Ha ha-penis

Upon the suggestion from a friend over lunch I decided to give myself until Christmas to decide what was next.  Christmas comes a bit early this year.  The options were to continue teaching here in Chanthaburi, move around Thailand a bit, teach in another country, or go home.

I'm happy here.  I'm happy and I am learning so much and I think that's the objective.  In the grand scheme of things my existence will be short.  All that bullshit I stressed about in the office, nope, didn't matter.  In thirty years I won't look back on the moments of stress or insecurity, I'll look back on the sunshine and the smiles.  So why not be happy, and if you are happy, keep it up.  Right now it's as simple as that.  As much as I am smiling genuinely and laughing from the belly lately, this decision wasn't difficult.  I will be in Chanthaburi for another school year.

I made my decision about a month ago but it was on my way home from Koh Chang and I thought that maybe a ferry ride home from an epic weekend, while mentally riding on the coat-tails of utopia, wasn't the best time to make that choice.  Of course I wanted to stay!  By no means is life over here Camelot.  I've been mildly sick for four weeks now.  I work 50+ hour weeks in a somewhat stressful, fast-paced environment.  My Thai is still extremely basic and that can lead to a lot of confusing situations.  But damn is it fun.  What's a sore throat when you've stayed on island number four last weekend?  A 50 hour week doesn't feel like 'fifty' sounds when you've got twenty-three tiny friends greeting you at the beginning and end of every day.  And I am learning new Thai words everyday.  Yes, I'm homesick around the holidays and I definitely have my highs and lows, but the lows feel different than they used to.  It's not a sense of despair or depression.  Instead it feels like the natural swing of things and probably looks more like a natural sine curve than a shifted ... oh damn, I let the math nerd out to roam a bit too far.

Moral of the story, I will be here for another year.  So all of you telling me you're coming to visit next year, you can book your tickets now and I'll see you soon.

**Notables**

1) Here's a few from the Koh Chang weekend.  This crew right here is why I named it epic.  These folks are a blast and have made it feel like home when you're far away from family during the holidays.  Sorry, couldn't get the red eyes out.

We went on a very half-planned hike.  We couldn't find the trail most of the time, we didn't go very far, but we did find a calm, cool river.  On our way back we stumbled into a field of elephants.  Slightly unnerving but incredible.  They couldn't have cared less.

2)  A quality I really admire about the Thai people is how they simply do.  There was an important national holiday recently and on our way to school I see a group of people with an old picnic table top, a blue cloth, some gold ribbon, a staple gun, etc.  Some supplies obviously pulled together from whatever they could find among their homes.  Back home, if you were to make something for a religious holiday, or any day of importance really, you would try and do it the best and make it great and if you can't do the project with proper supplies you wait until you can.  A lot of the time here I see people making due with what they have and it's really inspiring.  We drove by the same site after school and they had made an impressive tribute to their holiday.

3) Island number four had fire limbo.  These are from Erin's birthday.  Unfortunately we didn't get photos from the actual limbo but they give you a shot afterward.  Look at how happy she is!  I'm headed back to Koh Samet for New Year's and I'm limbering up.