Daily Life

In my defense for having a lack of interesting travel & adventure updates like I was writing on my summer trip last July & August, along with the lack of money, there has simply been the lack of time.

In-between the 2nd semester and the ‘summer’ semester, I had about 3 weeks off to do whatever I wanted.  But rather than use the time to travel, I decided to take another Thai language course, and since I don’t have as much time to study Thai during the regular semester, I thought this would be a good chance to focus on my study instead. Then after the class finished 3 weeks later, it was already time for the summer semester. I wasn’t required to teach, but since I make double pay and had to stay around the office anyway, I found it to be a worthwhile use of my time.

In any case, whether I soon continue with the adventure logs or not, it may still interest you to know how I’ve been getting by in daily life in the past few months.  The other part of having not traveled much, is that it has simply taken me a long time to settle into Thailand and feel situated here. This includes overcoming cultural differences, having to cope with the loss of everything that I used to have in the U.S., and learning instead to focus on all of the new things that I have in Thailand.


TED Talks Group

On a chance January evening I went to eat at one of my favorite restaurants here, and there ran into a group of volunteers organizing for TED Talks.  If you’re not familiar, TED Talks is an organization that promotes the spreading of ‘good ideas’.   Its main events take place in California, where they have a week-long conference inviting speakers like Al Gore, Bill Gates, and other leading thinkers and innovators to speak for 18 minutes and give a talk about their life’s work as well as to present an idea, or ideas that they think could help make the world a better place. 

On initially running into the group, I knew I had stumbled across a group of like-minded thinkers and people committed to making a positive difference. Some of them are so-called ‘activists’, or people working among various campaigns that directly serve to build communities and promote growth and development.  I guess the difference between an ‘activist’ and someone who is not one, is that an ‘activist’ is more directly involved in initiatives—business related or otherwise-- that make a significant impact in peoples lives.

Well I found myself drawn toward the energy of the group, and since early March had been a volunteer member of the organizing team.  For the past two months, I had been helping to promote for the event: getting the word out, doing write-ups about the different speakers we invited, and announcing the speakers on the Facebook group, which in turn goes onto our website. The culmination of our project in fact just happened this past weekend, when we hosted the first ever TED event in Chiang Mai (and the first in Thailand outside of Bangkok). 

Despite a variety of charismatic speakers all presenting unique ideas and interesting stories about their work and their lives, there was no one who was directly involved in development, so maybe I will look ahead to having a 2nd TEDx in Chiang Mai that could be more focused on the theme of development.

Our event was called TEDx Doi Suthep (x = independently organized), and here is a link to my favorite talk from the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LovmKLQcQw4&feature=related

In the video, he talks about self-sustainability, and gives a simple reminder that we are making our lives more complicated than we need to.  You can also find the other talks from the event on the same page.


Church

In March, I also started attending a church through the invitation of a friend and co-worker of mine. I thought it would just give me a place to go on Sunday mornings, but it opened up my world in Chiang Mai to far more than that.  (Before this, I attended a few other churches, but never found anything that I wanted to stick with. Finding the right church is the same as finding the right school to work at.  Every church or campus has its different environment or flavor to offer, and even though many generally offer the same thing at the core, the surface variances are what lead one to choosing one place over another.)  Aside from now finding a church that I genuinely liked-- there is a mix of both Thais and Americans attending this one, in contrast to other churches that were primarily all westerners or all Thais.  Moreover, finding this church also led to just about everything else that I now do in my extracurricular time and that gives structure and leisure to my week.


Soccer Group

Within a couple of weeks I joined a soccer group that meets twice a week, through a connection of people I met from the church. Prior to this, I had been playing pick-up soccer on campus and at another club as well, but the group I found through the church ended up being the most agreeable to play with. It was more fun because they would still play hard, but never take it too seriously.  Some Europeans I used to play with, in contrast, took the game too seriously and made it much less fun in the end. 

Well, the church group was also more organized, and I immediately got the sense that I belonged to a group of people who could be my friends, rather than just showing up to play soccer. I also knew several of them through church, so I would see them outside of just playing soccer together. Plus, there were several other Americans that played with this group, so I found myself more at-home.

Often after we play, we’ll grab a snack or hang out for a little bit together. Playing with the soccer group has thus been a good way of keeping fit, but also a way of meeting new people and making new friends.
By the way, soccer is huge in Thailand, and every Thai has at least 1-2 favorite soccer clubs, typically from the English Premier League or the Spanish Primera. I am also a fan of these leagues (at least the EPL, but am getting more into the Primera Ligue), so I again found some common ground here.  It’s good to see a somewhat wider mix of different teams that people support, from Liverpool to Arsenal to Tottenham, since in the U.S. most people who follow the EPL only follow Manchester United.


Band

Along with the connections that came through the church, I joined a band of a friend I met through the soccer group.  It’s a group of three Thais and one Aussie who have been playing together for awhile, and they too are into British and indie rock music.  We have a cover band that meets to practice once a week on Saturdays. So far, we haven’t played out yet, but it’s fun to play together since everyone is pretty good at their instrument and typically knows their part, so practice goes smoothly and almost quite professionally.  Even though we’re performing British and indie music, a few of the band members also go to church and play soccer, so we have those connections and I usually see them a few times a week now.


