You know, there's a lot of pop-psychology out there about having a positive attitude and the 'laws of attraction'... you know you put good energy out into the universe and the universe rewards you with your heart's desire.
I'm here to tell you that that whole philosophy is crap. Not 100% crap, of course... but like 70% crap. Sometimes shit happens. And when it does, sometimes it feels good to just complain. So complain I will. Trying to suck it up and forcing myself to keep a good attitude was just driving me bonkers. I've felt a LOT better since venting about all this garbage at work.
I was feeling pretty good this morning. I got to sleep in and spend some time at Starbucks just relaxing. I really needed that. Because my two kid classes were canceled, I only ended up having my one new class in the evening. I showed up a couple hours early to prep the class and as soon as I walked in, the manager approached me. "Your two students.... they will study on Saturday."
"Ok" I said... more power to them I thought.
"You will teach them 9am to 10:30am, and 10:45 to 12:15"
Um, I don't think so! "I already have a class on Saturday morning."
"No, you will teach these students... we will find another teacher for your class."
GAAAHHH! So now, I'm back to having the two kids, and my old class is going to a totally different teacher. At least this time I get some advanced warning. But not even one class to tell the kids I'm leaving. You know, these are kids that I've been teaching for a year and am *finally* starting to make some progress with. Six months ago I would have rejoiced heartily to learn that they were being given to someone else. But now that I've invested so much it sucks that boom it's over, just like that.
In the mean time, with no kid classes on Monday-Friday my schedule is looking a lot more open. And of course they canceled three of my evening classes, which lightens my load that much more. I mentioned to the office staff today that since the kid classes got rescheduled, it's no problem to teach the evening class. But they won't call the student to un-cancel. That would be losing face.
But somehow it's not losing face to have no organizational or management skills whatsoever... no, as long as they keep smiling, everything's fine fine fine.
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
Showing posts with label code sticky rice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label code sticky rice. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Dirty Old Men Business English Class
My Dirty-Old-Men-Business-English class is drawing to a close. This is one of my favorite classes. They are not actually dirty-old-men, but they do tease me, and each other quite a bit. For example the time I had them play the "Don't say yes or no." game. Basically someone sits at the front of the room and the rest of the class fires yes/no questions at them while, as the name of the game implies, they try to say anything other than "yes" or "no". Well, the oldest and quietest of the students got up to the front and the guys started with the questions:
Q "Do you love your wife?"
A "I think so."
Q "Do you have a girlfriend?"
A "Sometimes."
Q "Are you wearing underwear?"
A "A G-string."
Q "Do you have a condom?"
A "Used last night."
I was laughing so hard I was crying, occasionally pulling myself together to correct questions
" 'Do you like ladyboys.' not 'Is you like ladyboys?' "
I've been teaching them since October... possibly September even, and next week will be the last class. They'd finished the book well early and for the last three classes I had pulled together activities from supplemental Business English books. But today, after spending about three hours searching through half a dozen resource books for something interesting and relevant to teach them, I gave up and decided to have a little fun.
I found an activity for writing a love story. It was, like most of my improvised lessons, a bit of a dud... but I think some of the guys had fun with it. At one point I was walking around looking at the students' papers when one covered his up and said... "Don't look, it's dirty, dirty." Given that the subject was romance I feigned a little shock and said "Oh no! I don't want to read it if it's dirty." While one of the students seemed to understand me, the original student didn't so I asked "What do you mean by dirty." and he pointed out different places where he'd scribbled out words and rewrote them in the margins etc. I explained that in America, "dirty" can also mean "very sexual." and he responded "oh no no... not like that". The first student however turned to me and asked "Why is that? Why do you say 'dirty' for sex?"
Oh man. This is why you should never joke around with your students! How exactly do you explain America's hypocritical and puritanical attitudes about sex in two minutes or less using only Elementary English? I chose to go with a historical /geographical approach- briefly discussing Victorian England, the Puritans, the Bible belt, the rural/urban dichotomy of morals, and interestingly, the Mormons. I used the phrase "crazy" a lot. They understand "crazy." He just looked at me like I was speaking nonsense. And I was. As a culture, our attitude towards sex makes no sense at all.
At one point he said "But you don't think that..." Gah! This is not a conversation they prepared us for on the CELTA! I went with "Actually, I was raised that way." and told him that my sister's wedding (at a Baptist church in North Carolina) they were not allowed to kiss during the ceremony. But then I reassured him that my city was pretty liberal - you could stay with your boyfriend if you wanted to, you could be gay, anything was pretty much okay. That seemed to satisfy him, so I quickly extricated myself and continued on with the class.
