Oaxaca, Mexico?? What's going on?

It’s been AGES since I’ve posted a blog. I left Santiago de Chile on June 2, and have spent the last two months in my beloved Oaxaca, Mexico, doing a bilingual mental dance with Spanish, Thai and English. Mostly Thai. Then Spanish. And not as much English. I find that I LOVE this kind of travel because I can have so much more contact with culture and humanity.

I didn’t think that you, my friends, would enjoy my blog/postcards about language learning, so I didn’t write any. HOWEVER, I am now going to write about my language learning, spliced with photos of my doings and adventures—because this is my life now! Please let me know if you’d like “off” the list of blog recipients, and I shall let you go with absolutely no hard feelings.

Here in Oaxaca, I have studied Thai three to five hours a day with two tutors, a teacher strictly for conversation, and three language exchange partners from a website called “Tandem.” I transferred all my vocabulary words, expressions and sentences from two notebooks into a digital flash card application called “Anki.” It enables me to review anywhere—in bed, waiting for someone to appear at a restaurant, or on the sofa! I have subscribed to fifteen Thai YouTube channels, which include homilies by a fun-loving Buddhist monk, anti-aging hints from a doctor representing my wonderful medical provider, Bangkok Hospital, a gay/ladyboy channel for camp talk, and a fabulous American Mormon who speaks Thai as well as any Thai person as he teaches them English, among many other channels. I have read through a textbook, and wrote diary entries in Thai. I am aiming for my Second Big Push when I head to Chiang Mai on August 4th. My goal is to get good enough to have effortless and deep conversations with as many people as possible. After five months of speaking Spanish which is interchangeable with my English, my bar for Thai (as well as my other languages) is set very high indeed!

Above all, I am doing all this study because it is fun for me. It is FUN. Not work, not discipline, not self-flagellation, but self-indulgent luxurious PLEASURE, for which I have been (unknowingly) preparing all my life.

Here are a few of my favorite Oaxaca pictures. I hope you enjoy them. If you leave a comment, please leave your first name as well. See you next in Thailand. Cheers!Read more