Yesterday was all it was promised to be. There were around 300 teachers from the Sam Ngao area for the retirement ceremony. There were 11 teachers retiring. I must have looked lost because a teacher from Tak decided to take me under her wing and take care of me. Her name was Kru O. She spoke very good English. She showed me where to sign in and get my goodie bag. Then we went and sat up in the second row. She had heard of me. Some of my advanced 7th graders use to be her students. She asked me a ton of questions. When she found out I was leaving, she seemed shocked that I would want to leave. I told her I wanted to live in a bigger city. She now has a new job for me in Tak. It would be at a small school – class size of 10 students instead of 30 or 40. And that’s how you get a new job. Not real sure I want that job or want to live in Tak, but I’ll throw it on the back burner in case. Kru O reminds me of Noi, She’s tiny, so full of energy and quite forceful. She scares me a little.
A lot of the teachers were dressed in matching school shirts. Some of the teachers were dressed to the nines in silk dresses, silk suits, silk, satin or lace shirts or traditional Thai dress. I saw some of the most beautiful silk I’ve ever seen, vibrant colors that you couldn’t look away from.
The day started off with someone talking over the microphone, but no one listening. Then they lit the candles on the Buddha altar. The monks came in. The altar like things were actually chairs for four of the monks to sit in. The rest of the monks sat on the stage. The retirees sat in a circle around the arch. There was chanting. Kru O explained that the ceremony to ask for a happy life. Then at some point we took the string hanging down and wrapped it around our heads. The retirees did the same. The string started wrapped around the Buddha statue then went to the arch. From the arch it went out to the retirees and the four monks. Then the string went out to everyone else. This must be some powerful string. There was more chanting with each of the monks reading something different. After a long time, we took the string off our heads and one of the monks walked around with the reeds in his hand using them to throw holy water on everyone. I got video of only the tail end of this. Then there were offerings of food and other things given to the monks. Then speeches. Then the giving of gifts. Each retiree got a pretty wrapped package and a glass box with what looked like a statue of the King in it. After all that, it was time for lunch. I tried one of the things that looked not to spicy. Wrong – it was spicy. They had the dessert of jelly things in coconut milk with ice on top. That just didn’t cut it. I snuck home for some steamed veggies.
I came back to find most people had gone home and they were cleaning up the mess in the meeting hall. I helped a little, but it was mostly students doing the work and teachers directing so there wasn’t much I could do. I spent the afternoon grading tests.
I went to Tip’s for dinner. She made tom yum which is one of my favorites, but I can rarely eat it because it’s usually too spicy. It always smells so good and breaks my heart that I can’t eat it. Fai doesn’t like spicy either so she made it with no peppers! After dinner I played crosswords again with Ging and her husband. Ging won again!
I got home around 9:00 to find the gate closed and locked. It’s been closed before, but never locked. How do I get home? I texted Q, Noi and Pat. Pat got back to me and told me she texted Ton and he’d let me in. He came up to let me in. Apparently everyone that lives at school has a key to the gate except me. Wtf?
Today I started cleaning the house. Yuck. I usually don’t mind cleaning, but the amount of cobwebs was gross. It took 3 hours and I still have to clean half my bedroom and the bathroom. I’m just hoping there is no bug apocalypse or some other natural disaster in the next week that will make me have to re-clean. Now my challenges for the week are to get laundry to dry without smelling bad and get everything packed into two suitcases. Go!
Tuesday one of my M4 girls came in to class tied to two M1 boys. One tied to each of her wrists. The boy on her right had to write in the answers to the exam she was taking. The other one just sat there. No one batted an eye as if this was a normal thing. True, I have seen two students tied together before, but it doesn’t seem normal to me yet. I wondered who was being punished – her, the boys or all three of them? What action warrants being tied together? Does it work? None of them seemed shamed, upset or in any way punished. What classes were the boys missing? If this works, I like it better than hitting students. That happened again. After two of my classes this week, I was asked to wait outside. You can ask me to wait outside if you think I disapprove, but I can still hear the crack of the stick. Or maybe having me wait outside was to spare me being uncomfortable, but now it was uncomfortable and awkward.
I have to mail some boxes home because I have too much stuff. Noi helped me by finding boxes for me. Then she showed me where to buy the brown paper and string. Then she showed me how to wrap the boxes in brown paper since I don’t know how to wrap a box in paper. It involved a lot of glue and tape so that paper should be good. Then she wrapped string around the box and had me tape the string to the box. I thought the string was to make a handle, but she said it made the paper stronger. I told her we were not allowed to use string in America, but she didn’t care. It has to be done this way. I hope the packages make it ok to America. They were ridiculously expensive to mail.
