Good Things Thursday IV: Not dead!

Well, here we are. It’s (technically) Thursday, and I’m posting Good Things after a sabbatical of two months. Whew. That’s a hefty break. However: We now resume our previously scheduled programming. We’ll pick up counting in Greek.

Edeka.11: As stated above, the best Good Thing about this particular Thursday is that I am not dead and have, in fact, decided to start blogging again. Included in this Good Thing is: A) Precious laptop fixed (Did you know there’s no Apple store in Thailand? Well, there isn’t. Not even Bangkok.), and B) Moved back to the US.

What? you may be asking. I thought you lived in Thailand… and liked it there and stuff? Isn’t this a travel blog?

To answer those in order:

1. I moved back to the US. San Francisco, specifically; I’m crashing with my brother while I find a job and a place to live.
2. I did. Then I moved back.
3. I love Thailand. It’s not like I’ll never go back. It was just time to come home.
4. No.

Moving on…

Dear Charlie Sheen: You are a TOOL

Normally I try to stick to being positive and uplifty and all that crap. Not today.

You’ve been warned.

* * *

Charlie Sheen is a selfish, narcissistic, abusive asshole.

CBS cut off the end of this season of Two and a Half Men, and his response was:

I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong.

Charlie Sheen wants YOU to “march up the steps of justice” to right the “unconscionable wrong” of his show’s season being cut off early.

People are sacrificing their lives for freedom in Libya. People are fighting for their basic human rights across the Middle East and Africa. Trust me, Charlie Sheen, missing a few episodes of your television show is not an “unconscionable wrong”.

An unconscionable wrong is that you are getting press attention while they are sacrificing everything to overthrow their dictators.

Good Things Thursday III: I got to drive home in the rain!

Happy Thursday! Today I bring you Good Things numbered in Korean. And since it’s time to focus on Good Things, I’m not going to dwell on missing Good Things last week.

Yeodeol.8: Yesterday there was a rainstorm and I got to drive home in it on my motorbike!

The most important thing to understand about this rainstorm is that I’d been waiting for it for some two weeks. It had been so humid, so hot and sticky. Every morning I’d wake up, look outside, and think that it would rain that day. But by noon it always cleared off and just left a hot, sticky afternoon for us to bake in. Grr.

Yesterday, though, it finally happened. The sky turned that crazy apocalyptic storm color, the wind picked up, and as I was finishing up in the office after school, the heavens opened upon us.

Breaking out of Lurkers Anonymous with PostAWeek, One Little Word, and Books I Should Have Read in School

Hello, my name is Donna and I’m an internet lurker.

I spend hours every day reading news, blogs, tweets, status updates, etc. ad nauseum – but I never commented until a couple months ago when I decided that I wanted more than five people to read my blog.

This year I’ve kind of half-heartedly thought about breaking out of my lurkdom by joining things. (I sound super enthusiastic, no?) Every time I tell myself I’m going to do it, though, I think that maybe I should just wait and see how I do before I post anything about it. However, I’ve come to realize that this is stupid, because journeys make interesting stories, not destinations.

Thus, I’ve decided to just go for it. There are three things I’ve really been excited about doing this year: Post a Week, One Little Word, and Books I Should Have Read in School but Didn’t. I don’t know if I’m going to meet my goals. I don’t know if I’m going to like being a joiner. Sometimes I think it might be better to keep talking to myself.

Oh, well. I guess being a hermit on the internet really takes introversion too far.

The sun and I were playing a game… and my camera won

When I decided to move to Thailand, I also decided to invest in a beginner DSLR camera. Considering how poor I was (working two jobs and I still didn’t have health insurance), deciding to spend $500 on anything would’ve been a pretty major decision even if I hadn’t had all the other concerns involved with moving to the other side of the planet. I swore up and down that I would not waste that $500 because I knew going in that it meant my buffer was going to be much smaller when I got here.

I’m sure you know what happens next.

Because any time you have lead in like that, you know that what comes next is the camera sitting in a box for ten months.

To be fair, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I took my camera out and had a lot of fun teaching myself some basics of photo composition, but I’ve still been entirely dependent on the auto features – taking the “SLR” right out of my expensive digital camera.

I’ve finally managed to sit down and read things like my camera manual and a couple photography tutorials, though, and it’s all because I hopped onto my motorbike and headed out to Khlong Tha Dan Dam (the largest RCC dam in the world!).

My Mom Jokes: Because Trauma is Funny!

You’ve heard of Yo Mama jokes.

You’ve heard of the more grammatically correct Your Mom jokes.

Now it’s time to introduce my very own… My Mom Jokes.

My Mom Jokes are special because… Oh, wait – I don’t have a mom! (Oh, snap!)

Good Things Thursday II: A five year old is smarter than me!

Cuatro.4: Yesterday morning I had a meeting so I wasn’t able to go to my class as usual, which is not the Good Thing. It did mean, however, that the first time I went to my class was yesterday afternoon, not long after the kids woke up from their nap. If you’ve ever known any four to five year olds, then you also know that after an unexpectedly long absence, they are ecstatic to see you.

The result? I was nearly trampled over by children whose heads barely reach my waist.

“Teacher Donna! Teacher Donna!” I felt like Caesar.

“Teacher, I’m sad!” <cute little cry face> This has become their favorite joke with me since I taught them simple feeling words. They say they’re sad, mime tears… and grin the whole time.

“Teacher, X is sad!” And then they like to get me to comfort anyone who actually is sad. (In case you didn’t notice, names have been changed to protect the wee little innocent ones.)

“Teacher, high five!” “Teacher, high ten!” “Teacher, high one!” I’ve already discussed how awesome high fives are, but after awhile they become slightly less entertaining, for both me and the kids. So of course I upgraded them to high tens, and then at some point I needed to be quiet and thus introduced high one. But read on to Dos to discover how one of my students used high fingers to prove she’s smarter than I am.

Good Things Thursday I

Let’s start off by addressing the obvious: It’s not Thursday.

Believe me, I know. If it was Thursday, I would be rounding up my class and taking them to the bathroom right about now. Good Thing #1: It’s Saturday, and I got to sleep in, workout, and meditate this morning!

Point number song (2): You may have noticed that after really-really thinking I would start doing a weekly Rad Roundup, I… didn’t.

And where do those two things collide? In introducing Good Things Thursday, of course!

(I really super promise not to stay so frakking cheery.)

This generation apparently fails?

We’re not inventive.

We’re not learning.

We’re not empathetic.

We’re not, we’re not, we’re not.

All three of these articles have been published in the last two days. How is it that in the last two days, researchers have found three totally separate things that this generation apparently fails at?

I had a bad lesson

They were just sitting there staring at me. Not five minutes before, all thirty of them had agreed that they understood their instructions and were ready to get started. I’d split them into their groups, and… then they just sat there. Silently.

And stared at me.

At that moment, I seriously contemplated walking out of the classroom and down to the English Program office, gathering up everything I owned, and leaving. I wasn’t even just thinking of going back to my house to have a good cry and pity party over my absolute failure as a teacher; I was honestly considering packing up all my belongings and preparing to leave Thailand to head back to the US within a week.

Perhaps I was being a bit melodramatic, but I’d already had a really long week and it’s only hump day.