I'm going to miss this class. They are easily my most fluent students, and the most fun. But I am probably not going to miss the surprise personal questions about my moral upbringing!
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
August is insanely busy for me, 30+ teaching hours a week is pretty brutal. I've already had five 12-hour days this month, and more to come. CALGON TAKE ME AWAY!
Oh wait... that's right, I don't have a bathtub.
Or hot water.
=/
Q "Do you love your wife?"
A "I think so."
Q "Do you have a girlfriend?"
A "Sometimes."
Q "Are you wearing underwear?"
A "A G-string."
Q "Do you have a condom?"
A "Used last night."
I was laughing so hard I was crying, occasionally pulling myself together to correct questions
" 'Do you like ladyboys.' not 'Is you like ladyboys?' "
I've been teaching them since October... possibly September even, and next week will be the last class. They'd finished the book well early and for the last three classes I had pulled together activities from supplemental Business English books. But today, after spending about three hours searching through half a dozen resource books for something interesting and relevant to teach them, I gave up and decided to have a little fun.
I found an activity for writing a love story. It was, like most of my improvised lessons, a bit of a dud... but I think some of the guys had fun with it. At one point I was walking around looking at the students' papers when one covered his up and said... "Don't look, it's dirty, dirty." Given that the subject was romance I feigned a little shock and said "Oh no! I don't want to read it if it's dirty." While one of the students seemed to understand me, the original student didn't so I asked "What do you mean by dirty." and he pointed out different places where he'd scribbled out words and rewrote them in the margins etc. I explained that in America, "dirty" can also mean "very sexual." and he responded "oh no no... not like that". The first student however turned to me and asked "Why is that? Why do you say 'dirty' for sex?"
Oh man. This is why you should never joke around with your students! How exactly do you explain America's hypocritical and puritanical attitudes about sex in two minutes or less using only Elementary English? I chose to go with a historical /geographical approach- briefly discussing Victorian England, the Puritans, the Bible belt, the rural/urban dichotomy of morals, and interestingly, the Mormons. I used the phrase "crazy" a lot. They understand "crazy." He just looked at me like I was speaking nonsense. And I was. As a culture, our attitude towards sex makes no sense at all.
At one point he said "But you don't think that..." Gah! This is not a conversation they prepared us for on the CELTA! I went with "Actually, I was raised that way." and told him that my sister's wedding (at a Baptist church in North Carolina) they were not allowed to kiss during the ceremony. But then I reassured him that my city was pretty liberal - you could stay with your boyfriend if you wanted to, you could be gay, anything was pretty much okay. That seemed to satisfy him, so I quickly extricated myself and continued on with the class.
I'm going to miss this class. They are easily my most fluent students, and the most fun. But I am probably not going to miss the surprise personal questions about my moral upbringing!
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
August is insanely busy for me, 30+ teaching hours a week is pretty brutal. I've already had five 12-hour days this month, and more to come. CALGON TAKE ME AWAY!
Oh wait... that's right, I don't have a bathtub.
Or hot water.
=/
Friday, June 19, 2009
The air is full of spices...
and then some.
I am a huge fan of the movie Sense & Sensibility (the Ang Lee / Emma Thompson version). In the movie, when we first meet Colonel Brandon, Sir John announces "We served in the East Indies together..." to which budding adventurer Margaret Dashwood eagerly asks "Have you really been to the East Indies? What's it like?" Sir John the Spoilsport replies "I'll tell you what it's like - HOT." but Colonel Brandon satisfies Margaret's romantic ideals by whispering "The air is full of spices."
I have no idea where exactly the East Indies are, but I'm pretty sure they're around here somewhere (to be fair, any time a European explorer got more than 1,000 miles from home he invariably thought he was in India). But I can say that I know exactly what Colonel Brandon was referring to.
Often when sitting at the Dive eating lunch, the wind will gust just right and blow in the fumes from the kitchen area. The super heated capsaicin from someone's spicy stir fry takes flight and heads right for us, and whoooo nelly! I imagine it's a bit like being hit with pepper-spray. Our eyes, noses, mouths and lungs are instantly stung with it and much coughing and waving and gulping of water ensues. It's not a romantic sight I can assure you.
