End of the Year Update

The picture above is the only photo I took all month apart from pictures of food to show my girlfriend (and to friends on one occasion). All the other photos in this blog post were taken last month.That already tells you that very little is going on outside of the ups, downs, and joys of homelife. We've been here in Chiang Mai since the end of May. It's my first time in northern Thailand. And yet, we haven't really travelled much or seen places. We've been sitting tightly at home due to the pandemic.

I'm not one of those who will whine and complain about lockdown restrictions. In fact, the restrictions haven't been super tight and we could have gotten away with making quiet trips here and there. However, it was out of a responsibility for our own health that we've decided to self-isolate for as long as possible. On a few rare occasions, I found myself getting upset about being under lockdown but those episodes are very short-lived. I simply remind myself of the world of things I enjoy doing at home. 

Writing into my blog would normally be one of those things but the blog has been very quiet for the past two months. This was mostly due to me getting a new job. I now teach business English to Peruvian adults. We're exactly 12 hours apart and that makes the timing of the classes very convenient. After I finish teaching in the evenings, I usually just want to relax for a few hours. And that leads to bedtime. And so after school is not the best time to blog. 

After I started teaching Peruvians online, I started to feel pain in my eyes, especially after a three-hour back-to-back teaching session - performance might be a more accurate word. Actually, this was the reason why I didn't really try to find other online teaching jobs sooner. I was happy with the low number of hours per week I was getting from my tutorial school in Hatyai because I didn't want to spend more time in front of the screen. I also make music on the computer and so I didn't want to spend more time with the machine than I needed to. However, the opportunity I got from the language school in Peru was quite good. And so I invested in some computer glasses instead.

After a few weeks of using the orange computer glasses - and they are clearly orange for anyone who didn't care to observe - I got a warning from the Quality and Training department of the Peruvian school telling me that I wasn't following the dress code by wearing the 'red glasses.' I had to inform these people that the 2-3 hours of nightly classes with their institution was the main reason - the principal reason, as most of my Spanish-speaking students would say - I wore the computer glasses. They got the message and sent notifications to others in the administration that I would be wearing them. 

In my last class, a student asked me about the glasses. That's a new class and I joined them near the end of their term. I'd already told all my existing students about the computer glasses on the first night I wore them. Anyway, I explained to the new students as well that these were computer glasses. And they are totally effective. They don't give you a new pair of eyes with which you can spend 24/7 in front of the screen. They block out the blue light from the screen. After a while, your eyes naturally get tired. However, they allow me to teach for hours without any of the pain I was experiencing before. Additionally, my eyes and the area around them feel good after using them.

These photos of me laughing hysterically are from when I was still able to sit out on the deck without a shirt on. The afternoon sun, probably around 5-6 pm, was still quite enough to turn my face into a tomato along with the rush of blood from laughing so hard. Ying was making me laugh and she had the wherewithal to do that and take photos at the same time. I don't really have photos of myself like that. The closest thing I can think of is a photo of me in Montreal over ten years ago where I'm snickering but my facial expression doesn't come close to this kind of wildly laughing without holding back.

It has been quite cold here. It seemingly got cold overnight. One day I was shirtless around the house as is normal for me. And the following day it was way too cold not to have a shirt on. Normally, we leave a lot of windows open and a lot of doors open during the day. Now, most windows are closed and only two are open a crack. When I step out for stargazing at night, it's not the same either. For one, I have to wear a blanket over my shoulders. Most nights, I can't be out for too long either. After about five minutes, I'm done.

We're also talking about returning. To be honest, we are quite comfortable here in this mountainside home. However, Ying has a few duties to take care of back in Hatyai. Right now, she's in the city, taking part in a month-long course. The plan is to return a few days after she comes back home. I have no complaints about it. It is what it is. I might miss the natural environment here a little of course but hopefully we can find another abode with nature all around it.

 The pictures below are when we hired a gardener to cut down some of the bamboo trees in the backyard. The old gardener is very effective but these particular trees fell onto the neighbour's roof. And needless to say, we had to pull them off. I went down to help pull some of the trees. It was difficult because the branches of the bamboo trees were intertwined with vines that were wrapped around the branches of a big tree. I managed to pull off about 12 big trees and probably a dozen or two smaller ones.

It's a good thing nobody lives in that house but eventually the owners showed up to work on the house. We pitched in so they would clear off the remaining bamboo trees on our side of the fence, including the trees that were right on the fence. The agreement was that they'd clear it all up. They cut down all the trees but they didn't clean up our side of the fence at all. The decaying bamboo trunks are still laying there. It's been over a month since all of this went down. The neighbours show up once in a while to load up their pickup truck with whatever bamboo trunks that could be put on it. They just haven't cleared the ones from our side of the fence yet. Let's see if it happens before we leave.

To finish, there aren't many 'external' developments; I got a new job teaching English online; Ying is currently enrolled in a course in the city; I've been getting my hands a bit dirty in the garden; and we'll probably be heading back to Hatyai next month. The lockdown continues but certain responsibilities are calling us to return. All is well.