Clare Elsewhere

As I finish my last day of classes and tutoring, it's hard not to see how things have changed over the course of the past few months. It's hard not to see how teaching has had an impact on my perspective, and hopefully a lasting one.  My office :) I started out coming to Thailand, teaching as a means to finance it. As the term comes to a close, the focus has shifted: I've been learning how to teach, with Thailand just as the setting. It certainly has influenced a lot in my classroom- the culture of the students, the structure of the education system, my status as a foreigner and the extreme language barrier between my co-teachers, my students, and myself. And over the weekends and holidays, I was able to enjoy uniquely Thai and exotic places and experiences.  But unlike my study abroad in Brazil (sorry CIEE), the most memorable times for me in Thailand, the lessons I will hold on to, occurred in the classroom or at least in the school yard.  There is an i

In a country that knows no winter or snow,  the movie "Frozen" is a household and classroom favorite. For many of my students, singing along to "frozen" songs is the most English words they've even spoken consecutively, some of their best pronunciation, and a good chunk of their vocabulary.  It's catchy. It's enticing, and incredibly foreign to them (when I asked my fourth graders to draw a picture of the best weather they can think of, I got a lot of snow, snowmen, winter, cool, cold).  They might like the tune, might like the simplicity, might be fascinated by the concept of winter. But there's also an incredibly strong tie between the "theme" song, "Let it Go" and the behavior and attitude in Thai culture.  When I first explained the lyrics to my kids (1st through 6th graders), I did it word by word but then also tried to give them a comparison. "Let it go" is similar to the Thai "Mai bpen rai" li

 Over the past few months, there have been a lot of things that have inspired me to write, to blog, or just to post lengthy Facebook statuses (the most elegant of mediums)- but not many of them have found their way to completion, not many of them have actually been published. Pi Ot, our lovely landlord/mother Maybe that's due to my own disjointed thought process- that I'm not sure where I'm going with them. Maybe it's because I'm been busy (passionately, crazily) with school. Maybe it's because it's Thailand, and having a plan, or finishing something is just a foreign idea (finals are next week for my school, but they still haven't decided when summer break will start. Maybe the next Monday, maybe the following Wednesday... we will see. Probably won't know until the night before.) Maybe it's just a lot of excuses. Regardless, I have an account full of drafts that may or may not find their way to completion. Through them all, however, I

In the past years, months, weeks and even days, I have been blessed with incredible opportunities to travel. To move. To see the world. View from our boat in Koh Phi Phi Whether that's a tuk-tuk across town, a boat ride to an island, biking to work, flying 20+ hours to get to Thailand, or a cab ride from Bangkok to Ayutthaya at 1:00am (think South Bend from Chicago), traveling itself  is just time spent in limbo. Floating, bumping, dragging, speeding from one place to the next, transitioning. Climbing into each mode of transportation, you're faced with an immediate, important decision: where do I want to sit? On airplanes, you're given a little extra time to think about it, but then again there's more to consider. With buses, trains, minivans, motorbikes, tuktuks and boats, you need to pick right away, and your decision, once made, often cannot be easily changed. Do you want to catch a glimpse of a sunrise or sunset? Will you pass any interesting landmarks or

Teachers, I salute you. I salute you, I admire you, and I apologize for any mistreatment. All of that is coming back to haunt me in this karma-centric country. Seriously. Garnering the attention of a mob, maintaining it, and doing something meaningful with it... that takes a lot of skill. I am only two days into my term as an English teacher, but I already am starting to realize how much energy, time and creativity this position demands. Let's go to Thailand! I thought. Let's spend a lot of time there! I planned. Let's fully immerse in the language and culture! I dreamed. Let's do something meaningful! I hoped. Let's teach! I jumped ahead of myself. An extreme troublemaker who hates me during class, but comes to play in my office during his breaks Granted, I'm only teaching for one semester. I only have 3-5 classes per day, and I've been blessed with incredible resources- through my school itself, through the agency that has employed me, and

One of the stranger things about traveling, or just leaving home in general, is finding your new definition of home. Whether that's the hotel room you use as your orbital hub, the classroom you tend to sleep in, or the cafe that remembers your iced coffee order with no sugar- it holds some sense of belonging, an anchor in your wanderings. Awful (poem?) tag found in the night market In Thailand, I've been looking for that. Trying to find some place that really resonates, allows me to find peace and think, reflect- allows me to just be, rather than constantly looking, observing, experiencing. Trying to find some place that resonates with who I am, and with what I'm looking for. This becomes exponentially harder as I don't really have an image or even a ballpark for either of those inquiries. I've been in Thailand for just over two weeks now, and I'm in the process of picking a region and school for the next few months. I'm in the process of moving a

Tonight, barring major catastrophe, marks my last night in the United States for 137 days. In that time span, I have a lot of expectations, a lot of aspirations, and I'm looking for a lot of inspiration. Thailand lies ahead, months of learning, teaching, exploring and adventuring-- but also months of uncertainty. As my mother would like to remind me, Thailand is not in the most comforting of political states currently. And by that, I mean it's a full-blown coup . We've done a fair amount of research, and that itself is not an extreme detriment to travel- Thailand's had 19 coups in 80 years , so this, if anything, is giving me a realistic experience. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest standing monarch. In Thailand he has semi-divine status and criticism against him is met with defamation charges and severe jail time. The part about it all that is actually giving me pause- not the martial law, not the curfew, not the uncertainty about the future go

As soon as I started writing a reminiscence, I could feel the clichés. Friendships made abroad, changed outlook on life, memories and longings and connections that can't fully translate- to words, to explanations, to the States in general. But if they are clichés, then so be it. Maybe that's where clichés come from- the experiences so foreign, so intangible that no real explanation will do them justice, and we force them into these boxes and phrases, force them into familiarity. We recognize a piece of what we felt, a piece of what we experienced, and tie it down to a theme or image that others may also recognize. Or maybe clichés are just overused bits of language and I'm creatively frustrated. Y'all can decide.  At the end of our term, last June, we ventured off into the Amazon, rushed through some "finals" and then careened back into the states to start a marathon of different events- internship, rugby season, SENIOR YEAR- life at full sp