I went over to Tip’s. I thought it was for dinner, but she wasn’t eating. I ran quickly to the market and got a salad for dinner. Ging came over and we played crosswords (generic scrabble). It was fun. Ging won! Tip’s son, Dam asked me to come over again so he can play crosswords with me.
Pat was real nice on Wednesday. I asked her to help me buy a bus ticket. She sent the school driver to get it. I got my change from the ticket, but no ticket. I texted her to see if she could check on where the ticket went. She replied where to pick it up. I was confused why I still had to pick it up. How did he buy a ticket for me without getting a ticket? I was confused when to pick it up and how they would know I was the one that paid for it. I also have no idea when the bus arrives. One of her answers was Saturday 1. Saturday the 1st of October, or Saturday at 1:00? If it’s Saturday at 1:00 is that the time I need to be there or the time the bus will arrive? She wouldn’t be clear and then today when I tried to talk to her in person she said “I told you, but you don’t want to understand”. I give up. I don’t know what to do. Anything I do or say is wrong. I try to take a deep breath and not be frustrated, but I’m frustrated. I wonder where my patience and compassion have run off to. I can’t seem to find them.
I gave tests to 6 different classes. Almost every student failed. Why am I here?
Every morning when I get to school, I go up to my office and put my things down. Then I go to the main office to sign in and then to school assembly. This morning, same as usual. My office is a tiny classroom that I share with Robin. We teach the advanced students in there since their classes are small. The classroom is one of a few air conditioned classrooms at the school. Yesterday morning I was standing at assembly and Pat came up to me. The past 3 months or so, if Pat comes up to me, it’s usually not a pleasant experience and it’s not just to say hi and see how I’m doing. But this morning was a new experience for sure. She asked if I had left the air conditioning on over night in the class room. I said that I had not. (I just came from there. If the air conditioning had been on, it would have been on when I dropped my stuff off). She just laid into me about how I need to be careful. That I was careless, thoughtless and wasting energy and she was going to get in trouble, not me. She went on to tell me that she even took a student over to verify with her that the air conditioning was running this morning. She kept going and going and getting angrier and angrier until she was yelling at me. I ended up apologizing for something I didn’t do and she stormed off saying “I’m sorry is all you should say”. She was chastising me like a 6 year old. I have no idea what is really bothering her that she is now making up reasons to be mad at me. I am way too old for this game, what ever it is. On my way back to the classroom, I asked her who turned off the air conditioning since it was off when I got to school. She had no answer to that, but sent Q up to feel the room (which was hot, not cool). Noi is the only other person with a key to the room and she wasn’t even at school yet. I’m 46 years old basically being told to shut up and apologize for something I didn’t do. Where’s the door? I can’t wait to leave this school. Noi asked the janitor if he turned off the air conditioner and he said he doesn’t have a key to the room so he hadn’t been in there.
By now I am so annoyed I can barely teach class. Not to mention, I’m a bit scared. I have no agent. I don’t trust the company that placed me here as they have already showed that they will sell me out to make their agents happy. And the person who is the head of the department I work in, has now gone from kind of unpleasant to scary. All the people that are supposed to have my back, don’t. I feel stranded, alone and unsafe. Then I remember that I have Noi, Tip and Ging. I honestly thought of calling Tip and asking her if she could help me get out of here as I don’t feel very safe right now . But, I calmed down after Noi took me to lunch and told me quite a few times that I take teaching too seriously.
So, two points of inquiry come up from this. One is that I hear all the time about how Thai people are the nicest people in the world. But often, it is said by people that have left some other country to come live here and they say it in a way to imply that the rest of the world if full of horrible people. So, I wonder what their lives and experiences were like where they came from. My experience is that there are a lot of nice people in America. I have a delightful, kind, and loving family. I’m the crankiest person in my family. I have some wonderful friends that would bend over backwards to take care of those they love. And I have met so many kind and wonderful strangers along the way that were just kind because that’s who they are, not because they were my friend or family. What if Thai people aren’t any different than American people or European people or any other people? What if the entire planet has a fairly evenly distributed amount of nice and not so nice people? What if one day you are one of the nice people and the next you are not? What if this is just part of being human and not part of being Thai or Chinese or French……?
