MicahJohn

Today I sat in on a lesson on learning English delivered primarily in Thai. I sat there both to practice listening to Thai and to get some ideas for language learning. Both goals were achieved. In the midst of it the speaker unintentionally reminded me of how meaningless life is without the life of Christ. He was encouraging the students not just to eat, poop, and sleep; but instead to agressively learn English and get rich. Adding ‘aquiring wealth’ to the list of things to do, didn’t seem to me to add all that much more meaning to the whole life thing.

Time in Thailand is different than time in the U.S. Saturday night I had worship practice “around 5:00.” Apparently, “around 5:00″ roughly translates to 7:13. The pace of the practice also reflected a difference in temporal attitude. We didn’t leave until 9:40. We then met again the next morning “at 7:00″ (people other than myself showed up between 8:05 and 9:00). Sunday night we met to go out for dinner “at 6:00″ (we left the meeting place sometime after seven).

So time is part of the culture that I still need to figure out. Some things really do start at the stated time. I’m never sure when to show up an hour late and when to be on time.

In other news, the choir sang on Sunday and I had a solo . . . in Spanish!

Last night Pi Silk took me to a Thai fair. There, for 75 cents I watched a seventeen year old ride a motorcycle around the vertical walls of a cylindrical tank. As he was riding around (necessarily quite fast), he swung his one leg over the bike, so that he was sitting side saddle. He then took his hands off the handlebars and spread his arms like he was flying. He several times turned himself towards the rim of the tank and turned back down just in time to avoid flying over the lip to his death. Wow.

Today I hopped on (the back of) a motorcycle to go with two friends to the park to exercise. The plan was to lift weights. The weights in the park had a sign saying that the weights were for members only. Upon inquiry this simply meant you had to call a phone number and make a donation. Nonetheless, we decided not to become members. It was about 6:00. (At 6:00 pm I think every park everywhere in this country plus a few shopping centers have aerobic dance.) We decided to attend the aerobic dance. It is hard to keep both the legs and arms doing the same thing as the leader. After 45 minutes we decided to call it a night, leaving over a hundred others to continue the ritual without us.

On the way back I was again seated behind someone on a motorcycle. We were following a guy riding solo. As we were weaving in and out of cars stopped at a red light, we had trouble keeping pace with the guy riding solo. We were a little bit bulkier. At one point my ankle clipped a parked motorcycle. The end.

Yesterday was a good day. The week had been admittedly a little rough. The sudden addition of 60 people to the building made sleep a little difficult for the first two nights. Additionally I was having a hard time feeling like I belonged. There were lots of groups of people, but none of them seemed readily penetrable, especially for someone with weak

Thai. Living alone I have not often felt lonely. This last week surrounded by people I felt very much lonely.

Yesterday, as I said, was a good day. I spent the morning talking to some of my family via Skype. In the afternoon I sat down to listen to someone I know playing guitar, and ended up spending the majority of the afternoon there. Several other people joined us. I enjoyed the time listening to music. Singing a few English songs. Talking some.

Somewhere in here I played 2 on 2 basketball.

In the evening I had an extra choir practice (to prepare for Palm Sunday).

After choir practice I joined people on the roof of the church for another few hours of guitaring. During the time on the roof I got to know a few more of the people who are in the building, and they got to know me. I think it was a significant step from foreign towards familiar.

I’ve started my third and final module at language school. Monday at the start of the day we had a huge class of 10 students. They split us into two groups of 5. Those of us who have been studying together the last two months narrowly avoided being separated.

Entrance into module 3 means an official start to my learning of the writing and reading of the Thai script. I’ve already got a bit of a start. I’m looking forward to literacy.

In other news, 60 kids from the northeast of

Thailand moved into the church on Monday. They are here for an English camp. They will be here until I leave.

I may have mentioned that in the apartment where I am staying there have been two locked bedrooms. They are no longer locked. Staying in the rooms are people my age who are here to help with the English camp. This obviously expands opportunities both for language and culture learning, and for the unintentional, but hurtful breaking of cultural rules. I’ve realized how often I’ve been wearing my shoes inside my apartment (as much as I’m a fan of being barefoot, barefoot on tile gets old).

Not only am I in danger of breaking rules as a Westerner in Thailand, I’m also in danger of breaking rules as a male unaccustomed to mixed gender environments. Modesty rules for travel between shower and bedroom change dramatically with the introduction of females. One of the two rooms has I’m still not sure how many girls in it (I’ve gone to bed before they all arrive, and left before they all get up; there are 4 mats in the room). The other room I think has 3 guys (I’m unsure for the same reasons).