When the Going Gets Tough, Get On the Bus, Gus

I had a job and then I didn't.  Much as I wanted to go back to auditing, my career came to a crashing halt after only two weeks.  Working in a sweatshop was not my lifelong dream and each day I had to kill the ants covering my desk, so maybe I need to find a new home.  The owner, my direct boss, didn't seem to know what auditors do.  He was impatient and rude with me after the first half of my first day.  After that I got food poisoning and went downhill from there.  Thus, I am back in the market for a job.

I read an article at www.ajarn.com the other day which did brighten me up some.  It talks about how one fellow taught in Asia for ten years and then decided to go back home....to Washington, the place I only left four months ago.  He discovered the job market is still terrible there and made me realize that, perhaps I should just stick it out here for a while longer.  You can see his article here.  A Teacher Goes Back Home

I went back online to search for a job at the same website, focusing mainly on where I am now, Chiang Mai.  Not much showed up, though I did get to interview and test for a pre-kindergarten job and another with a high school three hours south of here.  The latter is in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and tall trees.  The nearest town is a ten minute drive and when you get there the biggest store is a 7/11.  I would get a free apartment.  Unfortunately it was, to this westerner's eyes, more of a cell than an apartment.  It had three rooms, all blue concrete with blue floors, no furniture, no closets and the kitchen was just a room.  There was no sink or stove or anything to make it habitable.  The last straw was that the bathroom had no hot water.  Most of the teachers, all of whom are female, live on campus during the week and then go home on weekends.  So far only one farang teacher had been there and he only lasted on semester.  We told family that I was going to take it but then I decided I didn't care much for living without my wife for so long.  The agency has another potential school, a high school, here in town but I decided to not put all my eggs into one basket.  I have been applying to schools everywhere today.

Nee has a place down in Bangkok which lead me to apply to some work there.  Bangkok is really the population center of Thailand.  The country has many lovely places to go to but if you want a job, you really need to go to Bangkok.  We decided I could no longer fight reality.  I applied to several places and apparently they need people down there.  Most likely I will be taking the 10 hour bus ride south tomorrow to meet with people Tuesday.  When I was in the US, I applied to work everywhere and never even got a response.  At least someone actually read my emails here.

Today, we decided to do as little as possible.  Our landlord owns much of the land around us and it is filled with coconut trees and banana trees.  We have been given a few coconuts in the past and today she decided to let me harvest a few.