One more step in assimilation

This past week went by quickly........... I had a few attempts of productivity that failed miserably- the story of my life! haha

I did finally get my Thai driver's license! Two, actually- one for a car and one for a motorcycle. It was a rather simple process. I took my international driving permit, having both automobile and motorcycle endorsements, along with a couple other necessary documents to the Department of Land and Transportation, took a colorblindness test, paid the fee, took my photo, and walked out with the licenses. I keep the motorcycle license in my wallet and leave my American, international, and other Thai licenses at home.

The automobile license is identical, except for the word "Motorcycle" in the upper right

Yesterday I went to my first soccer/football game. There was a tournament held in Chiang Mai called the King's Cup. I watched Thailand beat North Korea (that's right, NORTH Korea!) and then Sweden beat Finland. I don't think of Chiang Mai as being a big city with special venues or attractions, so I'm always surprised when something like this happens or when flocks of tourists from Bangkok are in town for something.

North Korea in red, Thailand in blue

Air quality has been getting a little bad lately, some days are worse than others. From what I gather, beginning now and lasting until about April, as harvesting is wrapping up, farmers are burning off their old crops to make way for the new ones during the new planting season. Burning is the easiest way for large fields of hardier plants. You don't realize how hazy the air is until you notice mountains disappearing. The photo on the left below was taken shortly after I started working at my current school. The photo on the right was taken around a week ago after a fellow teacher said, "Hey, look. The mountain disappeared." Don't worry, it has since returned. Like I said, some days are worse than others.

When people ask me to describe where I live in Thailand, I often say that I live off of a street off of a sort-of street that is off a main street. Walking to the coffee shop to type up this blog post, I decided to take a couple photos since I'm not sure if I shared any of my neighborhood... So here are a few:

Two of my neighbors, "the girls next door," Dream and King (pronounced 'ging').
They're filling up the kiddie pool for a baptism tonight at their house church!

This is the sort-of street off of a main street

This is the street I live on, the street off of a sort-of street

This is the backside of our row of townhouses.

This is a pair of spirit houses on the sort-of street.
There is a much nicer one on the edge of our townhouses.

Ultimate!!!!

This past week was so much fun! Here's why:

1) Church
Last Sunday I went to a new church (new for me) with a housemate. It was a multicultural congregation, though predominantly white. But people were from America, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. There were also Thai and Burmese services. I met a lot of cool brothers and sisters, too. Overall, it was a good experience, and I discovered an option to worship in English.

2) Physics!
I really enjoy physical science. In the science classes I've been teaching, we have been covering forces and motion and just moved into work and simple machines. This provides a lot of opportunity for the students to get some hands-on learning... and for me to play in class. I made a lever out of PVC pipe and the kids loved it. PVC pipe and guys will usually turn into one of two things: a plumping project or a spud gun. Guess what. I don't plan on getting wet! When this beautiful work of art is completed, I'll have some photos and hopefully a video or two to upload.

3) Teacher's Day
Wednesday was Teacher's Day in Thailand. While teachers aren't treated to big celebrations and freebies everywhere like children are on Children's Day, it did mean a day off... and on Wednesday! I think a Wednesday off is better than a three-day weekend. It made the week fly by! I had dinner Tuesday night with some coworkers and friends at the #2 restaurant on TripAdvisor for Chiang Mai. The next morning I slept in and had brunch with some of the same people at an amazing breakfast joint called Good Morning Chiang Mai in the old city.

4) A Basketball League?!?!?!?
A friend stumbled on a could-be men's basketball league. He played in high school and intramurals in college, loves competitive basketball, and wants to play in Thailand. So when he described the games, players (big, talented, etc.), and competition level, I knew I could trust his judgement and became very excited. We went to see the final game of their tournament after Thai class and dinner on Friday night... Wow. This looks like fun! The guys were pretty good! The winners won 10,000 baht (about $333, but that's quite a bit over here)! It looked promising, but we couldn't tell if this was a school tournament (one of the girls' teams had a school name we recognized on their jersey) or a league tournament. Neither of us could speak enough Thai to ask, so I took a picture of a banner to get a Thai friend to translate. Good news: It's a a league! The next step is figuring our how to join if we can.

A side note: my friend and I are eagerly practicing Thai whenever we can because we both want to learn the language. We think if we can get in this league, playing basketball with these guys and making friends would be a great way to improve our proficiency.

5) A new housemate!
We have a new housemate for about 6 months, maybe longer. His name is Woody, and he's from California. He plays Ultimate (see below), has a goatee thingy, and likes long walks on the beach but not vegetables. Well, I don't know about the walks on the beach. He seems to be pretty cool so far. That's about all I can tell so far.

