Week 2 of my internship, week 3 in Chiang Mai

So my boss is actually a nice person.  I’ve decided that we just started off on the wrong foot.  I’m finding her roundabout way of talking rather funny and she loves to sit and talk to me, so it’s all good.  Even though this internship is still rather pointless because it’s such an awkward amount of time, at least I don’t dislike her as much or feel uncomfortable coming into the office. 

Exploring Chiang Mai has been fabulous.  There seems to be an endless amount of delicious food in this city and the girls and I are having a grand time eating them all.  Some of my favorites:

·         Vegetable and tofu Kaow Soi at Dada Café: DELICIOUSSSSSSS. Kaow Soi is a northern Thai dish and apparently Chiang Mai has it’s own variety.  Rich, creamy, coconut-peanut curry, with egg noodles, pickled vegetables usually, some ginger and fried crunchy egg noodles on top. SOO GOOOOD! This one has tons of fresh veggies in it (broccoli, cawliflower and carrots!) and good tofu.

·         Banana soymilk shake at Satva Café.  Well, basically everything there (which is across the street from our guesthouse) is delish.  The veggie fried rice made with brown rice (the red-purple good kind too) and huge chunks of veggies is sooo good. So is there vegetable and cheese omelet which comes with whole wheat bread YuuMMM!!!

·         LOVE MEAL AT DIABLOS (me and Mall): HUGE veggie quesadilla (such robust flavors!!) packed with beans, roasted corn, peppers and TONS OF CHEESE!! Plus FREE CHIPS AND SALSA! (unlimited, which is unheard of in Thailand!)

·         Salsa Kitchen: another great Mexican restaurant in CM. There is tons of Mexican food in CM. Light, fresh, less emphasis on the cheese like at Diablos, but still delish and good (also cheap) margaritas. I’ve had their veggie chimichanga (the tortilla was fried like a samosa!)a s well as their pork enchiladas. I love that their dishes come with a salad and salad dressing that is NOT salad crème for once! (salad crème is sooo grosss).  Great food + a litre of margaritas for 10 dollars? Love itttttttt

·         Lunch buffet at Khun Churn: vegetarian restaurant that is UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS! Every thai dish ever created just without the meat.  I think my favorite was the pumpkin curry, it had just the right amount of spice.

·         Smoothie Blues and Bake and Bite: a farang’s paradise. Western comfort food (especially breakfast food) done right.  Most important thing: THEY HAVE BAGELS!!!!!!!!!

On a side note, the other day Mall and I got an herbal steam bath with a scrub (SO relaxing and the herbs smelled like matzo ball soup!!!!) and a massage.  So luxurious.  It should be a crime how cheap everything in Thailand is.  I wouldn’t be able to do half of this stuff back in the states. 

Can I stay in Chiang Mai forever?????  Just kidding…well, sort of… :-)

Chiang Mai livin and Thai people

So I’m living it up in Chiang Mai right now.  We are staying at the Ban Kang Rao guesthouse in the Chang Puak district of Chiang Mai. We are still in the city, but outside of the city wall where all the crazy tourists thrive.  Each room in this wonderful guesthouse is decorated according to a different flower. Gina and I have the “Chinese rose” room, which is green.  I guess the Chinese rose is green?  Aside from the abundance of mosquitoes in our room (we should get a cintronella candle or something) our room, as well as the guesthouse is fab fab fab: air con, western TV channels(!!), comfortable beds with down blankets, wi-fi, a balcony, and an aesthetically pleasing bathroom.  I feel like I’ve become a bathroom connoisseur since living in Thailand. It’s surprising how long of a conversation one can have just on the topic of bathrooms.  Our guesthouse has a cozy lobby/outdoor area made up of teakwood tables and chairs, as well as a wonderful rooftop patio where we have wine nights, play cards, and admire the beautiful skyline of Chiang Mai.

