Today's Tide Pool 9/10/11

 (Jackie fearlessly heading our search for sea creatures and hidden treasures)

It's the weekend, so even with the change in the time of the tide Jackie and I were able to make it out and explore. With the  tide all the way out we were able to see more of the tide plane than we have in the past. The water closer to shore was almost uncomfortably warm and devoid of most animals, though we did see a couple crabs and a few small shrimp like creatures. Further out, the water was still so shallow that the strong wind was making the surface too chopping to see. It was a little depressing at first, because we had been looking forward to getting out into the tide pool all week. Giving up and heading back, we decided to swing towards the north a little first. The denser concentration of rocks and deep tide pools north of us saved the waters surface from the wind and opened up the doors of exploration. We saw more spotted eels and were able to nab a few pictures of some new sea creatures. Jackie has started to collect lots of different pieces of shells and broken coral for a dozen or more unnamed projects and I'm thrilled to be helping out.

Thick thunder clouds began to roll in over the mountains. They rushed at us, moving so fast as they were I thought they might actually miss there target like a Boeing B-52 does from time to time. W had just found what appeared to by the mouth of a giant clam shell, maybe two feet long. It's distinctive rippling lips were just above the surface of the sand. Hesitantly I started digging at it. There really wasn't anything else it could be. The rain started to come down lightly at first, but sheets of it were visible over the island. Frantically I started to dig and pull at the shell, but it wouldn't budge or come free of whatever substrate it was attached to. Then the rain came in hard and sideways. Tiny bee bee drops of rain pelted us. Jackie had started to walk back with the camera wrapped in a shirt across her chest, counting her steps so we could relocate the shell. I stayed with the shell until her lone figure pressed into the wind and rain was enough to make me feel guilty and I ran after her. The rain had cleared by the time we had hit the shore, but Jackie was wet and cold, so we decided to come back for the shell another day. I can't imagine finding it will be easy, but we'll try our best.

 (Not really sure what these are yet, but we've nick named them "black dongs.")

(On of the coolest shells we'v found yet, but our little hermit crab friend, Fredrick, was to cool to evict so we played with him for awhile and then let him be.)

(Watch Fredrick the hermit crab roll himself back over and find a place to park his shell.)

A Night Out

We took the long way back from the bar last night, seeing as I couldn't find the short way. The well lit deserted road wound through the mountainous landscape with the Andaman sea on our right. It felt like autumn was upon us with the smell of dry leaves in the cool air and a scattering of brown leaves on the road. As we approached partially cleared areas with large boulders I would slow trying to determine if they were worth coming back to and bring  the climbing shoes, after a moment I realized one of the smaller boulders in front of another was actually an elephant. The ride back took quite a bit longer then getting there and if it wasn't for the road signs I'm sure we would have had to call a friend for directions, however that wasn't the case. 

It was our first night seeing some a little of the bar scene in Phuket at night. We've walked through the bar district in Patong, but hadn't been around when things were really getting going. Jackie's co-workers were going out to celebrate Friday, which apparently doesn't come often enough in the week. Originally we were going to meet up at a place along Rawai beach, but we had a last minute change of venue and met a couple of the South African's at a 7/11 (a ton of the women who work with Jackie are South Africa, which seems strange to me) and headed to Nai Han, which is along the west coast. Not as familiar with roads and the massive curving ups and downs of the road as they wiggle along the mountains I struggled to keep up with the mopeds in front of us. Despite the dark and the roads we all eventually arrived at Nai Han.

Once parked we walked through a couple of normal tourist looking restaurants with clean tile floors and fish tanks. Then we arrived at Ska Bar. It felt like you were entering a bar in a pirates port, not a pirate port themed tourists bar, though it was a farang bar, but it actually felt like you were entering Libertalia in the 1600's. A rasta DJ was enclosed in a old wooden wheel house built right into the narrow lower deck of the bar. Stretching above the open air bar was an enormous banyan tree. It's trunk, visible on the second desk of the bar, was wrapped in hundreds of yards of fabric and ribbons. Hanging from it's outstretched branches were a dozen or so old crab trap lines and buoys. From each of these lines many nations flags, weathered and tattered, flew in the light ocean breeze. I couldn't put my finger on why, but the whole atmosphere created by the tree made me think of Peter Pan's Lost Boys. We settled in on some low plank benches around a rough table. Below us on the beach a small troupe of three or four fire performers were at work. Feeling a little antisocial I focused on the performers. The youngest of the fire spinners was a thin Thai boy who was maybe ten or twelve. H moved with the music spinning the fire staff faster and faster as the music picked up. Then it was between his legs, wobble, wobble, like an enormous fiery dick. The older performers took the "stag"and did more fire staff and fire poi. It was some of the best fire poi and staff I've ever seen and I'm not exactly new to the art.

Ain't Living No Dream

      The juxtaposition of the setting and situation are almost literary right now. The tides have changed, so the tide is actually in when Jackie and I get back from school, which means occasionally we take some Thai ice tea down to the beach and watch the almost smooth ocean as it runs up against the sand. This does mean that it will be a little bit before we're able to update our "Tide Pools" segment. So this is the setting. I couldn't argue with a single element of it.

