Dear Friends and Family,

I’m in my usual spot at the “W” café, seated at square table near darkened full-length windows and I’m in desperate need for a break. I’ve had a headache all day… no doubt a combination of not enough sleep, stuffing my brain with information, a fair bit of stress, and today’s air quality inside ECC was terrible (one of the classroom air conditioners apparently smells to the point that my tutor announced that she felt like she had been “gassed”). Re: my health, I’m not sleeping as much as I should but I have been religious about the water to the point of needing to visit the ladies room too often; today I was so desperate for a salad comprised of raw vegetables that I skipped meticulous pre-lesson planning to walk in satisfying, practically ground-eating steps to Gourmet Market for a salad. However, in a concession to my responsibilities, I took my salad to go. When I opened my prize at school in front of the boys, they uniformly gave me a look as if I had gone crazy… “What? A salad? Without sauce?” (I assume that “sauce” is British-boy speak for salad dressing). The mere act of eating a raw salad and an apple for lunch was immensely satisfying.

Yes, really, this compulsion to write should now be subsumed by the need to study; however, even as my head ached and my body craved uncooked vegetables, I was mentally soothing myself with the list below and I must catch it before it vanishes. And, true to form, I can rationalize this time by telling myself that I’m doing some therapeutic stress relief by venting. And yes, I am about to vent. But please don’t take the following as me hating Bangkok or finding my former life superior… but there are a few details of my life in Thailand that I have yet to adjust to.

• I hate Thai toilet paper. There is the necessity of helping yourself to a bundle of TP on the way into a stall in a normal Thai ladies room and I’ll admit to not being fond of this practice. But what I hate, hate about Thai TP is that it adorns most restaurant or cafeteria table in place of paper napkin, often in sly containers or in cute little baskets covered in ruffles (which makes me hate it that much more). The problem? No, not snobbishness, as much as it is very hard to clean one’s hands after a meal with toilet paper. In fact, if you are jealous of my adventures, yearning for a genuine Thai cultural experience, substitute toilet paper for napkins at your next meal. You’ll see what I mean.

• I do not like the humidity. Granted, I’m fully aware that I’ve traveled to the tropics during the monsoon season (“the cool season” as my student Sommai assured me) and that in doing so, I’ve asked for the humidity. But I cannot be fond of walking outdoors and immediately being covered in a sticky, unflattering sheen of sweat. Despite air conditioning, we teachers even sweat in our strangely formal teaching clothing. After returning home in the evening, I often rinse my clothing and even myself in the shower. Not fun. But again, my hair loves it.

And to all of you reporting beautiful, hot weather in Seattle, I’m genuinely happy for you all. As for me, I haven’t a clue of the day to day temperature around here and I’m actually happy to keep it that way… ignorance makes it easier to cope with, I think.

• I hate the Canadian man with a bushy white beard who resides in Wendy House. Bushy-bearded man appears to be a stereotypical “open-minded” traveler who loves to preach on the topic of his own budget adventures to whoever will listen. But why I cannot stand the sight of this man is that about 20 seconds after he walks through the “W” House entrance, he turns the lobby television on. Loud. So loud that the noise echoes from the TV location at the back of the lobby, down a bit of a hallway and echoes all the way to the front of the café. There is no escape. In about 5 seconds, I’m forced to turn my iPod up to drown out the noise but this doesn’t work so I usually take myself upstairs to escape. I’m almost certain that he watches TV down here because he was too cheap to pay for his own TV – and I have unkindly concluded that he must be totally obnoxious… because he doesn’t otherwise behave like he is deaf.

• I hate chili peppers. I’ve often thought that I’m reasonably tolerant of spicy foods, for an American, but I can barely choke down what Thais consider “tourist hot.” Last night I had a delicious meal at a restaurant crowded with Thais. In fact, I had that green papaya salad with seafood. The waitress asked me “not hot?” with a bit of a smirk and I sheepishly conceded that I’m a wimp. And their version of not hot? I loved it… but I absolutely needed the side dish of sticky rice that I had ordered. My friend ordered hers normal Thai hot and lived to regret it the next day. So tonight? My friend and I ate Phat Thai at an open air restaurant in the alley near our “W” House… no chili peppers for either of us. At this point, I’m not eating any menu item that uses the word “spicy” and I hate being limited this way.

To be fair to Bangkok and you, my fair readers, there is a lot that I love:

• I love not having a sense of smell in Bangkok. Don’t get me wrong, a good 20 years after loosing my sense of smell, I still succumb to the occasional impulse to sniff a foreign fruit and I do get momentarily sad that nothing happens. But from the slight yet evident low clouding and the stinging on the inside of my nose, I can attest that not being able to smell the Bangkok pollution works to my advantage.

• I love the Thai people. They all likely think that I’m impossibly gauche and they almost always laugh at my “kar poon kaaa” (thank you). Yet while I feel quite foreign, I don’t feel the least unwelcome. And I’ve already come to adore the “W” House front desk people including “Bo” (the evening clerk who always has a few minutes to tutor me on the Thai language – we are on “hello”) and “Noi” who helped me nickname my rather heavy laptop as “my baby” (as it is never far away from me or it spends its time safely tucked behind the front desk). And Wendy herself is tiny, exquisitely dressed, Internet savvy and very much a hardworking inn owner that just happens to vacation in places like Kashmir. Wow.

• I love that there are lots of stairs to climb. My room is up 3 really, really steep flights of stairs. Crossing the majority of streets requires climbing stairs to a sky bridge, crossing over, and then going to down another set of stairs. I’m going to have lovely leg muscles by the end of a month.

• I love breakfast. I know that this sounds crazy statement coming from me; however, 5 of the 12 of us ECC CELTA people are staying here at Wendy House and I like them all. The last two mornings, 4 of us have had breakfast and then journeyed down the alley, up the sky bridge stairs, down the sky bridge stairs, past an old beggar woman, past the barely open street vendors, over the sidewalks precariously strewn with particleboard-covered holes, to work/school. We are companionable… in 2s, 4, or 1 and I love this.

• I love not knowing how many calories are in food. I hadn’t realized how often I worry about this but now I cannot derive a thing from food packaging so I must give this worry up. What freedom! And I’m not the only female that has noticed this; three women were discussing this happy problem after breakfast this morning, much to the puzzlement of our male companion. It was sadly obvious that caloric content weighs on Indian, Canadian & American women alike… while men say “Caloric content? Yeah, whatever!”

• I love our students. Well, if not love, I admire that they patiently smile at our half-baked efforts and our bungling. Ok, I should speak for myself here as I feel that all the other trainees are doing quite well. Only two days into this, I feel that our students are getting something out of our teaching and we are definitely getting a lot out of being student teachers. Today I spent a few minutes after class with some gregarious students. One gentleman told me about the Thai political situation (there is a very rich man who is currently “Caretaker” Prime Minister of Thailand and he is desperately trying to hold on to power despite legal rulings not in his party’s favor… and falling out of disfavor with the Thai people. Another told me about 2 meter-wide growths or flowers(?) in the ocean while a third told me about Thai soap operas. The students are happy to be in class (it is almost free for them), eager to share, and patient with us. How can one not love this?

Now was that venting so bad? I hope that this gives you a better taste of a Western woman’s life in Bangkok. And if this wasn’t sufficient, turn your shower on really hot to create lots of steam, get a family member to stand just outside to smile and “wai” at you, and use toilet paper at dinner. You’ll have the whole empathy trick down soon.

Many happy regards,

Laura