School and Housing

I just finished with the summer semester, and the 1st regular semester will begin on June 6th.   I was glad to teach in the summer, since I did not have my ‘holiday leave’ available yet, and had to be around the office anyway.  In any case, teaching this summer helped me to keep busy, maintain a structured schedule, and make a little extra money. It turns out this is money that I really needed to help pay for new furniture in the new house I will soon be renting.

About the house, I met the 3 people who will be my roommates also through connections of the church and soccer group.  So really that one church has made all of the difference in my current lifestyle in Chiang Mai.  Up to this point, I’ve been living on my own in an apartment.  It’s been a comfortable stay there, and I’ve learned a few things about getting by on my own and making my own decisions, but it will be a better experience I think to again share a place to live with a few friends. 

One of the bigger things is that I will only be paying half of the rent I’m currently paying.  So I will start saving significantly.  Of course, I have to buy all of the new furniture in the first place, but still, if I stay in Thailand for 2-3 years, the investment will still pay itself out in the end and perhaps I can sell off some of the furniture and make some of the money back at a later point. Moreover, most of the money needed for the furniture will be paid with by the additional money that I made for teaching summer classes, so I’ll begin saving in my first month already.  Finally, aside from the money, it will just be better to have roommates again and have a more social lifestyle.


Work Responsibilities

In addition to teaching 3 classes a semester, I also have plenty of proofreading and editing to do at the office, in addition to assisting in writing quizzes and exams.  Well I was beginning to notice that I wasn’t being asked to do as much work as I used to.   And I sort of picked up on the fact that Thais are very good at picking up on body language and have a sense for how you feel about the work that you have to do.  Well they generally don’t like to overburden you or ask you to do too much, and this transfers to the work place where they sometimes don’t like to have to ask too much of others, because they don’t want you to feel bothered.

I may have given off the impression at some point that I was indeed starting to feel overburdened with the workload—but it may have just been for one particular day or period of time. Nonetheless, too much time was going by where I felt I wasn’t making a significant contribution to my work place.

So rather than just accept a lighter, easier-going workload (which my workplace seemed perfectly content with for all I knew), I decided to take some initiative and ask for more assignments. I felt that I should be making a more outstanding contribution, and especially since this is my first year working at a university, that I have to put forth the extra effort to ‘earn my keep’.    In other words, being that I am  somewhat under-qualified to be working as a full-time university Course Advisor,  I felt I should have some outstanding contribution, such that the more veteran professors there will have a reason to keep me around, because I have this one thing I am really good at that I can do for them. 

So far, this has mainly involved being a very good writer, proofreader, and editor.  But it’s also about just being available to reply to teachers about individual questions related to grammar, or doing a quick check over their letter/assignment for their class, etc.  By the way, the Thais almost NEVER use e-mail, or even the phone, but almost always rely on simply ‘seeing you’ in passing by at the office. So it can be  frustrating if you prefer to spend more time on your e-mail in your personal office, than simply ‘just passing by’ through the common rooms.  In fact, if you holed yourself up in your office, you would almost never have to bother with helping a single teacher!  That’s how reliant on mere person-to-person contact they are. In any case, who wants to keeps themselves holed up in their own office?  I actually like working around other people and doing favors for others, and as long as it doesn’t give me too much ‘evening’ or ‘weekend’ work, I’m often easy-going about doing it.

So to wrap this section up, as I’ve become more aware of the Thai approach to the workplace, I have become better adjusted with my position as Course Advisor, in being more available as a team-player and significant contributor.


Skewed Weather

Finally, I know there has been one calamity after another in the U.S., and what we’ve experienced here is not nearly on the same level, but the weather this season has also been in flux.  March, April, and May are supposed to be the hottest and driest months of the year in Thailand, just prior to the coming of the rainy season. But instead, the rainy season came early and we experienced the coolest ‘hot’ season Thailand has experienced in many years!  (edit: ‘coldest’ hot season, if you’re a Thai ;)   In fact, for this one week in March that it rained every day, we had a few of the coldest days that anyone here can ever remember.  I almost needed a heater!   Well, I did not have a heater in my room as of course there is supposedly never any need, but what I did have was some hot chocolate.  I also had to wear pants, two shirts-- one of them long-sleeves-- and thick socks in order to keep warm.  This is almost never necessary in Thailand.

In March, there was also one 7+ earthquake about 2 hours north of here in southern Laos, but most people barely felt it in Chiang Mai aside from a few aftershocks that caused the windows to shake for a few moments.  But no one was hurt or really had anything broken, as far as I know. 


Well, that brings me to the end of another update.  It’s been a long one for sure, covering a few months of time all at once, but after this I hope to continue the updates more regularly on a monthly basis.  Hope you’ve enjoyed reading, and catch up with everyone again more in the next month.