Dear Family and Friends,

This just in! Last night was a bit of an adventure. Yes, I do keep insisting that I’m busy with this whole CELTA thing but it was Friday night and I deserved a bit of a break, no? Anyway, for the last two weeks, 5 of us have been teaching an intermediate group of students and we are quite fond of the class. As we are about to switch to the elementary level students, the boys came up with the nice notion of inviting them all for a casual, “going dutch” dinner and perhaps a drink (or alarmingly, karaoke!). For me, this was an opportunity to shed my usual over casual expat attire that always includes a sleeveless top and flip flops (I wear flip flops all the time – mostly because my leather shoes hate sudden monsoons). I even dug out my cute green purse, donned my cutest black top, wished for a bit of my going out jewelry, and happily fitted my legs into jeans. And I must say: putting on jeans after 3 weeks (?) felt fantastic and made me wiggle a bit as I walked down the street in my cutest pair of black sandals… On the way to meet the boys and our students, I even did my usual pre-going out trick of heading to Starbucks. I felt like the me who loves to play in Belltown… and it was refreshing.

We met at ECC at 6 pm: 4 teachers, 3 students. Through a complicated series of events, we ended up in a SUV driven by one of our students on the way to the Bangkok China Town. The streets flashed by but I was busy interviewing the girl I was sitting next to – although I’d occasionally interrupt to say “Lek, what is that gate?” or be interrupted with items of interest such as the temple with the famous reclining Buddha.” The China Town in Bangkok has different architecture, the people look slightly different (i.e. Chinese) – and the differences are almost as discernable as they are in Seattle, Vancouver, or San Francisco. Red is everywhere: in lanterns, on signs, on buildings while the building shapes (especially the roofs) are distinctly Chinese. We parked in a lot surrounded by buildings – we disembarked from the car and as the boys chatted and our student made arrangements to get the car parked, I stood in the dusk, circling to drink in the sight. The buildings that surrounded us were of poor quality, rundown, and pretty soot covered but were brightened by plants hanging from crevices and top floors. There was not a spirit house in sight.

We walked a few blocks, barely avoided being run over by a car and two motorbikes at one intersection and found ourselves in a plain Chinese restaurant called the Canton House (I think). The restaurant was filled with Formica tables, colored menus, and with a few more of our students, plus eight fourteen – fifteen year olds that are the students of one of our students. We all sat a long table – teachers interspersed with students - and the student that drove us here really played host to me and kept asking “Laura, you want noodles?” “Laura, you like dim sum?” “Laura, you want some sweet tea?” – he was very, very careful to ensure that I got everything I wanted to eat. But honestly, the quality of the food uninspiring (although there were a few dim sum bits that were delicious) and I was much more interested in getting the students to talk. This takes a considerable amount of effort on my part: I must ask questions (ESL term: elicit), simplify my words (ESL term: grade), and slow them down (ESL term: SLOW DOWN!!!!), plus be animated, use good quality gestures, and be friendly. This is hard work!

The student that I spent the most time with is Thai and departs in mid-August for Chicago where she as a scholarship to the University of Chicago to get a PHD. Impressive – and a bit intimidating to realize that I’m teaching a pre-PHD student! The other student that I hung out with is Japanese – her husband is a chef and she isn’t required to work. She and I may go to a swanky hotel for a Cosmo (she loves “Sex in the City” as I do) – she’s been living in Bangkok for four years and hasn’t been up that high. Another student is studying to go to Cambridge but her pronunciation is difficult for me to understand. Luckily, I’m sure her incentive to hear and fix her pronunciation will fast increase. At one point during the dinner, I got up to visit the end of the table and shake hands with each of the teens – they could all tell me their names and say “nice to meet you.” One cute little boy with puffy cheeks and a boy scout uniform and I took to each other – so he came down to my end of the table for a v. long question and answer session.

Finally, the bill came – which was a very chaotic mess to clear away – I just plopped in more money than necessary ($10) and chose not to worry about it.

One of the realizations that I have come to is that in Thai terms, I’m rich. Well, not the careless sort of rich where I can stay in 5 star hotels, buy Hermes, and eat thousands of Baht at every meal but compared to the majority of the people that surround me and even looking at my CELTA class: I’m doing really well. For most meals, I pay 50 B ($1.30) for a plate of noodles or a sandwich. Last week, I surrendered to the ugliness of chipped toe nails + not being able to locate nail polish remover and paid 150 B for a pedicure. Sometimes I idly compare the money that I have in my wallet and the value of the contents of my backpack (especially if I have “my baby”) – and realize that this is more than most of the people around me will make in years of work. This is a very sobering thought… I’m comfortable, have everything I need and most of what I want, and there are so many who cannot ever say the same thing. I knew that this trip would involve reconciling material values and I suspect that I’ve already begun. That said, I adore my laptop – and I cannot regret having it.

By the way, “the baby” nickname for my laptop was gently and humorously bestowed by a W House front desk lady as I cannot leave valuables in my room and so the laptop spends a lot of time with her. The nickname has caught on faster than wildfire and I get a fair amount of flack for my attachment to the thing. Yesterday morning, one of the guys tested my backpack and asked me if I were preparing for an expedition (my reply was that my backup plan for this teaching gig is to become a Sherpa) – although yesterday the teasing halted when I pulled out my laptop to copy our group lesson plan from the board into a Word document that we can all refer to.

Ok, back to my adventure: anyway, we returned to the parking lot through the darkened streets lit by a myriad of brightly colored signs, past the vendors hocking hum bow, straw sandals and ugly Buddhas to the parking lot and were driven back to our school. With only one student remaining, we popped onto the Skytrain to an already discovered bar and had a few beers. Beer was another wonderful taste – as the days have been a bit cooler, a good deal more tolerable, and a beer just hit the spot. Anyway, at first it was 3 boys, me, Japanese student, but later we added two more teachers and one girlfriend. The remainder of the evening passed with conversation, sometimes good, sometimes about toilets… but the most interesting tidbit was that the location of our dinner had been engineered by our student in hopes that we would pay for the dinner for his students. This greatly annoyed the nicest of our guys (never a good sign) and I must say that I was glad that I didn’t learn this ‘til later (as it would’ve no doubt annoyed me as well). Anyway, finally my Starbucks wore off and the 6:00 am arising without a nap caught up with me so I accepted the invitation to walk home with 2 of the guys and the girlfriend. I was home at half past midnight… really, I must work on my stamina.

Just now, I’ve completed my “Thai” breakfast of a bowl of noodles on the patio of the W House (complete with splatters and a lovely sheen of sweat that was borderline drippy) and I now need to start on my homework. If I get enough done today, I get to play on the river tomorrow. Wish me luck as the assignment involves my worst weakness: grammatical language analysis. Yuck.

I hope that all is well with you all.

Laura

PS: Today's picture is from last week's market expedition. Please note the lovely Thai yellow coupled with Mickey Mouse (?)!