fluff piece

ive been home for nearly a month now. the surgery is over and im on my way to recovery. i have a few posts left to write about my last month in thailand and about how im feeling now that im home, but havent been able to get all my thoughts together into a coherent block of words that others would be able to understand. so today i reverted back to my old trick for inspiration and went on an internet search of some quotes to try to summarize my feelings. i have made some decent progress on my posts, but until that comes together i am just leaving some of the favorites i came upon.

"a ship is safe in harbor, but thats not what ships are for." - william shedd

"life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. to keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. - helen keller

"only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - t.s. eliot

"do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. for if you do, you may still exist, but you will have ceased to live." - henry david thoreau

"if youre not living on the edge, youre taking up too much space." - anonymous

"live every moment in the present. do it. risk it. buy it if you love it. loving well takes practice, delicious practice. if it feels good, it must be good." - gael greene

"make your choice, adventurous stranger. strike the bell and bide the danger. or wonder til it drives you mad, what would have followed, if you had." - the magicians nephew, c.s. lewis

"live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway." - webb chiles

"if we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." - thomas alva edison

"for everything you have missed, you have gained something else." - ralph waldo emerson

and the top 3 i am currently feeling from this bunch:

"life is full of choices, if you have the guts to go for it. thats why i get immediately bored with anyones complaining about how boring their life is, or how bad their town is. fucking leave and go somewhere else. or dont." - henry rollins

"things change, so do cities, people come into your life and they go. but its comforting to know that the ones you love are always there in your heart....and if youre very lucky, a plane ride away." - sex and the city, sarah jessica parker

"it is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had." - elizabeth kubler-ross

top 10 things i will miss.

i did a post about what i was missing from home before i knew i had to leave so soon. now that my days left are down to the single digits (?!!!!!?!?!?!?) i have made a new list about what i am really going to miss from thailand. and while the previous list was in no particular order, this one is.

10. motorbike taxis. at first i was terrified of them. but as time went on, i grew to love them. its exciting riding through the city, especially at night, with the wind blowing and flying passed otherwise stopped traffic. not to mention the thais get a kick out of seeing a farang on a motorbike as opposed to in a normal cab. i still wont try driving, but i will miss these rides greatly.

9. thai massages. its like going to a chiropractor and a masseuse at once. gets all the knots out and relaxes you (generally) at the same time. add in oil or beach setting for extra relaxation. all for between 100 and 300 baht (~$3-9).

8. buckets. its a bucket-o-liquor, i dont think this needs an explanation.

7. cheap cost of living. cheaper to go out to eat than make it at home, bargaining to pay $4 instead of $6 for a dress, getting angry when i have to pay 180 baht for my taxi ride because he went the wrong way and it should have been 140, even though the 180 is about what it would cost to get INTO a cab back home, beachfront bungalows for under $8. i dont know how im going to be able to live back in the states where they actually want me to pay more for a meal out than my budget here would give me for a week.

6. 7-elevens. i had no idea how big of a role this chain would play in my life over here. whether its because i am craving something a little more western, need some more credit for my phone, want a cheap drink for the road, need to break a big bill for the taxis, or just crave the aircon they blast and need an escape from the deathly heat of the streets, it would not be uncommon to go into one of these a few times a day...sometimes even the exact same store 4 or more times.

5. the beaches. the waves may not compare to the monsters of the atlantic, but the beauty and serenity they bring is just unbeatable.

4. the laid-back lifestyle. im accustomed to the fast-passed city life, and occasionally that meant that i was quite irritated with the way things go around here. their 'mai phen rai' attitude and thai time means that theres generally not a routine or schedule. it took some getting used to, but its actually been nice. i suppose this ties into the beaches as well though. who can be stressed when looking at a scene like that?

3. the kids. specifically, the twins, and a few select students. of course the infamous fifa, but also ploy and best for how their faces light up when they finally understand the difference between using 'it' and 'they.' may and even noon, though now she isnt even my student anymore, for how they run up to me in the halls whenever they see me to give me a hug or throw me a smile and wave if they are standing in line for assembly. peam and khamin for not only being so freaking cute, but for also being my saving graces in my 3/3 and offering answers when im sure everyone is sleeping. oo, bam, cd, max and pretty much all of my 3/1 class for just being so awesome and for the progress i have seen them make to the point where they can now start to joke around with me. and even tonson, the first student i had a one-on-one encounter with on my first day last semester, and consequently the first name i learned, even though now it is usually being screamed because he cant sit still or focused for more than 5 minutes.

