Packing Reminiscences

It’s Sunday night and I’ve begun packing for my trip home which starts Tuesday, and ends sometime Wednesday afternoon (PLUS the 11 hours I’ll be living twice as I switch my clock back). As far as the “departure process” goes, I think this is a pretty important step so I wanted to take a few minutes to put my brain-pen to e-paper and sort out what’s going through my head.

Firstly, I’m really excited. It’s been building slowly for the past few weeks, but now I can’t wait to come home. This is quite different from the way I was feeling when I finished work and began the “research phase” of my placement at the end of March, then I wanted nothing more than to stay on at NEED and keep teaching those amazing, inspirational students.

The thing that kind of takes the fun out of the feelings of excitement, is that I have the feeling it will be pretty short lived after I get home. I doubt it will take too long for the novelty of convenient public transport and daily weather changes to wear off and for me to begin missing Thailand HARD. Fortunately I’ve got a few things lined up to help buffer the transition process and make things easier for myself.

I’m co-coaching a Frisbee team with two very good long time friends this summer and that’s something I’m really looking forward to. I think I may have actually played MORE Frisbee in Chiang Mai over the course of the year than I did at home, at least in terms of consistency. Twice a week will keep your game sharp, provided you’re playing with the right people and I feel like I haven’t slipped too far from the level I was playing in Toronto. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually played WITH anyone from Toronto in a year, so maybe it’s all in my head and I’m actually terrible now. Here’s hoping I don’t get blown out of the water.

I’ve really missed my longboard while in Thailand. This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone who’s never ridden a longboard before, and I can forgive all of you for that. Seriously though, I think about it a disturbing amount and going for a sidewalk cruise is going to be pretty high on the list of things to do as soon as I get home.

Seeing friends and family is probably number one for me in terms of things to be excited about. I’ve heard stories from other people who’ve returned from placement about how disheartened they were after getting back because they’d just gone through this huge experience and it kind of seemed like nobody back home really cared to hear about it. This is definitely a possibility, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with it but simply being aware of the fact that this might be the case I think puts me in a better position to deal with it if it does happen.

What if everyone back home has changed and I don’t fit into anyone’s plans anymore? Or what if I’ve changed to the point that we don’t get along anymore? I’m definitely going to be analyzing the differences between Thais and North American’s for awhile after getting back. For example, while North American youth right now are doing the Stanky Legg, the kids in Thailand are getting down on the dance floor to Thaitanium. Actually, I guess there’s not that huge a difference between lame hip hop and lame Thai hip hop. I am planning to bring back a fair amount of Thai music though, there’s a surprisingly large indie music scene here and a lot of it is good stuff.

As I was packing, I stumbled across a packing list I’d written before I left home in preparation for coming here. It made me stop for a second because it sort of brought home how “full circle” this experience has been for me. I remember clearly sitting at my desk in Markham writing the list, and here I am, almost a year to the day later packing again for the reverse experience. How am I different today than I was then? More mature? Maybe…more organized? Yeah, right. More open to new experiences? I feel like I was a pretty open person to begin with, but I’d say yes. This sort of self-reflection is going to play a big part of my transition home and you’re welcome to come along for the ride. I can’t promise it will be pretty but it may make for some interesting reading.

Tomorrow I’ve got a “lunch meeting” (because I think “lunch date” sounds weird) to go for Som Tam (spicy green mango salad with fish sauce, peanuts, dried shrimp, chilis and tomato all crushed together in a giant mortar…the production is a sight to behold) with a Thai guy I met at the vegetarian restaurant down the street from where I’m living now. He doesn’t speak English. I think he’s basically a testament to how far I’ve come language wise in a year. From not knowing a single word of the language to being able to carry a (though semi-coherent at times) conversation with a stranger, and having them be engaged enough to want to hang out again is HUGE for me. There were definitely some dark and very discouraging nights for me on my road to learning Thai but the payoff has been worth the struggle a thousand times over. And before any of you go getting silly ideas, there’s nothing romantic about two guys going for som tam on a Monday afternoon.

All right, it’s time to make some more hard decisions…to bring or not to bring….this bag isn’t going to stuff itself with my junk.