want. So, I point to a box of hair color and say c-dang (red). I try to explain that she can leave the black the way it is and just color the ugly brown with red, but that did not translate at all. There was a picture on the wall of ridiculous red hair she pointed to and I smiled and said yes. She colored all my hair and it’s more of a red brown, not even close to ridiculous. She cut my hair too which was scary as I’m not sure she’s ever cut curly hair before. She didn’t know how to style curly hair so she straightened it. It’s not what I was hoping for, but it’s not bad either. 20 minutes later it was no longer straight.

I did nothing useful all day other than get my hair cut, so why start now? I headed back up to the dam to see if Saturday nights festivities were better than Friday night’s. They were. There were a lot more people there and there was a lady singing. She was dressed in what looked like part of a band uniform and she was talking as much as she was singing. She was hamming it up and trying to be funny. Everyone was taking pictures so I figured she was famous. I ran into Pat and she asked “Who told you about this event? How did you know?” I refrained from saying anything sarcastic, but I thought about it for a second. Then about 5 minutes later I asked how her new house was and she asked if I wanted to see it. Confusing. She told me there was massage and I said, I had gone there last night. “You came up last night, with who? By yourself?” Again, why is this so shocking all of a sudden? I’ve lived here since January. I do most things by myself. This isn’t new information. I asked her about the lady singing and she said she was a famous comedian. That explains the hamming it up part. There was a guy selling Chicago burgers at the festival and Pat said she tried one. I decided to try one so Pat and her husband walked over there with me. The guy selling the burgers lives in another part of Thailand because he has a Thai wife and he travels around selling burgers. He was very proud that he came from Chicago and that because he was from Chicago he knows how to cook a good burger. Is Chicago famous for their burgers and I don’t know this? He was just as creepy as the German guy from Friday night. Pat’s husband asked me if the guy was Hawaiian. He was definately Italian to the bone. After I told Dam that I could just see the wheels turning in his head as he put this new information in and you could tell he was excited to have another piece of the puzzle in understanding Americans. And the burger was meh.

By now, the woman was done performing and a guy in a suit, tennis shoes, sunglasses and a big white hat was singing. His suit was white on the front and black on the back and he had a long black cape. He’s a famous comedian too. The crowd was so excited to see him. I watched for two songs, but I just don’t get it. I went home. After I got home, I got a text from Noi telling me there was a concert at the dam. I told her I was just there a half hour ago. “Really? With who”? Seriously. Yes really. Still, just me.

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20160827_132543 — Wow – This guy is having a rough life

Squeeky Shoes

On August 26, 2016August 28, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This morning half my class was missing. Do I teach a class when half of them won’t get the lesson? How do I teach the other half later without boring the first half? I wasn’t sure what to do. Of course, they just wanted to play games instead of have class. Then I thought, I’m the teacher, I can do what I want. I don’t want to teach to half the class. So, we played scrabble and bingo. I had two classes in the afternoon and neither class showed up. Well, that means less lesson planning, but still, where were they? I texted Noi to tell her they hadn’t showed up since they were her classes too. She was at a seminar. She texted back that they went to join the mountain bike festival and they were all riding bikes all afternoon. She said I should have gone. They had enough bikes for teachers too. Then she sent me photos of the students and teachers riding. And this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am so over this place and the end of September is not soon enough to leave. There is nothing to do here. I work too much and when there is something to do, no one tells me. Pat and I talked about this in February and I told her I wanted to race when the festival happened. She didn’t see fit to tell me. Robin knows I want to bike, but he doesn’t see fit to tell me even though he’s already signed up to race in the road bike race. Noi tells me I should have gone with my class as if I’m some mind reader. How the fuck was I supposed to know my classes were doing this? Wouldn’t they learn more English by have an everyday conversation while riding bikes with their teacher instead of me sitting in an empty classroom by myself? How difficult is to send a text message – “no class today, go bike riding with them.”? And then everyone seems so surprised to hear I’m leaving. How is that surprising? Am I supposed to love living here when all I do is work or sit alone in my house? I would think people from a communal culture would get it.