2. thai food. ku teaow, ALL kinds of curries, som tam, tom yum, ka prao gai, fish cakes, pad thai and spring rolls from khaosan. however amazing you think it is back home, its 100 times better here. and its so.freaking.good. i thought that by now i would be sick of it, but just the thought of going home and being away from these things is making me miss them already.

1. the people i have met here. its cliche as anything, and ive said it so many times before, but this amazing experience i have had is in great part to the people i have been lucky enough to share it with. many of them have already left this part of the world, and have been missed dearly. and now, i must leave our already shrunken group, earlier than originally anticipated. but its not just the remainders from our group who i will miss, its all the new people i have met since may as well. not doing the course again i thought that my social circle would be limited and i would only have to say goodbye to a select few whenever the time came to leave, but that has been anything but what happened, so now im also missing out on time to let these new friendships grow. everyone here has made such a great impact on my life and im beyond sad to be having to say goodbye too soon.

taxi cab adventures.

throughout the time here in thailand, there have been numerous encounters with public transportation that could only happen here, and only happen to farangs. more specifically, they would only happen to us: me, steph and tash together in a cab just meant a deadly combination. of course, there is the typical happenings of drivers trying to charge us exorbitant fees rather than turning on their meters or telling us simply "no can," but sometimes things that are just slightly more out of the ordinary. here are some of the best stories we have accumulated.

also, i just want to say that these are probably a lot more hilarious to me than anyone else will find them. just take them as those "you-had-to-be-there" kind of things.

uh-oh....accident!

i cant even remember where we were going. i want to say it was china town for the chinese new year, but that could be completely made up. it was sometime around that time though, and of course, as always in thailand, it was more than quite hot. we searched for a while for a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go and with the meter on (because neither of those things is particularly easy to find here), and finally we did. we sat in traffic, of course, for about 10 minutes, and then pulled onto a different street, where we gracefully collided with a motorbike. i dont think anyone was hurt, but the taxi driver jumped out and started arguing with the motorbike driver, who then drove off. but the bumper of the cab was sitting in the street, and the meter was still running. rather than sit around and let the fare get higher, the three of us decided to just get out and find another cab.

caught red handed...maybe?

while heading from one excursion to another, we were in a taxi and passed by a police stop. these are rather routine in thailand, and usually they just peer in to see if everyone in the front is wearing a seatbelt. that said, if theres a farang in the car, there is usually even less of an issue, and they just smile and wave the cabby through. not this time. we were not only stopped, but the cop asked the driver to get out of the vehicle. at this point, we thought it was funny, if slightly inconvenient, but obviously we are used to that in this country. then the cop sent the driver over to another group of police officers and made him open the trunk, and thats when we got a little freaked out, not to mention that the meter was still running (see a theme here?).

eventually, he got back in the car with only a ticket, i think, but we never actually found out what was in the trunk or why he got stopped.

how many farangs can we get into one taxi cab?

soi cowboy in the area of nana plaza is known as (one of) the sleezier districts in bangkok. it also happens to be one of the places frequented by farangs at night. a few months into living here, steph and i had not yet explored that area, so one night the boys (of course!) convinced us we should give it a try. after a bit, although by no means sleezier than some other places we have seen, we were not impressed, and thought we would rather go somewhere else. everyone had split up by that point, so trying to get people together to leave was a task. im pretty sure we had two in the front, and four in the back, when we started pulling away and someone shouted that they saw andrew up the street. the taxi driver didnt understand that we wanted him to pull over to get our friend (or maybe he did and just didnt want to, never can tell with these tricksters!) and so we threw open the door as we passed and andrew basically did a dive onto the laps of everyone in the back seat. this made 7 farangs and an unhappy driver in the car. well done.

bad-luck american.

