In several days I'll be leaving cloudy Seattle to spend a year living and teaching in Bangkok, Thailand. After four grueling years at the University of Chicago I am in serious need of a nice, long break. I love working with children and I also love traveling and living abroad, so I decided to search for opportunities to teach outside the US. After a bit of a hunt, I found myself a position at a private preschool in Bangkok from July 2010 to August 2011.
Having lived abroad before (a year in Annecy, France and another three months in Tunis, Tunisia) I feel fairly well equipped to face the challenges of culture shock. That said, I've never been to Asia before, know little about Thai culture, and don't speak a word of Thai. Also, there is really no comparing my past experiences as a student with a strong support system living with host families to working and living independently. I know that there will be many ups and downs this year, but despite that, I'm really excited to start this new adventure.
When I first started travel blogging I was 16 and an exchange student living in beautiful Annecy, France. At this point, blogging was relatively new and I had no issues writing about anything and everything that happened to me. In 2008, while living in Tunis, I realized that a lot had changed in the blogging world. Suddenly, I had friends of my host family calling them, telling them that their pictures were on the internet. Additionally, I had people telling me that they weren't comfortable with me mentioning them in my blog. While in Thailand, I'm going to be a more cautious blogger than I was in Annecy. I will use abbreviations for the names of the people I meet and, at least to begin with, I won't be speaking in great detail about my school. If you happen to be reading this blog and find that I have mentioned you, please let me know if it makes you feel at all uncomfortable.
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