Working hard in Bangkok

February has been and will be a hectic month. We didn't have visitors for three months, and then everyone decides to come in February. We have visitors every week, and I am busy entertaining, washing sheets, in between studying Thai and teaching Chinese.

After all this is third world. As much as my friends envy our "luxury" living, I wonder if they can be as creative as me to dry bed sheet on dining table. Dryer is non-existent, neither is coin laundry in this hood.

My hand hurts when I stay on the computer for more than 10 minutes. And I really can't answer everyone's email. My blogging is the only way to answer everyone's questions, such as where we are, what we are doing.

So I am working hard to try out another career. I've been teaching Chinese since November. I'm teaching in a Chinese language school. I applied at several schools and this one is the only one that is in shortage of teachers. But they only have two classes a week for me, which is sufficient for me to tell if I like it, but not sufficient to pay our utility bills.

I like teaching students who are eager to learn or disciplined. For students who have 1 second attention span, it's very challenging. My favorite was an 11-year-old French girl who is a student of another teacher. I taught her when her teacher went back to China for a month. She was like a sponge, and she studied in between classes. She speaks French, English, a little Thai and a little Chinese now. For siblings who study together, it's always a problem. I had two Korean brothers and have had two Thai sisters. The younger one is always the "lazy" one. The older ones would learn and know their stuff, but the younger ones would just tag along and be clueless, and then the older ones would despise the younger and call them "stupid". I still have the Thai sisters and they are really sweet girls. I have to find creative ways to have the younger one learn a little bit more without boring the older one. Somehow some parents have the notion that their kids are better learning together, maybe they get a discount. I don't know. Our landlord have twins, and they purposely separate them in school.

I always love teaching adults, except at my last job to someone who didn't really care to learn. I have an adult Thai student now who is really eager to learn. He is Chinese decent, and had lived in Singapore when he was young and learned some Chinese. Now he wants to pick up where he left off so he doesn't waste such a beautiful language.

Learning Thai has become more challenging. Keeping up the discipline to memorize the vocabulary and sentence patterns everyday is difficult. Strangely, finding someone to practice is also difficult in this Japanese neighborhood. We live in an inconvenient location that in order to reach the public transport, we have to take a taxi, or a long sweaty walk.

Brent is working hard on his trading project. He's currently busy writing an article for IBM that he needs to submit by mid Feb.

We will be back in New York in June. All good things have to end. We can only live on our savings for so long. I have to find a job that pays the bills.