Feb 8, 2002: My Teacher laid down the law today. Starting on Monday, she won't answer my questions unless they're asked in Thai.
Is this 0 to 60 in 4 seconds or less, or what?
It changes the whole basis of our interactions. This is not such a bad thing. For the first week, I was allowed to use English as a crutch to get to Thai. And it really is a crutch; if you can't work in the language or constantly switch "thinking modes" back and forth — progress is significantly hampered, I think. I suspect if I can master "Help me pronounce this in Thai", "How do you write it", "How do you say <phrase> in Thai" — she'll cut me a lot of slack. [Actually she cuts me quite a bit of slack].
Today's Friday. The end of my first week. Next week will be easier in ways as the Heifer staff will be off on a "Study Tour", so I'll only be in the office on Monday. Then I'll have the rest of the afternoons "off" from "work", leaving time to study or just goof off. After that time (Friday, 2/15) I am scheduled for a short vacation — no class AND no Heifer. But this will be short, only thru Tuesday 2/19.
I hope that will give me the opportunity to apply what I've learned — a kind of "sink or swim moment". Speaking of which, after a week in the condo, I still haven't been to the pool. Soon this will change. [Third week, still no pool]
No big plans for the weekend. I have a homework assignment that will take a few hours. It is compatible with doing at poolside, although it would look a bit strange. It's likely I'll spend part of the weekend wandering around my new environs; Kathy and I had done some wandering around, but mostly toward the east-central part of Chiang Mai. I'm up in the north-west corner now.
Last week Chiang Mai started closing off parts of Tapae Road to vehicles, as Bangkok has done (I've written about this elsewhere), so I might join the party down there and see what they're doing. Also, a massage would feel quite nice... massage runs 100 baht ($2.30) per hour, and tipping is completely optional. At that rate I could just spent the weekend at it.