Today's song is: Girls Just Want to Have Fun ... Kati and Nicki
I am not a big fan of facebook and I don't remember the last time I posted anything. Probably at least 10 years. I do have a facebook page and my friends seem to keep it populated at times but I seldom look at it. I get friend requests from time to time but seldom bother to accept the request. Instead, I have this blog instead.
However the other day I happened to link to Thavorn's Facebook page from a friends facebook page and clicked on Thavorn's. I spend the next couple of hours browing through her past 8 years. The start of her pages coincides with my gifting her a smartphone when I first met her. She has been busy posting her memories and I enjoyed seeing pics of us, Jaidan, and Thavorn partying with her friends.
Thavorn loves to party as do most Thai women and she must be missing her nights out. I know I miss my nights out with my expat friends in Thailand. We have Jaidan and he was never keen on being left with a sitter so we seldom went out togther unless we took Jaidan with us. Needless to say many bar staff got to know Jaidan :-)
Here are some pics I grabbed:
Thavorn at 27
Thavorn partying with her friends
Yours truly with Jaidan at about 1 year
There are many photos on her facebook page (the Thai page) so I will leave you to browse.
https://www.facebook.com/thavorn.bunphut
Tomorrow I meet up with my childhood friend Kerry and his wife Janet. I will alsosee his brother Bob and his wife Lynn. Bob is a biker so I will ride my bike if the temperature gets above 10 degrees. I have not seen Bob and Lynn for about 20 years.
Indian summer seems to be done and I suppose it is not correct to call it that. Perhaps Indigenous Summer would be more appropriate. That means biking season is almost over and I should have got out more but then there were not many places to visit with covid.
Thavorn logged an 11 hour work day yesterday and was as joyful as ever when I picked her up after work. She really is remarkable.
Jaidan is back in the classroom and enjoying it. Thavorn has a job on a mushroom farm working in quality control (final inspection). The hours are long, sometimes 11 hours a day and she has to work every second weekend. However, after the first couple of days which were tough, she is managing easily, as joyful as ever, and is enjoying watching her bank account grow as she becomes a contributing member of society.
The best part of the job is that it is a 5 minute drive from where we live so I drop her off and pick her up without much of a disruption to our daily routine of putting Jaidan on and off the bus.
However I find it lonely and a bit boring without my 'tilac' at home.
My business work is finally becoming manageable as new features were rolled out in September. The business is growing slowly which is fine by me as I get a life :-)
The Canadian dollar has appreciated substantially against the Thai baht and is now 1 CDN = 27 Thai Baht, up from 1 CDN = 22 Thai Baht of a few months ago. Here is hoping it goes back to 1 to 30 of 10 years ago when I first started to visit Thailand.
Thavorn will be able to bank $2,500 a month so we should be able to start building her house in Kok Som Lan in about 2 years. At that time she can return to her life of leisure.
Also, at that time, Jaidan with be in grade 4, a grade I have taught and I will probably home school him for 6 months while the build is in progress. We may eventually be doing 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Thailand. However, we live each day, at a time, which is the Thai way :-) Fate, karma and Buddha will look after us :-)
I did not use my motorcycle as much as I would have liked so one of my goals next year is to make more use of it.
My TPA (Teacher Performance Appraisal) software is now in its 20th year. Those of you in the software industry will realize that is quite a milestone. Kudos to me :-)
Jaidan is looking forward to snow, as am I. Thavorn, is not so sure! Thavorn is now the proud owner of a six pack and enjoys being taken for a teenager.