Then of course, there's the durian. Lordy lordy lordy, the durian. I very narrowly avoided being fed durian again today at lunch. But I was subject to it's pungent perfume for the rest of the afternoon. Ugh. It's been explained to me that there are many different kinds of durian, of different flavors and intensities, and since Rayong produces a ton of it I really try not to insult it. Instead I just comment that it has a very strong flavor/odor. I've found that a good comparison is cheese - most Thai people don't like even the mildest of cheeses and would surely be repulsed by the stinkier of French cheeses. But I tell them how much I like it, and we generally agree that some things are just acquired tastes.
Of course then they ask me questions about cheese and I tell them about Cheddar and Gouda and Chevre and Havarti ... and then I start to cry. Honestly, the other day I was watching an ad for a company that gives tours of the Great Barrier Reef. There were stunning pictures of coral and fish... action shots of people snorkeling and diving. Then they mentioned lunch on the boat and when they panned across a buffet table showing a sizable platter of assorted cheeses I actually gasped aloud and got misty eyed. I'm having problems here people.
Sorry... what were we talking about? Oh yeah... the air is full of spices... and durian... and mosquitoes.... but no cheese. Don't you wish you were here?
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
I am a huge fan of the movie Sense & Sensibility (the Ang Lee / Emma Thompson version). In the movie, when we first meet Colonel Brandon, Sir John announces "We served in the East Indies together..." to which budding adventurer Margaret Dashwood eagerly asks "Have you really been to the East Indies? What's it like?" Sir John the Spoilsport replies "I'll tell you what it's like - HOT." but Colonel Brandon satisfies Margaret's romantic ideals by whispering "The air is full of spices."
I have no idea where exactly the East Indies are, but I'm pretty sure they're around here somewhere (to be fair, any time a European explorer got more than 1,000 miles from home he invariably thought he was in India). But I can say that I know exactly what Colonel Brandon was referring to.
Often when sitting at the Dive eating lunch, the wind will gust just right and blow in the fumes from the kitchen area. The super heated capsaicin from someone's spicy stir fry takes flight and heads right for us, and whoooo nelly! I imagine it's a bit like being hit with pepper-spray. Our eyes, noses, mouths and lungs are instantly stung with it and much coughing and waving and gulping of water ensues. It's not a romantic sight I can assure you.
Then of course, there's the durian. Lordy lordy lordy, the durian. I very narrowly avoided being fed durian again today at lunch. But I was subject to it's pungent perfume for the rest of the afternoon. Ugh. It's been explained to me that there are many different kinds of durian, of different flavors and intensities, and since Rayong produces a ton of it I really try not to insult it. Instead I just comment that it has a very strong flavor/odor. I've found that a good comparison is cheese - most Thai people don't like even the mildest of cheeses and would surely be repulsed by the stinkier of French cheeses. But I tell them how much I like it, and we generally agree that some things are just acquired tastes.
Of course then they ask me questions about cheese and I tell them about Cheddar and Gouda and Chevre and Havarti ... and then I start to cry. Honestly, the other day I was watching an ad for a company that gives tours of the Great Barrier Reef. There were stunning pictures of coral and fish... action shots of people snorkeling and diving. Then they mentioned lunch on the boat and when they panned across a buffet table showing a sizable platter of assorted cheeses I actually gasped aloud and got misty eyed. I'm having problems here people.
Sorry... what were we talking about? Oh yeah... the air is full of spices... and durian... and mosquitoes.... but no cheese. Don't you wish you were here?
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Ethnic Foods
The other day I ran into Donny (my half Swiss, half Filipino friend who's lived in Thailand most of his life) at Tesco. He was buying socks, and I was buying some food. We chatted and fell into step with each other as we continued shopping.
Donny "So what else do you need?"
Rebel "Soup."
Donny "Soup? Like noodles? Over here." He steered us down the ramen aisle. More packets of noodles than I'd ever seen in one place in the US. A good 1/5th of the aisle was just devoted to cup-o-soup type noodles, pork, chicken, shrimp, squid, spicy, super spicy, nuclear spicy, Thai style, Japanese style, Korean style.
Rebel "No, soup, like soup." I said and steered us back to the ethnic foods aisle. Or rather the aisle of miscellaneous canned goods of which about 2 feet of shelf space are devoted to western foods. I scanned down past the peanut butter and spam, past the mayonaise and nutella and found what I was looking for on the second to bottom shelf. Considering briefly the four varieties of Campbells Soup available, I picked up a couple of cans of Chicken and Vegetable soup and placed them in my basket.
Donny bewildered... "You really eat that stuff?"
Donny "So what else do you need?"
Rebel "Soup."
