Assignment 1: Introduction

Hi,
My name is Elliot Thornton, I am 24 years old and I couldn’t be more excited for the upcoming adventure. Like many of you, I’m moving to Thailand to experience a change of pace, lifestyle, and self. I’m from the United States and I graduated in the summer of 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a focus in Anthropology. (Too much late night history channel)
Perhaps a by-product of traveling with my family while I was young,…through college I spent a little too much time working jobs and side quests trying to save up and to scheme various trips abroad with a growing pool of friends. The excitement of traveling quickly turned lighthearted brainstorming sessions into slideshows, votes, and endless iterations of itineraries that never came to be.
Along the way I found myself feeling more and more like the traditional path of locking down an entry-level job immediately after graduating was not in the cards for me. The madness of COVID-19 and what followed didn’t give me any more incentive. Once the world started turning again and I left to see even further corners and lifestyles of Europe and encounter people in Costa Rica who were making the most of a 9-5 remote work schedule on the Beaches, I knew deep down that I needed to not be hasty about my future, regardless of how different a path it is to many of my friends.
(There is far too much of the world to see, and I hope to connect with other people who might be feeling the same way)
Teaching in Thailand presents itself as a unique opportunity for me to change gears, I think we are all in agreement that the difference in culture, people, lifestyle, and scenery is what makes Thailand alluring, but the opportunity to also positively impact others, truly integrate with culture, and to develop oneself are what makes me feel like this was the right decision. I’m excited at the opportunity to live abroad and challenge myself with everything that comes with it.

The difficulties of a new language, a diverse food culture, and the stress that comes with moving across the globe are going to be constant, but I am looking forward to overcoming them by taking my time and working with others, and like some of the other posts, teaching in a classroom will also be a new experience for me but I feel confident that I have the patience and drive to make a positive and noticed impact.
For my time in Thailand I am most excited to grow as a person; to become more open, accepting, and understanding of the ways that people live their life and what things are most important to them. I hope to return to psychological work sometime in the future, and I am hopeful that through this experience I will be able to open more doors to volunteer, education, or other positions that allow me to continue my adventure around the world and to continue learning and understanding other cultures and people through real experiences.

Hello, my name is Hawkeye. I grew up in Alaska, USA. I spent 10 years in the military (Airborne Infantry – Paratrooper, Medic, and Journalist), a few years as a Network Engineer (hardware, not software), a few years as a Massage Therapist, and a few years teaching English in China. Covid-19 shut down my university, so I returned to the US. I have decided to return to teaching abroad, but this time in Thailand. I have visited Thailand a few times. I expect the challenges I will face in Thailand will be the ones I don’t expect. As always, I shall overcome them. I am looking forward to another new chapter in my life.

Chris Buskirk
Wed, 28th-Feb-2024

Hello new friends. I look forward to getting to know everyone. I hope we all leave Hua Hin with a couple of new, valued confidants/allies for our quest of the first teaching appointment. I intend to sign a one year contract, and I’m sure my feelings toward lesson plans and classroom management will continually evolve during that first appointment. Please remind me to breathe.

Our first day of class will by my 56th birthday. Balloons may be a bit much, but I expect free hugs from everyone (grin). By training, I am a computer scientist, though I was a summer term away from a double major in English, entertaining thoughts of becoming a fiction writer. Alas, I intentionally chose not to pursue that rabbit hole. It was engineering for me instead, and I still believe today that was the obviously right choice for me.

I’ve worked in academia all of my career applying technology to seemingly impossible research problems that are relevant to society (e.g. drug design, neuroscience, artificial intelligence for logistics in the military and intelligence domains, plus automotive engineering applications). I have been blessed to have the opportunity to rub elbows with some pretty incredible specimens of humanity, and there was always more than ample opportunity to travel in my line of work. However, I never made it to Asia.

Five years ago, I left this life behind and have been semi-retired since. I had felt for some time that a change was due. I just didn’t quite have the courage to take that leap into something unknown, and I was confident that a lateral move wasn’t the answer. I had pretty much accomplished everything I set out to do in that world. The kids were not only out of the house, but they were out of college. This was my chance; I just had no clue what the right decision was. So, I set off on a journey.

