"Thankful for a Good Time" - Pete, 7th Grade

It was EXACTLY one year ago, to the day, that I interviewed for a teaching position here in Thailand. And then exactly four days after that, I bought my one-way ticket to Thailand, leaving LAX the night of January 1, 2011, and arriving in BKK on January 3^rd.  It is almost scary how fast a year seems to just happen.

Yesterday, for our bi-weekly quick-write warm-up activity (who doesn’t like hyphens?), in keeping with my American traditions because I’m a little sad I’m not participating in the gargantuan Thanksgiving feast taking place at home, I had the students write about things they are Thankful for.

I got some pretty good responses. In fact, I have been getting some pretty good writing in general from my students. Their writing and language abilities are so much more developed than when I went to Malaysia with them in the summer. It’s just incredible. Obviously, they still have a long way to go, but just their ability to express themselves through writing has come so far… the grammar and punctuation and spelling will come. Here are some little excerpts from their quickwrites yesterday:

This was the first one I read... Very poetic. And, I like the double-duty
animals serve in her life- "I am thankful for you because first I
play with you, and then, I get to eat you and you make my belly full."

YES! Me too. I love this.

Pretty sure "hernomy" means "harmony," which makes this so sweet.
I feel the same way.

Pretty deep stuff from a 13-year old. She just came out of
a pretty rough relationship though.

Her whole quick-write was about being thankful for the fact
that Fate is not something that can be controlled by individuals
and how she knows that with every bad thing, there is something
to be learned and something beautiful that comes from it. 

Trying to find the good in everyone, knowing it's there somewhere.

My Thanksgiving was spent among other foreign Nakhon friends (American, Australian, British, and Canadian), eating chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes at a local place that serves western food and delicious boxed wine. I got to cuddle with and rock my friend’s adorable three-month old to sleep while laughing, telling jokes, sharing stories about life and love and friendship and traveling, and just smiling. It was good. At one point, I called for everyone’s attention and made them each say what it was they were thankful for. The non-Americans weren't quite sure what to make of it at first, but they really got into it. By the time everyone had shared, people were wanting to share again, and other diners in the restaurant were asked to participate. Shout-outs were given to the ones who had brought us here, and those who we have fond memories of but are no longer teachers in Nakhon. There really is so much to be thankful for, and it’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind of life. Last night, I think, was an opportunity for all of us to count our blessings, both silently as we listened to others and aloud within the group. For many, this was their first Thanksgiving experience. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

And now comes the mushy part...

What am I thankful for? This year I am especially grateful. Last year was HARD. Emotionally, I was drained. I felt like I had lost my spark- whatever it was inside me that made me me. It’s even hard looking back on it now- I still feel the residue of those feelings of discouragement, the feeling that I was failing in more than one facet of my life, and… all that I thought I wanted, all I thought I had attained, it seemed like it had crumbled right in front of me.

I am thankful for my mom and my dad. Cliché, I know, but clichés are clichés for a reason. Every year I am thankful that they are my parents. I count on them for so much. As much as I don’t always want to take it, I have learned that my father’s advice is generally pretty good. He was trying to get me here for months before I even considered it an option. And my mom, I also count on her for so much, and over the years, we have grown into great friends. And together (I don’t particularly think about how), they made me and my smart, funny, and loving sisters, who I am also thankful for.

And then there’s all the other crazies- my aunts, uncles, my GRANDMAS, cousins… approximately half of whom (my mother's half), led by my best friend, thought it would be appropriate to call me at MY 4:00am today, then gave me grief for 1) not having the light on (“I’m in BED!”), 2) Looking like I just woke up ("Well, I DID!"), and then 3) screamed into skype that they couldn’t hear me (because THEY were all being too loud.) But I loved every minute of it. Our family is full of laughter and love. We’re strong. I am thankful all of them.

I am thankful for friendship. For the people who help me to be a better person, who love me unconditionally even when I'm crazy, and who I know I can count on, whether we are next door to each other  or on opposite sides of the world. People at home and here. I came here not really thinking about the relationships I would make, but I am leaving valuing them in the most important way.

Being Thankful in The Land of Thai: I am thankful for som tom, for my brief affair with Pizza Man (the restaurant, NOT the man himself, thank you),  Kao Pad Moo, Thai chicken eggs,  Tom Kha Gai, the little dog the students have named Plah Thu (Mackerel) that loves to run around our school in the rain, warm weather, the most beautiful beaches,  skype, being able to travel…

Not everyone gets to travel and see the world.  I am lucky and grateful, because this year, I have done this all while doing something I love: teaching. I love teaching because I love learning and I love kids, and I like being a part of those two things coming together. Watching as a student reaches that “Aha!” moment- it is excellence. I am so thankful for my students- they make me laugh, they make me love teaching that much more, and they challenge me to think outside the box.  It can be hard, and it can be frustrating, but it can be done. They help me to learn things about myself and about what it means to be an educator AND a human being. Lately, while they’ve been working independently on projects, I have been looking at them and thinking about the fact that after these last two weeks, it is likely that I will never see them again. I get it, but that doesn’t make it any less hard. I am thankful for the time I have had with them, and hope that I will get to see them as grown-ups someday, being amazing out in the world.

Another cliché: This journey has changed my life. And I am so thankful for that. I’m me, but better, stronger. 

Thanksgiving.....