Donny "Soup? Like noodles? Over here." He steered us down the ramen aisle. More packets of noodles than I'd ever seen in one place in the US. A good 1/5th of the aisle was just devoted to cup-o-soup type noodles, pork, chicken, shrimp, squid, spicy, super spicy, nuclear spicy, Thai style, Japanese style, Korean style.
Rebel "No, soup, like soup." I said and steered us back to the ethnic foods aisle. Or rather the aisle of miscellaneous canned goods of which about 2 feet of shelf space are devoted to western foods. I scanned down past the peanut butter and spam, past the mayonaise and nutella and found what I was looking for on the second to bottom shelf. Considering briefly the four varieties of Campbells Soup available, I picked up a couple of cans of Chicken and Vegetable soup and placed them in my basket.
Donny bewildered... "You really eat that stuff?"
My kitchen
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Insanity
They say that doing the same thing over and over again but expecting to get different results is one of the definitions of insanity. And I would not argue with that. The problem is...sometimes you really do get different results, and that just reinforces the crazy.
My internet has been buggered all to hell. And yes, I did just say buggered all to hell. I'm not even sure which country's slang that is, but I figure I'm in international waters or something, so it's okay. I have spent ungodly amounts of both time and money in the past week trying to get my internet to work - only to have it stop working again like two days later. For some reason, my computer did not believe that it had a modem. Or something. I kept trying, tried futzing around with settings etc. I did my super-secret-magic-tech-guru-trick (aka 'the reboot') which usually fixes things... but it did not. After spending hours going round and round I finally decided I would need to take the computer back to the shop and stopped trying to connect until I could do that. Until tonight. Tonight I had a brief moment of insanity (vodka induced insanity) and decided to give the internet one last try. And, as you can see... it worked. WTF?
In other areas of insanity... I'm having issues. Vague existential issues. The kind of issues that have me thinking in circles until all I want to do is kill off the offending brain cells with vodka... that'll teach 'em! Alas, once I sober up, the issues are still there. And they come with their buddies: hangovers, incriminating photos, and unforgivably - memories of what actually occurred while drinking. That's not fair... that's just not fair at all.
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
My internet has been buggered all to hell. And yes, I did just say buggered all to hell. I'm not even sure which country's slang that is, but I figure I'm in international waters or something, so it's okay. I have spent ungodly amounts of both time and money in the past week trying to get my internet to work - only to have it stop working again like two days later. For some reason, my computer did not believe that it had a modem. Or something. I kept trying, tried futzing around with settings etc. I did my super-secret-magic-tech-guru-trick (aka 'the reboot') which usually fixes things... but it did not. After spending hours going round and round I finally decided I would need to take the computer back to the shop and stopped trying to connect until I could do that. Until tonight. Tonight I had a brief moment of insanity (vodka induced insanity) and decided to give the internet one last try. And, as you can see... it worked. WTF?
In other areas of insanity... I'm having issues. Vague existential issues. The kind of issues that have me thinking in circles until all I want to do is kill off the offending brain cells with vodka... that'll teach 'em! Alas, once I sober up, the issues are still there. And they come with their buddies: hangovers, incriminating photos, and unforgivably - memories of what actually occurred while drinking. That's not fair... that's just not fair at all.
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
Monday, February 9, 2009
Endless Summer Reading List
Sorry kids, I keep thinking it's summer. I do most of my reading at the beach so it feels like vacation reading. And fortunately I've had a few opportunities lately to park myself on lounge chair and read so I've got a couple of books to review for you.
Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald.*
Plot: A journalist quits her day job to join her SO in India, religious exploration ensues.
Motto: Pick a god, any god.
Opinion: I've been toying with the idea of trying to write a book about my experience here in Thailand. I'd been disappointed in the travel-memoirs I'd read and hoped I could give my own spin on what it's like to be abroad. There is no need. MacDonald strikes just the right note of shock, wonder, amusement and annoyance. As an Australian, she has a very western bias / point of view as she explores the different faiths and cultures of India. But I think she does a good job of relaying her observations without too much judgement. Which is not to say she is only an observer, or that she keeps her opinions to herself... it's just that she makes it easy for the reader to follow along and form their own opinions.
One of my biggest complaints about Eat Pray Love was that the author was so self absorbed, I couldn't get out of her head and into what the places she visited were actually like. Holy Cow is not at all like that. I mean, it's a memoir and as such it delves into her thoughts and feelings and spiritual journey, but I didn't feel like I was being dragged into her own personal drama.