Noi just kept sending me pictures of the fun I missed. I sat in the coffee shop crying for 20 minutes. I’ve been holding back so many tears. I haven’t been trying to hold them back, they just seem to hang out beneath the surface and never quite come up. I decided to go home and see if I could cry more. I felt like I could cry for days. I got home and no crying came. Huh, ok, so we’re done with that for the day. Then I decided to drive up to the dam and see what was going on. There was supposed to be a market and other festival activities. There was a massage tent set up and all four of the masseuses in town were there so I was able to get a massage from the man I usually go to on the weekends. There was a small child with squeeky shoes running around outside the massage tent. The shoes have squeekers like dog toy squeekers in them. She ran up and down the street for about 45 minutes. Squeek squeek squeek squeeeee squeek squeek squeeeeeeee squeek. There was also bad Thai music. So, I found some sort of relief in the fact that I had a massage to the sounds of bad Thai music and squeeky shoes. Then I found Tip and her family and hung out with them for a little bit. They went home kind of early (little children). I was intrigued by the shake that Dam (Tip’s son) got. It had condensed milk, some white cream I can only guess was white sugar in liquid form, ice and grape jello. She put everything in a blender and mixed up real good before adding the jello. That she barely hit the blender for so that it was still in chunks. Then she threw powdered ovaltine in the cup at the halfway mark and on top. I’m not sure if this would be good or horrible. I should have ordered one just to see what it was all about, but I didn’t. I have no idea how to order it now.

I ate dinner alone by the river. It was kind of sad, but also quite relaxing. I’ve had enough people for the day. The lights on the bridge lit up the water below. That brought lots of bugs and that brought lots of fish. The surface of the water moved an rippled as bugs moved on top and things moved underneath. It wasn’t fish jumping. It was more like snakes or river monsters gliding just below the surface. It was fascinating to watch. I vowed never to swim in the river – ever.

There was a beer garden and a stage so I went to check that out after eating. The beer garden looked very uninviting as it was only groups of people at reserved tables so I stood near the stage for a while. There’s no place to go hang out at night here so I was determined to hang out. A German guy walked by me and asked where I was from. He was kind of creepy and I didn’t really want to talk to him, but I couldn’t run away either. I told him I lived here and taught English as Sam Ngao Witt. He said that was a terrible school. He lives here and his son can’t speak English. I asked if his son could speak German. Oh yes. He told me about 6 or 7 times that that was a bad school and shook his head like I should leave school before I got killed. Ok, I’m not a fan of the school right now, but the fact that his son doesn’t speak English is just as much his fault as the school’s fault or his son’s fault and it doesn’t make the school a scary place. The conversation just got more difficult and awkward. Finally, he left and I decide that hanging out alone standing next to the beer garden listening to Thai music did not qualify as hanging out. I went home.

At home I wrote a facebook post about how frustrated I was and how, even though there are some wonderful things about living here, I’m ready to move on. I got a lot of responses telling me there’s no shame in giving up and moving on and a lot of “oh I’m sorry you have to suffer so much”. This is not the response I wanted. I don’t regret my decision to move here at all. I’m angry, but not suffering. I have no shame in moving on. I never mentioned shame. So, I realized that my facebook post did not paint the right picture. Or, people are so use to suffering and drama that they read what they want and use it to feed their need for drama. Or facebook is just not the right venue for such thoughts. So, I questioned why I wrote it in the first place. I know facebook works in this way. I know that most of the people reading it don’t know the rest of the story because they haven’t read my blogs. The people who read my blogs seemed to get it and respond in a way that showed they got it. I didn’t want the pity party or the “look on the bright side” or “here’s my advice because I know more than you”, but I knew I would get some of that. So, what did I want? Here’s what I figured out. 1. I was angry so I wanted to vent and there’s no one here to talk to. 2. I’m tired of people on facebook that say things like “oh you live in Thailand, how lucky” as if I’m sitting on a beach drinking Mai Thais instead of working my ass off and terrified of my own bathroom. I’m mad at these people. 3. I have friends that can’t be bothered to send me a text or email and say “hi, how are you?”. They only want to see me post pretty pictures so they can like them. I’m mad at these people. 4. I know I can’t confront Pat directly for the ways she has set me up for failure and for the fact that she can’t be bothered to spend 10 seconds to send me a text to tell me what’s going on. I know she doesn’t do it on purpose and that she is very stressed, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m mad about this too. I can’t confront her because you don’t confront people here and it would do more damage than good. Thai people deal with negative feelings mostly through passive aggressive behavior. Most of them truly don’t have negative feelings, but when they do, it’s socially unacceptable to show them. So, I think I was also hoping she’d see the post and know how I feel. Punish passive aggressive behavior with passive aggressive behavior. Well, that’s a shitty plan. So, no more pity party and no more posting things on facebook other than the pretty pictures. I deleted the post. If you really want to know what I think, tune in here. You’ll get plenty of it.

