March Paragraph Diary 1

In 2015 Anna and Kate started “paragraph blogging”. I think I may have followed their lead for a few posts on my old blog at that time, not sure. Well it’s now just over three years later now and I am going to do it (again?) here. At least for a little while. Why? Well, I’m in a kind of ‘in-between’ time in life right now and I figure a bit of old-school short form ‘diary’-style blogging might be good for me; less than a post, more than a tweet…just writing down the bones and stirring my mental pot. Focused on…whatever comes up. I’ll give each entry an appropriate title when it’s finished. Let’s get on with it.

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Old New Shoes

So…I’ve been back in Thailand for over a month now. A week plus up north, a pit stop in Bangkok, a week plus at home down south, and now back to Bangkok for a week before heading down south again for the rest of March. It has definitely felt like a bit of a whirlwind thus far. I haven’t been slowing down time as much as I would like to. I’d say it’s mostly my emotional clock that is on quick-tick mode: feelings of frustration with my low Thai language level has been a constant and I haven’t been able to transform that negative energy into motivated action as much as I would like to. The best thing to come out of it is a lot of reflection on the interior experience of English language learners at lower levels attempting to function in full-on L2 environments. It’s reflection based on the visceral experience. I worked with plenty of low-level learners in the US and tried to be as aware as possible of what they were going through…but right now I’m truly in their shoes. It truly brings things home. But the productive energy I do have I’ve been studying Thai with verve and a brand new focus on reading. I never worried about literacy in the past. I only worried about conversational listening and speaking. Right now this feels much, much more productive and it’s been extremely satisfying. I’m actually confused as to why it took me so long to get started with it. Currently my four main study resources are: 1. this book, 2. this app, and 3. my wife and in-laws, and 4. the linguistic landscape…