Clare Elsewhere

Some uncertain stairs We've all heard about the importance of failure. Heard that we must learn from our failures, heard that greatness comes from them. I even had an incredible professor who started off our lessons with "fail stories", helping us to celebrate failures, welcome them, and improve. But that's part of the problem- or at least for me, it has been. The implication that there's a need for improvement. Which is crazy, if you think of it- there's always room for improvement, we should always be striving for improvement. But when you fail, big, loud, and proud, it brings your vulnerability, your weakness, potentially your mistakes right out into the open, and welcomes criticism. And after growing up in a family where criticism comes even when it isn't welcome, I think I'd grown quite shy of that. I took a lot of safe paths, took a relatively safe school, major, career, and projects, areas where I was sure I was going to be challenged, y...

of the essence money a flat circle free .... Time is... passing! It's something we spend so, so much time thinking about. What is the fastest way to get there? Will it be ready in time? Will we have to wait? Will we make the deadline? Whether it's planning our route home, thinking through our weekend, scheduling back to back to back to back meetings, or detailing out every moment of the next 365 days, we all function by measure of time, and we all fall victim to the constraints of it. More and more, we feel the pressures of efficiency, and the growing impatience with things that should take less time than they currently do. Long lines, traffic jams, waiting for coffee, or food delivery, or well, waiting at all seems to guarantee fits of madness.  Prime delivery is 2 days, 1 day, even offering 1-2 hours in some cities. Why? Because we've all decided that our time is too important. And it is. Time is really important. You cannot get any more- it is a finite res...

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...

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...