I am not a writer, I'm a talker, so keeping a blog is difficult for me. I have not signed onto my own blog since April and that is just shameful! What makes it worse, is that I insisted on everyone reading my blog to stay "posted" on what I am doing. I didn't even have the decency to post at least that I have arrived or how I was adjusting initially. I have been thinking about posting for months and just couldn't bring myself to do it. It seemed too overwhelming of a task. And time just went on so here I am 3 months into my stay and FINALLY writing something. Clearly, I cannot write nor do you want to read about all of the details of my last 3 months, so let me summarize:

Coming back:
I will say that coming back was a smooth transition, it felt like I never left which was a good feeling. I live in Bangkok, which is the capitol city of Thailand. The last time I was in Umphang, which is 12 hours north-west of here. Bangkok has a very different feel than the small town I was living in. It feels like I am in the States a lot of the time. There isn't anything that I want that I cannot get, Starbucks included (although I have not had one), tons of huge shopping malls, a Skytrain, an extensive bus system and A LOT of Farang (foreigners in Thai).

What I do:
I work in the office of a ministry (Ark International) as the administrator. I think they have had an office manager in the past, but never an administrator. They have been working here since 2007 until now and they have been growing all of that time, but without establishing clear systems as they went along. It was fine initially when there were only 3 people on staff, but as the number of staff increased and the ministry expanded, it has become more of a problem. So I am literally establishing all of the systems that they will be operating according to. Clearly they have had systems, but they have not been efficient, clear, maintained or passed on. In the past, someone would create a system but not document it and if they did, no one else knew where it was documented, so when that person left, in essence so did their system and those left behind would either try to maintain it to the best of the ability (or as memory served) or start all over again with "new" one. Frustrating to say the least. I also evaluate the systems that they do have in place and enact change if I feel it is necessary. I am not one that enjoys sitting at a desk, but this is doable because there is a lot of problem solving that I have to do. I have to come up with a system that allows for them to run as efficiently as possible and make the system easy enough for EVERYONE to be able to understand and follow. I love the challenge!

Language:
What about it? I have no time to take lessons so I can still barely speak Thai, which is frustrating to me. I have picked up a little here and there but I can't hold a conversation. Sadly, I don't have a huge need for it because everyone I work with save 2 people, are westerners. English prevails! Maybe I can start taking lessons in the new year but I am not hopeful. Taking language will take away from my office time, so I don't know.

What do I do in my free time:
Not a whole lot sadly. I am doing a very poor job of managing my free time. I live here at the office, right next door 10 feet away, on the same property. This makes it all to easy to continue working well after  office hours end (5pm). There is no commuting so there is no motivation to stop working aside from wanting to eat dinner. The good thing is, when I do go to my room I do not work! And I also do not work on the weekend. I am wholly unproductive, I have joined a netball team (it's just like basketball but nothing like it) and I recently started playing ultimate frisbee. Yeah, that sounds cool but I have no idea what I am doing! All I can do is throw the frisbee one way...there are apparently 3 ways to throw it. Anyway, it makes me run so I like it. I have watched an obscene amount of movies (at least for me). The movies cost $6 and on Wednesdays it cost $3. For $23 you can sit in your own personal recliner that comes with a blanket and a pillow AND get waited on. They will bring you your drinks in a glass cup and serve you your snacks. A blanket you might ask? Why yes, it is FREEZING in the movie theaters here. Never go without a jacket and scarf!

The weather:
I came during rainy season. The good thing is that here in Bangkok, it doesn't rain nearly as bad as it did in Umphang. In Umphang, it rained ALL DAY EVERY DAY, while here it rains every couple of days and lots of times at night and usually not for more than 4 hours at a time. The temperature has been in the 80's which is nice. Rainy season is just coming to an end (June-October) and then comes the "cool" season. Understand that is relative...the temperature will not drop below 75 at night and go up to low-mid eighties during the day. This is cool to Thai's lol. Then comes the unbearable season!! Temps up to and above 100! That should start around February.

The truth:
Part of the reason that I have had a difficulty blogging is that I feel I do not have anything interesting to say. I work in an office, the only thing exciting about it is that it's in Thailand. When you are serving in overseas missions, people expect to hear stories about poor children and other such touching stories, or at least that is what I think people want to hear. I'm not interested in writing about my feelings in general, I don't think people are interested in that either. I am not having some extreme cultural experience here in Bangkok and I think I resent that. I liked living in the country, getting a real feel for Thai culture; the city is so westernized and everyone (at least from what I can tell) wants to be western. Also, although the ministry works with at risk kids in a couple of the slums, I do not work in that area. I stay in the office. It's not that I can't go to the communities but I am very busy and can't leave in the middle of the day. This is what I came to do, not work in the field and that to me does not provide for inspiring writing.

I hope that this has been sufficient and I plan to blog more often. I can't say that I will actually work on my blog site, that requires a lot of work, but I'm thinking about it. I hope that you are all doing well!! Thanks for reading if you indeed made it to the end!