Welcome to “The Sunday Summary” in which I try to summarize the week that came before. This is the 172nd installment, covering the week ending today, the 7th of December 2025.
Each week, we link up with The Sunday Salon, hosted at ReaderBuzz, and Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer. Check out their posts and the links to see what other book bloggers have been up to in the last week.
Whew! This has been quite the week!! Have a look at yesterday’s post, I Am Now RETIRED!! if you have not yet stumbled across it. My 60th birthday present from the new head of the Phuket Immigration Police was the sudden termination of my working life in the province. A lot of wonderful people tried to find ways around this but this one person has sole discretion and has yielded it numerous times since her arrival. As reflected in this week’s thumbnail, I am choosing to maintain a good attitude despite the setback/blindside and am looking forward to just relaxing for the time being.
I suppose it was just a matter of time before I fell victim to bureaucratic bad luck. I survived more than 20 years of my life living and working in Phuket with just a few minor bumps here and there. Those all pale in comparison to this sudden action — I discovered my fate right after my last class Wednesday afternoon. As the school would be closed anyway from December 5 until 14 and my visa extension and work permit expire on December 14, the timing could not have been better had it been truly thought out.
Due to the school closure on Friday for the birthday of the late His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great (yes, you need to write ALL of that), I was allowed to work on Thursday. I will also be paid through next week’s holiday as well, coinciding with my documents’ expiration. I suppose this is the closest to severance pay one might come in Thailand without being on the social security plan.
I chose NOT to announce my forced departure to my students as most of my classes Thursday were student presentations and they were excited about that (and an entire week away!). I did not want to cause undue sadness. My plan is to go to the school next Monday (the 15th) and inform each classroom during the first period. Hopefully, my replacement is more prepared than I was during that first week of Term 2 just one month ago.
I have booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur leaving next Thursday and returning to Phuket on Saturday. As an American citizen, I will be granted a visa exemption allowing 60 days stay in the Kingdom, extendable for up to 30 days before having to leave Thailand once again. I cannot work on this (or most other visa types that I currently qualify for) but it will give me time to figure out the next steps.
The first steps are to start jettisoning as much unneeded items as possible from my apartment. That includes several large storage containers full of flashcards, games materials, posters, etc. that I have used in classrooms over the years. I won’t need those anymore. Even if I decide to teach in a different country, I tend to make new materials each term anyway and most are long-due for the bin. I would like to condense my belongings to just a few easily movable boxes ready to “abandon ship”, so to speak. Those would be a few choice books and my stamp albums and not much else. I could donate the many boxes of covers and loose stamps to the nearby Phuket Philatelic Museum and the comfortable back-room library.
There are options that would allow me to stay in Thailand legally for much longer and several are worth looking into. Many, however, are prohibitively expensive. If it was not for the continuing war with Cambodia, it would be easy for me to move over there and still be close to my girlfriend’s family. Laos might also be an option should I want to remain in Southeast Asia. Learning Thai at an accredited school to receive an Education Visa is something else that I am considering. I will report back as soon as I am certain exactly what I will do.
Honestly, it is very difficult to summarize the week as there is so much more filling my brain right now. I was in a complete daze when I arrived home late Wednesday evening. I had made a detour to the shopping mall to take care of some business with my bank — the staff, largely former students of mine, sang “Happy Birthday” to me one last time. I became extremely emotional at that!
A late dinner with my girlfriend that night was quite somber. She suggested that we get married (something that has been bandied about before) so I could get on the Marriage Visa. The former is easier than the latter and it would be a few more years of working elsewhere before I could afford it. Still, definitely an option to consider even though it is now as expensive as the Retirement Visa here.
I tried to maintain a brave face with my students at school Thursday — my last day although none of them knew it yet. Not even the Thai teachers had been informed yet. Let them enjoy the holiday first and drop the bombshell on them at the last minute. Procrastination is a very Thai trait. I was in a daze — I only had three lessons that day, the first of which started right after lunch (12:50). Two classes were student presentations of their “gadget invention” projects and one was a Math lesson during which I had the students do exercises in the book rather than teaching them anything new.
