Can we smoke in here?

Well, they’ve declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.

 I have, as ever, perfect timing.

I can barely pronounce the street I live on well enough for cab drivers to understand me. I have to point and yell “THAT WAY!”, and that only works when I know where I am.

Now I might find myself in the middle of a violent protest, wandering around helplessly repeating “thank you” and “hello” and “delicious!”, because so far, that’s the only Thai I know. I didn’t think I’d need to know “Please, don’t shoot!”

Christ.

 I have unreliable internet and no tv, so staying on top of the the news is difficult. I don’t know my way around or how to find my way home except for from a very few places. I haven’t found my feet yet. And now there is a bloody state of emergency.

They’ve closed the domestic airports. The international one may close as well.

On top of all that, I have found myself in a much different working environment. I was the youngest foreign teacher I knew in Korea, but at least we were all of the same generation. Here I am the youngest by far and one of only three in my twenties. The rest are career teachers, middle aged or near retirement, with families and wives and children. I don’t want to be desperate enough to ask the other two young ones to please, be my friend!, but I don’t know what else to do. I was always socially awkward, and this is not a situation where making friends is easy.

damn.

I also had a major setback in my war against the ants today. They got inside my sealed bag of sugar. The bag was ALIVE, people.