Eye of the Storm

Well, this happens to be the second version of this post. I’m an idiot and didn’t save a post I was working on and here I am typing it all over again. My lack of posting lately is a result of things being very busy around here. The last day of first semester was the 29th of September. I had to try to finish as much of the material as possible and put together semester exams for my classes. I made it through but with more than a little stress. The past two weeks have been semester break. As a foreign teacher I get the time off. The Thai teachers have to go in to work. It’s laid back and they can dress down but they have to go to work. We’re down to our last three days before we go back. Last week we took a small trip down to Korat (about two hours south of here) for a couple of days just to get out of town. I’ll post about our trip separately. This week has been just running errands and taking care of things around the house. We’ve been taking Trea to nursery this week just so she can stick with the routine and we can get some stuff done. I’ve been able to get a lot of little things done that have been on the backburner forever. We have done some car shopping over the past few days and hope to be able to get a car in the next week or so. Used cars here are so expensive (relatively)!!

We had a coup a few weeks back. Most of you probably heard or read about it. In fact, most of you probably heard more about it than we did. The international media made a huge deal of it. Most of the Thai’s were pretty much like, “whatever.” It’s kind of been something that happens here every 10-15 years. Most of the people were actually pretty happy that the PM was ousted. Things may have been different in Bangkok for a few days but here we had a government mandated school closure for one day but otherwise EVERYTHING stayed the same. I don’t want to get too much into the politics of it all but I’ll just explain very briefly what I understand. The PM was found to be making some shady (perhaps not illegal) business deals that got his family out of paying a lot of money in Thai taxes. The majority of the people wanted him to step down and he said that he would but he didn’t. Without any legal way of getting him out of power they waited until he was out of the country and staged a coup.

School starts up tomorrow (it’s now Sunday) and I’m not excited about going back. I’m always like this after long breaks. Work is just never something I want to go back to. I know a lot of people get some satisfaction out of work and I guess that I do get some (and I know that I should get more) but the fact of the matter is if I were independently wealthy I think I would be a bum and not hold a job. I just like hanging out too much.

Let me talk about the kid some. I’m sure most of you haven’t heard enough. She’s getting to be really demanding. Lately she’s started saying some funny things. About a week ago she was looking at Kristen’s wallet and saw a picture of Kristen’s grandmother. Kristen told her that it was “great grandma.” Trea already has trouble saying “grandma” but when she says great grandma it comes out as “Grape Mama.” It’s so funny!

Also I have to report that I’m very pleased that my daughter can say “MASH” and occasionally requests it. She doesn’t understand it but sometimes just asks for it. Even cooler is the fact that she will ask to see U2. She does this by saying, “watch hello, hello?” again and again; “hello, hello” being a reference to “Vertigo.” She also says “Bono” but it comes out more like, “Bonman.”

Something else that she picked up from Kristen – when I come home and walk in the door she yells from upstairs, “John?” because that’s what her mom always does to make sure that it’s me walking in the door. Yes, at least once Kristen has had someone else just walk in. It’s really funny to hear your two-year-old yelling out your first name. I don’t even think she realizes that it’s my name, it’s just something that mommy does when daddy walks in the door so she does it too.

Over a month ago when we went on our first date and left Trea to be babysat by her nursery teacher we came home to find her with three additional stuffed toys. Teacher Jaw (it rhymes with “cow”) said that she could just keep them for a while and return them to the nursery later. Anyway, one stuffed toy is a blue doll, one is pink, and the other is a baby. So she has named these dolls: one is T. Jaw, one is T. John, and the baby is Trea. T. John happens to be the pink one!! Another instance where I don’t think she realizes that T. John is daddy but it’s pretty funny to think that this is me in doll form.



It’s now Saturday morning (1:45 AM) and I can’t sleep so I’m posting a bit more. Obviously this post was to be posted a while ago but wasn’t. So far school is going well. I took Monday off because Trea was sick and so only had to teach four days and next Monday is a holiday and then Friday is an all-day student sport day. So we have another short week next week – only three days of teaching. I’ve been told by the other teachers that second semester here just flies by because there are quite a few holidays and students have a lot of stuff going on – practicing for year-end shows and what-not.

Kristen and I finally found a car that we like. It will be our first time buying a car together. It’s kind of funny how you do things here because you tell a few people that you’re looking for a car and pretty soon everyone at the school has heard that you’re looking for a car and is on the lookout for you. We asked the head secretary if her husband (he’s retired) could keep an eye out for us because we’ve heard that he’s pretty good at finding good cars at good prices. So, what does she do? Her son’s been out patrolling used car places looking for us and then brings cars by the school for us to look at – it’s crazy. Anyway, on Monday we are buying a 1992 Honda Civic. It’s dark blue with gray, leather interior. We are SO excited to finally have a car.

In other news Kristen also found a great OB/GYN here. It’s been a great week for us. The doctor speaks really good English and is really progressive thinking (for Thailand) and will allow her to do natural childbirth (a rarity in Thailand) and basically do what she wants to do. She’s so relieved and happy to have a doctor finally. Tomorrow morning we are going in for the ultrasound. I’m excited. I’m really hoping for a boy – either that or a monkey. But of course, I’ll be happy with another girl too.