Praew and I spent the entire holiday together on Friday. Most young Thais refer to December 5 as Fathers’ Day as the late HM being considered the “father” of all Thai people; the day is also known as Thailand National Day. We went to a mini-mall to buy a few small items for the house (three out of the four lightbulbs in my living room chose Wednesday night to burn out) as well as items for a nice dinner that evening. I spent the afternoon looking for and then booking flights to Malaysia and trying to explain what had happened to my sister in Kansas. The entire visa system here mystifies her but she is extremely intelligent and always asks the right questions that help me think through to doable solutions.
I felt it was important to put together a separate article about my sudden retirement so I did that Saturday evening. It took a bit longer than I would have liked as the internet was intermittent at best. It always slows to a snail’s pace during extended holiday weekends. I did some music editing and a bit of reading during the day but could not bring myself to do any other of my other planned tasks (such as catching up on the “Cancelling My Life” series with interesting covers from each day since the 3rd).
Praew cooked for me once again last night; I believe the last time she cooked so much was when we visited her family last May. We had fat noodles in gravy with pork balls. The meal was delicious but she had forgotten the chili peppers when she went out shopping. It was a very rare (for us) non-spicy dish.
As for the week to come, I suppose I will spend a couple of days cleaning my apartment, getting rid of old flashcards, and (I hope) a fair amount of reading and blogging. I have a few errands to run before I fly south — accumulating a few documents I will need to reenter Thailand, for example — as well as more research on what I will do with myself come next week.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is not the end of my life but a new beginning. An uncertain beginning, needless to say, but I will embrace the changes and try my very best to maintain a good attitude no matter where the path leads me. I will miss my students but I know they will continue to thrive no matter who steps into my shoes at the school. I was blessed this term with students who are largely self-reliant and only needed me as a gentled-handed guide through the few bits that stood in their way. I feel very fortunate that my last students were, perhaps, my best students. Good luck to them all.
I started off the week (the month!) very strong and finished two books by the weekend. These were both rather brief so that really helped. I started reading another two books and have been making good progress on those as well although there were three days on which I did not make my personal goal of a daily 100 pages read. The extra “free time” in the upcoming week should balance that out.
Currently Reading
Recently Finished
With the forced retirement and downtime this coming week, I hope to resume the “Cancelling My Life” series. I started installment No. 22 last Wednesday afternoon between a couple of my lessons at school but have not looked at it since then. I have some interesting covers from December 4, 1965, and most of the other days from that December 60 years ago. At this point, I think I may post weekly posts with just very brief commentary. This happened to be a time in history when there was a lot going on (and I have a few items documenting those events, particularly in relation to the Gemini 7 rendezvous with Gemini 6). Clearing those is a priority for me as is my annual Christmas stamps post. At the moment, I want to prepare that to be published on December 15 — ten days before the holiday — so I will aim for that. I might even do a separate article on my brief trip to Kuala Lumpur; it could be the start of a “Retired & Travelling at 60” series. Or something like that.
Recently Published
- I’m BACK! (from Malaysia)
- First Chapter, First Paragraph: Tuesday Intros #127 – A Rage In Harlem
- The Sunday Summary #172
- I Am Now RETIRED!!
- Cancelling My Life No. 21 – Dec. 03, 1965
- Cancelling My Life No. 20 – Dec. 02, 1965
I love my new “digiBuJo” system in Craft and I continue to make small tweaks on an almost daily basis.
I documented my 60th birthday extensively, shooting “ShakyCam” video during my walk to school, around campus, and inside of the classrooms. I captured four separate student renditions of “Happy Birthday” and a few of my (former) daytime routines at my final Thai school. A few of the photos are included in today’s “Sunday Summary” but I put together most of the video clips into one long-form production. The only bits not included were the “Happy Birthday” at my bank (I was caught completely off-guard!) and my arrival at the HR office only to find a tribunal bearing bad news.
See you next week!
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