frequently when they have a little knowledge of english, the drivers will try to start conversations with us. they ask us the standard questions each time...why are we here, how long have we been here, where do we come from, etc. steph was in the front and tash and i in the back, and the driver had just asked us where we each came from. we told him the three countries (canada, england, usa), and he started to say something else when at that moment i sneezed. the look he gave me, according to steph, was one of absolute horror and disgust. then he looked in the rearview mirror and pointed at me while saying "suay." now this word is ridiculously close to the word "suai," which means beautiful. but thats not what he meant. i had to ask someone the next day, but the tonage he used with the word means bad luck. simply for sneezing. mai khao jai.

round-a-bout.

ive referenced our coyotes nights in a few different posts....the place we go to on wednesdays or saturdays and drink free margaritas for two hours. when going from stephs house, it is only a 10 minute taxi drive without traffic. usually there is traffic, but thats still not a problem. the point is, we know the distance and how to get there. we were on our way to meet people and left with about 20 minutes to spare before the drinks started flowing. 50 minutes later, we were outraged. there was a slight amount of traffic, but the driver was going in the wrong direction. we were traveling around the entire city to get to the restaurant which is just a few kilometers north. when we started seeing signs for where lauren lives, just north outside of the city, we tried saying something to him. he just laughed at us, paying no mind to what we were saying. when we finally got there, we tried to offer less money because he took us the wrong way, but he threatened with the police. so we ended up having to pay for an unwanted bangkok tour AND he had cut our free drinking time down by nearly 50 minutes!

taxi ting tong!

without a doubt, probably the funniest taxi story we have. this was just me and steph, on our way back to her place after one of our sunday night splurges. we tried to explore a new area, surasak, because we had heard that there were good places to party and eat there. unfortunately, we chose to go there during the peak of the red shirts disruption, and so we didnt find much...some overpriced decent curry and thats about it. so we headed back. as we were walking back to the main street a cab passed, saw us heading up that direction, and backed up. we got in and because we knew a little thai (we thought) he was impressed and giggly. most of the ride we spent chatting on our own, but occasionally he would throw a comment and a giggle (and i do mean giggle) back at us and that made us laugh as well. but when we got close to her house, all of a sudden he says "hehehe, taxi ting tong! hehehe." in thai, ting tong means crazy, or rather....crazy drunk. wasted. at that point we were on her back street and so we just looked at each other and laughed, but then he sees another white person outside and rolls down the window yelling "farang! teacha! taxi ting tong! hehehe!" and the guy actually was another teacher at stephs school, but one who was not too impressed with the exchange that happened.

early return :[

now that the flight has officially been booked i can actually write this post.

last week i found out that i need surgery. its not life-threatening, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later. after taking into consideration the price of doing it over here without insurance and the recovery time, i have decided that the best option is go home for it. this means that i will not be finishing out my contract and staying here until the end of september and then traveling until middle of december, but will be leaving in three weeks.

i was starting to get homesick and was missing a lot of things (hence previous post), but as soon as even the possibility of going home now came up, i immediately knew that missing those things was rather trivial and that i was not ready to leave. the numbers are now playing mind games with me. i dont know why it matters so much, wanting to be away for at least a year. i mean, 10 months is only 2 shy of a year, but when i think about coming home now rather than october or december, it feels a lot more like i just got here. funny how that works.

what i miss.

***note. i wrote this last week with intentions of posting today. there have been recent developments that kind of make my feelings about this change, and i will post about them next.***

9 months ago today, i left the states. im 75% through with the initial year away i had intended. as ive been talking to more people who have just recently gotten to thailand, i find that im frequently being asked about things i miss most from back home. around thanksgiving i made a post about what i missed at that time, but the things that make the list now are very different. i think that as time has gone on, i have become more used to what is available here that serve as near 'substitutes.' for example, though its still really hard to find real juice, they have things that are close. for what is on this list, nothing similar exists to fill in temporarily.

1. bagels. lightly toasted with lox and cream cheese, tomato and onion. o man i cant explain how badly i want this. in fact, mom, this is what i would like you to greet me with at the airport, whenever that day arrives.