6) Ultimate Frisbee!
My housemates play ultimate frisbee, commonly referred to as simply "Ultimate." I would say it's like soccer and American football combined, but played with a frisbee. It has a pretty big following internationally. In fact, our house is called "Baan Ultimate," or "[the] Ultimate [Frisbee] House." It's an unspoken but understood rule that you play Ultimate if you live in the house. Until this weekend, I got away with playing just once since moving to Chiang Mai. There was a tournament yesterday in Chiang Mai that my friends' team/organization hosted. I've played pick-up games in high school and college, but nothing as competitive as this. I was on a team with one of my housemates, and he, along with a couple teammates, encouraged and coached me all day. I had a blast, and I'm a little sore. It seems I found something that fills my gaping hole of fitness and competition, so now I plan on playing 3 times a week like my housemates. Hopefully I can balance this with basketball, if it works out!

7) An old friend
A friend from high school is taking a year off of work and travelling the world. I met up with her and her friend from college that is travelling with her after the Ultimate Frisbee tournament. They met up with us (the Ultimate group) for dinner and hung out with us all night. It was a great time! I'll meet up with them again at the Sunday market, aka Walking Street- a must-do whenever you come to Chiang Mai.


Sorry for no pictures. I'll grab some from Facebook when the photographers upload them and post them on the blog ASAP.


So here's how you can pray for me:

1) I still don't have a "church home" here. Maybe that's not a bad thing. Attending worship services at a variety of a few different churches, each having a different style, may be good. However, I would like to have a stronger, tighter community of believers than I have now. One possibility, and a great one, would be the guys I live with. There are five of us now with Woody coming in. Each of us comes from a different background but we all believe in the same God and Savior. We have talked about different things we can do, such as a Bible study, but nothing has advanced past just talking. We do have a weekly housemate dinner that we use for fellowship, accountability, and prayer. I would like to see more come from our group, and I know a few others do too. Great potential... So pray that we grow closer together as a brothers.

2) Pray for guidance for me as I plan my next step in my career, either to take a step forward and stand still a little longer.

3) Pray for a little boy at my school. I don't know his name, but he's the little brother of one of my students, Gina. Thursday afternoon he was running full-speed and turned a sharp corner. He thought a door would be open, but the plane-glass door was shut. Skip to the bottom to avoid the description of what happened.

His hands slowed him a little, but his poor little head still made contact, breaking the glass. Then, he fell down, cutting his legs on the shards at the bottom of the door. He cut his forehead pretty badly and one of his legs, just below the knee, to the bone. He lost quite a bit of blood rather quickly, enough to turn pale, and was taken to the ER right away. Friday, I was told he was doing OK, but needed over 50 stitches. Not only did he cut his one leg so deeply, but when his face went through the glass, a large chunk of flesh was peeled back from his forehead. I believe he was having or will soon have cosmetic surgery to help avoid severe scarring.

Pray that this kindergartener, Gina's little brother, will not have severe scarring, that his wounds would heal beyond what any doctor can expect or take credit for, and that God will be glorified through this.

Visual Stimulation

Before writing the last post, I was looking through pictures on my phone. One reason I don't post much is because I think there's nothing interesting to share or show you. My phone proved me wrong. Here are some photos with brief explanations.

These are my good friends Ekk and Dream. I met Ekk 5 years ago. He's my Thai housemate now. I met Dream through Ekk shortly after arriving in Chiang Mai. They're not dating. They're just friends.

 These next three were taken when I went to Pai. There are supposedly 762 curves between Chiang Mai and Pai. It's a popular, yes slightly dangerous, motorcycle route. I rode in a car, but drove around on my friend's bike when we got there. I hadn't planned on riding, so I didn't bring pants, shoes, or a helmet- the necessary apparel to ride safely. Of course I had an accident... not even on the dangerous part! I took a turn a little too fast on some gravel while driving on a small road through the rice fields in the pictures. Because I was wearing flip-flops and shorts, I now have a couple scars. It could have been worse, so praise the Lord.

       

This was my costume for Halloween. Shufflebot from LMFAO. If you don't know, that's okay.

 My friend John Briggs had a Muay Thai fight... and won!

The view from my balcony/backyard, right before sunset and at sunset.

Loi Krathong is a huge holiday in Thailand. In the North, it's called Yee Ping.

To celebrate at school, elderly Thais came to show students how to make traditional elements of the holiday, like the floating krathong the boy is holding. Also, students, typically girls, will dress in traditional clothing.

