Intensive Thai

Sorry I have not posted in a while . . . a lot has been going on . . . it has been a sad time for our family, but not terribly sad . . . we still have a lot of love in this family.

Also, I have been taking an intensive Thai course: 4 hours a day of class and then another 2 or 3 hours of homework! The students in my class are mostly Korean or Japanese. There are 4 women and 4 men. The women are very good students, and the men, well, we try!

The teacher, of course, is a woman. Virtually all teachers in Thailand are women. She is strict and I worry that she will beat my knuckles with a ruler if my letters are not lined up properly. She likes to talk about girly things and gossip about her husband. Fair enough: she and her husband leave for work at the same time and return at the same time, but when they return: she has to clean the house, make dinner and take care of the kids, while he watches TV!

It is eye-opening. It makes me realize why women are out-performing men (or, girls are outperforming boys) in virtually every school and every university in almost every course of study in every country in the world.

Every day we sit in a box (the classroom) and talk. The women seem to love it. The men are restless. Yesterday the talk was all about hairstyles. Today it was about weddings. When we get to shopping, I'm going to walk out.

We have scheduled breaks. I go to stretch my legs and drink a coffee. But the women (two Koreans, a Japanese and a Taiwanese) sit in their chairs and talk some more--practicing their Thai! How can anyone sit in a chair for four hours in a row? Those women are excellent students and I admire their self-discipline. But I'm going crazy.

Tomorrow we have a big test. I better stop blogging and get back to studying!