It is wonderful to be able to have an issue, feel like shit, question it and go “Oh, I was angry, that’s what was going on”. Then it’s over and there’s no guilt, no regret, no beating myself up. I have spent a lot of my life beating myself up and I no longer do that. I didn’t think I shouldn’t have written the facebook post or I shouldn’t be angry or poor me. This is why I deleted the post. I figured out why it wasn’t working for me, because people want to see all this drama that I just don’t see. I was angry long enough to cry for 20 minutes and long enough to write the post, but then once I wrote the words, I’m not angry anymore and moved on. So, by the time I got the responses the responses didn’t fit the situation anymore because my view of the situation had already changed. It just seemed silly to leave the post up. So, in other blogs when I talk about where I don’t think enlightenment is something that happens once and then you live happily ever after, this is what I’m talking about. I still get angry. I still have feelings. I still think things should be different than they are. Then I notice that something doesn’t fit, something is off and I question it. Then I learn and the whole body/system/process or what ever you want to call it is reset to a new place of balance or a new point of normal. Then you do it all again and again and again. Over time this process happens faster and faster. By the time you read this you are thinking, “Oh poor Rraine, she is suffering so much” and I’ve moved on and am thinking “What are you talking about? I’m not suffering. That was a whole minute ago. Everything is fine.” Living in the present doesn’t mean not having feelings, it just means not buying into the concept that those feelings define you. It means not buying into the concept that something is wrong if your feelings aren’t always happy, peaceful or some other thing we define positive to be. It’s not buying into the concept that something needs fixing. There’s nothing to be fixed, because nothing is wrong. And my decision is still to leave here in October, not because I want to end the suffering or because I’m miserable, or because the grass is greener over there. If I left for any of those reasons, I guarantee you there would be suffering and misery over there because if there’s suffering or misery, I’m the source of it, not the situation or location. I am leaving because this is no longer where I need to be.

20160826_193739 — If you are a mother of a little girl, you probably have a unicorn in your purse

20160826_194600 — Yes, my face is this greasy 24/7 here

20160826_194740 — Fai is not loving the stationary bike

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Last Day of Sport Day

On August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

At breakfast yesterday, I ordered an iced latte with my food. The lady asked why I wanted an iced latte when it’s so cold out. It was probably around 78 degrees. I laughed and told her it wasn’t cold. I thought it felt wonderful. I texted Tip and Ging when I got my bus ticket to see if one of them could pick me up. I didn’t hear from either one for over an hour so then I texted Noi. She said she’d pick me up and I told her I’d buy her dinner. She said ok. What? Was Noi actually going to let me buy her dinner? She picked me up, but was kind of prickly. She’s been this way a lot lately where she’s snide and laughs at everything I say. Not a “you’re funny” laugh, but more of a “you’re so stupid” laugh. She was this way again. Then she took me home, no dinner. Huh, you agree to dinner and then just pretend it never happened. I’m not sure what is going on. Maybe it’s all just lost in translation, but the energy I’m reading tells a different story. I’m not even sure how to bring it up or if it will do any good. Typically, if a Thai person is upset with you, they won’t admit it. They’ll just smile and say it’s all good.

As I mentioned before, Sport Day is three days long. I missed the first two days because I was in Chiang Mai, but I got to attend the last day. I was a few minutes late leaving the house. I got to school and there was no one there except 3 or 4 teachers and maybe 10 students. Does school start later today? Finally, I find Pat and she says we need to go watch the parade. Oh, so that’s where everyone is. So, when did the parade start? I must be really late. I thought we might go somewhere to watch the parade, no, she meant watch it from the school gate. So, I went out to the street in front of the school and watched them march back into school. It was kind of like the Sports Day I saw back in February, but smaller. This was just our school. The last one had been all the schools in the area. The girls leading each group were dressed to the hilt with makeup, done up hair, high high heels and tiny dresses. Then there were others in traditional Thai clothing. And the rest in their sport clothes. There were banners too. They were divided into 5 colors and these were the teams for the three days. Once everyone was on the field, the teachers had to all go down to the field for pictures. Wow, they take so many pictures and once again, I have no idea what they do with these pictures. The teachers were all in a dark blue color. Thanks for the heads up. How difficult would it have been for someone to tell me? Some of the students were in the same color. I think they were the ones not competing, but helping with set up and logistics. Today was all about cheering and running. There was a tent in the middle of the field. Students would run out from the tent to bring water to the runners and they’d fan the runners with straw hats when their race was done. Sports day has a fluffer tent! There were quite a few students who almost fainted after their race. Have they not trained for this? Then again, if I had to run, I would definitely had fainted. It was so hot today. How could it be so pleasant yesterday and miserable today? I spent most of the day trying not to move and wondering if I would make it. I looked around me in dismay. So many people were wearing hoodies and most of the teachers and students were wearing long sleeves made out of sweater material. Sweat was just pouring off me as I sat still in the shade praying for a breeze. I just don’t understand.