There's also a big parade for Loi Krathong.

Brandon, a couch surfer from Califronia, stayed with us during Loi Krathong. He's a missionary in the Philipines.

I can't remember what the bridge was decorated for. Maybe Christmas?

Peanut butter... $6 for a small jar. I paid $5 for my homemade jar.

I went to Global House for some supplies for a physics demonstration. It's like Home Depot or Lowe's. I have a scooter, not a truck, so this is how I carry PVC pipe home.

The staff party at school was cowboy themed. I, of course, didn't bring any "cowboy" stuff with me. But, being from Texas, I was expected to look the part. Apparently, Thais love cowboy/western style.

This is where I am right now. It's a fancy coffee shop with full glass walls and surrounded by a small pond. You cross a wooden bridge to get to it from the parking lot. Behind the coffee shop is a fancy restaurant with live music at night.

A screenful...

I meant to post this for almost a week now, but every day would contain something new to include which usually caused me to postpone sitting down at a computer. I even tried on my phone a few times, yet unsuccessfully!

I'll start with the most recent and work backward:

Saturday I ran errands with my housemate, Ekk. One of the to-do items on a list was to buy me a new scooter! Guess what... didn't happen. I'm not sure how many times I've gone to a shop to be told they're out of stock of what I want or I'm lacking one more criteria for a foreigner to purchase a motorbike. The origin of my problem is I'm trying to finance it instead of dropping a lot of cash at once. Looks like paying for it at once will be the simplest option, so I'm going to wait until the timing is right. Also, while we were out, we went to a mall to get a few things. Well, Saturday was a big holiday, Children's Day, and as you could imagine, the malls were packed. We were in a truck rather than on a motorbike, so we decided to avoid the nightmare of parking and navigating around the mall and parked on a back street instead. Walking to the mall, I smelled the most delicious aroma. In Thailand you either smell delicious food, pollution/exhaust, or raw sewage. I looked at Ekk and said, "What's that smell?" "You hungry?" he asked. "I definitely am now!" So we had some amazing beef soup before embarking on the rest of the way to the mall. After we got home, I ended up falling asleep for five or so hours (hence not posting this yesterday).

Friday was a fun day. To celebrate Children's day, the foreign teachers at my school hosted a "science day" at school and the Thai teachers had games. We got to dress semi-casually (every other day it's shirt-and-tie for me), we basically played with the kids, and it was only a half day! We returned that night for a New Year and Thank You party for the teachers. I won 400 baht (about $13.33, or two days wages for some staff at the school) and a rice cooker and steamer! The night was filled with prizes, some games, and performances from teachers. The foreign teachers had a skit prepared, but we didn't perform.

Thursday, I believe, my sisters confirmed that they purchased tickets (there were some problems a couple days earlier with the purchase going through completely.) So they will be landing February 2! They'll be here less than two weeks, and I'll be working most of the time, but I'll take what I can get. I finally get to share this part of my heart with my family. I tried to verbalize it before, but now they get to experience it firsthand.

I started working out again and trying to eat healthy. Not having a routine really hurt me, and then the one that developed wasn't good. I'm glad to get back into a healthy lifestyle. I'm a little sore from a couple days ago, but it's the good kind of soreness, the one that carries a sense of accomplishment. and This morning I bought so home-made peanut butter from a friend!

I'll end this post here. I'm making another post immediately after this one. It will have more words AND pictures. I'm breaking it up into two posts because I don't want to make it so long that it will bore you.

Peace,
Derek

New Year, New Post

This is long overdue... more than two months have passed since my last update. I really apologize. This was put on the back burner and remained there when things at work and in life started picking up.

As one year comes to a close and another begins, it yields an opportunity to reflect on the past and plan for the future, create resolutions for self-improvement, and other clichés. I'm pretty anti-cliché so, actually, my reflecting, planning, and "resoluting" have started weeks prior to the change-in-date. In this new year, I will have designated "me time." I have the tendency so keep myself socially preoccupied for the majority of my time. As a result, I'm not reaching goals or working towards purposes. The lagging and lacking blog and Facebook updates are evidences along with slacking in professional development to become competitive in the TESOL industry. I plan on using this designated time to maintain this blog, read about TESOL and SLA, and ponder life.

So let's make a deal- I will make this worth your while to read if you make it worth my while to write. That means I will update often (at least weekly) and post photos and other pretty things if you read, share, and give feedback, e.g. comment, email, etc. Let me know what you like and don't like, what you want to see more of, and any questions you may have.

God bless,
Derek