In 1624, John Donne wrote: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. I’m now feeling what he means in a more profound way than ever. Culture is the glue that keeps people stuck together. It enables us to survive. I perceive this world the way that my culture has taught me. Now I’m in another world and I’ve got to learn to perceive in a new way. Culture is a part of a language and language is a part of a culture; they are bound together so tightly that you can’t succeed in learning one without the other. They say that if you immerse yourself in a culture for a certain length of time without learning any of the language, you become stuck at that point forever. Like your brain shuts itself down to any new input once you’ve past that point and you can’t turn back. Your language becomes, as the linguists say, fossilized and you’re unlikely to ever improve it. That’s a scary thought. My window of opportunity must be dwindling rapidly. Ricky and I have started to feel the pressure of needing to learn more and faster and the guilt of waiting this long to let the pressure turn on. Today is the official beginning of our third month in Thailand, and without wanting to sound ceremonial, this is the month that I make things come together for myself here. It’s time. It seems that either one or the other of us is on antibiotics at any given time. I think my body’s getting used to living in a big city (listen to me…the country gal—yeah, right) on a busy street. There is something to be said about noise pollution. Ricky? I’m not exactly sure if Ricky is just getting it from me or if its working at a school all day long, but he’s been hit pretty hard, too. That hasn’t really dampened our spirits though. Things seem to be falling into place (like they always seem to do when you’re around Ricky…like Diane says: he falls into shit and comes out smelling like roses), and we haven’t strangled each other yet. Actually, we’re having a great time together even though Ricky’s time is worth a premium these days. I’ve started seriously applying for jobs now (that’ll put many of you at ease, I’m sure), but Ricky has almost all of October off so while I’m applying for jobs I’m trying to devise a scheme that will enable me to vacation with him before I get a job…that light bulb is fading fast, unfortunately. That’s about it for now…and those pictures of the city (during the day) that I promised ARE coming, I swear.
Until then…
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