Dear Friends and Family,

Have I mentioned that July is monsoon season in Bangkok? With that little fact in mind, you won’t be surprised to hear that today was another moodily rainy day… which worked out for me as I spent the majority of the day on homework. The “W” house staff has kindly acceded to my request for a desk in my room so now I have options: I can work on a glass-topped table and plastic chair in my penthouse compartment or on a different glass-topped table and wooden chair downstairs in the café (when the television isn’t intolerably blaring). Happily, I’ve now completed the homework so before my 2 o’clock orientation tomorrow, I shall visit to the Jim Thompson house – monsoon or shine.

I’ve also made a real friend from my ECC class. Her name is Liz and we met up in the hallway before this morning’s breakfast. This association has already proved to be very enjoyable and quite useful as I shared my 40-paged printed pre-course task with her while she provided me with her copy of the Little Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. In fact, I think I may have acquired a long-term loan on the LOED as completing the pre-course tasks forcefully reminded me that while I can convey much utilizing the English language, I haven’t a clue how to define lexical, auxiliary & modal verbs or how to intelligently discuss “word classification.”

So please, please wish me luck. Or wish my students luck and hopefully some will rub off on me. But for now, I’m going to deal with my grammatical concerns in the most adult-like manner: I’m going to eat a 4 B Tim Tam and fall asleep to the monsoon splattering on the roof.

Sleep peacefully one and all…

Laura