Not only was I hot, but I was bored. I went up to the school building and tried to help with making lunch, but everyone seemed to have their duties and there wasn’t much for me to do. Noi was making a chicken dish. She made two – one would be not spicy. Right before she was ready to mix the not spicy one, she dumped a bunch of pepper in it. I asked if I could have some before she mixed the pepper in. She looked me in the face, said not spicy, mixed it and then filled up a bowl for me. Wtf? She told me to eat it. I tried a bite and it tried to take the tip of my tongue off. I put the bowl down and walked away. Now the only thing left for me to eat is fried chicken and rice. I almost went home to make lunch there when Pom found me and started trying to feed me. So I ate fried chicken and rice with her.

After lunch there was a teacher – alumni football game. Q was playing. Q doesn’t even walk across to the other side of school – he rides his motor bike if it’s longer than a 50 second walk. He’s playing football – that involves running. There was no breeze, I had a huge headache and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to 4:00. Noi called me and asked me if I wanted to go get coffee. I figured the caffeine might help the headache and I could sit in the air-conditioned car for a little bit. I might live after all. She acted all normal and told me next weekend all the teachers are going to Chiang Mai for the weekend for one of the teacher’s retirement party. They booked a resort and I was going too. Ok, well at least I got more than a half day’s warning on this one.

The rest of the afternoon was the awards. It was fun to watch. Each group went nuts when they won an award. So much screaming and dancing. Then two representatives from the team would come up to get the award and a giant bag of junk food. Then they would take photos of receiving the trophy and junk food. I’ve notice that it is very important to get a photo anytime something is given to you. I think this says a lot about how the act of giving is so important to Thai people. I don’t think it matters much what is being given so much as the act of giving is important (and the getting it captured in a photo).

That cold shower was awesome today. After school, it was the first thing I did!

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20160824_125422 — “Around the World in 1 Book” Books 1 and 2

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Chinese Embassy

On August 22, 2016August 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn China, Thailand, Uncategorized1 Comment

I’ve been worrying about getting a Chinese visa. I have to show proof of hotel bookings and flights in order to get a visa. But there is no guarantee that you will get a visa. So, it’s a huge expensive leap of faith since, of course, the tour and the flights are non-refundable. Thus, worry. Then, a visa takes 4 days typically. I don’t have 4 days off work. You can pay to have it expedited, but there’s no guarantee that it will then take one, two or three days. All of this has been running around in my head for a couple weeks now driving me crazy. So, I’m glad it’s visa day. I’m not sure why I’m worried. I’m not a threat to China. There is no reason why I should be denied a tourist visa. But I had dreams of having my application thrown out because I wore a tank top or because I misspelled something or left something off my application. Stop it brain! There was a line when I got to the embassy. AT 9:00 they opened the door and everyone walked in. Security at the China embassy is lax compared to the US embassy. The US embassy checked your passport before you came in. You could only come in one at a time. You had to put all electronics in a plastic bag and leave them at the security desk. Then everything else went through an xray machine and you through a metal detector. At the China embassy we just all walked through the metal detector as it beeped and the guy behind it ate his breakfast. Then you take a number and wait your turn. She took my paperwork looked over it about 7 times, then told me how much it would cost and told me to come back at 3:00. I went back at 3:00 and went through lack of security again. I paid for my visa and got it! Easy. So, I’m going to China for two weeks in October!

While I was waiting for 3:00, I decided to try a new coffee shop to have lunch and work. I found one called Clay Studio Coffee in the Garden. It was across the street from a terra cotta clay museum. They still make statues and wall murals that look like they were made a long time ago. I didn’t go to the museum, but it’s top of my list next time I come back. The coffee shop was in a garden full of plants and terra cotta stone carvings. You could sit in the gardens or in the shop which looked like a green house. This may be the prettiest coffee shop I’ve ever seen. I wonder how I might be able to live there. Then I think about all the bugs, geckos and snakes that probably live there and I think that it’s the perfect day time coffee shop.

Then I went to my favorite pizza place for dinner! I’m also attaching some random photos I took walking around. I like the combination of glitzy temple next to run down dirty building. It’s always interesting to see.

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20160822_102457 — My new coffee shop friend

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Yay! Warm Shower!

On August 21, 2016August 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I get to Chiang Mai and I think, “I like this place”. Every time I am here, I can’t help but remember the person I met with on the placement team. They asked what I was looking for and I said I’d like Chiang Mai. She immediately said “You don’t want to go to Chiang Mai”. YES – I ACTUALLY DID WANT TO LIVE IN CHIANG MAI. I might be staying in Thailand longer if I had gotten placed in Chiang Mai.

Last night I had a warm shower. It seems like a simple thing, but it’s not. I didn’t have to wonder if I was going to go into shock as unnaturally cold and painful water hit my skin. I could take the time to soap up and make sure I was actually clean since I wasn’t trying to rush through it and get to clean enough status. It was pleasant instead of a chore I have to work up the courage to do.