Ugh... I'm embarrassed now. I've read two books since finishing Holy Cow and I can't remember enough relevant details to share them with you. She visits a LOT of different gurus and ceremonies, I honestly couldn't keep all the religions straight. One of the festivals she visited was Christian and I really enjoyed seeing the Indian spin on a faith I am already so well acquainted with. Christianity in America isn't nearly sparkly enough IMHO.
Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable read for me, although I didn't warm up to the author until a chapter or two in. She's having the expat experience that I wish I were having, including the loving husband, household staff, expendable cash and the time to enjoy it. I would recommend this book to someone heading abroad, or to someone who needed an arm-chair vacation. Not too heavy, not too fluffy.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
Plot - The crew from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy continue traveling through space and time, and observe a key moment in the evolution of humankind.
Motto - Intergalactic absurdity at not quite it's finest.
Opinion - I desperately wanted to reread The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but this was the only Adams book available. It's a poor substitute for the original. It's just more improbability, more insanity, more (but not quite as witty) observations about the human condition etc. In High School I read all four (?) books in sequence so it was just one long silly story... and suited my sense of humor perfectly. But now... and on it's own, this book falls so far short of the original that it's barely worth reading. Recommended - only if you're trying to woo a die-hard Douglas Adams fan or you're stuck in a foreign country with minimal reading material available.
Emma - Jane Austen
Plot: The charming Miss Woodhouse dabbles in matchmaking, formal balls and long winded letters ensue.
Motto: Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match...
Opinion: I love all the Jane Austen movies I've seen. I love the period costumes and the fancy balls. I love the small-scale intrigue and neighborhood drama. But this is only the second Austen book I've actually read. I really enjoyed Sense and Sensibility, but Emma was a bit wordy for my taste. Especially after having seen the movie countless times, it's a bit brutal to have a conversation drag on for page after page when a paragraph or two would have covered it.
The characters are awesome though. Austen has a gift for creating unique and at times ridiculous characters. I love Mr. Elton's sycophantic attempts at wooing Emma, and Miss Bate's endless prattle. And of course, there's always a happy ending. Like every other fan, I wish good ol' Jane was in charge of writing my love life. My hero would have been hiding there under my nose the whole time, silly me, just too blind to see him. Alas....
Overall, I liked it. It's nice to escape to the fantasy world of the English gentry once in a while. I recommend this one to romantic girls who want to ruin any chance at marital bliss by setting up completely unrealistic standards for relationships. Or boys who wish to woo such women. Or, you know anyone stuck in a foreign country with limited access to reading materials.
*This was somewhat serendipitous, I'd almost picked this book up in Portland but was turned off by the cover & the summary on the back (seriously bad marketing!) but I saw it on the book-share table at our hostel in Cambodia (no not the brothel) so I picked it up. I'm glad I gave it a second chance.
TAG - Code Sticky Rice. Everything's fine, I'm still a bit moody, but I'm starting to think about making some changes.
Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald.*
Plot: A journalist quits her day job to join her SO in India, religious exploration ensues.
Motto: Pick a god, any god.
Opinion: I've been toying with the idea of trying to write a book about my experience here in Thailand. I'd been disappointed in the travel-memoirs I'd read and hoped I could give my own spin on what it's like to be abroad. There is no need. MacDonald strikes just the right note of shock, wonder, amusement and annoyance. As an Australian, she has a very western bias / point of view as she explores the different faiths and cultures of India. But I think she does a good job of relaying her observations without too much judgement. Which is not to say she is only an observer, or that she keeps her opinions to herself... it's just that she makes it easy for the reader to follow along and form their own opinions.
One of my biggest complaints about Eat Pray Love was that the author was so self absorbed, I couldn't get out of her head and into what the places she visited were actually like. Holy Cow is not at all like that. I mean, it's a memoir and as such it delves into her thoughts and feelings and spiritual journey, but I didn't feel like I was being dragged into her own personal drama.
Ugh... I'm embarrassed now. I've read two books since finishing Holy Cow and I can't remember enough relevant details to share them with you. She visits a LOT of different gurus and ceremonies, I honestly couldn't keep all the religions straight. One of the festivals she visited was Christian and I really enjoyed seeing the Indian spin on a faith I am already so well acquainted with. Christianity in America isn't nearly sparkly enough IMHO.
Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable read for me, although I didn't warm up to the author until a chapter or two in. She's having the expat experience that I wish I were having, including the loving husband, household staff, expendable cash and the time to enjoy it. I would recommend this book to someone heading abroad, or to someone who needed an arm-chair vacation. Not too heavy, not too fluffy.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
Plot - The crew from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy continue traveling through space and time, and observe a key moment in the evolution of humankind.
