While teaching in Thailand during the spring of 2007, I devised  a project wherein I asked my third-grade students to list ten things about themselves that they would like me to know (and that I would find surprising).  One of my students exclaimed, “Teacher – I bet you could tell us 100 things about you!” Thus, a new blog series was born.  I thought it would be relatively easy to do in blocks of five or ten per post.  Turns out coming up with a hundred “interesting” or “surprising” things about myself was fairly difficult.  It’s now 2008 and I’m a bit over halfway to the goal set by little Praew.  Perhaps I’ll finish by the time she’s in high school….

1. I was born in Dallas, Texas, on 3 December 1965 — the same day that German figure skater Katarina Witt was born and that the Russians launched the Luna 8 space mission (the rocket crashed on the moon three days later).

2. I was born at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Both John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald died there just over two years before and Jack Ruby died just over one year later. Years later, my younger sister did her medical school residency at Parkland.

3. I have had three moms and two dads. I never knew my first mom or my first dad.

4. I was adopted when I was just three weeks old.

5. I have lived in a total of eleven different towns or cities (Garland, Midland, Hermitage, Hendersonville, Shawnee, Manhattan, Kansas City, Albuquerque, Cedar Crest, Chalong), and Vichit in five states or provinces (Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, New Mexico, and Phuket) in two countries (United States of America and Thailand).

6. I vividly remember watching Apollo 11 land on the Moon and Neil Armstrong stepping of the Lunar Module onto the Moon’s surface. I was three-and-a-half years old in July 1969. Some ten years later, Mr. Armstrong autographed a photo for me.

7. I’m left-handed. I’m also ambidextrous to the point of being able to write legibly with my right hand as a result of breaking my left arm several times as a young child and being forced (by teachers) to cope. It freaks my students out when I show them I can write (and do other things) with either hand.

8. My first pet was a dog named Charlie. He was a bit of a mutt who tended to eat everything in sight, including various toys my sister and I would leave out in the front yard. He died as a result of munching on a plastic machine gun.

9. My first acting job was portraying the character of Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol. I believe I was in third grade (but it may have been a bit earlier or a bit later — the memory’s beginning to go). This was also my last acting job.

10.I take physical, spiritual and emotional comfort from the presence of books. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m reading them, thinking about them, or just looking at shelf after shelf of them. I realize this is unnatural, but I don’t really care.

11. I have one sister. She’s one-and-a-half years younger than I am.

12. My sister’s name is Marilyn. She’s a physical therapist who currently works at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

13. I graduated from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in 1984. The previous year, the National Association of Student Councils held their annual conference at the school; the keynote speaker was then-President Ronald Reagan.

14. I have never attended any of my high school class reunions despite being the administrator of our alumni website. I was slated to help organize the 25th reunion – in 2009 – but didn’t attend.

15. The last family reunion I attended was when the Jochims and the Chapmans got together in Kansas on the occasion of my grandfather’s 80th birthday in June 1995. (Some interesting trivia, by the way: Saint Joachim — note the correct original spelling — was the father of the Virgin Mary. As far as I can tell we’re not related.)

16. The friend whom I’ve known the longest is Bryan. We first met in January 1989 while working at a Pizza Hut restaurant. Ironically, we were both students during the same year at Kansas State University. I lived in Goodnow Hall and he in neighboring Marlatt Hall. Despite this, we don’t believe we ever bumped into each other while there.

17. I have lived in Thailand continuously since April 2006.

18. My first wife and I got married in August 2006 in the Bang Rak district of Bangkok. The name translates to "village of love" which makes it the most popular place in Thailand to register marriages. I didn’t know this at the time…

19. My first marriage ended just shy of our two year anniversary.

20. My favorite meal of the day is breakfast; I have rarely had the chance to eat a proper breakfast since moving to Thailand. But you can eat breakfast foods any time of the day…

21. My favorite breakfast food is French toast, followed closely by pancakes. I’ve had the former only once or twice in the last two years and the latter maybe twice that. Although most of the major hotels will sell pancakes, they can be difficult to find away from the tourist areas. There are roti carts at markets and on the streets but these are often too sweet for my tastes. We made pancakes at school as part of the Academic Fair last month which inspired me to make some at home. The evening that I did this, I had to use the gas burner in my wife’s restaurant and I was soon surrounded by Thais who seemed fascinated watching a farang cook. I ended up giving almost the entire batch away to curious bystanders and my ex-wife’s son ate the remainder.

22. Another breakfast item that I really miss are Pop-Tarts, specifically the Brown Sugar Cinnamon flavor. An issue of Men’s Health Magazine (December 2007, page 167) included these on a list of "Breakfasts You Should Avoid" because one pastry has 210 calories and includes seven grams of fat and 34g of carbohydrates. I used to practically live on these when I was in college. I have yet to find any flavor of Pop-Tarts in Thailand…

23. My favorite dinner growing up was soy sauce-marinated steak with potato wedges (later, baked potato). My mom used to make this for me every year on my birthday; it was especially good using sirloin steak.

