The Eagle has landed

On Thursday, September 18, 2008, I got up and said goodbye to all that I know for six months. My parents put me on a United Airlines flight that served as the first leg of my journey to be a Fulbright ETA (English Teaching Assistant) in Thailand. When we got to the airport in Newark, both of the bags that I was going to check were overweight and they were going to charge me an arm and a leg to take them to Bangkok. Always innovative, my parents rushed to the gift shop and bought me a third bag to help me unload the other two. Once we did that, we were good.

As I was taking off my shoes at security and emptying my pockets of all metal objects I caught my parents watching me out of the corner of my eye. As I watched them watching me, I was struck by how much this reminded me of the first time they dropped me off for school, even as I sit as a man on the edge of 25. The anxiety over their son going to a place where no one in their family has ever been was telling in their eyes as were the hopeful smiles that said silently that they knew this be all right. I hope I bear that out.

The first flight was Newark to DC and took about 40 minutes. It’s one of those flights that’s too short to be a flight. I switched over at Dulles in Northern Virginia for a 14 hour flight. I went to sleep immediately and woke up about 5 hours later. I was very satisfied with myself and how much time I killed until I realized that I had nine hours left. Those next hours were spent wedged in the middle of a 5 person row , where everyone else was asleep, trying to negotiate how I was going to climb over these people to go to the bathroom. Over the course of those 9 hours, I watched a girl in the row in front of me go through a sheaf of papers that looked oddly familiar. I realized that it was the packet of information on Thailand that Fulbright has sent us. I tapped her on shoulder and, of course, she was a fellow ETA, Karen from Lancaster, PA.

Never has a person been as happy as I was when I got off that plane at Narita airport outside Tokyo. Karen and I walked to our gate and over the next two hours we met another 6 of our colleague, who I will write about at a later time. Tokyo to Bangkok was six hours. Our Fulbirght advisor, Siriporn, met us at the airport and two hours later we were at the university dorm we will be staying while we are in Bangkok. It feels good not to sleep sitting upright. More posts soon.

Chike

P.S.- I will be posting most of my pictures on my facebook page until I figure out a way to link all of them to the blog.

4 days and counting

I’ve been someone who’s journaled for most of my life. However, it never occurred to me to blog until it was suggested to me by a friend.

I leave for Thailand in less than a week to teach high school English and do research on the effectiveness of critical education. My hopes for my time in Thailand encompass those goals but much more. I hope to learn about the language, culture, history and people of this land to which I’ve never been. I hope also to identify themes and lessons that are indicative of Asian trends as a whole that can teach us some lessons in America. Thailand is an ancient and beautiful country that is, at its base, starkly different from America. However, at its base, these two countries face similar questions. How do we educate our children for the “flat” world as Friedman would call it or the “Post-American” world in the parlance of Zakaria? What bodies of knowledge must students assimilate? How do we make students into the critical thinkers who can apply those bodies of knowledge intelligently to the world? These questions hold seismic implications that will be felt from Brooklyn to Bangkok in this new century. In concert with others, I hope to put my hand to the challenge of answering them.

My reflections will be personal and professional, humorous and somber, global and local. My writings will be about my colleagues, Fulbright and otherwise. My posts will hopefully, most of all, chronicle my kids and my relationship with them. I hope that what I learn from this time in Thailand as a Fulbrighter can make me of more use to my community and my country when I come back. To that end and that hope, I’ll be posting frequently and I ask you to please leave comments, questions, and reflections. The only way that I am going to be able to digest and make sense of all that I am about to see is with the great minds of others.

Chike