After lounging around the pool and playing guitar for an appropriate amount of time, I began taking classes and volunteering to fill my time and maybe spark ideas. I began learning sign language, which helped me to remember how much I love learning in a classroom setting. I volunteered at a food pantry for the underprivileged, which just happened to offer English as a Second Language classes upstairs. You guessed it; I found myself upstairs, where I volunteered as a teacher’s aide part-time for a year. That lead to enrolling in a TESL course at university. I wasn’t convinced, however. I wasn’t excited by the local job opportunities, and at the time, I couldn’t imagine myself leaving Nashville (a.k.a. Guitar Town, USA). Luckily, COVID hit and everything ground to a halt. I was given a reprieve. No more self-imposed pressure to commit to some immediate, long-term, grand scheme for transforming everything.

There was always the idea that there would be a second career, so I experimented with other options too. Coming from a long line of carpenters, it made sense to try my hand at that again. I worked as a detox monitor in an inpatient substance abuse facility. I made interior floors for the Nissan Pathfinder SUV. Believe it or not, I absolutely loved the automotive factory work. Loved it! That didn’t seem like a sound decision however for the twilight years of my career, nor did I feel good about supporting some aspects of the company culture there.

All this time, I still knew I had an affinity for teaching English, so I dug more seriously into what it would look like with ‘travel’ as a integral part of that path. Though I did take an obligatory glance at Latin America, I had my sights set on Asia, as I am interested in today’s cultural phenomenon of East meeting West. Learning about as much as I could through YouTube and Dr. Google, I ultimately decided on Thailand due to its reputation for happy, hospitable people, a culture that was never colonized by the West, and that 95% of the population professes to be Buddhist. I picked a TEFL school, paid my tuition, and then I applied to become a long-term resident at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery. Becoming a mini-monk in a bubble of Eastern philosophy rife with constant, everyday language and cultural barriers was about as close to a training ground for landing in Thailand as I could come up with. It was quite an experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the luxury of putting their life on hold for a few months. I would say that a) raising children and b) going to college were the only two more formative experiences in my life.

And, now it is here. Sure, I’m a little frightened. I’ll probably cry before the first year is over. However, I’ve done all I can do at this point; it is time to get on with it. I’ll bet you a box of doughnuts there will be more happy tears than the alternative. I’ll even wager that I have friends from ITA to text about it all. If I can survive learning the Thai language, I will be so proud of myself on so many fronts. I genuinely look forward to this adventure, including you…

All the best.
Chriss

Pro Tip: When teaching Vietnamese how to pronounce your name, don’t overemphasize any of the letters. My closest friends now call me Chriss, with an extra ‘S’. If you say it correctly, it should sound a little like a snake hissing. I’m considering having it legally changed. 😉

Hhhmmmm. I admit defeat. I give up replying to Ben’s thread. Too much formal computer science education to navigate a computer. Deleting the text…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Christopher Buskirk.

Hi Elliot, seems like we’re on a similar boat. I’m super excited to start this journey. Looking forward to meeting you and the others in Thailand!

Hello All,

I am Luke Bennett, a 23 year old recent college graduate, looking to become a teacher in Thailand. I am deciding to move to Thailand to enrich myself in Southeast Asia and learn more about the area. I expect to face culture shock and being homesick but I will overcome it by keeping a positive attitude and putting one foot in front of the other. I hope that I can be able to learn and grow from this experience.

Hello! My name is Dora and I am 26 and i am from Minnesota, USA. I graduated with my degree in Sociology with a minor in Native American And Indigenous Studies. Since graduation i have been a teacher’s aide at my local Head start that i have been with since 2017! I decided to take part in this program because it combines two thing i enjoy. I love teaching and i love learning and immersing myself in other cultures. I’ve heard great things about Thailand from friends and have always wanted to visit!
I think challenge wise the hardest part will be language, since i don’t speak Thai. My goal to combat that is to be able to find a place that had classes in teaching Thai so that i can be able to learn and communicate with others faster!
I hope to be able to continue doing well in the classroom and be a good teacher. As well as meet new people and enjoy Thailand!