Last night I ate at an Italian restaurant. It was expensive, not quite Italian, and disappointing. Oh well, I knew it was risky going in and you can’t win them all. This morning, I had eggs fried in a skillet with veggies on top. Tonight I had a wonderfully healthy dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. There was no rice, deep fried food or sugar anywhere to be seen. I already feel ten times healthier.

Today I decided to be a tourist for half a day. I had been avoiding any tours that included handicrafts and shopping. I already have too much stuff. What am I going to do with more? But outside Chiang Mai are a bunch of handicraft places where you can watch them making the goods the way they use to. I’m not sure if they are actually making them for real there or if they are just making a few to show the tourists and the stuff in the gift shops come from factories elsewhere. I’m leaning toward the latter. Still, it was something to do. I started off at the Bo Sang Umbrella Factory. They make paper bamboo umbrellas and fans. I watched them make the umbrellas and watched some women glue fabric onto fans. There was another area where they painted them. So, if you bought an unpainted umbrella, you could pay them to paint them for you. It was a bunch of painters calling out to you to get your attention and get you to pay them to paint something. They all had cell phone cases with examples of their art. They won. My cell phone case now has some flowers, two butterflies and a lot of glitter on it. I bought an umbrella and a couple paper lanterns too. How are those getting back to the US?

I asked the taxi driver where he suggested next. He took me to a place that had a jade shop, a silver shop and a silk shop all next to each other. That all sounds great. I went into the silk place first. I’ve been wanting a traditional Thai skirt in silk so maybe I can check that off my list. You got to see the silk worms and the cocoons. They take the cocoons and put them in hot water and then pull the thread off the cocoons. I wonder if the hot water kills the worms. Do they get to become moths if you put them in hot water? Do they become moths if you take all the silk off the cocoon? There was a lady leading me through and telling me lots of fun facts, but she didn’t fill me in on this. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. They showed how they dyed the silk with natural colors. I’m pretty sure they use not natural colors too….. Then they had a bunch of looms where they created the fabric. I’m going to guess this is all done by machines now, but it was very enjoyable to see. Of course, the tour ended in a giant store. I wanted everything in that store. The colors are so wonderful. I really like the two tone rougher heavy fabric, but I couldn’t find anything in it that was in the right size or that looked right on me. The thinner fabric is comfortable and beautiful in a different way and unfortunately, I did find clothes that looked good in that silk. All the traditional Thai skirts and jackets were so expensive that I didn’t even try them on. I’m not talking Thai expensivec I mean American expensive. I found two skirts and shirts that I couldn’t seem to part with.

I got back to the taxi driver and told him to take me back to the hotel. He questioned why I didn’t want to go see the jade or silver. I have spent more than my flight to China. I need to leave the area immediately. I spent the rest of the afternoon at a coffee shop trying to do some work for my old engineering firm. Maybe I can make back the money I just spent. No, I did not.

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20160821_141716 — New Cell Phone Artwork

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20160821_114209 — Pulling silk off cocoons

20160821_114248 — Cocoons (yellow Thai, white Chinese)

20160821_114715 — Dyed silk ready to be made into fabric

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Science Day

On August 20, 2016August 22, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This week was full of the same school stuff. I struggle to get the lesson plans done for next week. Then it’s Science Day so half my classes are canceled for that day. A lot of my lesson plans for the next week get done because the class was canceled this week and I just move the lesson plan back. Science day involved a lot of class plays about science or songs or experiment demonstrations. There was also a fashion show that didn’t appear to have anything to do with science. There were boys dressed like girls dancing like working girls, there were girls in dresses made from garbage bags, boys and girls dressed in traditional Thai dress, a guy in his military clothes with a girl in a plaid shirt, a girl in a hoochie mama dress and one Michael Jackson. As usual, I sat there not quite understanding what was going on, but they were having a fabulous time and that’s fun to watch!

I had planned to take a day off work in a couple weeks to go get my China visa. When I was talking with Noi about it, she said no, I had to go next week. Next week is Sports Day and there will be no classes for 3 days so I have to go then. So, I went to Pat to see if she could help me get a message to the monk that I would have to postpone his last two classes. As usual, all of this is happening at the last moment. As usual, when I tell Pat, her response is “up to you”. No, Noi didn’t paint the picture of me having a choice. It’s not up to me. Once again, I get two different stories from two different people. So now I’m stressing to pull everything together to be able to go to Chaing Mai this weekend so I can be there bright and early Monday morning with the Chinese embassy opens. But, it needs to be done and I’m glad I’m able to take any days off work to do this. And it will be one stress off my mind once it’s done. In order to get the visa I have to show proof of booked hotel rooms and flights, but I’m not guaranteed a visa. And of course, the hotel and flights are not refundable. It usually takes 4 days to get a visa, but you can pay extra to have it done faster. You have no idea if they will let you pay to expedite it until you get there and then you don’t know if it will be same day or 3 days or no visa for you. This could be a very expensive weekend so I will be glad to have it done and not sitting in the back of my brain. Yes, Sports Day is 3 days long.

