Thinking of Thailand

Not a day goes by when I don't think of Thailand. I am filled with excitement, hope, and nervousness. I'm also filled with many questions. How will I adjust to life in Thailand? Will I get used to the sweltering heat? Will I find acceptance within the Fulbright family? Will my students like me?

I also think about my future students at Sawananan Wittaya School a lot. I've been shopping on Amazon for a few books on ESL teaching techniques and other materials to better prepare and equip myself for when the time comes. I've read a book on Thai history, bought a Thai language book (I highly recommend Poomsan Becker's book), a guide to SE Asia, and a Thai-English dictionary. When I think about my future students, I try to be aware that my first and foremost job is to help them speak English better. Secondly, I want to share America with them, and I proposed in my grant that I would teach them ballroom dancing. I've been taking classes again to review, but I'm realizing that it is very difficult to teach (I tried it on my sister) especially because I don't know the follower parts very well! This is funny, because the follow is the spotlight of any dance. As my dance teacher said, "The lead is the frame, and the follow is the picture." I've danced lead all my life, and I never thought once that I should pay attention to the follow parts. I am also working on Thai language acquisition, and so far it is going well. I usually put on Thai music or lessons on my iPod whenever I go to the gym to get used to the tones and the pronunciations. I've noticed from just glancing at some writing lessons in my language book that the Thai script and Burmese script are somewhat similar, especially when it comes to the vowels.

Perhaps I'm over-planning things, but I don't think it ever hurts to over plan, as long as one approaches the future with openness and a ready acceptance that things may be completely different from our expectations. In all this planning, I try to consciously remind myself again and again to not go to Thailand with preconceptions and expectations. I've noticed in the past that my predictions have caused me trouble, especially when they don't come to past. I want to go to Thailand with an open mind and an open heart and take in things as they happen. I realized when I was talking to a friend the other day that my past experience in Thailand last year may serve as a stumbling block to me even though that experience was the one the propelled me to apply for the Fulbright. This is because the few weeks I spent in Thailand last summer was one of the best few weeks I've experienced in many years. Those weeks were filled with happiness or kwaam sook as we went on adventures to the west, visited hospitals, and also built the community sala in Chachoengsao. This time, I expect happiness as well, but I tell myself to end that expectation right there. Just happiness. Not how, not when. Just happiness.

With the kids at the sala in Chachoengsao (July 2009)

Wanderlust

Most of us long for a kind of connectedness we rarely find. Probably it is available everywhere, even in our living rooms at home, with our silent or estranged families, or on the streets of our hometowns. But we don't quite have the courage to risk the kind of relationship we long for. So we search in exotic lands and in extraordinary circumstances for the story or event, the one face that will break through to us, engage us, make us feel. But when faced with the opportunity, we are as frightened and alone as we are in our living rooms, and we shrink from the very engagement we desire and have come so far to find. We hide in busy schedules because we don't know how to feel, and we don't know what to do about the suffering, and we don't know what it means. 

- From "Singing to the Dead: A Missioner's Life among Refugees from Burma" by Victoria Armour-Hileman 

The Nature of Time

I've noticed recently in my life how time seems to fly. High school went by very fast and so did college. I recall something I wrote in a letter two years ago; it was how time passed so quickly that it seemed almost as if the clocks sped up whenever I wasn't paying attention, sort of like a cosmic joke. What is interesting though is that it is only the past eight years that this phenomenon seems to be occurring. On the other hand, I feel as if my childhood lasted a lifetime. I don't remember too much of what happened from infancy to middle school, but one thing that I'm sure of is that it seemed like those twelve years felt like a very very long time. I was pondering this today and discovered a possible answer to all this and it has to do precisely with the inner workings of my mind. Since high school, my mind has hardly ever been in the present and it flutters to and fro mostly conjecturing the future, what I would do, what I need to accomplish. In high school, I always had an assignment or project to worry about as well as the impending college applications. My mind was always looking toward college, where it would be, and whether I would even get into one. In college, I think I put unnecessary stress upon myself to over-plan my future and thus my mind was also preoccupied with grad schools and etc. To put it simply, since high school, I have not been living in nor appreciated the present. In addition to all of this was the division of years to semesters or quarters; a year wasn't really understood as 365 days...it was split into the school year and summer break, with the school year being split into further two or three sections.

Before high school, I didn't spend my time thinking or worrying too much about the future. I dealt with school and with life on a daily basis. Except for the few occasions I would look forward to such as celebrating Christmas or being a part of a reading program at the library in the summers, I lived mostly in the present. What I'm trying to get is that my notion of time as fleeting coincided with high school and college simply because I never entirely lived those years; I was living in a virtual future constantly. On the other hand, I very much lived out my youth because I lived in the present and enjoyed what life brought me. Perhaps to 'extend' my life, I need to revert my mind back more toward the simplicity of a childlike state and truly live and enjoy the present more. This is a Sisyphean task , because I am always worrying about the future. Currently, I'm worried about what I'm going to do after Thailand. I sort of have an idea, but there aren't any concrete plans yet. How can one peacefully live in the secure present if the future doesn't promise such securities?  People always say there's a balance between living in the present and planning the future. Apparently, I haven't found such a balance yet, but I pray I will soon.

One way of extending my time: playing with critters