Here's the problem: I am replacing a guy who went batty, put a kid in a headlock, and threatened to punch another student. During class. He was a replacement for a dearly loved teacher who, a few weeks into class, was pulled teaching high school in the Regular Program into the English Program to teach 1st grade. And the list continues back. When the English Program has someone who can't hack it, they get jettisoned to the Regular Program (go me). When the English Program needs someone, they pull from the Regular Program. When the Regular Program has a gerat teacher, that person gets plugged into the English Program at the first opportunity. It's the simple reality that the English Program draws top kids with top parents while the Regular Program is a lower/last option for students who couldn't test into one of the good secondary schools.
Which doesn't change that the RP director is tired of getting dumped on. In fact, especially after my predecessor's debacle, he's ready to make a show to protest the idea that his program is the EP's loo.
Here comes me. With a long paper trail of baggage.
I've been living in a hotel downtown, where I have an upper-level room with aircon and wireless for a semi-reasonable amount. Not sustainable, but it'll work until I have a sense of whether I'll be sticking around.
It's made for a mentally busy week.
If my life here is so temporary, why? What would make it at least less temporary, if not more permanent? What am I after here? If I'm not finding it, what would I want?
In fact, what DO I want? Here, there, anywhere?
After trying a century egg, I can say with great certainty that I do not want green eggs and ham.
Interlude: in Malaysia, I found food I would not eat. Imagine an egg made of purplish jello, a little bit darker than blue glass from the desert, with a greenish-black yolk. These are century eggs. For the first time in this hemisphere, I found something I just couldn't bring myself to try.
But then I ended up in a very backwater, very traditional Thai place. There was a table made of bamboo poles and slats with steam trays that had not seen much heat or sanitation in a great long while, and a lady who scooped a paddle of rice onto a plate and waited while I picked out the two least... explosive looking dishes.
What can I say? I was really hungry and tucked in with the hope that blind enthusiasm would keep me going long enough that the food would either become tasty or get down far enough that I could make it outside before a return trip.
Well, one of the dishes had century eggs.
They were as palatable to the palate as to the mind.
And this is coming from the guy who now likes fish sauce and is fine with the thought of leeching juices out of mouldering anchovies, collecting it in a container, and pouring the odiferous contents on food I'm about to eat.
So I'm in a hotel to avoid making a deposit and paying for a month up front if I'm not going to be employed that long. Which is to say, I know this town is not home: if I didn't have a job, I wouldn't stay. It would be a great place to bring people, but it has the same issues as Moscow: you can get to anything you want—whitesand beaches, waterfalls, a national park, scuba diving, crazy partying, two major universities—but it'll take a couple of hours. And while I do want to learn the culture, and culture in this area is relatively unadulterated, it takes more language skills than I have to get into. And there just aren't enough literati around here to bring many traditional performances or other stereotypically cultural experiences.
Which gets to the point of what exactly I am after. That's surprisingly difficult to answer.
When was the last time someone said, “What do you want from life?”
What brought me here was one lifetime goal: to live abroad. Now that I'm here, what next?
Funny enough, meditating helped a great deal. Has been helping for a goodly while. And to jump ahead, one of the things I definitely want is to learn about Buddhism and meditation while in this Buddhist country. Also Thai massage, and any other sort of non-western medicine.
But once I got my head into it and out of the confetti clouds of distraction, I realized I've had the opportunity to see past many of the assumptions and mindless conveniences that help me put myself in a place to live a full, rich, rewarding life.
Image: toppling the scooter while a group of students watched my face readjust itself on a hose faucet, and thenceforward having a helpful Thai person, either much older or much younger than I am, prevent me from the chance of injury while parking my bike at night, walking it to the road in the morning, or starting it at any time whatsoever.
Image: splayed flat on my back with my swollen legs, speckled with sores burned in by the soothing balms I'd tried to use, stretched up onto a wall, trying to get the energy to walk up a flight of stairs for a clean set of clothes.
Image: the blood drips on the counter as I bought Tylenol, rubbing alcohol, gauze, and rotgut at the muban store while the freshly-toppled scooter idled outside because my body—still in shock—wasn't going to be starting it.
Image: two mornings later realizing that sleeping in one position in a coma of pain and contraindicated pain treatments had sunk bruises into my back.
Image: my boss picking me up from the hospital and saying, in the same voice he said, “Don't take this the wrong way, it's not that you're a bad teacher...” “Just stay on your feet!”