The other point of inquiry is that over the years I’ve worked on this issue where I feel the need for revenge. I want those that have wronged me to see that they wronged me and to feel horrible about it deep in their bones for the rest of their lives. I know where this comes from and I also know that life will never happen that way. Even if it did, it wouldn’t solve anything. The horrible injustice will never be undone with revenge or regret. It will never be undone – period. I cannot undo my past. Being here in a high school has brought this up often. I haven’t written about it yet because it comes up and I notice it and say, “hmmm, there it is again”, but nothing shifts. Nothing new has been learned yet that I could share. As all this drama is happening with Pat and I feel fear for my safety, this revenge thing comes up. It’s a reaction to not feeling safe. At some point, I realize I actually have the power to take revenge. This woman has set me up to fail many times. She is a huge part of why I’m not loving it here. She might very well be a huge part of why no Western teacher will stay here for long. I have the opportunity to point that out. I actually have the opportunity for revenge that would get the desired result. I would never do this because I do understand that she’s not setting me up to fail on purpose – she’s just in over her head and managing two Western teachers, a whole department and teaching is stressful. And, most people would struggle in her position. But, if I think back, I’ve never taken a revenge opportunity either because I understood it would do no good in the long run or because I don’t want to be the bad person or because my mother taught me to be nice. What if the reaction of wanting revenge whenever I feel unsafe doesn’t go away because I’ve never taken revenge? Sure, I’ve said mean things in anger and I’ve done a half-assed job of creating drama that kinda of looks like revenge. But, I’ve never committed fully to the point of irreparable damage. If I did, would I then be free of feeling the craving for revenge? What happens if I take this current opportunity handed to me? What happens if I don’t? The answer is that neither choice will change anything. Really committing and going all in on the revenge might cure me of ever wanting revenge again or it might not. We won’t find out because I can’t do it. Suck it up and pretend nothing ever bothers me doesn’t work either. I’ve been doing that my whole life. So, there’s a third answer. I can’t quite tell you what the third answer is. I can kind of see it. It’s just over there in a mist, a mist that keeps me from seeing it fully. But since things are shifting and dissolving in my life, I’m sure that mist will lift in the near future and I can share that third answer with you then.
Laundry Frog was sitting on top of my laundry bag this morning. I zipped up the bag or he might have been in it. I dumped him off and watched him start to puff up, but I quickly swept him out the front door again. I assume that won’t do much good, he obviously snuck back in and headed straight for the dirty laundry. It’s funny, but at the same time it’s more than I want to deal with in the morning. Thank god it’s not a snake.
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.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
If you are a mother of a little girl, you probably have a unicorn in your purseTip, Fai and DamYes, my face is this greasy 24/7 hereFai is not loving the stationary bike
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”.
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
It was kind of a normal week except I was done with lesson planning on Saturday instead of Sunday! Whoa!
One of my M6 classes (12 grade) always wants me to sing or dance. They love music. So I brought in music related to the doctor since my lesson was on health. They went nuts and got up and started dancing. Then after the first song they wanted to play Doraemon songs. I knew Doraemon was a cartoon, but had no idea Doraemon also had electronic dance music too. Huh….Who knew? The other M6 class was a bit different. They sat on the edge of their seats watching the video that went with the song and had little interest in dancing. The first class was oblivious there was a video. So far most, if not all Thai music I have heard is horrible. It’s like bad walmart sappy love song lounge music. Doraemon throwing down the beats was a welcome change. When I told Noi about the M6 class loving to dance she said that was because that class had a lot of boy girls in it. I assumed this was like a very effeminate boy. It does seem that is true.
I’m still amazed by the restaurants here. It’s a wonder I’ve only gotten sick twice. Not one place I have eaten in since I got to Thailand would pass a health department inspection in the US. Yet, it all seems to be just fine. All of them in my area are outdoor kitchens. The number of chickens I saw running around kitchens this week alone was mind boggling. We went back to one of the places I wrote about before where there were so many chickens and flies. I’m now naming this food shop, House of Chicken. No food shops appear to have names and if they did, I couldn’t read the sign anyway, so House of Chicken it is. They were everywhere, pecking at a bag of food, playing in the sink of dirty dishes, pecking at the frying pan, running in the street. The kitchens are like camping kitchens. I feel like I’m just camping 24/7, but with a lot more chickens. Yet, no one seems to get sick, including myself so maybe we are just over paranoid in the US?
I went to Tak with Noi one day after school. I went to the bank to find out why I can’t transfer money on line. The lady helped me register for on-line banking, but I don’t know she understood my concern and I don’t think it changed anything. I also went to the store to buy cheese and cereal – both things I can’t get in my village and can’t live without. I ran into the western teacher I had met in Chiang Rai. That was kind of funny. We stopped at a teacher’s credit union / co-op type thing after the store. There was a younger kid in there. I assumed his mom was one of the ladies working there. All the ladies encouraged him and cheered him on as he tried to speak English with me. He asked my name and where I was from, my favorite food, and a few other questions. Very cute.
