Best Made Plans – Tectonic Shifts [cont.]

Dubrovnik, Croatia Oct. 20, 2021
It was exactly 10 years ago today that I boarded a plane from LAX to head to New Zealand as part of yet another of my Grand 10-Year Plans.
_{Snickering from the Heavens}

Yes, anyone who knows me, knows I have been preaching and living my Plans For the Living [P4L] platforms to anyone who will listen.

Mine began as,
-work hard in [town near lake in center of South Island]
-buy a house-during their summer Dec – Feb, I’ll visit Southeast Asia, volunteering in several places

-ReConning [checking out – researching] where NEXT home would be-after 6 years, rent out house as another stream of income

-live and teach in select two SE Asian Nations, including India and then
OFF TO AFRICA by Dec. 2021

Well, God must’ve been laughing the entire flight from Los Angeles to Christchurch because after seven months trying to get a work visa, and coping with a city I no longer recognized after several hundred earthquakes, tremors and other shifts making it impossible for me to feel “at home” there. With four days’ research between China, Singapore and Thailand, I boarded a plan for Bangkok, in search of work to stop the bleeding that was my dwindling life’s savings. I was a DAY LATE from landing the Just Right HS English teaching gig but, with the promise of getting one HS position the following year, I accepted teaching 3rd grade for the 2012-13 school year.

Some of you will remember that crazy summer leading up to this: Mr. Asshole Owner offered me a Summer School gig but I had to get the proper visa in Malaysia first. Having let a 7-Eleven ATM block my only credit card, on a FRIDAY, when my brain or my Snauage Fingers punched the wrong number three consecutive times, Ed and Wayne sent me money until my card cleared security, three days later.

Teaching 3rd Graders in a “private” school in Bangkapi, Thailand was the worst and best teaching year of my life. I was humbled. I was dumbfounded. I learned so much about their culture and how money rules education. But most importantly, I learned The Diamonds in the Rough are worth digging for. I  will treasure that short time there with that small group of young minds more than they’ll ever know. However, that coveted HS English job [now TWO available] were not offered. “We need only the best teachers in the lower grades so they’ll have greater foundations and few issues in middle and HS,” they told me. Some may take this as a compliment.

I left.

Summer of 2013, in search of the next best SE Asian country I returned to Laos, and the monks where I’d visited during the 2012-13 Christ’s Birthday, New Year holiday, to teach a group of monks in a small temple near some really famous other temple. My goal was to check out Cambodia and Laos as I’d heard those two countries were ripe with teaching gigs.

Flashback Dec. 22, 2012 – Jan. 6, 2013
During that trip I:
-Taught about 12 neighborhood kids and monks-in-training [monk-ees] English

-took photos of them-learned to ride a scooter…
-broke my toe[right foot], on said scooter Dec. 25, 2012 leaving that 1st tutoring session

-ate fried crickets and frogs legs watching fireworks over the Mekong River separating Thailand from Laos

-broke my big toe a second time* playing soccer with neighborhood children on the Thai side of the Mekong another – Dec 31, 2012 into 2013 – Happy New Year…

-camp out above elephants sanctuary with freshly broken toe

-first visit to doctor to check on toes
-*Doc say’s “evidence of another fracture.” I have no idea when I’d broken it the first time.

I’d heard from experience that the “cures” for broken toes and fingers were taping them up and keeping them immobile. Yeah, that wasn’t part of my 2-week plans, so I waited till everything was OVER, then, and ONLY then did I drag my Black ass to the Doc.

Side Note: paid pennies for everything. International Schools have great Health Care Plans.

So, on my return to Laos, I gave those I’d tutored copies of themselves which was like The Easter Egg Hunt, New Years and The 4th for them. Photo of their faces looking at themselves is priceless.
After about a week working with them singing Children’s Songs, practicing the alphabet, days of the week and other basics, I left for Hue, Vietnam.
I’d first visited Vietnam the summer of 2007, full of Lisa’s bangin’ chilli after a Hill Community 4th of July Blast. My flight took off before the fireworks, but there were plenty of those on my flight…if you know what I mean!!
That time, visiting Michelle Hoang’s family in Saigon and attending her cousin’s wedding in her hometown of Hue, I became a celebrity 1-man film crew, thanks to Bobby loaning me his video camera.

https://vietshawn-blog.tumblr.com/

Weddings are several days, and I was constantly told to move to prime filming locations in temples, at the house and reception areas. Michelle, whom was my co-teacher in SBAAM Middle School that year in the Bronx, translated, “They say you need to be over there for when the bride and groom pass by that monk,” as two official looking family members gently guided me towards to the most optic spots.

