I am planning to leave Thailand on Saturday.
This week will be pretty relaxed.;A trip to the National Museum, which I shamefully haven't been to tomoorow; the wedding of a Ghanian colleague on Tuesday; and a farewell party that the year 11s are putting on somwehre on Friday. It's very tempting to take a trip to a southern beach for two days, but it might be a good excuse to come back to Thailand sometime in the future. I don;t really appreciate the beach much in Australia... I like my water at bath temperature and no waves suits me fine. :)
The year here has been good. Teaching History again has made me remember that somewhere in my skull I have a brain.... not a necessary requirement for some of the teaching I was doing in Japan. I have had some very good colleagues and have better reasons to visit India and Russia in particular now. And the students, as I've mentioned have been great. Good natured students is good, but good natured students who want to improve and restore a sense that you can make some positive contribution to humanity are really good. One boy who almost never speaks, either in English or Thai, handed in two essays the other day that were so good I almost choked - fortunately not in front of him. (I have no doubt he did them either - he has been improving steadily and was so chuffed by the improvement in his mark.)
There are somethings I won't miss about Thailand: the traffic; working in a for profit school; trying to defend an approach to teaching that emphasizes literacy through content rather than setting out with a mission to cover the whole 7000 years and 700 pages of the text book that they don't have the necessary vocab or conceptual frameworks to cope with; an effective race tax on entry to many places - I have no objection to paying more if I am a tourist but as I pay tax here I don't think it's reasonable. (That said though NSW does the same with education to some foreign national tax payers whose children receive primary or secondary education...disgusting....) . I also won't miss archaic lesse majesty laws and censorship. This week there have been newspaper reports that the govt. is shutting down radio stations that threaten the stability of the king (fair enough, that;s the law) but also in the event that they undermine the stability of the government..... umm... democracy ??? rather problematic.....
There are lots of things I will miss though, the students, curry lunches in the staffroom, Friday night trips to the pub with Vickie and Irina - my Russian colleagues (pubs are not a Thai thing - or more to the point Thai pubs are not my thing - more like hostess bars - so we travel closer to the centre of BKK to a proper place with guiness on tap :) ), the papaya salad & pad thai ladies across the street, the fruit cart man, cheap and good fruit -mangosteen and rambutan are my fruit of choice at this time of year - I have no difficulty in eating 2kg of either in one sitting ;) , to counter balance that excess, "correct" portion sizes that ensure that if you eat in Thai portions you can't get fat even with no exercise, the canal boat that zips along to the centre of the city in no time, never having to cook, outdoor food stalls, lime, having almost no possessions (sorry about the boxes in your cupboard though Robert....), warm days - every day is summer even winter, walking to work - but being able to take a 7baht songtheuw if it's too hot or too wet or I'm in too much of a rush, a basically stress free existence where independence allows for a flexible life.
It's been a good year.
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