Aside from our guesthouse, we’ve been exploring Chiang Mai on foot.  This is a nice change from our village lifestyles where it is frowned upon to walk anywhere.  This past weekend we went to the Chiang Mai zoo.  Not only was the zoo much more humane than I though it would be, but it was literally in the mountains and there was quite a lot of hiking up hills.  Our eating exploration began the day we got here, and thanks to Mall’s internship (she’s writing restaurant reviews for a Wellness website) we have been exploring new restaurants.  Because of the high population of tourists and expats here, there are tons and tons of really good western restaurants.  These restaurants are really good quality, with an abundance of vegetarian places and even organic restaurants and markets.  I’ve been surprised by how much I crave vegetables and vegetarian food here.  This is because the food at my school and Thai food in general (at least in my opinion and my experience) does not really combine meat and vegetables together in proportion.  Vegetables usually come separately as an individual dish.  While when eating with a group of Thai people this is not a problem, at school there is never enough vegetables at the meal.  It’s either spinach/some other Thai leafy green vegetable or just cucumbers.  That’s usually it. Just one vegetable with the meal.  I’m starting to order more vegetables in my meals (because when you’re eating alone it’s kind of ridiculous to order one meat or noodle dish PLUS a side order of vegetables),but sometimes Thai people give you strange looks or just flat out say no when you try to “change” a dish.  For example, one time at the night bazaar I ordered stir-fried pork with garlic, but this dish is just white rice with pork, and I wanted vegetables with it as well. So I said sai pahk(with vegetables) and the cook said no.  Literally, he said no.  He also mumbled something in Thai, which I took as he didn’t understand why I wanted to add stuff to the dish.  He ended up giving me just mixed vegetables with the rice, which was good, but wasn’t what I wanted.  However, another time I was with Caitlin and we ordered pad see ew sai pad pahk gruum (pad see ew with mixed vegetables) and we said dai mai ka? (can you?) and the cook said yes and made us what we wanted (pad see ew doesn’t usually come with many vegetables).  So it’s always a gamble as to whether or not the cook will acknowledge your request.

Thai people

Now on to the reason why I am here in Chiang Mai.  Yesterday was my first day at my internship and my first interaction with a stereotypical Thai person. 

I arrived at the office at 9:30am and was greeted by a small, older Thai lady.  By  small I mean I am a couple of inches taller than her and  twice her size in width so you can imagine how tiny this lady is.  My boss is the founder of the NGO which works with, and supports, children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.  Affected would mean that the parent(s) has the virus but the child does not and  the child has or will eventually  lose their parent(s) to the disease.   After introductions, she sat me down and went through 69 powerpoint slides about HIV/AIDS in Thailand, the creation of her NGO, her work in Thailand and with children, the various awards she has received both nationally and internationally, and the difficulty in generating money to keep the organization alive and running.  It was all very interesting, but also rather funny.  In orientation we were told that Thai people do not speak or have conversations like Americans do.  Americans are straightforward and blunt.  When we speak we get to the point. Quickly.  When someone is telling a long-winded story, we get annoyed, distracted, and stop listening.   Thai people are the exact opposite.  They supposedly only speak in a long-winded, roundabout way.  I hadn’t had this experience with Thai people until yesterday.   In the 2.5hours it took her to get through all 69 slides, she would start with facts or a story, then sidetrack with a tangent that was somewhat related, then sidetrack with another tangent that was even less related to original point, then go back to her original point she was trying to explain, and so on and so on.   While everything she was said was interesting and relevant to her work in some way, her tangents occurred so often that it was difficult to follow everything she was saying, and I often found myself zoning out.  Oops.

