If you have come here looking for the most recent on-goings in the world of Jeff Dawson, please be advised that this blog has been retired. Bookmark this link http://rant.sparrowheart.ca, if you have not already, and you will be redirected to the most current blog to which I am posting.

And don’t worry. You will still be able to find a link to A Gentle Chaos and all the posts I have written from the newest blog. :-)

I’m still alive and well in Canada. Been caught up in not doing too much. Besides hanging out with my family. ;-) Working on a new blog. This one will be retired soon and this site will point to the new one soon. More soon. :-)

So I’ve arrived safe and sound in Canada since last Saturday evening, and am now making my way through the hazes of jetlag joydom to a semi-state of normality.

My plane arrived an hour early so it was only a 21 hour journey instead of 22. So long! :-)

Anyway, I will write more when I am more clear headed. ;-)

Sitting at work now, waiting for final student projects to mark, and then… *poof!* all done at Raffles. :-) Surprisingly probably off to play pool tonight with the guys and swallow down a few beer Lao before turning in at a reasonable hour. Cause of course up and out of here tomorrow morning. :-D Should be an interesting plane ride. I hear antihistamines are good for helping you sleep.

I’ve been strangely nervous and in semi-recurring agitated fits about my packing. I ended up with more stuff than I had thought – usual for everyone, that. But I seem to have dealt with the majority of my stuff. Strange to leave a bunch of things at a friend’s place here and know I will probably just get rid of it when I come back during my visit before flying out again. AUS is still high on my list of probable places to go, but I’m going to let things settle a bit after I get home before I decide for sure. I just have to keep telling myself that I have plenty of options and not to fret so over my future self. hehe ;-) Of course the source of stress is obtaining gainful employment. Which is the big reason AUS looks attractive. So, we shall see.

Definitely will have to modify the blog when I get home, since my first post will be no longer in the default ‘Life in BKK’ category, and well ‘Out and About’ really only counts for travelling/holidaying, not extended visits to the homeland. Maybe I’ll call it my ’4th Qtr Meander 2006′ until I settle down. ;-) (Will probably rename ‘Life in BKK’ to something more in the past tense as well.)

Will post again when I get home, safe and sound. Peace, Out.

Under three days now and I will be heading home for my long-awaited visit. :-) Just gathering all those small things that I need to herd together before heading out.

It all feels a bit surreal really. It probably won’t sink in how much I miss my family and how much I am looking forward to seeing them until I am halfway home.

But for now, it’s just kind of weird packing my things and splitting my focus between what to leave, what to take home and leave, and what to take and bring back… If I was wholesale moving on I probably would not feel this way. I guess I am moving and not-moving.

Regardless, I kind of just want to sit in my room and not even be very social, suprisingly – but when I do that I look at the last remnants of things I have to pack and I get uncomfortable and don’t want to be at home. Such is the joy of moving, I suppose.

Things are still in a stale-mate regarding my MA program right now. I am enrolled, but not listed as being in any program, so I cannot take part online. It’s the start of the second week of class now. It will resolve itself soon perhaps. Still waiting to hear.

That’s all for now. Cheers.

Just a special shout-out to Lady Or. :-D

Well, it’s finally starting to sink in – I’ll be leaving soon! Today is my final day of class. :-) I have to do my marks next week, and clean up and stuff, but that’s about it. I am getting to see most of the Multimedia kids I’ve taught over the last two years today as they hand in final projects, and it’s nice to say goodbye and good luck. It’s interesting to be leaving a place of education as a teacher as opposed to a student. :-)

It’s nice to have the ebullient energy of movement and transition taking me over. I’ve even wanted to play guitar and make music recently. Hopefully this energy and inspiration will maintain itself for a while. ;-) That’s a pretty usual tendency for me – I get more inspiration and energy just before and for a while after I make big moves in my life. My first few months in Vancouver, before the depression set in ;-) were quite productive. Of course I would love and hope for any creative energies to funnel and maintain themselves into my MA practice and hopefully for the next year. :-D

And I’m already thinking about the changes I’m going to make to the blog here – change the design and layout. Possibly a new name. A whole new metaphor! Not sure how far I will go yet. I’m also going to start posting about my MA in this space, or possibly on a separate blog, not sure yet – to follow my updates there. It also depends on where I settle after November, since I like to have a sense of the place I am inhabiting in my blog theme. AUS or Thailand, either way, it will be something different to reflect where I am now. ;-)

Believe it or not, things already feel like they are back to normal really in BKK life. Some people are still talking about the ramifications of the last half week, but it’s all about how things will progress – less about uncertainty. A rather smooth transition surprisingly it seems.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up to date on the news, there was a Military backed Coup D’Etat in Thailand, centreing on BKK, Tuesday evening. Currently, things are very calm and no blood has been shed. Yesterday a lot of people were getting the news of what was happening and waiting to see how a few key things would proceed. The now previous PM seems to not be retaliating against the Coup, and the King has more or less given his consent to the same – which has meant things have been very calm. The Thais love there King, for good reason I feel, and if he had not given his approval of the current changes it would be a lot more tense and possibly violent right now.

For the most part the Coup really does seem to be focused on removing the previous PM from office because of the harm his Gov’t has caused Thailand. If in deed there is a civilian Gov’t in place in two weeks as the military leaders have promised, than it does even look like things will progress well and possibly even be for the better. Of course who becomes the interim PM will make a big difference as well. A proper election won’t happen until next year sometime, possibly even not until Oct 2007, so it’s a long road ahead.

Waiting to see what has been going on, watching how things have progressed, and getting back into daily life routine has been interesting – if not down right odd. It feels very strange to have been here for what could possibly turn out to be a bloodless coup.

One thing that has bothered me lately, though, from reading the news reports online from overseas papers, is the demands that other ‘democratic’ countries have been brandishing about and pronouncements foreign govt’s have been making upon Thailand. I enjoy democracy, but other democratic nations issuing official statements decrying what is happening in another democratic country, demanding that that country returns to ‘Democracy’, I find questionable. Especially when some of those countries are currently meddling in other democractic countries, have been known to compromise or ignore democratic policies in other nations, and even overthrown other democratic countries to protect ‘foreign interests’. (There is a lot of foreign interest in Thailand remaining a strong democracy and open market in South East Asia.)

I can’t help but feel that this international concept of ‘Democracy’, like the ‘Free Market’, is a rolled-up newspaper that is used to smack other nations about the head when they have ‘peed on the carpet’. Yes, democracy is great, but it is honestly not the only system of governance nor the only way to achieve change in a nation. The current Coup may not have been the best way to affect change in Thailand – when viewed from a foreign standpoint bent on upholding ‘pure’ democracy – but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from living here for, what is closing in on, 2 years, can any foreigner really understand Thai politics?

Democracy is probably the best system we have presently, helping us manage an increasingly complex world, but that does not mean that it is a perfect ideal that must be preserved at all costs in all situations. Especially not as a political panacea when spoken from the mouths of hypocritical foreign govt’s. Would the tension and conflict that has been plagueing Thai politics since February of this year have disappeared after another election? The leaders of the Coup would probably argue no, and, with my limited understanding of Thai politics as it is, I would pretty much have to agree.