Word filtered down to be in the canteen for a present from the director, so all of the farangs were packed around the lunch table. Travels over next week's break were a natural conversation point, which built to the following:
"Yeah, man, as long as I'm here I'll be a decent teacher, but that's definitely not why I came."
"No kidding. Like, I won't suck, but teaching is not the priority when it's so cheap to travel around."
"And so easy to make the hookup." (Referring to reefer type hooking up, but the romantic sort can't be discounted.)
And as the conversation progressed, it turns out there are two basic sorts of teachers: those who can live like royalty on poverty-level investment returns back Stateside, and those who dig the jungle rave ethos. A third class--those who married native and live here with somewhat stronger ties than the rest of us--is generally not present for such discussions, but happened to be present based on the official summons. The ones who spoke up said, essentially, that accidents happened and they ended up keeping on because there wasn't any good reason not to.
Which makes a lot of sense, now that I'm here to hear it--Thailand's a place to party, who'da thought? But, like the whole "nobody fails, no matter what," it would've been really nice to know about this up front.
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