I thought we were getting along famously until the afternoon when she came back from her radio show and said something that just really upset me.  She spent the next 5-10 minutes talking to me about what my diet should be and how much I should exercise in order to lose weight while stealing glances at my chest as if she couldn’t possibly understand how they could be so big.  This is hands down, the one thing that really bothers me about Thai people.  They say anything and everything that is on their minds and they do not think it’s rude at all. Especially weight. They think it’s funny that many Americans are overweight and they love to make comments about it.  They have no concept of different body types and how genetics plays a role, and their perspective on what it means to be healthy or healthy eating is very different from my perspective (not that I am right) or an American perspective.  Aside from all of that, the hardest part is how BLUNT they are about their perspective on health and they don’t realize how hurtful their words are. It’s hard not take it personally when a Thai person makes a comment about my weight, and it takes all of my strength to smile, laugh, and make a joke out of it.  At school, only one of my teachers makes comments about my weight.  While it bothers me, she doesn’t make these comments often, and she’s crazy to begin with, so it’s easy for me to brush it off. But something about yesterday just really bothered me.   Maybe it was the fact that she told me I should walk to and from work in the morning and afternoons to get my exercise.  Mind you, I live in the same district as my internship, but I am on the other side of the big highway.   It seems like a somewhat far but perhaps walkable distance, yet at 4:30 in the afternoon when its 95 degrees outside and I don’t really know where I’m going, there’s not one part of me that wants to walk home. Also, there are lots of stray dogs here, and we have a mutual dislike for each other, so I’m not really in the mood to be barked out/bitten. Granted my boss is a doctor (an immunologist) so I’m sure she feels that it’s her duty to give me healthy living tips, but Thai people do not walk ANYWHERE.  I mean it. They motorcy, bike, or drive EVERYWHERE. You think I’m exaggerating?  The teachers who live on school grounds DRIVE to work even though it is less than a five minute walk.

When I proceeded to tell my boss that I would take a songtaew home because I would be going to the pool anyway (this also bothered me, because I felt like I had to defend my reasons and actions), she then informed me that I should walk in the pool for two hours, because that’s how she lost weight.   It was extremely upsetting, and I left that afternoon feeling defeated and like a huge fatass.   I didn’t make a comment about my size or weight.  I didn’t ask her for tips on exercise or losing weight. Yet somehow she felt the need to “help me out”.  I responded to her remarks by saying that I like to eat, which made her laugh and tell me that if that’s true than I’ll stay the same weight (but only if I do walking and two hours of water aerobics).   So a big F.U. (sorry, but I had to) to my boss on that one.   For making me feel like shit about my body, for making me stand in front of the mirror when I got home examining my fat, and for making me cry.  I love my curves, I love my boobs, I love that my butt has enough padding for two people, and while I’m heavier than I would like to be right now, this is my eat, pray love moment!!!  I’m eating my way through Thailand with my friends and loving every moment of it.  No regrets (although less rice and more noodles would be nice).  So there. :-D

End of my first semester!

I’ve officially completed my FIRST SEMESTER OF TEACHING!!!  I can’t believe it; it feels so surreal.  I cried in class this week, saying goodbye to 4/1, one of my favorite classes.  After having my last class with two of my favorites back to back, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.  So I cried in front of my students.   It wasn’t necessarily a sad cry, it was more emotional.  A realization that I had completed my first semester of teaching, and that I got through it and succeeded. It was also a kind of thank you to my students.  My wonderful and sincere students who are so happy to see me when I walk into the room; who are motivated and energetic, who want to learn, and, who hang on to my every word in class.  They stuck by me while I stumbled A LOT in the beginning.  I’m grateful to them for not giving up on me!

When I originally decided to apply for the Fulbright I did so because I wanted to work and live abroad; immense myself in another culture.  But I didn’t realize how rewarding teaching would be, or how proud of my students I would become.  Don’t get me wrong, this job has a lot of ups and downs, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies.  I’ve had a lot of frustrations with some of my students, but I’m looking forward to conquering those frustrations next semester.

One of the hardest things about this semester has been the lack of continuity.  Classes get canceled so often here, especially Monday and Friday classes.  Holidays seem to always occur on a Monday or Friday.  And if it’s not a holiday, then it’s a class trip, a special event, or testing. Therefore, while I was supposed to teach eight classes this semester, four of them were on Monday and Fridays (Mat. 5) so I really only taught four classes a week on a regular basis.  This was frustrating because I didn’t get to know my Mat. 5 classes as well as I now know Mat. 4.

