I just reached across my entire cabin and grabbed my phone to start this blog post. My cabin is like 6 feet wide and it’s one of the bigger ones. We did get upgraded to one with a balcony, so there’s that. This is my first cruise ever. We are in the Baltics for 10 days with a few days starting in Stockholm and a few days in Amsterdam at the end....
Intro to Asia The primary reason I wanted to teach English abroad was to introduce Kaitlyn to expat living, specifically in Asia. I credit a lot of who I am today to the fact that I was able to spend five years of my childhood in China and two years of my young adult life in Cambodia. I wanted Kaitlyn to see first-hand what I have been raving about basically since the day she met me....
A video adventure
I. The Night Train The night train is the best. For the low price of $22 you can take a six-hour train ride from our city of Phichit to Bangkok. The train leaves here at 12:40 AM and arrives in the capitol at 7:00 AM. I love it so much because it feels exactly like what I assume being on a spaceship is like. You get you’re own little compartment with a blanket and a pillow....
I am actually a ten-year-old boy. A couple weeks ago I traded teaching schedules with another teacher. I still teach some of the small kids but now I get to teach elementary school science as well. My students are seven, eight, and ten years old. I found they are much easier for me to teach because I understand them better. Basically, I am the same as them. We all like playing videogames, making stupid fart jokes, and playing soccer after school....
I. Teaching is hard I’m not used to people. I’m used to sitting at my computer for most of the day taking one, maybe two zoom calls. I’m really good at working alone. I am not really good with people, especially when I am the center of attention all the time. Teaching is exhausting. Four year olds are exhausting. For the past two weeks I’ve been teaching English to four, five, and six year olds for about four hours a day....
Welcome to Imperial Phichit Bilingual School! Please come inside Here we have our swimming pool and our kindergarten building Our swimming pool is not quite as shallow as you’d expect This is the front door of the kindergarten building Our Christmas tree stays up year round We have many small children walking around most of the time The basketball court is by the pool And a genuine playground...
“Some things take hold of you. Invade you. Own you. You want to be free of them, but you never will be.” – Rich Shapero, Rin, Tongue and Dorner (I got that quote from goodreads, and I have no idea who Rich Shapero is) There we were, minding our own business when they decided to take what was not theirs. The bugs smugly walked right through the crack in our screen glass door and declared our room theirs....
Welcome back to Asia!!!!!!!!!! After not knowing whether we were going to make it to Thailand for a couple weeks we finally made it. It only took like 17 covid tests, 52 emails back and forth with the Thai consulate, and four changed plane tickets. Not bad. After all that we have been rewarded with the luxury of staying in a small quarantine hotel room for 16 days. Thailand has this whole international traveler thing locked down tight....
I’m done with school. I graduated with a degree in computer science from a well-known university. I have a job waiting for me at a FAANG company. If things continue this way, I will never struggle for money. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. But also, some things. I won the privilege jackpot in so many ways. I was born in America where I have maximum opportunity. I was born the majority skin color and the historically dominant gender....