New Term, New Moon, New Adventures

Well this month has definitely brought with it a lot of "new" into my life. I arrived home from Indonesia on November 1st and began the second term at my school on the 2nd. I show up and find my schedule has been changed slightly, that's okay, bring it on Thailand! And one of those changes might you ask? I no longer have a classroom to teach in for my Primary 6 classes...I teach outside...haha. Oh Thailand...So no whiteboard work, strictly all visuals and now a real test for my creativity. I can't help but smile over this, it's just quite bizarre. But, such is life. I have decided to keep my interest in the ASEAN and well geography in general for my students. Most of my students think "America" is only the USA. Canada, Mexico, South America - nope, that doesn't exist to them. Some of my kids can't even locate Thailand on a world map, let alone Asia so let the creative juices start flowing! I made world maps, labeled continents, oceans, and a compass and now I have lesson plans for a few weeks. I originally start teaching to the entire class before I go around to smaller groups to help with the pronunciation while the others will write down in their notebooks what I have drawn/labeled to keep as a reference guide. I have over 700 students, if I print even 1 worksheet...not worth it. I only print for exams, my students are amazing artists anyways and I don't mind being a bit of an Art teacher. Now instead of all my classes being P6 on Mondays, I have a P4 class thus I had to scramble together a lesson plan for my P4's since I normally wouldn't see them until Wednesday. Since the students just had 4 weeks off, I decided to go back to a bit of review and get them used to writing their name in English. Most of my students have a very low level of English. I have workbooks to pull from, but my job is mostly to keep them engaged in the class. Hence lots of activities, games, songs, etc. However, my classes have 40+ students in the classes (my M1 classes have 50+) and almost never a Thai teacher to help with control, so it can be complete chaos. My holiday was much needed and felt refreshed to begin teaching again. Just hearing their giggles make my day. So somehow I survived my first day of teaching and worked my way through the week. My lessons consisted of my Mattyhom (7-9th graders) learning the European countries and recognizing their flags. My students love football (soccer), but think Brazil is in Europe and Spain is by India. With the lessons I asked the students "What country is next to Spain? Belgium? Germany? etc" to teach them "Spain is next to Portugal and France." More of sentence structure and drilling the vocabulary into their young minds. My students have crushes on Swedish men (the blonde hair) and so we joke about crushes and whatnot. Now I am trying to learn most of my students names and well having 700+ students and their nick names...it can get difficult. I am able to recognize their artwork and I know their faces, but the Thai names are hard for me to pronounce and I hate stuttering over Panada vs. Panatda - plus I am their teacher, they know my name, I should know theirs. So I have been using the students more as examples in lessons. i.e. P5 we are learning about transportation. And thus I asked the students to make sentences on how they go to school, how they go to 7-11 (it's huge here, it's a thing), how they go to Chiang Rai, Singapore, etc. And write the sentences on the board for the students to write down after. It turns almost into a scavenger hunt once I write the names on the board because the students race to the student and ask "how do you get to school?" and once the student responds they try to write down the sentence as fast as they can before going to the next. It's rather fun to watch the students read and pronounce English and then to comprehend what the question is and then running to a classmate to ask them the question. I put goofy questions on there too to try to keep in entertaining. One lesson we acted out a short play and charades and watching 2 of my P4 students strut down the "catwalk" trying to act out "actress" for their team - had me in tears. With my older students, I want them to learn more of the pronoun structure for responding to sentences so I made up 10 questions ranging from who liked who, who had a girlfriend/boyfriend, who was their "crush" (introduced that word to the kids, they loved it and wrote it down and now use it with their friends), and who their best friend was. They instantly read "boyfriend" and I had to explain that it was "best" and then what it meant. It's been great fun getting to joke with the students, but also witnessing them reading and really trying to understand the phonetics of English. So that has been my teaching in a nutshell lately....

The temperature is still warm, but the nights are definitely cooling down some. I still meet up with the girls at Gemma's for yoga, workouts, tea, etc every evening at 6. There's a new American in town woohoo - her name is Becca and she is very sweet and happy to have another teacher among us. The past few weekends I have been jetting off to Chiang Mai, mainly for the food. I am happy to be back in Thailand, but I have not been ready to only have Thai food after eating such amazing food in Indonesia (hello pizza). Connected with some of my friends and spent the weekend eating bruschetta, drinking mojitos, reading my book in the sunshine, and relaxing. Was a good weekend :) Then decided to come down again because one of my oldest friends from Arcata California was visiting Thailand! Katy Ryan and I met in Kindergarten or 1st grade (we can't remember) and have stayed in contact through the years. Her sister and my bro are the same age and I remember her brother in diapers before my family and I moved to Quincy. Her mom is a beautiful artist and we still have her gorgeous painting in our dining area back in California.

She sent me a message out of the blue telling me she was coming to Thailand with some of her college friends and wanted to know if we could meet up. And everything worked out perfectly so I headed on back down to Chiang Mai for the weekend to meet up with her and we had so much fun. Her friends are great fun and it was just bliss to be around California friends again haha. Have been getting a bit homesick, nothing crazy, but I was missing my roots a bit. I met up with them Saturday and we went out for a bit and then stayed up super late in the hotel laughing and talking about what we've been doing with our lives. We all went for brunch in the morning and couldn't believe that Alanis Morssitte was playing, that was basically our lives - oh haaaaay early 90s. They had signed up for a cooking class so we parted ways sometime after and hope to see her somewhere else in the world. Some of her friends are coming back to Chiang Mai for Loy Krathong and might actually head to Chiang Rai so hope to meet up with them again. Love how small the world is. Was a perfect refilling of some of my California roots. 