I’ve also had some frustrations with my students.  We were told in orientation that Thai students are notoriously lazy and disruptive in class; the exact opposite of the stereotype of Asian students (that must come from Korea, China, and Japan).  I’m lucky that my students are pretty well-behaved.  This is because I work at a boarding school and my classes have 24-35 students instead of 40-50. However, in true accordance with “Thai time” my students are not good with deadlines, and so they hand projects and homework in late.  I’ve also had to deal with cheating and copying, not only from each other, but from the internet (they use Google translate like nobody’s business which NEVER makes sense when they translate Thai to English).  This has been a big cultural adjustment, because my students get away with so much more than in America.

I’ve also had to deal with tracking. I’ve always been against tracking students, but now being on the other side of the fence I think it’s such a perpetuating cycle.  For example, I have my advanced class (like AP English).  This class is smaller than the rest, 24 students instead of 35.  These students have great English language skills (95% of the class at least).  I don’t have to slow down or simplify my English when I talk to them (a little in Mat. 4 but not for Mat 5) and they are very good at expressing their ideas and feelings in English.  These students are extremely motivated, excited to see me both in class and outside of class, and most importantly, they pay attention in class, hanging on to my every word.  Then I have my scholarship class, IES.  They take math and science classes in English (which, if you think about it is pretty amazing).  Like my honors class, these students have great English language skills, are motivated, and participate in class.  For my honors and scholarship classes, I have to bring my A-game. These kids are smart and want to learn.  Then it’s like a 180 with my other two types of classes.  You could call these my “normal” classes.  These students (for the most part) have lower English language skills, and are usually less motivated and much more apathetic in the classroom.  They don’t really seem to care about English, which is evident on some of their faces when I walk into the classroom.  There’s also the mob mentality.  So while some of them are really good at English, they won’t let it show if everyone else in the class doesn’t care. My students’ attitudes have been the most challenging to deal with.  I want to treat all of my classes equally, but I do find myself treating them differently.  I’m happier with my advanced and scholarship classes, treating them with more respect because they are happy to see me and they want to learn.  In my other classes, I have to do more disciplining because they don’t stop talking in class, they don’t listen, they do other work in my class, and they don’t care.  So I get angry and frustrated very quickly with them, which upsets me.  I find that it’s a perpetuating cycle.  I don’t want to treat my students differently, but I feed off of their energy, which in turn affects their behavior; it just seems to continue in a circle.

Think Happy Thoughts

On a happy note, it’s now summer vacation woo!! Fulbright requires us to do an internship in March, so a bunch of the girls and I decided that we all wanted to be in Chiang Mai for our internship.  Chiang Mai is the northern city that feels somewhat like America because there are tons and TONS of tourists and tons and TONS of yummy western food.  But it’s also a very walkable city with a great nightlife, so it will be nice to be together in a place that has lots to do. While Chiang Rai has a lot to offer, many of the other girls are in villages and live alone so I think we are all ready for some city livin.  I will be interning at a Thai NGO that works with children with HIV/AIDS.  They provide medical supplies, outreach education, and summer camps.  I think I will be helping them with fundraising, but I’m not entirely sure what my role will be. I’m happy to be working with a Thai organization versus one run by expats, and I’m looking forward to gaining perspective on how an NGO is run.  Since I’ve worked with kids with HIV at camp, I think it will be interesting to see the administrative and policy side of the issue.

After March, I will be traveling with the fabulous Mallory and Jamie to Singapore for the weekend, and then to Malaysia for a week where we will be joined by Gina and Lana. We’ll do Kuala Lumpur (the big city in Malaysia) for 2.5 days, and then head to Penang (home of Penang curry!) for some R&R on the beach for 5 days. We’ve heard that Penang is nirvana for food, and since those of us who are going are huge foodies, we can’t wait to dine and go swimming. It should be fun!

After Malaysia I head back to Chiang Mai to meet up with… MY MOM! I can’t wait for her visit! She’ll be coming for almost two weeks, and it’ll be really great to have her here.  We’ll explore the north of Thailand and then head down to the beach.  Mom’s visit is followed by a week of Fulbright meetings/hanging fun in BKK to end the summer. After that, it’ll be back to the grind at PCC.

Can’t believe I’ve wrapped up a semester of teaching.  Can’t believe it’s March, it’s summer and  it’s only going to get HOTTER!