24. I no longer drink soft drinks, on a regular basis (I used to be fairly “addicted” to Coca Cola). The version of Coke available in Thailand is especially tasty, being very similar to what I remember from my childhood — before the company tried to tamper with the formula with the introduction of New Coke (even when they returned to the "original formula", it never quite tasted the same in the States again). I used to average drinking an entire 1.5-liter bottle every day (which adds up at 30 baht each).

25. I now drink water or various fruit juices almost exclusively. My favorites of the latter are made by the Kelly company (just 12 baht for a small bottle). Their orange is very tasty and I’m also a bit fan of their lychee and cherry varieties as well. Other juices I seek out include mango and a combination of pineapple and guava that’s truly out-of-this world. I also enjoy iced coffee but I rarely have the opportunity to buy a glass.

26. I am left handed.

27. I have broken my left arm or wrist five times.

28. I have broken my left leg twice.

29. I have flat feet. This prevented me from joining the US Navy, despite having served in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps for three years.

30. I lived for twelve years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city which celebrated it’s 300th birthday in 2006.

31. While living in New Mexico, I learned a bit of the Navajo language and spent a great deal of time driving around the Navajo Nation where I fell in love with the scenery and the ancient ruins (most significantly, Chaco Canyon).

32. I don’t smoke. Never have.

33. I’m not much of a drinker of alcohol, either. I can’t stand hard liquor but I’ll drink an occasional glass of wine. If I drink anything alcoholic it will be a beer and only when in a social situation (in fact, for a couple of years recently I had a policy of not drinking any beer unless somebody else purchased it for me). When I first moved to Thailand, I usually drank Singha but lately my beer of choice has been either Tiger or, when available, Beer Lao.

34. I love overcast, rainy days, especially when thunder and lightning are involved. Unfortunately, in Thailand, those rainy days mean I’m going to get wet because I either walk everywhere or ride as a passenger on a motorbike.

35. I miss having a fireplace in my home.

36. I would rather be too cold than too hot.

37. I HATE to sweat. A couple of years ago, I thought I’d become accustomed to Thailand’s high temperatures (not to mention the humidity) but this year (2009) I’m finding myself suffering greatly – even succumbing to heatstroke on one occasion. The classrooms at school are rarely cool enough to bring my body temperature down enough where I feel comfortable. This isn’t helped by the current policy in that the teachers aren’t allowed to run the air-con outside of certain hours (which keep getting reduced). There are even monetary fines if you run the air-con too early or too late in the day; I have a theory that at least one of the “checkers” is adjusting her watch in order to be able to collect more cash from the teachers!

38. I also miss the smell of pine needles and roasting piñon nuts.

39. I was once the victim of a robbery and kidnapping (the latter was a part of the charge because they’d tied me up — with duct tape and left me.

40. I was a material witness in a murder trial. At the time, it was Albuquerque’s largest mass murder (five victims). The crime was committed by a couple — the man was sentenced to 258 years in prison while his girlfriend turned state’s evidence and received 95 years behind bars.

41. I love taking photographs.

42. I am unhappy with most of my photographs.

43. I don’t like to have my picture taken.

44. I’m scared silly by flying insects and spiders.

45. If there are multiple people gathered, either in a room or outside, I tend to be the only person bit by mosquitoes; they like to feast on my ankles almost exclusively.

46. The most mosquito bites I’ve received at any one time was a little less than 150 (at Laem Sing Beach in Phuket).

47. I don’t go anywhere without my bottle of repellent but only one brand (from America) seems to keep the little mozzies away from me.

48. In July 2008, I was extremely ill and the hospital couldn’t determine if I had a strain of malaria or dengue fever.

49. I officially contracted dengue fever in May of 2009, suffering for a week (the last three days in the hospital). Our school has had at least one death from the dengue in recent years.

50. I was in China during the 2003 SARS pandemic.  Despite various restrictions in place (I’ve always hated getting my temperature taken), I enjoyed it as there was a distinct lack of tourists (or anybody) out-and-about.  This made for excellent photos of such normally people-clogged attractions as Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall of China.

51. I found Beijing to be filthy, smelly, and overbearingly-hot.  Despite that, I enjoyed exploring the hutongs and temples.  I pretty much stayed with the old-and-traditional sites while there.

52. In Shanghai, I walked throughout the Pudong district – sticking with the new-and-modern sites.  However, most everything I wanted to do was shut-down because of SARS.  Shanghai was even more restrictive than Beijing.  Every time I returned to my hotel (actually a guesthouse for Chinese businessmen – I think I was their first foreign visitor ever) a nurse came up to my room to check my temperature.  I was also require to list every place I’d gone to.  I often couldn’t remember (or didn’t know) so I made up things.

53. Because of SARS, many countries started automatically quarantining passengers who arrived on flights originating from mainland China.  I had to be creative in flying back to the U.S.A., finally booking a Shanghai-Hong Kong-Bangkok-Seoul-Los Angeles itinerary involving several different airlines.