       I think I'm getting sick. I've been eating less than a meal a day over the last five days. I'm exhausted, but I can't nap. I can sleep at night thank God, but I can't nap. When I do try, (though I honestly don't have time for naps)  I just lay there arms tucked under my thighs. I'm sure I look like a single link of unhappy sausage.

       On top of being exhausted and not eating, my body aches. Everywhere aches as I sit in the dark writing this. It's this chair I think. I never leave it. Isn't it sad to be one minute from the coast and an assortment of adventures, but rarely make the time for them? The drapes are drawn all day; the lush green trees and their clinging ephiphytes aren't visible. I'm just sitting half naked in a large room with a laptop and the air-conditioning blasting. It's been another day of getting destroyed on the poker tables. Rob swooped in this morning and did a great coaching session with me, but when I hit the tables variance took over.

      I'm not sure how much more variance I can take in my life right now.  It has become painfully clear to me why people don't take off on adventures similar to Jackie's and mine. Even Jackie's adventure seems better planned then mine. Most people don't understand variance. If poker teaches you one thing, it's what variance is and how it feels to be on either side of that equilibrium. Variance is always there in poker. If I get all the money in on the flop, that's after three cards have come out, and I have something as cliché as "Big Slick" an Ace and a King (AK) and some fish calls me with an Ace and a Ten (AT), even if the board is Ace of hearts, Six of hearts, Five of clubs (Ah6h5c) the fish rightfully should win money 12.7% of the time. He has basically given away his money, but he's not dead, in fact he is entitled to 12.7% of that pot. Of course that's not how it works. He either hits his ten and takes the whole pot or he misses and I get it. Some days the fish get all the bait. In fact almost everyday I've opened up tables since our arrival the fish have left me with an empty bait bucket and nothing on the stringer, which is why Rob was helping me out with some coaching. Back home, when I had my own bankroll and even a little money in the bank I didn't stress over the variance. It happens. It's part of poker. Now, with already having to split half of my "profits" with my staker and not really sure how I’m going to make it from month to month it's hard to see a 230 euro pot get shipped the other way.

      It has been pointed out recently to me that I've fallen into a holding pattern. It's true. I doubt it seems like it to many people, since I'm suddenly in Thailand, but it is true. I'm not really sure I'm any closer to achieving my goals then I was a year ago. I'm actually further away. My career path is shaky at best. I keep telling people I want to be a writer, but only a very small percent of writers ever really end up in the money and I would assume those people are writing screenplays and novels. I'm like a child, still writing my short stories and hoping that they get published somewhere. That isn't a slam on the short story form, it’s one of my favorites, but it's no way to make a living. I've recently started doing internet content writing, which is a grind in itself. The first assignment, the one I'm still working on is five articles at 400 words a piece. The article topics are the following: Farmers furniture online and drop leaf tables; farmers home furniture and farmhouse dining table; farmhouse coffee table and farmers furniture; drop leaf table and farmers home furniture; and farmers furniture and drop leaf table. I get paid a penny a word for the articles and I have to check them for content duplication. I'm trying to picture James Joyce hammering through these mind numbing articles so he could move on to writing The Dubliners - it's hard to do. But if I want to be a writer I guess I have to start writing and I need the money. I've also started applying to jobs around Phuket. I've not been systematic about it, but I'm applying for English Lecture jobs, hotel jobs, and a sub-editor position at the Phuket Gazette. I'm pretty much doing anything I can so I don't have visa issues in five months. I'm not looking forward to the prospect of overstaying my visa and doing jail time.

           The clock on the wall constantly ticking, ticking, ticking, makes me think of my childhood home in Sanders. The other day when I was scrapping along the bottom trying hard to just end up knocked out so I didn't have to deal with anything I realized that I have no home to go to anymore. I think this sensation hits a lot of people at some point in their lives, but it's scary. It's scary because home has always symbolized a safe place, a place where you can lick your wounds, a place where the outside world isn't allowed in. With the lack of a long term visa and not having job that's supporting me Thailand certainly isn't going to be place to wide from the outside world. What I kept thinking about is that if flew back the United States right now, how would I pick a destination? There are obvious choices. I have family and friends, but I don't have that single place that I would fly to for sure.

Daily Expenses

I think Lloyds of London would have fired me by now, but here are some daily expenses:

- Flat tire (180)
- Daily fuel (50)
- Lunch for two (80)
- Dinner for two (80)
- 4 bootleg DVDs (240) (Bad Teacher was an awesome movie)
- 6-pack of soy milk (53)
- 6-pack chocolate milk (61)
- Iodine (25)

The best names you'll ever hear (Jackie)

Interesting fact about Thai culture: Last names are a relatively new requirement (early 1900’s) and the government dictated at that time that every family had to have a different sur name. Imagine only having one Smith family in America! This caused last names to become extravagant and many are actually translated phrases (One Who Does Good Work etc). Because the names (both first and last and multiple middle) are so complicated each Thai person also has a ‘play’ name that they use the majority of the time and even in official documents. Here is a class roster that I received today (official roster from the school records):