Motto - Intergalactic absurdity at not quite it's finest.
Opinion - I desperately wanted to reread The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but this was the only Adams book available. It's a poor substitute for the original. It's just more improbability, more insanity, more (but not quite as witty) observations about the human condition etc. In High School I read all four (?) books in sequence so it was just one long silly story... and suited my sense of humor perfectly. But now... and on it's own, this book falls so far short of the original that it's barely worth reading. Recommended - only if you're trying to woo a die-hard Douglas Adams fan or you're stuck in a foreign country with minimal reading material available.
Emma - Jane Austen
Plot: The charming Miss Woodhouse dabbles in matchmaking, formal balls and long winded letters ensue.
Motto: Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match...
Opinion: I love all the Jane Austen movies I've seen. I love the period costumes and the fancy balls. I love the small-scale intrigue and neighborhood drama. But this is only the second Austen book I've actually read. I really enjoyed Sense and Sensibility, but Emma was a bit wordy for my taste. Especially after having seen the movie countless times, it's a bit brutal to have a conversation drag on for page after page when a paragraph or two would have covered it.
The characters are awesome though. Austen has a gift for creating unique and at times ridiculous characters. I love Mr. Elton's sycophantic attempts at wooing Emma, and Miss Bate's endless prattle. And of course, there's always a happy ending. Like every other fan, I wish good ol' Jane was in charge of writing my love life. My hero would have been hiding there under my nose the whole time, silly me, just too blind to see him. Alas....
Overall, I liked it. It's nice to escape to the fantasy world of the English gentry once in a while. I recommend this one to romantic girls who want to ruin any chance at marital bliss by setting up completely unrealistic standards for relationships. Or boys who wish to woo such women. Or, you know anyone stuck in a foreign country with limited access to reading materials.
*This was somewhat serendipitous, I'd almost picked this book up in Portland but was turned off by the cover & the summary on the back (seriously bad marketing!) but I saw it on the book-share table at our hostel in Cambodia (no not the brothel) so I picked it up. I'm glad I gave it a second chance.
TAG - Code Sticky Rice. Everything's fine, I'm still a bit moody, but I'm starting to think about making some changes.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Improvements
One of my resolutions for 2009 is to improve the quality of my blog, and I signed up with Sophisticated Dorkiness's project to keep me on track. I skimmed through a couple of the articles and can specify that I'd like to improve the quality of my blog's content, the design/layout, and I'd like to build a sense of community with and among you the readers of this crazy thing. At the moment my goals are really general:
* I've recently started doing this, but I'm going to continue to compose my blog in a .txt file before pasting it into blogger. The idea is two-fold; first I've learned the hard way that the formatting gets all wonky if I compose half my blog save it, add pictures, save it, etc. And second, composing offline gives makes it ever so slightly less likely that I will publish before running spell check. So my intention is to compose first, add pictures second & publish *after* at least a cursory attempt at editing. (of course spell checker isn't working at the moment.... the best laid plans...)
* Speaking of editing, I want to work towards getting a better quality to quantity ratio. Not every post needs to be a long & rambling stream of consciousness. ;)
* Finally I want at least some of my posts to be helpful to people who are planning to visit SE Asia or planning to teach abroad or anything like that.
* Which ties back in with the community aspect. I want to get more plugged in to the ex-pat / teaching abroad / traveling bloggers community. I've found a few interesting sites, but there have got to be more out there! And, I want to put this blog out where the people who might find my experience helpful might go looking for it. I know that when I was thinking about going abroad I actually only found a few relevant blogs and many seemed to be out of date or not updated very frequently. It's interesting/ exiting for me to read about other people's experiences and hopefully I can add my own perspective to what's out there.
So those are, loosely, my blog goals... or 'good intentions' for 2009. I'm sticking with the project and as relevant topics or tasks appear, you'll be seeing more about it.
There have been slight improvements in other areas of my life.
- My tummy seems to have settled - huzzah! You know, until the next weird thing I eat.
- One of the other teachers was eating "Cup Jok" today and it was really good so I got some for dinner tonight. It's kind of like cream of wheat, only with rice, and salt, and just enough chicken & green onion to give it a slight flavor, just add hot water. This could be a new breakfast / I don't feel good type of meal. Not a nutrient rich meal I'm sure, but the excessive layers of plastic packaging and freeze-dried nature of the "chicken" reassure me that it is quite free of e-coli & salmonela. Huzzah!