54. I wanted to see Hong Kong so I booked the flights to allow me a couple of days there.  I had booked a room at the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon and had planned to take the high-speed train from the airport into the city.  I was shocked to discover the hotel had sent a car (a very nice stretch Mercedes limo) to retrieve me.  I was further shocked when I arrived and was told the non-smoking room I’d requested was unavailable so they’d upgraded me to a businessman’s luxury suite at no extra cost – complete with complimentary room service (which I used to it’s fullest extent).  It wasn’t until I was reading a Time Magazine article a month or so later that I discovered that the Metropole was the first place that SARS had spread to foreigners, indeed the birthplace what soon became an international pandemic. 

55. While I was in Hong Kong, the area was hit by a typhoon.  I didn’t know at the time that this storm was the same as what we call hurricanes in America.  Undaunted by the wind and the rain, I was determined to sightsee.  So I crossed Victoria Harbor on a Star Ferry (it’s a wonder the little boat wasn’t capsized by the monstrous waves; we did have a close-call with an oil tanker) and then took the tram up to the top of Victoria Peak.  It stopped raining long enough for me to snap a few photos.

56. Arriving in Bangkok on the next leg of this journey home, I found that my ATM card wouldn’t work.  Thailand wasn’t on the list of destinations I’d previously supplied my bank so they put a block on it.  I had just enough Chinese yuan left to convert into Thai baht so that I could stay a night in a nearby hotel (my original flight to Korea had been cancelled so I needed to book a later one).  Returning to the airport the following day found further delays; I ended up stuck in the airport for some 16 hours  before my flight finally departed.  Oh, did I mention the air-conditioning failed about halfway into that period?

57. As I didn’t have enough cash to actually get into Bangkok during that June 2003 layover, I vowed that someday I would return to Thailand (the country had never been on my list of places to visit).  I did.  And the rest is history…

58. The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. In 2006, I spent the 4th on a visa-run – crossing by boat from Ranong, Thailand, over to Myanmar.  The following year, I hung up a huge American flag in my school’s staffroom and I had a hamburger lunch with a fellow American.  In 2008, I attended a barbecue cookout sponsored by ThaiVisa.com about a week after the holiday.  I didn’t celebrate at all in 2009.  I’d completely forgotten what day it was!

59. I’m becoming less of a fan of Christmas as I become older and older. I particularly miss the snow from around the season — in my late teens/early twenties my favorite thing to do at Christmastime was to drive down to Country Club Plaza in Kansas City around two or three in the morning after a snowstorm in order to check out the famous lights. They had such a festive, ethereal quality to them in the middle of the night…

60. My favorite Christmas song is (still) "Little Drummer Boy", having been since I was very young. I don’t know if it was the "pa rum pum pum pum" at the end of the lines or just the drum bits that first caught my ear (I’ve always been a closet drummer wannabe) but I’ve never heard a bad version of the song. Favorite covers of the song include those by Bob Seger, and the duet version, coupled with "Peace On Earth", recorded by David Bowie and Bing Crosby. A fellow teacher from Canada turned me onto the version by The Dandy Warhols.

61. I’m becoming more opinionated and outspoken the older I get. More “little things” bother me now, as well. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not so much.

62. I can be a great procrastinator at times but I always finish what I’ve started. It may take me a few days, months, or even a year or more but I always complete any projects that I begin.

63. I’m extremely possessive and become very angry when people borrow/take things of mine without asking.  I rarely had a problem with this in the States but here it seems like people enjoy pilfering my stuff.  This ranges from Western teachers removing books from my shelves when I’m not in my office (which is why I insist that the four of us who use that office lock the doors when we’re out) or my Thai neighbors stealing my footwear (you remove your shoes prior to going inside here).  I’m very organized so I notice if things are not where they belong (sometimes, the teachers return books thinking I won’t realize they’ve been gone for a while – they never put them back in the original order and, amazingly enough, they are often reshelved upside down or spine-out; who are they trying to fool?).  I wish I could install doors and locks on my bookshelves – usually the missing books are reference material or teacher’s guides that I constantly refer to.  As for the shoes, after they went missing once or twice I began bringing in the nice ones and leaving out “decoys” – old, ratty sneakers or falling-apart flip-flops…

64. I often can’t sleep until very late at night as my mind is always thinking of things to do the next day.

65. I get up very early in the morning – 5:30 on schooldays, no later than eight on the weekends – even if I forget to set the alarm.

66. I’m usually out of my apartment by six a.m., on my way to work.

67. It takes me ten minutes to walk from home to school.  I’m always the first Western teacher on campus (and I usually beat the first Thai teacher by a few minutes at least).  I enjoy the coolness and solitude of the early mornings – it allows me to get a lot of work done before other teachers arrive (most of whom tend to be real chatterboxes who have no regard for the few who are trying to get work done).  I even have time to surf the ‘net a bit before the connection slows down to nothingness.

68. I hate laziness.

69. I’m becoming increasingly distressed by those teachers who show an utter lack of professionalism, those who only care about their paychecks rather than the children, those who complain they can’t understand the majority of programs at the school because of the language barrier (hey, learn some Thai!), and those who don’t even want to learn anything about how to function properly (culturally) in Thailand.

[To be continued...]