Life after teaching

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok.

Dreamworld field trip with my school.

Mae Hong Son Motorcycle trip

Thom Lod Cave, Birds and bats return to cave by the tens of thousands at sunset.

... But this is what vacation REALLY looks like.

If you run a google search of "Pattaya Reputation" you'll get thousands of hits saying the same thing: Pattaya is Thailand's epicenter for sex tourism. Over the years its gotten a reputation, mostly in Europe, for hosting and catering to the sleazy, old, fat, European sex tourists and "sexpats" (a sexpat is basically a sex tourist that has made a lifestyle out of having sex with thai girls). These old 50 something white guys all probably have the same story: They live an unfulfilling life in their home country where they put a priority on making a lot of money in a short amount of time and put meaningful human relationships on the back burner. With a lot of money saved up, the inability to make a personal connection with other humans, and no consideration for others, these hopeless old, single, rich men have all found some place to call home: Pattaya, Thailand. "Why not?" thinks the sexpat, "Thailand is warm, friendly to tourists, cheap to live, and beautiful young girls will have sex with me, they'd be stupid not to!" Its true that Thailand's economy is comprised largely of foreign money from western vacationers. Sex tourism is a sad side effect of European expansionism, or globalism, if you prefer.

Jesse and I were eating at a sit down restaurant in Pattaya and realized that we were completely surrounded by old European white men and their young Thai dates, some boys, but mostly girls. There has been a documentary made semi-recently that explores this topic, Louis Theroux Thai Brides documentary.

On a lighter note...

Believe it or not this is Pattaya 14 floors up looking out onto the coast. Even Thailand’s armpit looks nice. In the last 3 weeks I’ve done a bunch. I feel exactly like one of those worker ants I’d see every morning frantically transporting chip crumbs from on my nightstand to its colony, wherever that might be. But now I can lounge on the beach and forget all of that. I must admit that none of this cushy 5-star hotel action would be possible without a lot of luck. My teaching cohort at my school in Thawangpha (Jesse) scored a few nights at a hotel in Pattaya via the RCI timeshare company (the same company that brought us Eagle Crest). Otherwise I’d be staying at a sweaty little guesthouse on the bad side of town. 3 cheers for scabies! This is much more relaxing, and safe.

To recap in the past 3 weeks:

I’ve said farewell to English teachers that finished their terms in Thailand

I’ve mourned my stolen ipod

Graded tests and turned in final grades for the semester

Motorcycled in the ballpark of 1,000 km through mountain villages and winding roads

Explored some limestone caves, 8,000 year-old coffins found within, and witnessed the flight of tens of thousands of bats and birds flying back into the cave at sunset.

Had the pleasure of meeting the REAL Rambo in person

Got the flu and sweated it out in Chiang Mai and Chonburi

Chaperoned a school field trip which included stops at the following:

- Little Siam. I saw the Eifel Tower, the Pyramids, and the great wall; imagine the "It’s a Small World After All" ride

- Dream World Amusement Park (a hilariously cheap, Thai knockoff of Disneyland)

- Children’s science museum, planetarium and aquarium... snooze

Met up with Jesse’s Japanese friend Nobu, and toured nearly every single Wat within Bangkok's city limits. Oh yeah, in humid 90 degree temps.

Went to the Bangkok's medical hospital where I viewed the biggest testicle ever recorded, preserved tsunami victims, and many other medical wonders.

Waded through the Red-Shirt stronghold at least a dozen times

Saw Alice in Wonderland in 3-D IMAX

5 days of total relaxation at Pattaya. Sleep, swim, eat, beach, read, doze, swim, eat....

A few more days of relaxation and hanging out with some quality folks from my teaching program in U-Thong. Beer, pizza, simpsons, zombieland.

Its nice to be able to sleep in and lose all track of time. To wake up and not care what day it is, what time it is, and experience the reassuring feeling that I don't have to entertain thai kids is a great feeling. Teaching is a fun job, don't get me wrong, but can be tiresome. Intensive battery recharging is just what the doctor ordered.

Justifiably bitter

On January 3rd, 6,000 baht was taken from my suitcase while it was going through baggage check at the airport.

On March 6th my ipod was stolen from off of my desk in my office.