This morning I planned to get up early, do laundry and pack for Chiang Mai. No matter what time I set my alarm for, the birds wake me up at least an hour before that and I lay there trying to convince my body to go back to sleep. Laundry done. Packing done. I saw Ton as I was walking to take the garbage out. He is the Chinese teacher I use to share an office with. He is always so sweet. Sometimes I think he is hitting on me, but I can’t tell. Someone told me they thought he was gay. It’s hard to tell who’s gay since most Thai men have a lot of feminine energy. He asked if I wanted to do something today. I’m not sure if he was asking me to do something with him or if he was asking what am I doing today. I told him about Chiang Mai and trying to get my China visa. Of course this interested him since he’s a Chinese language teacher. I still have no idea if a 25 year old “gay” guy just hit on me or is just being nice.

Ging, her husband and Tent picked me up at 11:00 and we went to lunch. Then they took me to the highway to catch the bus. The car lot across from where we ate was playing bad techno dance music so loud. It made you feel nervous. I wonder if the people that work there go home wondering why they feel so awful. Ging’s daughter, Tent has never liked me much and usually ignores me when I say hi to her. Today she decided I might be ok. I’m not sure if that is her final decision. While waiting for lunch, she asked her dad to draw birds for her. He would draw a hen and a duck. Then she’d draw poop coming from the hen and duck. This went on for about 4 hens and ducks. After that she wanted me to draw an owl. My owl was pretty good. I also drew a cat. Her next request was a cat family which was easy. Then she wanted a dog family. I have no idea how to draw a dog. By then, lunch was over and it was time to go. I think if I can figure out how to draw a dog family by the next time I see her, I’ll be golden.

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I’m not a Homeowner

On August 18, 2016August 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I am no longer a homeowner. My house sold. It was stressful with last minute drama, but it sold. I am no longer a homeowner. I will miss living there. I loved how quiet it was and being that much in the mountains. I loved the wildlife and the lake, the neighbors and being able to hike out my back door. It was a peaceful house. But, it’s time to do something else. I have no idea what that is. I cried a little over it twice, but didn’t really let the loss go completely because there is always someone nearby. I’m surrounded by student and teacher housing. I can hear every word people say, even though I don’t understand the words. There is no sound privacy here. My car is back in Colorado, but appears to have a lot of mileage put on it. I keep getting speeding tickets. I’ve asked to have a mechanic look at the car, but that hasn’t been done yet. Hopefully it’s in good condition. I’m not sure what happens next. But, I guess if I come back at the end of the year, I’ll have a car to drive.

The Human Crystal

On August 17, 2016August 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized1 Comment

After a couple of digging deeper blogs I thought I’d write one that was a little shallower. Here are some random thoughts or observations that I’ve had lately.

The people behind the drink carts or at small coffee shops in Thailand are actually high tech mixologists and would give any bartender a run for their money. Any time you order a drink, it takes at least 10 minutes to make and involves many different substances and stages of mixing those substances. First they pour something into a measuring cup. Then they put something else in the measuring cup and use a spoon to stir it. Then they pour that into another cup and use a squeeze bottle to put something else in. Sometimes there are canisters of unknown powder and sometimes a blender is involved. If fruit is involved it’s guaranteed to be delicious. I think they are just mixing 12 different types of sugar into water, but I’m not sure.

I have been noticing that most of my classes have similar dynamics to them to the point where it appears that each class has the same students in them. Each class has one very small boy who is smart and outspoken. Each class has at least one larger sized gay boy who has a constant sidekick, a short overweight girl. Each class has a tall skinny girl who looks like I did as a teenager, all legs and no body. She is usually very good at English. There is always a quiet boy who appears that he isn’t pay attention or isn’t getting it, but he’s just shy and actually was paying attention. He’s usually not fat, but bigger in stature. There’s one or two girls with a short bob haircut that are not twins, but look like they could be sisters of the other similar girls in other classes. These are the popular witty girls. Then there’s a bunch of gay boys that are skinny and wiry and have fabulous dance moves. There’s usually one overweight kid who could crush you in a fight, but wouldn’t crush a bug. There’s the snobby girl, the boy with learning disabilities, and the future military guy. The part that strikes me is not that each class has similar personalities, but that they physically look the same. In Thailand, each class travels around for the day together – they all go to the same math class, then the same English class, then the same PE class, etc. They don’t go to classes based on their individual aptitude. When you group people like this, do typical stereotypes or architypes develop out of this? Does the body shape and some of the physical attributes follow the personality or does the personality follow the body? Is this what happens all over the world? Does each city, tribe, community, family, etc, recreate similar architypes to balance out the group? Is this nature’s way of creating balance in a human grouping? Is this patterns of nature just repeating everywhere humans go similar to how the crystalline structure of a particular crystal will repeat its pattern over and over? Is it more obvious in this situation because the students have been grouped like this all through school? Hmmmm the human crystal.

