[Continued from "Thailand, Revisited, Reworked (Part 4)."]

I taught English most mornings and worked in the law office most afternoons.  “Teaching” English to about 15 18-year-olds who could easily communicate in a remedial, passable way with me and any other understanding English speaker was hardly a feat of mental acrobatics, and since my French boss was not in the law office, I had very little to do.

That, of course, left me with plenty of free time since I had to do absolutely no prep for either my teaching job or my law office job.  Another thing having two very easy jobs meant was two incomes.  The teaching job paid very generously, and though I was working less at the law office, my salary there was not reduced when I cut back my hours.  Add to that that I didn’t have to worry about paying rent (since that was included with the law office job), and food in Bangkok is extremely cheap, and I had a lot of disposable income.

Lots of time and lots of money.  Hmmm.  The previous year I had become acquainted with various areas of town with cool nightclubs.  This time, though, I tended to stick to the Patpong area of town because it was close to both the law office in the pyramid-shaped building and Eat Me, and a relatively inexpensive, traffic-free cab ride to and from my apartment.  It is certainly not my intent to imply that Patpong isn’t about sex, because it is, but it’s not all about sex.  There are nuances and layers to every place, and Patpong is no exception.

In the mornings I’d take a cab to the university and teach my class.  My students were all around 18 and adorable.  They had to wear school uniforms, which consisted of black pants for boys, black skirts for girls, and white button-down shirts.  Bangkok University wasn’t the most prestigious institution of higher learning in Bangkok.  Actually, according to Daniel (because I didn’t bother doing any research myself), the students who went there were spoiled little rich kids who didn’t do well enough to get into better schools.  To be truthful, anyone who attends university in Thailand is necessarily rich since there are no government-subsidized student loans.

My main job in teaching English was to get my students more comfortable speaking English.  Every day we’d practice typical conversations; I did the same thing in French classes when I was in high school.  Thais tend to be quiet people, and when speaking English, a language in which my students were not proficient, my students were practically inaudible.  Add to that my usual rapid cadence and there wasn’t a whole lot of communicating going on.

There was one student who stood out.  He was very cute.  As has been established, I like Thai boys.  However, he did not stand out just because of his looks.  He also spoke English rather well.  Better than any of the other students.  I asked him why.  He had spent a year in the US when he was in high school.  It was a foreign exchange program where he was placed with a family in Utah.  I tried not to apologize too profusely for his lack of a well-rounded experience in the US considering his host situation, but we were at least able to carry on a real conversation, which was more than I could do with any of the other students.

To that end, I endeavored to speak a lot slower, and to enunciate clearly.  And I tried to make them speak up.  Overall, they were a good group of kids.  They were very solicitous and nice to me.  Often, on the way off campus to go to my law office job, I’d run across some of my students having lunch.  They always invited me to sit with them.  I always declined.  I thought it best that we keep a professional distance with my students.

Not so with Daniel’s students.  I figured I could hang out with students so long as they weren’t my own.  That may have been an arbitrary line, but it was my line, dammit.  Remember, I had already fucked my friend’s boyfriend, so I knew I didn’t have all that much self-control; I thought it best to limit myself somewhat.  I hung out with – and went out with – one of Daniel’s student’s, Bee.

To be continued ….

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