Hello, “all”!  Perhaps I should lead off with a Bruce Springsteen quote – something he would shout at some point during one of his marathon-length concerts:  “Is anybody alive out there?”

This is a post that I have started to write multiple times since returning to the land of the working back on the 1st of July (it seems a lot longer than four months).  However, I have never found the time to finish what was meant as a summary of what has happened between then and now.  That is an impossible task, growing ever more daunting with each and every day that passes.

I simply have not had the time to do much more than work-related tasks and my nightly reading (at least an hour each night before going to bed).  Since going back to work, I have had very few days off (averaging one or two per MONTH and those are government holidays when ALL businesses are shuttered).  On those few holidays, it has invariably been a day of heavy downpours so I have been unable to run errands and I have usually used those opportunities to catch up things on my main blog, Philatelic Pursuits (on which ( have  been attempting to report on EVERY stamp released by every country in 2020).

My workdays are more than just teaching and lesson planning.  I’m in charge of activities so when one of our contracted schools wants to have an day of games (also known as an English camp here, although it has been awhile since we have gone to the jungle), I spend hours planning the schedule and creating a huge amount of materials for the teachers to use.  Just when I get a little too relaxed, along comes another English camp on the horizon (the month or two advance notice from the schools is now only a week — if I am lucky!).

Phuket Halloween 2020

Now that Halloween is over (having had a HUGE party for the kids at our main office today), I think (hope!)  things will start to calm down a bit. Tonight also happens to be the Thai holiday of Loy Krathong but as I am not participating in it this year, I will not go into detail (just as I have nothing to report on the recently concluded Phuket Vegetarian Festival as my only brushes with the largest (and oldest) of all local festivals this year was getting stuck in the resultant heavy traffic during my rides home on the open-air bus and watching the smoke from the finale from my balcony as it slowly engulfed the entire town.

The seemingly endless first term of the school year ends in just a couple of weeks and then we get a brief time out before term two begins.  The only change in my routine that this will cause is the daily worry that I will have to cover for a “sick” teacher at one of our schools goes away.  As well as the possibility of a last-minute activity day to prepare for.  I have a number of small groups and private lesson students that I teach seven days per week at our in-house facility but I hope to have a bit more time between those classes in order to catch up on a few other tasks.  We will see.

Miscellany

Personally, I am looking forward to the New Year as I am ready to put 2020 behind me and move forward once again.  I hope that 2021 brings about a new “New Normal” — one in which I can go outside or to work without having to put on a surgical face mask and constantly worrying if my temperature scan will register too high preventing me from making it to my office (the really hot months of January and February are closing in). Other than those few concerns, daily life in Thailand is not too bad at all.

Life goes on.  Hopefully, not much more of it will get past me before I write on this blog again.  Stay safe and Happy Halloween, Loy Loy Krathong, and Feliz Día de los Muertos.