Today the old woman with the stooped shoulders rounded the corner the same way she does every day, like clockwork, her canvas bag bulging with mundane treasures
Today I saw that a tree had finally blossomed, its yellow flowers extravagant and poofy like meringues or Easter bonnets, adorning a small alley where its inhabitants cook over an open flame, crouching in the dirt
Today my elephant is chewing long stalks of grass, trunk curling and uncurling, jaws laboring in elastic circles, gulping air, fueling a lazy sway. I miss her.
Today the motorcycle under me feels like an organ digesting and processing the sharp turns and unexpected road companions, shuddering in its liveliness, swerving around motorized street vendor stalls carrying children in white uniforms, bouncing like joyful popcorn, school bound
Today the plumeria tree outside my window is shedding its white petals, making me sneeze, making me delirious with grief as its branches bare themselves
Today my new amethyst necklace hangs around my neck, the one I bought outside my dance studio, its stones like shark teeth, thin and long and aggressive. It is a deep, inconsolable purple
Today I will visit my favorite DVD vendor, the one who lets me pay 60 baht per disc, the one who always wears a wooden necklace and courteously blows his cigarette smoke away from me, the one near the Middle Eastern restaurant where cockroaches crawled out of our food and we didn't eat for days after that
Today is warm and slow and lingering, an unwrinkled pace, watching shadows stretch themselves along the grass like sated lovers
Today the hammers pound and progress somehow emerges from routine and repetition. The nails bellow a mantra in their stinging. ForWARD. ForWARD. ForWARD.
Today is celebrating the bliss of forgetting, the utter absence of grasping and holding. Time slides through my fingers, bringing its oily coating of memory with it.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Delinquent
Ohhhhhh my......can we say blog delinquent??? Sheesh. Unacceptable!!
It's late, I need to get to sleep, and I need to pack for my trip to Phuket this weekend (yay!!), which is much needed as I am still traumatized from the absolutely freezing weather that I had to endure when I was back in the U.S. How will I ever re-acclimate when I move back for good?? It was in the 60s here recently, and I wore a heavy fleece (which was accompanied by a constant whimper) every day and thought I would surely die of hypothermia. Now the temperature here is climbing climbing climbing and I finally feel normal again.
Yes. That's right. I just wrote about the weather.
Anyway, I have lots to say, but have just not had the time to say it. I promise I'll write more this weekend (that is, if I can be bothered to set down the coconut cocktail long enough so that both hands can actually be free for typing!)
It's late, I need to get to sleep, and I need to pack for my trip to Phuket this weekend (yay!!), which is much needed as I am still traumatized from the absolutely freezing weather that I had to endure when I was back in the U.S. How will I ever re-acclimate when I move back for good?? It was in the 60s here recently, and I wore a heavy fleece (which was accompanied by a constant whimper) every day and thought I would surely die of hypothermia. Now the temperature here is climbing climbing climbing and I finally feel normal again.
Yes. That's right. I just wrote about the weather.
Anyway, I have lots to say, but have just not had the time to say it. I promise I'll write more this weekend (that is, if I can be bothered to set down the coconut cocktail long enough so that both hands can actually be free for typing!)
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
I Am A Dumbass.....
I can't believe it's been over three weeks since I last wrote!! Those three weeks were an absolute whirlwind and can be summarized as follows:
1.) Jet lag
2.) Nieces
3.) Peter
4.) FREEZING MY ASS OFF in the frozen tundra of Minnesota
5.) Falling in love with San Francisco (omg...is there a more awesome, fascinating, romantic, REAL place filled with authentic and fashionable people in the entire universe??? I'm madly in love and will spend the next year and a half politely begging Peter to move there)
HOLY CRAP, am I glad that 2008 is over. I feel good about 2009. I feel like 2008 taught me to be impervious and calm, and I'm looking forward to leading a more balanced life in 2009.
It did, however, not get off to a perfectly seamless start.....
My school hires people to help us take care of our visa and work permit stuff. All I have to do is hand over my passport, sit in the uncomfortable plastic chairs at immigration, and sign the appropriate pages when prompted. I am very lucky in this way. However, when I recently had my visa updated, as it had expired, the person in charge of my visa and work permit handed everything back to me and said that I was all set to go. However, I was not, in fact, all set to go. I had not acquired a re-entry permit, which is necessary in order to, well, re-enter the country on this particular visa. For some reason, I didn't think anything of it, even though I had had a re-entry permit with my last visa. I figured that I could put my faith (and immigration status) in this poor guy's hands without checking things over for myself.
I am the Dumbest Person Alive.
I didn't realize my mistake until arriving at the immigration checkpoint here in Bangkok around 2 a.m. after a sleepless plane ride wherein a toddler kicked my seat the entire time. My lack of re-entry permit means that I had to get a 30-day tourist visa, thereby invalidating my official visa. From what I understand, I have to reapply for my official visa at a consulate outside of Thailand, and while the school usually pays for the entire visa process, I will have to (rightfully) fund this little adventure on my own.