Thailand has a stray do problem. They have a stray cat problem too, but since cats are small and aren’t pack animals they seem to cause less issues. When I started here there were two dogs that hung out at school and a few dogs that hung out near where we live. There are some pet dogs too, but they don’t roam around so they don’t pack. Then lately, I’ve noticed a lot more dogs around school. The female school dog is very vicious when she sees one of the other dogs. One of the packs looks fairly healthy without the mange and only some ribs showing. One of them has a jingle bell that is so loud I keep expecting to hear Christmas carols. So, I assume this pack were pets not too long ago. The other pack looks like ‘When Zombies Attack’. They are scrawny, starving, have little to no hair, mange, and most of them only have two or three good working legs. One night this week I was sitting downstairs and heard a low growl outside my window. I assumed it was a dog, but wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t a dragon come to set my house on fire. Then I heard another one on the other side of the house. I wasn’t scared because I was in my house, but now I’m a bit sketched about going outside at night. The growling went on for 15 minutes and then turned into a gang fight in the street. I heard people yelling out their windows, but that didn’t help. Then it sounded like dogs dying. Eventually it stopped. They must have moved on to another location because I heard the same thing, but from farther away. It went on for hours. It sounded like a systematic extermination of the weaker dog packs. I expected to find dead dogs everywhere the next morning, but the only dogs I saw were alive. I can’t even tell if any are missing because I only know four. The two school dogs appear to be the same and the jingle bell dog appears to be the same. I haven’t seen the black dog whose back legs are paralyzed.

Thais seem to be obsessed with money and seem to be very superstitious. There is a lot of making a wish and then giving an offering to a specific temple to have that wish fulfilled. Gambling is illegal, but they love their lottery. They believe in ghosts and fortune tellers and holy water. They are quick to give to others and in general are very generous. They believe that if you live a good life in this life and make the right offerings and prayers then you will come back wealthy and happy in the next life. Not once have I heard happy linked with being spiritually aware or with having great relationships or with having a job you like or any other thing. It seems to always be linked with money. This also kind of ties in with what I’ve been experiencing about living in the future, but in this case the future isn’t even this lifetime. A lot of what they do is to secure a better life next time. There is no now. I question if the monks who are seeking or have found enlightenment actually have, as it seems that the Buddhist religion is propagating most of the superstition. Most of the monks look sickly and have obvious musculature problems. If they are living in True Nature most of the time shouldn’t their bodies be more free of character patterns, old stories, stress and defenses? Or have the monks forsaken living in their bodies in search of the spiritual world and their bodies therefore suffer from bad nutrition and neglect? Then I think on other religions and think that it isn’t much different. Hindus pray to tons of different gods for tons of different reasons. Christians are good in this lifetime for the promise of Heaven in their future. The new age spiritual movement is full of things like figuring out your past lives or taking drugs so that you can find enlightenment at the cost of not being here. Is it a religious thing or just a human nature thing?