2. pickles. dill pickles to be specific. most people who know me know how much i love them, and there arent any kinds of pickles here, or anything close to the pickled taste even, to satisfy this craving.

3. turkey. i never realized that this was a bird that asia doesnt have. you think chicken is close enough to turkey, but when you cant get turkey you realize how different they actually are. and when i dont eat ham or most other sandwich meats, lack of turkey is noticeable (not that i really get to eat sandwiches to miss this, but still).

4. my clothes. im so sick of everything i have over here. and it doesnt help that most of it is stained, ripped, or otherwise ruined by the heat.

5. looking nice to go out. the heat here makes it pointless to even worry about this one.

6. dc nightlife. no explanation needed.

7. crabs. they have seafood out here, but all the marylanders know nothing else is the same. (though thanks mr winer i do have a small container of old bay which i use on pad thai and in tuna, hehe).

8. driving. i thought that driving so much in high school and college had made me hate driving forever. now that i havent been able to have control over my own transportation for so long, im finding i actually do miss it. especially in the summer when the weathers nice and theres fun music to blare.

of course there are other things i get occasional pangs for. at one point i really wanted pretzels. recently the only thing that i wanted was a watermelon jolly rancher, and they are currently on their way from the states :] i miss wearing heels, but at this point im so used to open-toed shoes every single day that i dont know how i would adjust back to that....or most of western culture, come to think of it.

catch up.

i was going to go ahead and write separate blog posts for everything that has happened since i arrived back from phuket, but if i try to attempt that, i will NEVER get caught up to where my real life is. so this is going to just be a jumbled mess of basically the last month.

so we arrived back at school, and though a week late, went right back into the routine. it turns out that this semester, each grade only has 3 classes rather than 4. this means a few things. first, when they separated the kids into the groups, they did a better job, so now my p#/1s are amazingly good at everything (essentially honors students) and my p#/3s are basically special education classes. i dont mean that in a negative way, its just the way it is, especially p3/3. id say over half the kids in that class have learning disabilities, but thai school systems do not recognize such disorders and just push everyone through together (remember, they cant fail). needless to say, that class has been quite a challenge. also, it means that the classes are a lot bigger. rather than the low 20s, now each class has well over 30 and closer to 40 students in most cases. finally, it means less teaching hours a week for me (wooo!). as i see each class 2 times a week, i was teaching 24 classes last semester. this knocked out 6....but in order to get me teaching 20 hours a week the school tacked on two kindergarten classes once a week each >:( the fact that it is literally only to make me teach 20 hours is blatantly obvious, as there is a separate teacher for kinder classes and she sees the classes twice a week and then i see two classes once a week each and steinar does as well. it throws off the whole consistency thing with the students, and makes planning difficult as we all have to work together. not to mention, teaching kinder kids is a completely different ball game. i definitely am not a fan.

giving me two random kindergarten classes was only the first thing the school changed this semester. they are trying to work to become...different. i leave it at that because i really have no idea what they are trying to accomplish, only can tell that they are working towards some kind of goal. things change daily, and most of these changes make little sense. for that, and a few other reasons, im kind of regretting staying at this school. my main reason was that i was reasonably happy here and used to it, and didnt want to have to learn a new routine. im learning a new routine anyway and not as happy as i was, and had i changed schools at least i could have been in a better location and making more money.

speaking of location.....i had been trying to move apartments since february. i wanted to be closer to the school, the center of town, and have internet at my place. i started communicating this wish to my 'agency' but was told that i couldnt move until april because apparently when i moved in i said for 6 months...which i know i didnt say. whatever. then in may every time i tried to have someone come out to help me find a new apartment, it never worked. by the time they would have been able to get here, it was middle of june, leaving me with just over 3 months, and i didnt see the point. so im not moving, im staying in my place without internet and walking a mile to school in a monsoon most mornings because, o yeah, now its rainy season in thailand. and thats no fun at all.

pictures of my luxury apartment, because i never posted them before.

hmmm, what else?

o, i had a birthday last month. i dont feel any older this year. im not sure if its because it hardly feels like i even had a birthday, as there are few people in this country who even know what day it falls on, because my outlook has changed, or because my life actually feels slightly suspended from reality. but i went with steph, lauren and stephen over to koh samet and had a nice, relaxed, birthday weekend.

