Living the Dream...

Well, here we are. In cyberspace. Although not quite true. This is Koa Yai Noi, an island between Phuket and Krabi where there's a surprising lack of them pesky tourist-folk, given the location and the generally delightful nature of the place. So this is the end of the 2 weeks of living the dream before I head off to Bhutan to live another one. I've sea kayaked around karst towers, gone night-swimming with phosphorescence, gone flying in the subaquatic and successfully obtained my PADI open water (really enjoyed the multiple choice exam, bit weird), and I've climbed some hot limestone in the inimitable Ton Sai. I've also sat around a lot being lazy. And what trip to Thailand would be incomplete if it didn't include some bombing around the islands on mopeds at outrageous speeds after a few beers at 2 in the morning when there's nothing on the roads? I've definitely done that. It's really hard not to have fun here. Except in the afternoon, when its too painfully hot to do anything sensible with your time. Browsing the air-conditioned aisles of the 7-11 is good. Or getting a massage. Or pretending to be a cat.

This is precisely the sort of place a soon-to-be teacher of science in Bhutan should go to ease the transition from one paradigm to an altogether different one. Buffer Island, it should be called. I will be back after the Bhutanese adventure for another bit of buffering.

Meanwhile, back in Chepstow School, ESTYN are scouring the files and stalking the corridors and halls in their pursuit of judgements. Such a pleasant word to choose for the inspection process – 'judgements'. I generally consider judgemental people to be shallow thinkers not particularly worth listening to. In my room the kids I taught are getting on with their lessons. The teacher who replaced me is standing at the front and writing on my board and it is his room now, just like it was Mr Heap's before me. The good ship 9T has another helmsman to gleefully wind up and be nice to. All things change and it doesn't do any good to go clinging to changing circumstances when life whistles by in so many moments, but I'll miss that place and wish the years back on occasion. And the staff room.

So. To business. To Bhutan. Why? Why not? is a laudible answer, but hardly sufficient for most. Certainly not for my mother, especially when she found out how much I was being paid. Certainly not for a lot of people for whom the abandonment of a decent permanent job with good prospects and a supposedly gilt-edged pension to boot in a time of global economic meltdown is tantamount to lunacy. When people ask you why you are doing something, the natural tendency is to resort to motives and explain them. I'm doing this because I... It's all about the 'I's. In this instance its far more useful to focus on Bhutan. In my next blog I shall endeavour to do that. Perhaps I'll call it... A few good reasons to abandon all of the above to live in Bhutan...