- I got new sheets and a bedside lamp (and a lightbulb, which obviously wasn't included with the lamp, nor carried by the store where I bought the lamp, but finally obtained nonetheless). Huzzah! This means I can read in bed (actual books - not just the interwebs!) Of course, I still don't have a bed-side table, but you know... I'm taking the improvements where I can get them.
* I've recently started doing this, but I'm going to continue to compose my blog in a .txt file before pasting it into blogger. The idea is two-fold; first I've learned the hard way that the formatting gets all wonky if I compose half my blog save it, add pictures, save it, etc. And second, composing offline gives makes it ever so slightly less likely that I will publish before running spell check. So my intention is to compose first, add pictures second & publish *after* at least a cursory attempt at editing. (of course spell checker isn't working at the moment.... the best laid plans...)
* Speaking of editing, I want to work towards getting a better quality to quantity ratio. Not every post needs to be a long & rambling stream of consciousness. ;)
* Finally I want at least some of my posts to be helpful to people who are planning to visit SE Asia or planning to teach abroad or anything like that.
* Which ties back in with the community aspect. I want to get more plugged in to the ex-pat / teaching abroad / traveling bloggers community. I've found a few interesting sites, but there have got to be more out there! And, I want to put this blog out where the people who might find my experience helpful might go looking for it. I know that when I was thinking about going abroad I actually only found a few relevant blogs and many seemed to be out of date or not updated very frequently. It's interesting/ exiting for me to read about other people's experiences and hopefully I can add my own perspective to what's out there.
So those are, loosely, my blog goals... or 'good intentions' for 2009. I'm sticking with the project and as relevant topics or tasks appear, you'll be seeing more about it.
There have been slight improvements in other areas of my life.
- My tummy seems to have settled - huzzah! You know, until the next weird thing I eat.
- One of the other teachers was eating "Cup Jok" today and it was really good so I got some for dinner tonight. It's kind of like cream of wheat, only with rice, and salt, and just enough chicken & green onion to give it a slight flavor, just add hot water. This could be a new breakfast / I don't feel good type of meal. Not a nutrient rich meal I'm sure, but the excessive layers of plastic packaging and freeze-dried nature of the "chicken" reassure me that it is quite free of e-coli & salmonela. Huzzah!
- I got new sheets and a bedside lamp (and a lightbulb, which obviously wasn't included with the lamp, nor carried by the store where I bought the lamp, but finally obtained nonetheless). Huzzah! This means I can read in bed (actual books - not just the interwebs!) Of course, I still don't have a bed-side table, but you know... I'm taking the improvements where I can get them.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Still in Stage 2
I've probably mentioned this, but I'm still hanging out in Stage 2 of culture shock... everything sucks. Not really, but I am homesick... and also sick sick.
I picked up a stomach bug in Cambodia but thought I had more or less kicked it. Alas no, it or some new bug has taken up residence in my digestive track making it, once again, unwise for me to be more than 50 feet from a bathroom at any time. I took some pepto... it helps for a little while, but ultimately I just need to let nature take it's course. On Saturday I was so pooped (pun intended) that I came straight home from class and was in bed before 5pm.
Today I didn't feel quite up to the beach so I went to the mall. I ate at McDonalds, which I know is both immoral and probably unwise given the state of my tummy - but sometimes you just need western food. A fair number of places offer "western" food - but it's always just a bit off, the mayonnaise is wrong, or the cheese is fake, or something. The cultural homogenization of McDonalds can be a welcome thing at times!
Especially when you're hanging out in Stage 2. I remember reading someone else's blog at about this stage, and I'm right there. Everything that was once new and amazing is just ordinary now... ordinary and somewhat annoying. I see elephants walking down the street on a regular basis. Seeing 5 people on a motorbike is not really a big deal - you know because two of them were kids and one was a baby so really - it's equivalent to like 3 adult sized people, and that's nothing at all. And when teenagers on motorbikes scream out to us "Hello - where you go?" it's no longer charming. My pathetic attempts at the language are no longer fun adventures, but rather another frustrating road block to accomplishing whatever I want. But the longer I'm able to function here without speaking the language, the less motivated I am to sit down and learn it.