Of course there were no classes Friday afternoon because it was National Thai Language Day so there were speeches, dances and other performances all afternoon. No one told me until about lunch time. Oh well, that’s just one less lesson plan I have to do for next week. There was a going away party for one of the teachers after school. I was told about this in the afternoon. I felt funny going since I didn’t even know who was leaving until she got up after dinner for all the speeches and photos. But, I didn’t want to offend anyone by not going and I was curious what a going away party would be like. It had lots of Thai music, spicy food, rice, sugary sweet sodas, whiskey, speeches, giving of gifts, lots of photos, lots of selfies, and karaoke. I managed to find some food that I could eat. I probably should have tried the whiskey, but I don’t really like whiskey. I tried the atomic fallout green soda. It was quite delicious. They love to take photos of gifting. So there is a overly posed photo of every gift she received being handed over by the giver. Still, as I sat there and looked around, I felt very strongly like I was a guest at someone’s family dinner. This is a family and they truly care about each other. I did get a not so good video of my next door neighbor, Q, singing karaoke. A lot of people asked if I did karaoke, but I don’t know any of the songs and I can’t read the words on the screen.
I left my motorbike at school because it was raining so hard when I left. So, I walked up to get it Saturday morning. The janitor, Q, and some of the other male teachers were sitting in front of the school office around the drink cooler obviously working on the left over whiskey. They wanted to know where I was going. “Teacher Rraine, where you go?” They also wanted to know where I was going in October. Then the janitor proceeded to say he loved me about 7 or 8 times. “Teacher Rraine, I love you.” I’m going to guess he thinks that means he likes me or he will miss seeing me when I leave, not that he actually loves me, but who knows. He barely speaks English so I’ll chalk it up to that, that and whiskey.
The coffee shop was closed so I texted the lady that makes salads and burgers to see if she was open because I know she has coffee and wifi. She was open so I spent most of the day there. The tables and chairs were very uncomfortable, but there’s more than sugar on the menu so I got an egg ham and cheese sandwich was was delicious. A lot of students came in while I was there. It was a nice change of pace. I did massage yesterday too. It was one of the most painful yet. When he worked on my shoulders I cried. I was glad this was near the end of the massage because it felt like there was so much crying and screaming wailing wanting to come up. I just don’t feel safe letting that volume of emotion out in that atmosphere. After he gave me his phone number. I think he was trying to tell me he would work on me at my home or his or come get me if it was raining. He was either trying to give me a safe place to work next time or he was hitting on me. I really have no idea. I went home after and tried to release some of emotions I’m holding in my shoulders, but nothing came up. How can that be? I know it’s there. Even as I write this, I can feel so much crying stuck in there, but I can’t reach it. Maybe tomorrow….
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
The best crispy pork is made hereThe Ping River from Crispy Pork RestaurantHouse of Chicken RestaurantHouse of Chicken RestaurantShe is cooking my lunch right now at House of ChickenChickenWhat? There’s a chicken behind me?This is a restaurant
There aren’t very many colorful cars in Thailand unless you count the taxis in Bangkok, the tuk tuks or the songtheaus. Most personal cars are white or some other neutral color. I wondered why for awhile now. I now have the answer. There is a god, the one with four heads, yea, that one. He is the god of creating and destroying. People pray to this god to be purified. White is the color of purification so people like the color white. So actually having a white car is in fashion. I have this on very good authority.
I came back from Chiang Mai with Noi and Chelon. We stopped in Lampang and I got to see some of Noi’s home there. After I got home, the rest of the day was laundry and cleaning. It was nice to have a short week – 2 days.
Somehow, Pat realized that I wasn’t the right person to be creating the curriculum for the Mini English Program and she assigned different parts to all the other English teachers. I will proof read what she writes though.
My MEP students did horrible on their tests. I didn’t think the test were that hard. Pat suggested I re-test them. In America, they would fail and if they failed enough, they would be held back a year. But, here, they help them by re-testing or giving them other ways to make better marks. I think I will re-test them, but then average the scores of the two tests.
I got home Friday and just decided to go to bed early. I slept 12 hours. I needed that. I know a huge part of why I don’t like teaching is that being in a school setting is reminding me how much I hated my childhood. It’s exhausting, but it’s also good to be facing it head on. I know that much of what I feel isn’t real. There is absolutely no reason to feel negatively about any of this – it’s old stories. I’ve known this for a long time, but it feels like I’m looking at it from a different angle as if I’m not actually feeling this childhood stuff, but watching myself feeling it. It is very detailed as if I am looking at it under a microscope. This is what most, if not all, humans do to themselves. We spend so much time feeling things that aren’t even real. They may not have even been real in the past the first time we felt them. But we keep pushing play over and over and over on an old recording of a bad feeling.
I notice that music helps break the cycle of old feelings. So, I’ve been playing music more often when at home.
Here’s some pictures and video of the students cheering and some pictures of Jetson, the village next to mine. Even though it seems run down, there’s so much beauty in this area.
Rraine Drops 