Or the next week catching eriatric train of thought spinning through my head: I had quite a fall, and I need to be careful lest I take another.
Image: checking the mirror and realizing that the pants I bought to look sharp for interviews after the Italy trip, an investment in a temporary professional costume for an overly-skinny state, will now fall off unless I cinch in a fistful of waistline.
Image: threading my belt, which used to be a little too long, through all the belt loops, and then, to cinch my pants far enough to keep them up, threading the tail of my belt through half the loops again.
Image: bleeding on the pavement—again—while parents watched an ambulance arrive, load me onto a stretcher, and cart me to the hospital.
There are a couple of funny things here. It's funny how the list of wants has changed since I made the move to that first lifetime goal of living abroad. And it's funny that it was still tough to get through the flak to figure out what I'm after.
But here's what I can say I want:
To stop hurting. Not necessarily to feel good, but I want a break from feeling sore. From aches and pains, bones and guts grinding, the absurdity of being cold when the temperature drops below 75. To be able to run, not to have to plot my day based on how few stairs I need to climb.
Really—this is me. A couple years ago, my morning run started at 6,000 feet, ended two miles later at 9,000, and took under ten minutes on the return. And now I'm worried about climbing two flights of stairs.
I want to be able to exist in peace. I am a very busy and driven person. I am fidgety and antsy in body and mind, and over the past number of years, I have so loaded myself with such distraction that I am no longer content not having anything to do. Meditation helps, but even that is an occupation: directed avoidance of doing something, or consciously embracing doing nothing.
I want to feel a sense of competence. Not excellence, but capabilities such that I do not cringe when I see a higher up walking toward me or my boss's number on an incoming call/text.
And before I leave the country, I'd like to learn about Buddhism from Buddhists.
Later, I'll worry about things like personal enrichment, debt, friends, love, experiences, objects. None of them mean anything when I can't be present for them without wallowing in discomfort and distraction. So for now, there's my bucket list:
-no more hurting
-no more worrying
-and while I am where I am, more pursuit of nothingness
Who would've thought it'd take a week of purgatory after a summer of hell to figure that out?
Which comes back to the job: what's it worth?
In American terms, not enough to keep the minimum monthly payments from bottoming me out, despite setting aside a third of my salary for what amount to pitiable expenses, in dollar terms. (Image: making a booking on the idea, “this will only cost X dollars!” and paying half of my eating/living budget. Sound byte: American voice says, “That only costs fifty bucks?” Me: “Which is to say, three days of my top-tier salary or enough to feed a traditional Thai family of four for a week.”)
How much do I want to stay here now that I've lost my original position, would not have applied had I known the internal expectations and culture, and have had my wages garnished based on my master's being in music and me being an English teacher (evidently, the terminal degree in writing does not count as English). Yeah, I left that bit out, because I just don't want to go there right now.
“When the director told me he was cutting your salary,” my boss said, “I told him that someone with your resume could get a job anywhere and would be especially hard to keep after a salary cut.”
What's the job worth?
Ease.
Yes, it will kick my ass. The RP will steamroll my skinny ass, but at least I know the town. And it's cheap and relatively easy. In this area, as in the rest of Thailand, white skin might be synonymous with cash cow, but at least the culture isn't quite as bent to exploiting farangs as it is in more developed points up north. My Reiki teacher is an hourish north, with Buddhadasa Bhikku's Suan Mokkh an hour beyond that.
Question: now that I know how much the shit stinks here, how much is it worth to avoid having to go kicking around another pasture?
It's a reminder to consider my wants/goals: it really doesn't matter where I am, provided it is a generally safe environment. Having my wages cut is utter bull, especially on such a blatantly false premise, but does it stink more than it sucks to move? Is the idea of a wage cut, even a minor one, more odious than the idea of a traion trip with my tuba and duffels? Assuming it is, is it worth learning to negotiate another academic ladder rather than protest up this one?
Here's where the other things come in. I have no desire to move. Maybe, once I am strong and sound enough to have grown bored with this town, relocating will become a priority. And once it does, all those things I love, the things I would've listed as lifetime wants and needs—mountains, trails, wilds, birdsong and the sound of wind blowing through vegetation; the sanctity and sanctuary of a world greater than me, the grandeur of comparative permanence in a constantly changing environment as remarkable as I care to notice—once I am hale and healthy enough to experience the world outside without the distraction of being so physically unwell, I will begin a job search in earnest. But until then, while my priority is simply living, that will be my focus.
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