Today my iPod was stolen off of my desk while I was grading papers no more than 9 feet away the entire time. I think back on it and maybe the thief struck while I was going to the bathroom for a few minutes. More than likely they did it while I was distracted in a 2 hour window from 1-3pm. All day I was trying to ignore the students constantly filtering in and out of the foreign language office. There must have been at least 500 mathayom 4 and 5 students coming and going, milling around the office today returning their textbooks and checking their final grades.

As my desk is a mere 3 feet away from the textbook stack, I found the constant buzzing of noisy 15/16 year olds brushing up against my desk, squeezing through the narrow passageways between desks all afternoon to be distracting. Plugging my headphones in would have been the logical answer, and in hindsight the solution. I've been trying not to plug my headphones in as it can be seen as disrespectful to the other teachers in the room, giving them the impression that I am going out of my way to avoid dialogue with them. Especially since today was the last day of the school year, and I am one of the only teachers in the office, I thought I'd set my ipod aside, and talk with my coworkers. "Why not right?" I thought. "I won't have to do this chit chat water cooler crap for another 2 months!"

Biggest mistake of my life. Setting my ipod aside and letting myself get distracted by my coworkers allowed for any one of the 500 kids to swipe it off my desk and disappear for 2 months. Its the perfect crime. I give the kid credit though. As bad as he or she is at studying or paying attention in my class, they chose the most expensive and the most personally valuable item to steal from me, and on the best day of the year to do so. The only day of the year that is followed by 2 months to disappear like a fart in the wind (shawshank). This coward did his homework, no pun intended.

If anyone reading this can burn music mp3's to a CD or DVD and send it to me, you'd be doing me a huge favor. That iPod was my life. I spent years collecting the 15,000 songs and 700 or so photos on that hard drive. I had rare DMB performances, Weezer's b-sides collection, thoughtfully crafted playlists, and photo albums saved to the hard drive. I'll be traveling for the next two months and this would have been the ideal time to use my ipod. Not to mention I finally got a good sound system for my room, and now no music to play on them. This act of cowardice really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Pirating music is wrong indeed, but taking 120 gigs of someone's life away is so much more personal. I try to remind myself that it only takes one person to shit on the salad. This shouldn't e what I take away from Thailand but right now its all i can think about. I've been told that Thailand is a country of friendly buddhists, but this is the second time I've been stolen from in 3 months. I don't know if its because I'm a foreigner to their land, and it was a personal steal, I'm not going there. But I will say that in the 20 years I've lived in the States I've never had my car broken into nor has my family's home ever been robbed. Twice I've been stolen from in 4 months in Thailand.

You can bet next term I'm going to accost any Thai kid with headphones in their ears that walk in my general direction smirking at me. I'll try to put this behind me and make the best of a bad situation, but this act couldn't get more personal for me. Its my sanity that I go home to after a hard day. I am imagining a thai kid erasing 100 gigs of my life and throwing on 50 Cent, linkin park, and lots of Korean pop. Or worse yet stealing it and realizing they don't have a connector cord. shudder.

One semester down, one to go.

Last Friday Marked the academic halfway point for my trip. I've got until May to travel around Thailand and maybe check out a couple neighboring countries. After that I've got a solid 5 months of teaching. No Holidays to break it up like last this term, and the weather will be a bajillion times hotter and wetter. On the other hand I'm a little wiser, a little more experienced, all around better prepared for whats coming.

Time has been flyin recently with grading all of the final tests and entering scores. Its a blessing in disguise I feel. The workload has kept me occupied and kept my mind off of all the quality folks that I've had to say good-bye to over the course of the last week.

One of the perks to teaching abroad is meeting fun, interesting, open-minded folks along the way. The downside is that the rapid turnover rate of teach-abroad English teachers doesn't permit much time for hanging out before the inevitable departure date. Its pretty common for contracts to expire after 5 months to a year. The end of this current term seems like a mass exodus of really great people. On the flip side, I can't wait to meet the next batch of teachers in May. The rumors have been confirmed that my school is getting a couple Japanese teachers and one new English teacher to replace Tyler. The English teacher's name is Maxime. He is a large (seemingly) French-Canadian from Quebec, 23 years old, and English is his second language. Should make for an interesting next term for sure.

News:

Instead of trying to catch you up with EVERYTHING thats been going on I'm just going to post a few pictures from my recent adventures and let you use your imagination.

14.5k/9mile "fun" run. Gassed.

Yakisoba at the new kitchen.

Academic exhibition for the community.

Doi Phuka National Park.