“WHEN YOU REALIZE HOW PERFECT EVERYTHING IS YOU WILL TILT YOUR HEAD BACK AND LAUGH AT THE SKY”

Our Beach @ the Resort in Koh Mook- yes, it was this empty :)

The first few months I was here, I bought a Lonely Planet guide to Thailand (LP, for short). I was at the Bangkok airport waiting for a friend from home to arrive. Our original plan to head to Samui was thwarted (my word of the day, apparently; I have used it three times thus far) by the floods that hit the southern part of Thailand in April, and we needed a new plan. But I planned nothing. Then, hours before her arrival, I thought I should plan something. Our trip ended up being pretty good, and LP proved to be pretty useful. Sometimes I love LP and sometimes I feel like LP really steers me in the wrong direction and I don’t like to take its advice. 

Anyhow, there’s a section of all color photos with short descriptions in the front. As I sat in the airport, flipping through the pages, I saw this photo of one of the contributing authors, sitting in crystal clear, aqua water. You could tell the sand beneath him was perfectly powdery white and behind him were these beautiful little islands, an archipelago of limestone rock jutting out of the sea. The sky was a perfect blue. It was perfect, it was beautiful, and I dog-eared the page. The Trang Islands. I looked it up on the map. Then, I promised myself I’d go there.

As my months remaining in Thailand are winding down- well, they’re pretty much done winding, as I have just over a month left- I’ve been really thinking about what I want to do and where I want to go before I leave. I’ve slowly been crossing things off my list, and last weekend, I crossed off that photo. 

The Andaman Coast of Thailand, where Trang is located, is just coming into its high season. So last weekend, when I went, it was practically deserted. And perfect. Although it didn’t exactly start out that way. 

As we sat on our broken-down “ferry” while it poured down rain, I asked my travel companion when she thought the real adventure this weekend began. “Hmm. I guess the minute we stepped into the mini-bus to come here?” I disagreed. “I feel like it was when we parked our motorbikes at City Hall, walked across the street to the van station, but it was the wrong van station, and so we had to hop on a teeny motorbike taxi and I almost fell off the back, and had to pay him to take us to the other van station.”

Our broken-down ferry wasn’t the only break-down issue. After we hopped on the motorbike in Nakhon, we went to the van station that took us to Trang. Then we had to stay the night in Trang and get another mini-bus the next day. Our mini-bus from Trang to the ferry terminal also had some issues. First, our driver was quite leisurely in his manner. There must have been some good sales (it WAS a holiday weekend), because we stopped at various stores along the way and he perused many a fine goods. We picked up some kind of water pump, some irrigation hosing at a different place (don’t forget we also stop to pick up/drop off various packages, as our mini-bus also functions as a postal service) and THEN we stopped because there was some kind of issue with the radiator. So he turned off the van and consequently the AC and we sat sweltering with it packed full of people and the door open just barely, while he tinkered with some water and the radiator cap.

At this point, I would like to point out that I don’t find this at all frustrating. It actually makes me smile to think about and it made me smile then. Because it is SO SO typically Thailand. You just kind of have to go with it. About a half hour and a chicken skewer or three for our driver later, he decided it really just needed more water after all, poured in an entire big bottle of it, and we were off again.

Winding through rubber trees and palms. And then we got to the “ferry” terminal. And it started POURING. Just torrential, typically Thai, rain. “I’m SO excited!” I said. And I was. And then the rain let up just a bit, the rickety old wooden glorified longtail boat that was our ferry arrived, and we piled in. Then it started thundering and lightning flashed every few seconds and it was pouring again. And then the boat engine wouldn’t start.

Andaman Sea (West side- I live on the East) in the Land of Southern Thai.
Below Phuket by about 3-4 hours(ish). Stayed on Koh Mook, also
ventured over to Koh Kradan!

And guess who came to the rescue? Our trusty driver! And after about a half hour of tinkering, he finally decided he couldn’t fix it. And so another longtail came by, and our boat driver got them to tie us to their boat and they pulled us all the way to Koh Mook, one of the Trang Islands. It took about an hour and forty-five minutes, but we got there. And on the way, I read some Wuthering Heights and chatted with a travel-writer from Travelfish.org.

We expected to arrive on the island around 1pm, and got to our resort at 5:30pm. A little late. But we had a relaxing evening, watched a beautiful sunset, chatted and in the morning woke up to beautiful skies. At breakfast, a couple invited us to accompany them on their longtail boat that they would be taking through the islands for snorkeling and exploring. Of course, we hopped on and for 400 baht (about $13) we got to spend the day basking in the beauty of the Trang Islands! I really wanted to see Koh Kradan, as it’s supposed to be the most beautiful island there, and the Emerald Cave. I got to do both. And both were simply stunning.

Of course, I forgot my camera. It would have been great to have captured what the inside of the cave was like, and the secret beach that opened up to us after our swim through the cave. We had it all to ourselves for the better part of our time there. And the water was so crystal clear. And the photo from LP- I was there. I lived it. Almost 100% sure it was taken from the shore of Koh Kradan.

I want to post photos, but after scouring the web, I really cannot find one that does even one of these beautiful places justice. 

After snorkeling and the caves, we spent time on Koh Kradan. I sat in the sun and tried to absorb as much of the beauty and as much of the moment and as much of the sea and the warmth and everything about the present as I possibly could. This mini-adventure reminded me again and again that I only have a short time here left. Part of me wants to cram as much in as I possibly can- with school and my students and with traveling. But I also think that if I do that, I won’t be taking time to reflect and enjoy everything before I let go of this part of my life. It’s a delicate balance. Life always is, I guess. No point in trying to control it- just go with the gently ebbing and flowing waves. Ahhhh, I love my life. Thank you for letting me share it with you.