February 4, 2002: Checked out of the Galare Guest House early; on the one hand I hated to go, on the other hand the concept of moving into my "own" condo in another country had me totally excited — and nervous at the same time. It's been about 25 years since I last did such a thing. More on this subject here. I've got a "warm place to sleep", now I can concentrate on learning.
I walked to AUA, allowed about 45 minutes but it took fifteen, half of which was probably spent trying to cross the street without getting flattened. The extra half hour allowed me to calm down a little bit. Anxious? Me anxious? The Instructor, "Gan" (nickname for Kanthira) is a woman in her mid-late 20s I'd guess, full of smiles, probably thinks I'm a crazy farang but would never come out and say it. The class is intense but quite different from my Paris French language "adventure" (which left me in tears on several occasions), it's intense at my pace. This class is one-on-one, just me and Ms. Gan. No competition from polylingual 19-year-olds.
At this writing, I've only completed five hours, but it seems like 50. That's not a bad thing ("I've been married for 2 years, but it feels like 20"), is just that my mind (and my notebook, which ain't gunna last long at this rate) are both filled with Thai. I am totally into it. I'm a little reluctant to practice "on a live audience" but hope that soon I'll be more daring. Watch out, Chiang Mai!
The class seemed neither long nor short, I was neither wishing "Gawd, would this just get over", nor did I want it to go any longer. Today's class was three hours, originally planned as a 2+1 with a lunch break, we decided that the continuity and the fact that we'd both be off at 11:30, was worth the long period. We take a couple of breaks and enjoy the sunshine. Gan, who like most Thais (especially women) seems quite thin, just gets frozen in our classroom. Without the aircon.
The classroom itself isn't ideal to my taste; room for about 25 with bright (in the acoustic sense, it kind of echoes which isn't conducive to listening) with a big whiteboard. I sit at a small desk about 4 feet from the board; Gan stands at the board most of the time. Our relationship is professional but cordial, she says "Chai!" (yes) whenever I say something right, but makes a funny grimace, not quite a frown, when I get it wrong. She says I'm not the only one to observe her body language; I tell her that I can read Kathy like a book (even though she doesn't think so). Anyway, I'm running maybe 80/20 on the Chai! to frown ratio. And three people (Gan and someone at Heifer, both called my early attempts at Thai script "suay!" (beautiful). I am sure they are all kindly liars. (Later I learn terms that mean "Really?" and "You're not serious, but thanks")
Having studied Japanese turns out to be somewhat helpful for Thai. It isn't that the languages are even slightly similar, but some of the hurdles are the same in both — the way they deal with ordinal (1st 2nd 3rd) and cardinal (1 2 3), for example.
So when you're headed for bed, think of me as I'm headed for class. Come to think of it, this experience (so far) really has been "day and night" relative to anything in recent memory.