Liverpool and FebRuary

A visitor for nine days!! In the short time that Rob visited me and/ in Sri Racha, he became closer with the guys at Cheer Bar (our local drinking establishment) than I could ever be.

Let me pause right here and tell you that Rob is a Liverpool fan. Thailand, just as every part of the world except for us crazy Americans, lives for soccer, or football, as the game is known throughout the world (except for, once again, in America). Why have we, Americans, not jumped on the football train? What's wrong with us? How do I continuously find myself in die-hard soccer/ football countries? From Spain to South Africa to Korea to Thailand... and now dating an Englishman. And why do Buckeyes annoy the shit out of me? (Apologies to my peeps in C-bus.) Sorry for the tangent.

So, we're sitting at Cheer Bar watching a Liverpool game on the big projector screen. We're surrounded by Thai men drinking whiskey and soda (the way to properly drink in Thailand). They discover that Rob is from nearby Liverpool... and now they're all BFF with Rob. Other than the frequent and repetitive question, "What is your name?" asked of me over and over again, my existence faded into the background. Thank god Rachel and Heather showed up. Aww, it wasn't that bad, not that bad at all. In fact, it was amusing... and very cultural. Soccer/ football, along with all night whiskey binges, are part of the man's world here in Thailand. Us girls are commonly the only females out drinking in local establishments.

Another Rob visit highlight: I took Rob in as a show-and-tell to two of my M1 classes. It went over better than expected. It could have gone one of two ways. Either they would have completely shut down as a class, embarrassed and shy, or they would get all excited and hyper and jumpy. Both classes fell into the latter category. And I just loved it when Rob incorrectly corrected me on the board. (Sorry, Rob, if you're reading this... it had to be mentioned.) I wrote "February" on the board, as we were finishing up "The Calendar" unit. And as I walked away, Rob came up to the board and erased the first "r", making it "Febuary". The students in the front row began re-correcting his incorrect correction. I quickly returned to the board and replaced the "r", shot him a tilted head, wide-eyed, we'll talk about it later glance. OK, so he was not the star student in English class. He was a math/ science student... hence he's an engineer, and I (who would rather shoot myself in the foot than ever look at a science book again) am currently an English teacher.