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”. – Daniel J Boorstin

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The Future

On August 16, 2016August 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I notice that biggest thing standing in my way of being completely present is the future. I imagine this is a common problem. I spend about 70 to 80 percent of my waking day present and the rest of the time I live in the future. This is a huge improvement over the rest of my life where I probably spent 90 percent of my time or more in the future. There’s a time for planning and preparing, but not at the expense of living now. But, I think most of us live in the past, reliving good times or replaying horrible heart breaks. Or we live in the future thinking “if the weekend would just get here”. “When I get that better job, when I get that great boyfriend, when I make more money, when I get invited to that party, when I get to go on vacation…….then I will be happy”. I know I have done this most of my life. My childhood was very unhappy and sometimes just too much for a child to have to deal with. The easiest way to deal with that was to live in the future, a time when life would be bearable. These defenses we learn early on stick with us and get hard wired into our nervous systems. They become the automatic way of being and it takes a lot of focus and concentration to see the automatic pilot, much less to get it to change. In theory, it shouldn’t take a lot of work – just notice that you are not living in the present moment and shift your focus to now. But, for most of us the automatic pilot is so strong that it takes time and work. I’ve have worked on this for many years which is why it is much better than it used to be. I use to also split my thoughts into 20 different directions at once. If I’m having 20 different thoughts or story lines going on in my head at once, the one that is unhappy with the present moment can get drowned out by all the noise of the rest of the thoughts. It’s a very effective method of protection. However, I am not a little child and I don’t need protection any more. Then the noise is just noise and it’s exhausting. Through the many years of work, I have almost gotten rid of the different tracks of thinking. At most, there is only 2 or 3. I notice as I’m getting closer to the end of my teaching contract, my thoughts are running to the future more often. I have no plan of what to do next. This scares me and I feel like I need to have a plan by now. It’s very difficult to just be here now and trust that something wonderful will happen and I will make decisions when they need to be made, not sooner. So, I’m no closer to making any decisions because just thinking about the future is not actually helpful in making decisions. I went through this strongly before I decided on living in Thailand and I’m going through it again. It’s quite a battle – I’m in the future, I notice and bring myself back to present, then one minute later I’m back in the future, back to now, future, now, future, now.

So, I open my book and yes, you guessed it, the subject is the future. And once again, I think Almaas describes the topic at hand so well.

“We are always going somewhere, internally or externally – to the store, the movies, the beach, the office, the restaurant, the television, the internet, the newspaper, the latest spiritual teacher to come to town, our partners, our children, our friends, our parents, our worries, our concerns, our fears, our hopes. And on and on. We are in motion, going after, seeking out, restless, never satisfied, never at peace. This seems to be the central dilemma of human life – that it is easier to desire what is over there than to appreciate what is right here. In fact, what is here seems to be so fundamentally inferior, less than, or inadequate compared to what is apparently over there, that it hardly seems worth the effort to look here. Why not just go over there?”

“Spiritual paths and techniques thus become ways of getting there – to the place where you feel real, where you will become all these wonderful things. So you meditate, attempting to empty your mind or calm yourself or focus on an image or let go of all attachment. Or you chant and dance to invoke your spirit. Or you say prayers and go vision quests. Yet all these techniques of finding your deeper self subtly imply that where you are now in yourself is not where you need to be. You are seeking some ideal of the spiritual self and using these methods to attempt to reach that. The result is that the spiritual search can evoke the same dilemma that all other aspects of your life do”.

The Unfolding No

On August 15, 2016August 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For a couple of months now, I’ve been getting periods of light headedness. It’s usually in the afternoon to early evening. I don’t feel like I’m going to faint or fall over, but I do feel like doing anything other standing, sitting or walking might not go well. My vision goes a little blurry and I don’t feel equipped to make decisions or have conversations. It was strong about a month ago, but doesn’t happen every day anymore. Of course, my first though was, oh no, I have some horrible mosquito borne disease and I’m going to die. Then I wondered if it was too much exposure to the bug spray I’ve used to kill house invaders. It seems to kill everything. Or, maybe I have a brain tumor and only have one week to live. Once I’m done with the dooms day thinking then I settle on a new theory. I think it might be a combination of stress, bad diet and nervous system changes trying to happen. I think there is re-wiring going on in the brain and my body is trying physically to change the way it takes in and processes information. Then the stress of what am I going to do next, how am I going to pay for it, teaching, what creature will I find in my house next, how am I going to pack up all my stuff, will my house sell, why is my car such a drama…….blah blah blah…..then all this stress stops the physical process from finishing. Or maybe some of the stress is a result of the physical process. Maybe the drama needs to be flushed out first. So, now whenever I feel the light headedness, I just try to relax into it and just experience it instead of worrying about it. I’m also trying to eat more veggies. I would like to drink less coffee and eat less sugar, but I’m not there yet. They are both very addictive.

As always, when I read one of Almaas’ books, he’s describing exactly what I’m experiencing. I started a new book called the Unfolding Now. I found it quite funny that when I opened the book in my nook (Barnes and Noble’s version of a kindle), it split the pages of the cover sheet so that the title of the book appeared as The Unfolding No. I found this very funny.

So, I leave you with a quote from Almaas that describe things I am experiencing right now.

“In our work, each of us will encounter challenges; we will arrive at Crossroads where we have to make changes. These challenges and Crossroads will help us to develop. They will enable us to realize the life of Truth. The more of those challenges we have, the more chances we have to realize the true perspective. If your life is comfortable, if you are always getting what you want, you might think it’s great. You might think “everything is going wonderfully. Now I can do my spiritual work”. In reality, it doesn’t work that way. The more comfortable you are, the less chance you have to make the choice, and the less chances you have for the choice to be clear”.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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