Signing off.

I arrived home safe and sound on Monday. Since then, I've been trying to find a normal sleeping schedule and adjust to... everything.

I can't believe that I'm home. When I arrived in Chiang Mai, nine months seemed like FOREVER. This past year has been one of the hardest and richest times in my twenty-three years. I learned. I struggled. Sometimes I thought I would never survive. But I did. I'm sure that now I don't realize how much I have changed and grown.

I won't miss everything about Thailand. I won't miss the traffic. I won't miss the pollution. I won't miss the heat and humidity. But I will miss the smell of chilis that makes my nose run. I'll miss the way the mist hangs over the tops of the mountains in the early morning. I'll miss my friends. I know I'll go back to Thailand some day. It's hard not to know when. But I know I'll go back. Thailand is a part of me; every time I say goodbye, my heart breaks a little.

I've decided to retire this blog. It was meant to make it easier to update all of you about my life while I was in Thailand. Thanks for sticking with me, thanks for your prayers and encouragement.

God bless.

The last blog post in Thailand...

Dear friends,

In a few hours, I will fly from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then fly from Bangkok to LAX. If you would pray for safe and hassle-free traveling, I would really appreciate it. I'll be writing a longer post once I get home, but for now I can't really process what is going on.

So, sawatikhaa and chok dii.

Megan

"Writing a poem is discovering." - R. Frost

Luke 7: 37 - 47

Dust fills deep creases
Like a map of footsteps
Already taken.
One toenail is black.

Her tears anoint Him.
Her sins flow between His toes.
She kneels,
Touching her cheek to His ankle.
One thick braid
Erases her pain
From the soles of His feet.

Alabaster splinters.
Aroma spills.
Bergamot, almond, cardamom;
Oil separates
From salty water.

Her sins have been forgiven;
She loved much.

Super Tuesday.

A few weeks ago, one of my students (Sirikanya, a first-year English major) stopped me after class. She wanted to know all about the American primaries. She asked me whether I was a Democrat or a Republican and wanted to know who I voted for. I was thrilled to hear that if she was an American citizen, she would support Barack Obama for president.

I asked her why she was interested. She replied that the US has a lot of influence in the world, and to be a responsible citizen of Thailand, she needs to be informed about what happens in the world. I was proud of her and told her so. I try to incoporate current events from around the world in my classes; unfortunately, a lot of my students are completely uninterested.

I can't take credit for her global-mindedness, but at least I can say she is my student!

Current reading list...

Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding

The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

The Human Factor, by Graham Greene

A Book of Memories, by Peter Nadas

Final exams.

I can't believe my last semester teaching at CMU ended two weeks ago. Now I am buried up to my ears in final exams, trying to have them all graded by the deadline. I have exactly 150 students, so multiply that by about 7 - 10 minutes, and you get a whoooole lot of time spent grading. As a student, all you have to do is take the exam. The teachers have to grade them! At least the exams are made out of recycled paper.

Grading exams is always frustrating and a little demoralizing. Quite a few of my students will flunk the course. At least, they would flunk if the grades weren't curved. I don't get any input on the curve or the cutoff points, so it is hard for me not to feel like my grades are obsolete. Also, the senior professors have the authority to change the grades I give. Yes, that is right. They can arbitrarily decide that my grades are too high/ too low and tell me that I have to change them. Without my consent. This drives me CRAZY, and I think it is actually very unethical. That hasn't happened yet, but I get frustrated just thinking about it.

(Deep breath). Oh well. Now, if I was president of the world...

... I would make ALL final exams oral. We would save some trees AND have less exams to grade! Perfect.

More pictures!

As promised...

... some pictures from when my family visited. Enjoy!

Here are the four of us at Doi Suthep...



... Lauren and me on an elephant...



... some monks at a temple (I think at Wat Chedi Luang)...



... Lauren and Dad on a bamboo raft...



... and the Amari Emerald Cove Resort, our gorgeous hotel on Koh Chang. I think this picture is taken from the balcony of one of our rooms.

Homesickness: Noun - A longing to return home.

It comes at unexpected times. This morning, it was seeing my Golden Retriever, Guinevere, looking at me from across the world on a Skype camera. She had her chewy bone, like always, in her mouth. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be home in my house, in the Central Valley, sitting on the hardwood floor in the family room and petting my dog. I know. It's strange.

When I get homesick here, I feel strange, almost ungrateful. Here I am, living in another country, a country that some would call exotic. I'm lucky, right? How many people want to do what I'm doing and don't get to do it? I'm blessed. I'm lucky!

Nevertheless, it happens. Today, I changed my plane ticket. It is official; I will be back in California on Monday, March 2nd. My time in Thailand has an actual ending. I can see it in the not - so - distant horizon, only six weeks away. Somehow having the date set in stone makes it feel even farther away. I love Thailand. I love Chiang Mai. But sometimes, it feels like I've been here forever and I can't really remember life before Thailand, at least not in vivid detail.

I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss healthy Christian community. I miss Santa Barbara. I miss SCHOOL!

My future is somewhat uncertain. I expect to hear from most graduate schools in mid to late March. I hate that a few people on an application review committee have my destiny in their hands. Yes, I know, I'm being dramatic, but they do have an awful lot of power. I'm looking forward to the next chapter in my life. I'm eager to begin school and be around people who love literature as much as I do.

But for the next six weeks, I hope to live in the moment, enjoy Thailand and enjoy the people that I've met here. We always want what we don't have, right?

Ha.

One of my favorite things to do in Chiang Mai is listen to conversations while riding on a "songtao," the most common form of public transportation. Usually this involves listening to conversations regarding myself. I often overhear conversations with two or more locals discussing me. Most Thai people assume that, as a farang, I am unable to speak or understand Thai. Little do they know!

Here is a conversation that occurred yesterday, when a gaggle of first-year nursing students joined me on the bus:

Girl #1: Look at that professor. Her skin is so white!
Girl #2: I like her hair.
Girl #1: Do you think she can speak Thai?
Girl #2: No, I don't think so.

Me: Actually, yes, I can speak Thai!

(Exclamations of surprise and delight by said nursing students).

They then proceeded to ask me what my name was, where I'm from, if I like Thailand, and where I learned to speak Thai. When they arrived at their stop, all waved goodbye and wished me a lovely weekend. I'm going to miss the friendliness of the people here when I get back to the States.

They came and conquered.

Here's a little update since I haven't blogged in a while (wow, did we ever think "blogged" would become a verb?):

My family had a great time. I had a lot of fun taking them to my favorite places in Chiang Mai, as well as elephant riding, Doi Suthep, and Koh Chang.

I think the highlight of the trip was going to Koh Chang, an island several miles off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Siam. We stayed at a gorgeous resort right on the beach and did nothing but lay on beach chairs, swim in the ocean, and read for five days. We did go snorkeling one day at a smaller island near Koh Chang. My mother, the snorkeling FANATIC, went crazy and stayed in the water looking at fish long after Dad, Lauren and I had retired. My favorite fish that I saw was the parrotfish, which is crazily colored. And we saw about a gazillion sea cucumbers, which I've never seen in the wild before. Pretty cool.

Now they have returned to California and I'm back in the routine of teaching classes at CMU. My students have about three more weeks of class and then we start final exams! I can't believe it.

I'll try to bum some pictures off my family in the next few days and post them so y'all can see a snippet of our adventures.