Bonnie

Book

Bow

Cha-Cha

Dinosaur

Joy

Junior

Kate

Milk

Mint

Nook

Notm

Oh

Pang

Peat

Pete 2

Ploy

Puenploy

Scene

Tiffy Win

I could not pronounce any of these names in class yesterday. I repeated them over and over and was corrected every time. I felt terrible! Then I got this roster and realized why I was getting them all wrong, I wasn’t expecting a tiny boy with chubby pink cheeks and dimples to be called Dragon, or a little girl with electric blue eye shadow to be named Book.  I laughed hard when I read the roster because none of their names are remotely close to what I was struggling to pronounce in class.* In my defense, in Thai the last syllables of words have a tendency to disappear so even though Milk spells his name M-I-L-K, he actually pronounces it Meel. Martin sounds more like Mard and so on.  It’s great fun to grade their papers though, every class roster brings a fresh fit of laughter.

Notable names from my other classes: French fries, Shampoo, Dragon, Diamond (boy), Dew, Pie, Pink, Pop, Shopper, Nip, Milk, Benz (lots of these), Pig.  The new schedule for next semester starts soon so more to come as the classes change!

Also, my favorite funny student answer on a test today (these are endless)

Q: Name one way in which acid rain can affect the environment

Acceptable answers: The acid can wash minerals like calcium out of the soil and the lack of these minerals hurts trees and other plants. At higher altitudes, acid in clouds weakens trees so much that many mountaintops that were once forested are now barren. Rivers and lakes become more acid, and this affects plants and fish in the water.

A: Make a fish dead

So true, so painfully true.  You may have missed the larger picture but you’re right, acid rain does tend to make a fish dead…somewhere in the world…eventually. but I think it’s worth a point, you cut straight to the chase and made me grin. Definitely worth a point.

All of my M2 and M3 students have left with their skinny red sticks and braided socks on week long Scout field trip, leaving the Mattayom floor exceptionally quiet for a change. Even though over half of my classes have been canceled, I am required to be here all day, every day, without anything extra to do. Today’s boredom was my fault, I should have brought my kindle instead of my laptop, the internet is just too slow here to get anything done. 

Leelawadee (Jackie)

All of my M2 and M3 students have left with their skinny red sticks and braided socks on week long Scout field trip, leaving the Mattayom floor exceptionally quiet for a change. Even though over half of my classes have been canceled, I am required to be here all day, every day, without anything extra to do. Today’s boredom was my fault, I should have brought my kindle instead of my laptop, the internet is just too slow here to get anything done.

On the bright side, all the extra time allows me to spend even more time in my newly found sanctuary, a café called Leelawadee. It’s a little oasis of a café next door to the school with wifi where I have already spent 10+ hrs this week slowly sipping on REAL coffee, bumming about, and reading during my ‘prep’ periods. There are water fountains, small koi ponds, and even the highway that runs a few yards away is veiled by a profusion of hanging vines and willow-esque trees . It’s quiet and peaceful unlike anywhere inside the school and is a great retreat from the regular chaos caused by 1,200 students.  I am already a regular there (like most Farang teachers) and almost exclusively order iced coffee, because nowhere else in Phuket have I found anything remotely close to what we call coffee in America. The stuff the street vendors will pour is made as follows: 3 seconds of pouring condensed milk into a small glass, a couple spoonful’s of sugar, a splash of nescaf, more sugar and more condensed milk. My jaw nearly dropped the first time a girl poured this for me on the street! Even the Thai iced tea we know and love at home is what they serve as ‘black tea’ here. There is no option of just hot water and leaf. This has resulted in an exceptionally funny and devastating conundrum because though all drinks here are made with an amount of sugar that would make even a 10 yr old cringe, there are no decent dessert options anywhere in Phuket! Just gelatin based treats that are not actually treats at all. 

Our New Segment: Today's Tide Pool

Did I say Mudflats? (Jackie)

In an earlier post I said something like "at low tide the beach becomes 300 yards of mudflats studded with rocks."  In actuality these 'mudflats' are 300 yards of tide pool studded with coral encrusted rocks.  It is an incredible place and has instantly become one of my favorite spots in the world - and its practically in my front yard! The tide is always out when Isaac and I get home from school so we have started to take nightly excursions to explore!

           Today Jackie and I spent another beautiful evening walking through our "front yard's" tide pools. I think I originally studied underwater archaeologist because I liked finding things, turns out that's not really what it's all about. So now I can just be a bum and find things in tide pools, maybe we'll start eating some of them! We brought the camera this time so we could share some of our finds. We'll try to keep everyone up to date!

          A couple more pictures just to give you the setting:

(Do you see Big Buddha?)

 (Jackie is traditionally the poker of critters in our expeditions, but I was having a go at this sea cucumber)

 (OCTOPUS!)

 (This one I decided to take home. Thought maybe she could pay off of the rent)

(Another shot of the spotted eel)

(We brought this one home too! Originally we were going to evict the hermit crab inside, but it turns out the shell is still being used by its first owner! So we're going to get him some saltwater and keep him as a pet. His name is Mr. Trout)