I haven't been able to sleep since coming back to Bangkok on account of all of this. While I can be extremely diligent in some areas of my life (like writing papers and planning instruction and wearing sunblock and flossing), it's like I lack complete and utter common sense in others (and frequently these areas seem to always include official documents.....). I never check receipts to make sure that everything is on the up and up, I dropped the ball more than once with my teacher certification paperwork and coursework (which has mostly been remedied at this point...), and I allowed myself to somehow trip and fall into a massive black hole of credit card debt (which is almost completely paid off now, but it has been a nerve-wracking and angst-ridden process). I guess I sort of float through life sometimes, figuring that all of this stuff will somehow work itself out, and that everyone around me can be trusted without any hesitation whatsoever, and that I will always be taken care of. And that's a great way to live your life when you're, y'know, FIVE.
So my biggest resolution for 2009? GROW THE FUCK UP. It's time for Mama to take responsibility for her own ducks and putting them in an orderly row. So the visa situation is going to be very aggravating for me and my employers, and it will most likely be a somewhat costly process for me. And yes, it will probably also cost me a few nights of sleep, waking up with my heart pounding and my inner critic bludgeoning me to death, telling me that I have nary a brain in my head. But, well, this minor crisis will pass, and in the meantime I've learned a very valuable life lesson about, y'know, checking things out and fine-tuning my eye for details (be they small or large).
And from what I could gather from the various visa forums, this lack of applying for a re-entry visa is a somewhat common phenomenon, which does ease the sting of it a little. But only a little.
And now, after another relatively sleepless night, it's off to work.
Happy 2009! May we all grow a little wiser this year.....
1.) Jet lag
2.) Nieces
3.) Peter
4.) FREEZING MY ASS OFF in the frozen tundra of Minnesota
5.) Falling in love with San Francisco (omg...is there a more awesome, fascinating, romantic, REAL place filled with authentic and fashionable people in the entire universe??? I'm madly in love and will spend the next year and a half politely begging Peter to move there)
HOLY CRAP, am I glad that 2008 is over. I feel good about 2009. I feel like 2008 taught me to be impervious and calm, and I'm looking forward to leading a more balanced life in 2009.
It did, however, not get off to a perfectly seamless start.....
My school hires people to help us take care of our visa and work permit stuff. All I have to do is hand over my passport, sit in the uncomfortable plastic chairs at immigration, and sign the appropriate pages when prompted. I am very lucky in this way. However, when I recently had my visa updated, as it had expired, the person in charge of my visa and work permit handed everything back to me and said that I was all set to go. However, I was not, in fact, all set to go. I had not acquired a re-entry permit, which is necessary in order to, well, re-enter the country on this particular visa. For some reason, I didn't think anything of it, even though I had had a re-entry permit with my last visa. I figured that I could put my faith (and immigration status) in this poor guy's hands without checking things over for myself.
I am the Dumbest Person Alive.
I didn't realize my mistake until arriving at the immigration checkpoint here in Bangkok around 2 a.m. after a sleepless plane ride wherein a toddler kicked my seat the entire time. My lack of re-entry permit means that I had to get a 30-day tourist visa, thereby invalidating my official visa. From what I understand, I have to reapply for my official visa at a consulate outside of Thailand, and while the school usually pays for the entire visa process, I will have to (rightfully) fund this little adventure on my own.
I haven't been able to sleep since coming back to Bangkok on account of all of this. While I can be extremely diligent in some areas of my life (like writing papers and planning instruction and wearing sunblock and flossing), it's like I lack complete and utter common sense in others (and frequently these areas seem to always include official documents.....). I never check receipts to make sure that everything is on the up and up, I dropped the ball more than once with my teacher certification paperwork and coursework (which has mostly been remedied at this point...), and I allowed myself to somehow trip and fall into a massive black hole of credit card debt (which is almost completely paid off now, but it has been a nerve-wracking and angst-ridden process). I guess I sort of float through life sometimes, figuring that all of this stuff will somehow work itself out, and that everyone around me can be trusted without any hesitation whatsoever, and that I will always be taken care of. And that's a great way to live your life when you're, y'know, FIVE.
So my biggest resolution for 2009? GROW THE FUCK UP. It's time for Mama to take responsibility for her own ducks and putting them in an orderly row. So the visa situation is going to be very aggravating for me and my employers, and it will most likely be a somewhat costly process for me. And yes, it will probably also cost me a few nights of sleep, waking up with my heart pounding and my inner critic bludgeoning me to death, telling me that I have nary a brain in my head. But, well, this minor crisis will pass, and in the meantime I've learned a very valuable life lesson about, y'know, checking things out and fine-tuning my eye for details (be they small or large).
And from what I could gather from the various visa forums, this lack of applying for a re-entry visa is a somewhat common phenomenon, which does ease the sting of it a little. But only a little.
And now, after another relatively sleepless night, it's off to work.
Happy 2009! May we all grow a little wiser this year.....
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