Oh and I should probably announce that I have officially submitted my work and holiday visa subclass 462 class for Australia! I finished the book Wild and reread the ending a million times and broke down countless times throughout the entire book (shocking I know). I have been putting it off, the whole pressing submit and all that because the thought of leaving Thailand scares me, I have my low points, reflecting back on my life from time to time, the good the bad and of course the ugly. The ugly doesn't haunt as much as it used to, certain memories make an appearance, but this quote helped me realize that everything in my life has brought me to this exact moment...

"What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also what got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?"

This quote left me with goosebumps. I instantly sat up in bed and reread this passage over and over. I have always allowed my past to haunt my present and future. I have been to some really dark places in my life, never suicidal (don't mean to scare anyone), but I definitely felt I had zero self worth and zero right to live a good life. With my fuckups (excuse my language) I didn't feel that I deserved a happy life, a life of travel. I didn't believe that I deserved an opportunity at a good life. That I was forever doomed. This battle raged on in my head for years. I started to slowly self heal when I signed up for my 200 hour YTT in San Diego in 2014. That opened up self love and remember having so many tears fall and hit my yoga mat because I started to realize that I was worthy, that I was enough, that I am deserving. I poured my heart and soul into my yogi's and shared with them some of my secrets. Once I signed up for YTT, that was actually the last time I made myself throw up after a meal. Not that it was a daily thing, at that point (I was 24/25) it was more a control thing that somehow I felt justified in continuing the unhealthy behavior. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself that that wasn't me anymore. And to this day, I haven't purged after any meal. I opened up to my yogi's about my battle with food that began at a young age of 13. They were so warming and welcoming and felt confident talking to other girls about my experience. For once I didn't feel ashamed and as each day passed and I dove deeper into my yoga practice, the love started to flow through my body again. To wake up with a smile on my face and not hate where I am in my life, was refreshing. I found me again. At this awakening era so to say, I applied for my teaching position out here in Thailand and within 6 months I was on my way to SFO to go to Chiang Mai to begin my new life, on my own. Not knowing what to expect, who I was going to meet, what was going to happen. And instead of worrying and having anxiety on the plane, I slept almost the entire way to Thailand.

Australia permeated my wanderlust brain while in Pai back in October 2014 with a guy I had just met and some Americans. His plan was to go for a year to work and then travel more and met two American guys that were my age that did the same exact thing I did, but then was headed to Oz to work and then travel some more. Well I had no idea that 13 months later I would finally hit that submit button on the online application and pray that Australia will allow me to move to Melbourne for my 28th birthday...

I thought I would originally apply once back from summer in May earlier this year, but then realized I needed to renew my passport so waited till after I got back from California to get that done. All sorted by September...but why did I wait for 2 months before I actually logged back onto the application to hit the little button?! 

Because I was scared of new adventures. I am quite comfortable in Thailand and at my school. I love my students, my friends, and Thailand in general. The thought of not sharing a wall with Jeffrey and hearing his music every morning was a scary thought. I missed my friends so much when I traveled for 2 months this summer. And the entire time I was in California I wanted my friends there to experience my other life. But while I was in Indonesia, this was the first time I did some solo traveling on my own. I missed my friends, but knew that I was strong enough to make my next step. 

However, once home...did I submit it? Nope. I got back to my little town and my little room with all my Thai clothes and visiting with my friends (Jeffrey, Wynie, Emily, and Jess - my Filipino family) and just didn't want to think about that not being a norm for me. At least not yet. I was still reading Wild, yet I was fighting the ending. I didn't want this beautiful book to end, I was fighting myself and trying to justify not applying for Oz and to just delete the application. My brother will be here early December, one of my California loves is visiting and spending NYE/NY with her in the south and then bouncing to an island. Then it's January 2016. February is a short month, and I fly to Vietnam March 15th and then the Philippines April 11th. I could be back in Thailand in May to start the new term for 6 months...but then the reality set in, I have to go to California for a wedding and that will take a lot of my funds, Australia is my ticket to California. Why couldn't I just click that stupid button? That button meant that on a bad day I couldn't just get my mango smoothie when I wanted. I couldn't meet my friends for ice cream. Go on bike rides to the hot springs. Catch the beautiful Thai sunsets. What if they reject me? What if what if what if? Oh the anxiety of my life when change arrives. I have gotten comfortable...and anyone that is a traveler knows that is usually when you know it's time to think of a new location. Not in a bad way, but I can always come back to Thailand.

How wild it was, to let it be.

The last sentence of Wild. I knew I had it in me, the next day I paid the visa fee and submitted my application. What happens will happen, exactly as it is supposed to do. What a crazy feeling,

So that's where I'm at right now. Have to go to Chiang Mai Hospital for a medical exam/chest x-rays since I've been living in Thailand they require this, getting paperwork sent over to US government, and will be headed to meet at the Oz embassy in Bangkok sometime in December. 2015, what a crazy building year. I have had my heart shattered and spit on, I have cried in international airports more times than I'm willing to admit, I have seen sunsets in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and California thus far. I have made friends around the world, saw my best friend marry the love of her life, hugged my parents in Thailand and in California. I have learned that my past has not completely left me and I am learning new things about myself. I have both been empowered by my adventures and have felt like the loneliest person in the world. I have allowed my heart to feel fully, to dance barefoot on the beach, and to laugh...

Loy Krathong is coming up, full moon for the lantern festival next week...I am hoping that I will refill myself by then in order to release a new mantra into the heavens and to float my little Krathong down the river to bring in new energy and releasing what doesn't serve me. 

Until next time...Sawadee Jao