So, returning to Hue was like coming home.I returned photos to those monks we’d taught for three weeks of our last night there, now six years later.Funny thing with vanity and monks. They aren’t allowed to own anything personal. Unless you’ve reached a certain level. So, all those photos we gave them back in 2007, hopefully their families have them somewhere.Yet, not the point. The looks on their faces laughing at photos of themselves and posing for new ones they new they’d likely never see are etched in our minds to be sure.
Vietnam 2013-15

Teaching in Vietnam was a blast. Coming off the High Society burn from that pseudo Private School [administrative only] kids, staff and grounds were unbelievable. However, the owner, a self-made Malaysian man was abusive to most women and fraudulent in several other Con-Artisty Ways.
Therefore, I avoided that scene and worked a year in a “Language Institute”. Making $18/hour I taught integrated speaking, writing and listening lesson to augment the rudimentary crap of “listen and fill-in-the-blanks” that are great for beginners, but their systems had no vision for
-specialized learning-advanced learners-diversity within programs [getting them writing sentences or speaking conversationally].

However, taking a cut in pay, $12/hour, I also taught up to 56 kids in classrooms a few days a week.Sounds tough?Forget building any kind of rapport, let alone memorizing names, getting everyone to respond individually pretty took up an entire class, so I had to get creative there too. Small groups [not easy when flash rains come and windows don’t close all the way so only the middle of the room is NOT getting wet…and then those rains knock out electricity.Yet they were so well behaved, it wasn’t as hard as you’d think.

People in the office were like, “Why do you teach those public schools?”It was the closest to teaching I’d experienced that year.Selling out, I took a gig at another Private School teaching AP Literature – my dream job.On Friday, Feb. 13, 2015, I was fired because, “You’re confusing the students.” But I was actually confusing the owner, a business man who’d opened the school since he didn’t agree with the school his sons were attending; one of the most prestigious in Ho Chi Minh.

I’d been warned about the fickle nature of Private School gigs, laughed packed as much of my shit and went scuba diving in Indonesia and Malaysia. You see, that Friday was our 3-week New Year’s Holiday, so while terrible getting fired. I’d plans made and simply extended that “vacation” till landing a job in Hangzhou, China.

Getting fired was the best thing. I explored Sapa, northern Vietnam for about a week. Note to those thinking of bussing there: Vietnamese have this think with car sickness, so on these winding roads, expect perhaps a domino effect and sit up front. I was NOT aware of this, and was awakened to all stages of pre-throw up, throwing up, dry retching that seemed to go on for the entire ride. I saw mothers and fathers calmly taking care of their sick kids only to get sick themselves 30 minutes later…usually after their sick loved one had stopped and fallen asleep.

Truly Monte Python or Stephen King [story within a story “Stand By Me”] shit. So funny, I almost puked.

https://thesheaf.com/2010/10/29/why-we-can%E2%80%99t-get-enough-vomit/

I was able to revisit Malaysia, MORE DIVING – as before getting fired, I’d signed up for an AP Language/Literature Seminar that my school was supposed to re-imburse me for later.
Spilt Milk –

Stayed with Sasha, Sheila and their growing family for about a week and with Ron and Myta and one of their children for another week. They live on opposite sides of Bali.

Half full lemonade…

China 2015-17 [^{_{under construction}}]

Hokkaido, Japan x 3 weeks Feb. 2016

Skiing the best powda ever. It snowed nearly a FOOT every night to leave mostly sunny skies most days. Eric, and Econ Teacher at my first Chinese “Private” school invited me to join him and though he was 17 levels above me and bought a helmet and skied off-piste by hisself most of the time, we had a great time trying to kill ourselves on two thin pieces of wood down steep snowy mountains.

Never had a bad meal the entire time. Not even the sushi in the airport!!! Actually it was an amazing introduction.

Nepal ReCONN and visiting with Meg – Spring 2014 [^{_{under construction}}]

India ReCONN and visiting Kendra – Summer 2016 [^{_{under construction}}]
Never had a bad meal for the five weeks I was there.It was a pleasure seeing Kendra and her crew learning the language, how cook and dance and visiting her school.

Nicaragua 2017-18 – Volunteering 1.2..Tree with Gary [^{_{under construction}}]
I can’t say this was my favorite place, but spending time in Gary’s world was never a dull moment. I love the kids we worked for and those older locals that are all doing very well these days. The volunteers were crazy, fun, and reminded me a little of me when I was in my 20s and first exploring this Small Rock, with a big heart.

Maui 2018-2021 [^{_{under construction}}]

That brings me back to my 10th year-versary of PLANS.
Make ’em.

Laugh.

Ride it out.

Gracias
Mahalos
Merci beaucoup
Bedanktdhanyavaad
Danke Shon
HvalaDěkujuPaldiesaitähdhan’yavāda
āmeseginalehu 
spasibodyakuyu
efcharistóTuhāḍā dhanavādaEskerrik asko
شکریہ

Peace and Doro Wat Grease ~

Shawn L. Carson

shawn.carson@micaphonechex