to move off of the negative stuff....ive been meeting a lot of new people. since i wasnt getting any new teachers at my school and was not doing the course over, i wasnt really expecting to meet that many new people this semester. steph and i were planning on spending most weekends together on our own, which would have been fine, but its been nice meeting a new group of people too. there are two new ati groups, and because ive been really (i mean REALLY) into watching the world cup games and going out so much to see them, i have met a decent amount of other farangs living here as well. with each new person, the social circles expand. and while at the core there is pretty much always the general similarity of being english teachers, everyone out here comes from different places and has different experiences to share.

sorry there is such a depressing tone to this post. but hey, it shows everyone who keeps telling me that they are jealous of my life that even though im in thailand, life is still life. its not all buckets and beaches....though it does help to have those things there to turn to when life gets to be like this :]

back to the beginning: phuket

if i had known that i would be given that extra week off, i would have left hanoi a few days earlier and made it to laos as i had intended as part of that trip. i wouldnt have had to fly back and i would have been able to experience the tubing that all of my friends have raved about. but since i didnt know i went back to bangkok and couldnt leave the country again because the immigration offices were closed and therefore i couldnt get another reentry stamp.

on monday i headed over to stephs. on tuesday she found out that she would have the entire week off as well. by wednesday morning we were arriving in phuket town.

we stayed with a friend we met in chiang mai who is also a teacher and consequently met many other teachers as well. at one point, i was talking to one of them and mentioned that i went to maryland and he said "seems like there are a lot of you guys." i was confused because i hadnt met anyone from maryland at that point, but he said there were a few others teaching in phuket and even one who lived right next door. turns out that person was sid, ians friend who i had met briefly one night out in dc last summer when we had already both decided to teach in thailand for a year. cliche time, but seriously, small world.

steph and i took a day and went back down to nai harn. it was just as beautiful as we remember with the only significant change being that there were more chairs set up on the beach, which we guessed was because the high tourist season was just ending. we reminisced about our three weeks spent there and talked a lot about all the people from our group who we were missing. it was nostalgic and slightly sad to be there without everyone. but we discovered that it is still one of our favorite beaches in thailand and realized how lucky we were to start our time in this country in such a great location.

the most notable part of our trip back to phuket was a canoe trip that steph got us for free. on the first night there, while making a run to the convenience store, she met some thai guys who told her they worked giving canoe tours and told her she should go on one. she told that that shes a teacher and so she didnt have the money for that, but they said they would do it for free. so she exchanged numbers with them. later that night they called and asked when we would like to go, so she said friday would be good. they called agin the next day to confirm for friday and told us to meet them at tesco at 1030 the next morning.

we went a little earlier to have breakfast and decided to buy some apples fro the trip and to give to the guides since they were doing this for us for free. when steph got the call that they were on their way, she was then told "ok, we will see you soon. expect to be back around 11 tonight." that was when we realized we had gotten into much more than we were expecting. it was not an hour in a canoe that we were getting, but this.

we had two amazing gourmet meals on the boat and went around to 4 different caves, and in and out of lagoons. at points the top of the caves were so low we actually had to lay down completely in the kayak and our guide had to get out and push so that we could get through. the last cave we went to was the bat cave, named of course because it is full of bats. so.many.bats. also, because this cave was so dark, we were able to see glowing plankton, which is basically particles in the water that glow when they get disturbed. it was quite an amazing experience and had we known what to expect we may have taken a camera to get some quality pictures......but since we didnt have one with us, i took these offline to give you an idea :]

school year on pause.

aside from one exception, i didnt post on the political situation that was happening in thailand the last few months. it is largely due to the fact that while the serious stuff was happening, i was traveling. but its likely that even if i hadnt been, there wouldnt have been much that i could say that would have been worthwhile because it is so complicated and as a westerner living here, i cannot possibly comprehend everything.

i arrived back in thailand from vietnam on sunday, may 16, expecting to head into school the next day to start of the new school year. i found out when i got home that the next two days had been declared a 'national holiday' so that the government could try to gain control of the situation. this meant that all government businesses would be closed, including schools. since i work at a private school, they were able to determine their own plan of action, and they decided to cancel classes for the entire week.

