MicahJohn

My break has officially begun. I leave Ubon for Buntarik today.

There have been a few times here in Thailand when I’ve run into people who speak English non-natively, but with a very high proficiency. Several of them have really surprised me with the number of obscenities they can work into a simple conversation with a new acquaintance.

I have come to the conclusion that the most probable explanation for this is that these people developed their English skills by use, probably in a university setting, among friends who used obscene words as a part of their regular speech. I assume, that like good second language learners, the people I’ve met are simply imitating speech patterns. They’re not trying to be obscene. They are attempting to sound native. They are speaking the way they have heard native speakers speak.

I’ve come to this conclusion after having a few of my Thai friends respond with shock to speech devices I’ve used. I’m simply imitating what I’ve heard, not realizing that in some situations what I’m saying can be quite rude.

Today I received the following note:

We are sorry about the poor internet service you have been experiencing. The service has been ungraded to 5 Mb. Hopefully there will be future problems !

I’m not entirely sure what it means to ungrade an internet connection. I know I’m not in agreement with my landlady’s hopes for future problems.

My visa is now good until 31 March 2010!

Until yesterday I couldn’t have told you where to find a public library in Ubon. A friend had mentioned to me that there was one in the public hospital, but I had never made the journey to discover it.

With the help of one of the hospital guards I found my way to the library. It felt so good to work my way through the shelves. It had been too long since I’d felt the peace of towering book stacks; the peace of browsing shelves, hearing stories call to me; the peace of opening a book; of sitting down with it; of reading surrounded by the soft noises of a dozen other people serenely browsing shelves, softly opening books, slowly sitting down, silently reading.

I stayed until closing.