David checks in from Thailand

Hello everyone!
It's been great seeing your pictures and hearing your stories over the last couple of days. It has added significantly to my emotional return to my new quasi-hometown of Phu Khieo, Thailand, where I have spent a good chunk of my post-college years. I just spent a day at the school where I taught English for a year and then had a marvelous dinner with the girl's basketball team that I coached to the National tournament about six months ago. You probably don't remember me as a little Asian girl like Patricia, but over the last few years I think that I have spent almost enough time with them to qualify as one myself, as you can see in the picture (all my girls have their game faces on, but I'm the one doing the classic Asian girl picture pose). I can't even begin to describe how well people treat me in this town. I'm the only white person who has ever stayed in this town long enough to learn the language and become part of the community, and am thus treated like a celebrity. Anytime I walk anywhere, everyone stops their motorcycles to give me a ride. When I eat at restaurants, the owners won't accept my money. Everywhere I go all of the children greet me with "Hello David!" usually followed by adorable giggles. I try to treat them as well as they treat me, but they set a high standard. I left this town in March, after leading the "Hoosiers" of Thai girls' basketball to a 7th place finish in the country and returned to Seattle after a couple of months in a Muay Thai camp (kickboxing) in order to study for the LSAT and GRE (actually that was just my excuse for sitting around at home and reading without getting a job). After the exams I thought that I would try something new and go teach in Indonesia in a vain attempt to make a small bridge in American-Islamic relations, but it was very short-lived due to pretty intense alienation and resultant boredom. I ran away from that job and returned to Thailand despite threats of a $1000 fine for breaking my contract in Indonesia that I never signed. So here I am now with about 10 months with which to do as I please before entering academia once again. Starting next week I am off to go teach English in a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand for yet another attempt at bridging the gap in American-Islamic relations by giving the Islamic refugees from Myanmar a marketable skill that they can use to get some sort of jobs in tourist areas in Thailand to improve their situation. As much as I love hanging out with the children of Phu Khieo, they have absolutely no desire to learn English, so I feel that my services will best be applied elsewhere.

This brings me to yet another use for Mr. D's wonderful blog: After a few months in the refugee camp, followed by another shot at the Thai national basketball title, I have no plans and would love to hear more about the work that Sharla is doing in Vietnam and Cambodia. For those of you who have never been to this part of the world, you would be astonished by the amount of awful people from Western society that this part of the world attracts. Everywhere you look you find fat old white pedophiles trying to satiate their repulsive sexual appetites by preying upon the children of this continent. Their is at this moment nothing in the world that upsets me more than this scum of Western civilization that congregates out here. They provide a marked contrast between their worthless, graceless, immoral selves and the beautiful, impeccably well-mannered and graceful local people of Southeast Asia. During my time out here, I have pretty much decided that the children of Southeast Asia are my favorite people in the world. I haven't quite been everywhere yet, but I have definately done some laps around the globe over the past few years, and I can think of no better way to spend my life than to help out these children in any way that I can, and I believe that my capacity for doing so could be greatly enhanced by getting a law degree and working in the fields of International human rights and labor laws. In the meantime, however, I would love to help Sharla out in any way that I can. If your work happens to bring you into Thailand or Laos, I would be delighted to serve as a translator for you or the organization that you are working with, and if not, I would love to help out in any way that I could, after, of course, my basketball tournament in March(we'll get it this year!). Anyway, send me a reply if you read this blog and you think that I could help in any way.

Abrupt change of subject...

I can't say that my elementary school experience or any of my classmates have crossed my mind in the last ten or so years, but after this recent reminder I've thought about some of the ways that it subliminally influenced who I am today. It was interesting to read about all of the vegetarians who came out of Mr. D's class and those discussions made me think about the values that Mr. D taught us, particularly those concerning the natural world. Well I am afraid to say that I am not among the ranks of the vegetarians due to my love of meat and the fact that meat and rice is pretty much what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner out here, my college years were basically a love affair with the natural world (along with some dabbling in intoxicants and school work). I pretty much blew off school to pursue rock-climbing, mountaineering, snowboarding, fly-fishing, etc. during the school year and spent my summers maintaining trails for the U.S. Forest Service. I loved living in my tent in the woods day in and day out and keeping the trails from eroding into the surrounding wilderness. I have been very conscientious ever since I was ten years old about how all of my actions affect the world and what I can do to minimize that impact (still working on the vegetarian thing. Sorry). It's good to hear that Mr. D seems to have had a similar influence on many of my classmates.

I would love to hear more from everyone who has already posted and anything from the people who haven't posted yet. I'm glad to see that we've got a fair amount of creative energy flowing out of Madrona elementary. If anyone needs an average hack-guitarist and sub-par vocalist to join in on your band, I'm your guy. What I lack in talent I make up for in enthusiasm. And Jenny, I feel you about the dogs. The dogs out here aren't in such good shape either. I was attacked by about a dozen of them walking home today. Fortunately for me, however, they're in such bad shape that they can't keep up with me. They could use your help. Okay, enough from me. Good to be in touch with all of you. Over the last two days you have all become more than a very foggy memory. I like it.
Much love,
Dave