Monday, April 19

Catching up on the last couple days!

Would you believe that Roman did volunteer work painting a building on Sunday? I know. It's the reason we had to go on a mission for throwaway clothes the day before.

A rare sighting--Roman in a t-shirt

So, while I stayed at home and researched job stuff for us both, did yoga, and bought soda waters, Roman met up with a group of 20 or so other volunteers (a mix of Thais and foreigners) to paint a building in the Khlong Toei slum. Apparently, the group started when Covid first hit—a foreigner from The Netherlands had to close his restaurant and was approached by folks asking if they could use his kitchen to prepare meals for food-insecure people living in Khlong Toei. After opening up his kitchen to them, he started the group to help address those & other needs facing the communities in Bangkok who’ve been hurt the worst by the pandemic.

And yeah, doing any kind of “charity” stuff in the Global South can be fraught—for many reasons, but especially because there’s a lot of white savior stuff that can come up, particularly when it comes to helping out in the “slums.” But I am interested in learning more about groups that are trying to meet the needs identified by the people living in those slums and, well, I think it would be cool if we could do some volunteer work while we’re here, and how can we do that without exploring some options?

Roman had a good experience doing it—it sounds like the painting was hard work, but the people were friendly, and the guys running it brought them all drinks and a free lunch.

Meanwhile, I went to one of the carts just past Suan Phlu park and had an amazing salad!

I just looked at one of the items on their large menu placard and pointed. It turned out to be (I'm pretty sure) Thai wing bean salad, with cooked wing beans, shrimp, squid, peanuts, crispy shallot, and mint, dressed with lime, fish sauce, chilies, and garlic.

And, courtesy of the internet, here's a photo of wing beans:

I also discovered a new diet soda.

My Sunday was just as meaningful as Roman's

We spent Sunday afternoon doing more job prep, and then went to a street cart in the area past Suan Phlu park for dinner.

Monitor lizard swimming in one of the park's canals

Dinner--soup with fried, then soaked, noodles for Roman; stir-fried noodles for me

Monday morning, I made us a kind of Thai-influenced breakfast—white rice cooked with coconut milk and pandan leaves, with diced dried violet plums mixed in, and a topping of soft dried coconut and pistachio nuts.

Using stupid martini glasses because the only bowls we have are big plastic soup bowls

Roman spent most of the morning doing more job prep (he has an interview/teaching demo with the agency I've been working with tomorrow morning), and after helping him for a while, I went out for a walk.

Pretty tree

A poor, dried-out toad (photo by Roman)

And then a woman came to clean the house (with her cute quiet daughter in tow) and we went out to get some lunch.

My pad thai with chicken

Roman's soup with noodles, beef, and beef balls

We came home to a sparkling clean house and fresh bedding, towels, and dishtowels. Our rent covers once-a-week cleaning (and we added a tip) but this is the first time it's been so clean—it wasn't this clean when we first moved in. And yes I feel weird and privileged talking about the nice job the person cleaning our house did. But she really did. It's very clean.

In the afternoon, I got an email from a different agency that I'd reached out to, asking if I would be interested in interviewing for a fourth grade teacher position at an all-girls Catholic school in Silom. I am not crazy about the idea of teaching at a Catholic school, TBH, because colonialism, but I also need a job and Silom is easy to get to and it pays more than the other positions I've been looking at (50,000 THB/month, versus 38-42,000).

In the job posting, they explicitly ask for teachers with classroom experience and I feel wildly under-qualified for the job, so I spent some time familiarizing myself with the school and the English coursebooks they use, so I can at least talk a good talk.

The agency sent me an email around 3:00pm, letting me know that they'd give me a call shortly (to confirm the interview? for a pre-interview interview? who knows), and I kept the phone close as we waited for the afternoon heat to pass.

I made more pandan water and started my first real batch of kombucha (I used the small bottle of store-bought kombucha to get a few cups going, and I'm using that as my starter batch). In my never-ending quest for interesting non-sugary sparkling drinks, I also mixed some coconut milk into a sparkling water, which made for a kind of tropical mocktail.

Is it because I'm anxious about job prospects that I am sharing all these quotidian details? Or maybe because I'm deep into the novel Luster, whose narrator describes all the perverse and mundane ways she occupies her time in long, unfettered sentences.

Roman and I headed out for dinner around 6:30pm, walking through Suan Phlu park to the place with the duck we like. This time, we ordered rice with duck, crispy pork, and roasted pork.

On the way home, I saw I'd missed a call, presumably from the agency, at 6:50pm. Man, I don't really like how ESL job interviews seem to be arranged here—always on short notice, and often with communications outside what I'd consider to be normal office hours. But the things I might consider red flags in the US are, I think, typical here—at least, every agency and school I've had contact with so far operates like this.

I called the number back when I got home, but reached a Thai voicemail (I don't really know how to set up my own voicemail). I still haven't heard back from my first-choice employer either (though I want the job, I would like to know if it's a no ASAP so I can proceed with the job search without part of me waiting on that email). But it's the first Monday after a holiday, so I am trying to practice patience, and will contact the company tomorrow if I still haven't heard anything.

ANYWAY. I am hoping I don't get an email at 6:00am tomorrow, asking me if I can interview at 7:00am. Because, well, that probably isn't going to happen. But I have to leave it as it is—a little uncertain—for tonight.