it turned out that those two days the government was giving as holiday were meant to be used to 'get women, children, and the elderly out of the center of the city before the deadline,' which at first was set for monday, may 17 at 3pm and then pushed back to wednesday morning when it became obvious that people were still not leaving. steph and i found out through some of her teachers that this was because following that deadline, the military was basically going to just go in and open fire in order to disperse the group of protestors.

come wednesday, may 19, things got really bad. the military went in and gunfire was exchanged. buildings and businesses were set on fire. tear gas and rubber bullets set off. this 'war zone,' as it was call, lasted for about three days before the red shirt protest leaders started surrendering, bringing the situation to somewhat of a close.

for days i was checking twitter and the bangkok post every few minutes trying to stay up-to-the-minute on what was happening. there was a lot of chaos and confusion, which is still trying to be sorted. however in the grand scheme of things, everything could have been a lot worse. as time has passed, there have been many comments on how the government handled the situation, and this is what i found to be most notable: no other country would have allowed a protest of that magnitude to continue on and harm the economy to the extent that this one did for as long as it did.

world of backpacking.

its a world where you refer to people, not by names, but by the country or city they are from. where you can tell how long someone is planning on traveling by looking at the size of their backpack, or look at the state of their hair and tell how long they have been away. where one conversation can make you someones new best friend and travel partner for a week or more. where all the rules about what life and society expect from you back home are lost and the only things that matter are the new places you see and the new friends you make. plans go out the door along with all preconceived....expectations. you can lose yourself completely and yet somehow, you are able to find out more about yourself than ever before.

its addictive.

world of vietnam.

crossing into vietnam from cambodia, there wasn't really anything that struck me right from the beginning that set the country apart significantly from any of the others in southeast asia. however, after a bit of time, some differences did emerge.

its hard enough to find bread on its own in thailand, let alone any that is good, but the lingering french influence in vietnam means that street stalls are well stocked with supplies for making good baguette sandwiches and restaurants sell french baguettes on the side of all of their dishes. coffee shops are plentiful, and their coffee isnt just a cup of lukewarm milk with a pound of sugar and a splash of coffee flavoring, as it is in thailand. this is gooood coffee. they even have special little tin filters for each glass that is made. i found myself drinking at least a cup, and usually more that, of coffee each day, and even bought a few packs and the coffee maker to take back with me to thailand.

the famous food of vietnam is pho (pronounced 'fur'), which is a noodle soup. they eat that stuff any time of day. i tried some and liked it, but its not as flavorful as thailands noodle soup, so i was slightly disappointed. in fact, aside from the specialties in hoi an and the fresh spring rolls, i wasnt a huge fan of vietnamese food in general, and i definitely picked the right spot for asian food in choosing thailand. however on the other hand, vietnam does have a better variety of tastier western food than thailand, which was nice to get once in a while for a change.

coffee, bread, and western food might be better in vietnam, but unfortunately there is something which is the complete opposite. and thats the attitudes of the people. in thailand and cambodia, everyone was so incredibly friendly and anywhere we went we were greeted with smiles and found people willing to help us with anything we needed. that was not so here.

i dont say this just because we were robbed in nha trang. maybe its because we are american, but i have a feeling that was only a part of it. i heard from other, nonamerican travelers, that they had the same experience, with people generally just being inconsiderate and rude, not just to foreigners, but each other as well.

at one point while waiting for a bus to go to a different town, outside of the travel agency we heard a loud crash. it turned out that some type of large box had fallen from somewhere right onto the windshield of a car. more than 70 people were at the intersection, and for the first 15 minutes when the three injured people stepped out of the car, the driver with blood pouring down his face, no one did anything. in fact, it was meghan that ran over and gave the guy her sarong to try to stop the bleeding before he got onto a motorbike taxi to go to the hospital.

obviously there have been exceptions, and that story is just one example, but it sums up their attitudes pretty well. and i find it to be such a shame because the country is so beautiful and has so much to offer to visitors who really want to appreciate it all.