A Knowingly Late Update…

Hi RSS feed services, webcrawlers / search engine robots & the occasional human reader!


Well, I'm going to apologise up front for this being a late update. It's been, I think, a month since the last time I enlightened you with details of my life in Thailand. Let's hope that this upcoming month won't be as scant with updates.

To say that September has been a busy month would be a bit of an understatement. Professionally and personally alike, much has transpired in the 9th month of 2008. Here's a play by play:

• In my computers class, we started work on the final term projects—Photoshop collages. They were assigned the first week of September & they're due the last week of the semester (next week). Students being students, 85% of them hadn't even begun thinking about the assignment until this past week.


• We (the foreign administration & I) successfully canvassed for the school to invest in a digital library cataloguing tool—a huge improvement over the nonexistent catalogue that they currently have "given" me.


• I've begun organising/updating the fiction section of the library with reading level codes. The previous system was cryptic for Thai students to follow & it made (makes) for confusion when someone other than I tries to re-shelf books. The current tagging on the books classifies levels from lowest to highest thusly: JE, E, JF, F… And maybe even N after that. ESL people routinely get confused by these codes, which is why I'm beginning to phase in reading level codes by using regular polygons: easiest being a triangle, the hardest being a 6-pointed star with a + in the centre. I think it's a good system, but only time will tell….


• I've received a library assistant! Hooray! This means that the relatively simple tasks of checking in books & re-shelving items won't take up so much of my day. Instead, I can focus on organisation, streamlining & my IT responsibilities. The downside, as to which I previously alluded, is that re-shelving has been hit & miss—not only with "which books belong to which collection" but also _where_ individual books are supposed to go. I'm patiently learning longsuffering as 2 or 3 times a week, I spend a few hours of my evening re-organising the entire collection. If this pattern persists into this week, I think I'm going to have a chat with her, just to clear things up.


• The school's computer network has been growing & as a result, is experiencing growing pains. The consumer-grade components that we're using are beginning to fail, but the school seems unwilling, at times, to invest in the proper equipment their infrastructure. This problem is compounding (see the next point) & I'm getting to the point of having to sacrifice security & stability for a consistent "almost fully working" network environment (which includes internet)


• Due to Thailand's customary software piracy, the school's computer network got hit by a virus this past week which crippled pretty much everything. I say that this happened because of piracy, because the "purchased" antivirus software that the school had installed on its computers kept the computers safe from viruses as well as a screen door keeps out -40 degree winds. Our main server (where all of our teaching resources, term grades & student records) was riddled with over 13,000 (no exaggeration, folks) copies of the same virus as it gleefully spread through & infected every folder that it had time to traipse through. My entire Friday (minus teaching time) was devoted to damage control & reparations. We're still in the process of purging the network from infection…


• Last weekend was our Professional Development weekend. It was an interesting & good time, which gave us opportunities to learn & grow (if even only a little bit).


• There has been restoration in a couple of my relationships over here. Over the past couple months, two of my relationships had suffered. The first was with one of my former students, a girl who considers me her big brother—a feeling which I reciprocate. She had become increasingly distant over the past few months, owing to her being rapt by her new boyfriend. As 16 year-olds go, it's common for people that age not to understand that balance & maintenance is needed in order to keep healthy relationships in your life. Thursday last week, she had become a little overwhelmed by the realisation that not only had she inadvertently pushed me away, but also her other closest friends. We had a good, long talk & I was able to counsel her through understand why others were feeling the way they were. Her relationships now are on the mend, owing to her good efforts & humble spirit. It's awesome. I love her & I love watching her grow.
  

What's Ahead

That's mostly what I've done in the past month. Things on the horizon look something like this:

• I've been asked to speak again at the church in Lopburi, a city 2.5 hours north of Bangkok, where I met the formerly quadriplegic guy. That goes live tomorrow (probably at/before the time you read this). —I just got back from there, actually. It was good times. The pastor of teh church heard that I was interested in eating rat, so he bought me one. It's in my fridge as we speak & I'll be eating it in about a half-hour!


• This upcoming Friday will be a "work day" for GES Staff wherein we prepare for report cards, which get sent out in 10 days, and for school accreditation tasks. I, no doubt, will be busy working in the library & on other resource initiatives.


• Report cards go home in 10 days, which means that our October Break is just around the bend. I may go up to Chiang Mai for a few days with some other teachers to visit a mutual friend (Mink, for those of you who know her) that's stationed up there with Compassion International. During that break, I'd expect that I'll have enough time to write back to all of the personal correspondence that has accumulated on my desk & in my e-mail / facebook accounts. I apologise for the delay, but if you can hold out for another 10ish days, you should get a treat in your mailboxes.

What You Can Do

• You can pray for the staff. We're in the end-of-term crunch, which means accumulated stress. You can also pray for teachers' safety as they mostly go on random crazy trips throughout SE Asia during October break. You can pray (and please do, fervently) for the spiritual environment at GES. It's difficult on even the good days to be mindful of the foreign staff's personal primary objective of ministering to the students & their families for the advancement of the gospel—even if the upper echelons of the school have other objectives for us in mind. I'm pretty sure that you could ask any Christian staff member here & they'd say that we're not really supported by the school spiritually. It's produce produce produce, without the invest invest invest. Pray, also, for our students—that they'd be willing to take the risk of becoming a cultural pariah in order to gain the love & spirit-filled existence of communing with Christ.


• If you want to know more, now is a great time to ask me questions, as I should have a lot of free time in the second half of October with which I could get back to you ;).

Thanks for your patience & willingness to be involved—if even from a distance—in my semblance of ministry in Thailand.