Ugh. I'm homesick too... for a home that doesn't exist anymore. I want nothing more than to be back in my old apartment, sitting on my fluffy blue couch next to Sally under a pile of quilts, watching DVRed episodes of Ace of Cakes while munching on bakery bread & three different kinds of cheeses. Even though I was lonely and at times miserable... it was a comfortable existence. I'm tired of not having a comfy space here. I'm excessively tired of my whole bathroom situation - the shower over the sink and the lack of hot water particularly. It's finally getting 'cold' here, dipping down into the 70s or possibly the 60s overnight. Which I realize isn't actually cold - but the prospect of a cold shower is only even tolerable when the weather's been a consistent 80 something.
And as much as it's cool to say that I had Christmas in Thailand and New Years in Cambodia, I have never felt less of the holiday spirit than I did this year. The whole season has felt surreal and every Santa poster or Christmas tree display (which are still up for some odd reason) mocks me - they don't even believe in Christmas here! Don't even get me started on the morning wake-up brigade of dogs howling, cocks crowing, and the music blaring advertisement trucks.
I feel like my contract is too long, and my salary is too low, but I'm not sure what on earth I'm going to do with myself when I do decide to leave. Ye olde anxieties are back - I don't have much savings to speak of, and while I can live comfortably in Thailand on my salary, I'd have to be extremely careful (or stay here for quite a while) to save up enough to actually return to the States. And when I do go back, what kind of job will I be able to find - will I find one at all with the economy in the toilet as it is? Double ugh.
I'll stop here but suffice it to say I'm not doing especially well today. I managed to hang on to some level of the Honeymoon stage of culture shock for about 3 months. I really hope stage two doesn't linger quite that long.
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
I picked up a stomach bug in Cambodia but thought I had more or less kicked it. Alas no, it or some new bug has taken up residence in my digestive track making it, once again, unwise for me to be more than 50 feet from a bathroom at any time. I took some pepto... it helps for a little while, but ultimately I just need to let nature take it's course. On Saturday I was so pooped (pun intended) that I came straight home from class and was in bed before 5pm.
Today I didn't feel quite up to the beach so I went to the mall. I ate at McDonalds, which I know is both immoral and probably unwise given the state of my tummy - but sometimes you just need western food. A fair number of places offer "western" food - but it's always just a bit off, the mayonnaise is wrong, or the cheese is fake, or something. The cultural homogenization of McDonalds can be a welcome thing at times!
Especially when you're hanging out in Stage 2. I remember reading someone else's blog at about this stage, and I'm right there. Everything that was once new and amazing is just ordinary now... ordinary and somewhat annoying. I see elephants walking down the street on a regular basis. Seeing 5 people on a motorbike is not really a big deal - you know because two of them were kids and one was a baby so really - it's equivalent to like 3 adult sized people, and that's nothing at all. And when teenagers on motorbikes scream out to us "Hello - where you go?" it's no longer charming. My pathetic attempts at the language are no longer fun adventures, but rather another frustrating road block to accomplishing whatever I want. But the longer I'm able to function here without speaking the language, the less motivated I am to sit down and learn it.
Ugh. I'm homesick too... for a home that doesn't exist anymore. I want nothing more than to be back in my old apartment, sitting on my fluffy blue couch next to Sally under a pile of quilts, watching DVRed episodes of Ace of Cakes while munching on bakery bread & three different kinds of cheeses. Even though I was lonely and at times miserable... it was a comfortable existence. I'm tired of not having a comfy space here. I'm excessively tired of my whole bathroom situation - the shower over the sink and the lack of hot water particularly. It's finally getting 'cold' here, dipping down into the 70s or possibly the 60s overnight. Which I realize isn't actually cold - but the prospect of a cold shower is only even tolerable when the weather's been a consistent 80 something.
And as much as it's cool to say that I had Christmas in Thailand and New Years in Cambodia, I have never felt less of the holiday spirit than I did this year. The whole season has felt surreal and every Santa poster or Christmas tree display (which are still up for some odd reason) mocks me - they don't even believe in Christmas here! Don't even get me started on the morning wake-up brigade of dogs howling, cocks crowing, and the music blaring advertisement trucks.
I feel like my contract is too long, and my salary is too low, but I'm not sure what on earth I'm going to do with myself when I do decide to leave. Ye olde anxieties are back - I don't have much savings to speak of, and while I can live comfortably in Thailand on my salary, I'd have to be extremely careful (or stay here for quite a while) to save up enough to actually return to the States. And when I do go back, what kind of job will I be able to find - will I find one at all with the economy in the toilet as it is? Double ugh.
I'll stop here but suffice it to say I'm not doing especially well today. I managed to hang on to some level of the Honeymoon stage of culture shock for about 3 months. I really hope stage two doesn't linger quite that long.
TAG: Code Sticky Rice
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