As I reach the midway point of my internship in Bangkok, I find myself grappling with how to express my feelings about having less than three months left. I’m struggling with it because my life here has simply become my reality, and it has started to feel just as normal as my life back home. Thinking about it ending feels distant and unreal. The initial excitement of being here quickly gave way to a comfortable life and routine. Apart from the turbulent first week, full of “I can’t believe I’m really here” and “Oh my god I can’t believe it’s so hot I don’t know if I can do this for 6 months” thoughts, I haven’t had much trouble settling into this alternative life of mine in Asia. But now with the end in sight, I am experiencing bursts of anxiety about all the things I still want to do here.
When I think in terms of weekends left (only 10!) I think time is running out for all the things I still want to do, but these are fleeting thoughts that I push out of my mind, instead I start planning when I’m going to go to Ayuttuya, Mae Hong Son, the Grand Palace Museum. I have always been that kind of person, I don’t have a lot of stress in the moment of big life changes, and I rarely get homesick, instead, while they are happening, I just keep on going on.
But I think back to when I first got here, that transition, and I have come so far. Before I came here, I had a big list of goals and what I should do to create a life for myself here. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do the usual things I do for self-care, but many things I didn’t expect have fallen into place for me that I’ve put minimal effort into the things I thought I would need to.
First, the heat has cooled down significantly, and I think that is the biggest factor in my enjoyment of life here. I did not think I would be able to go for long walks and explore the city on foot (both my favorite thing to do in new places and essential to my routine back home) when I first arrived here because it was 40 degrees and 80% humidity (now, now it is 28-36 degrees, 60-80% humidity). I have surprised myself with how okay I am with being sweaty, I walk over 20,000 steps at least one day on the weekend and have been averaging 16,000 steps a day here. The other night Maya and I walked for 3-4 hours to and from dinner. That is a testament to how safe I feel here, and the walkability of Bangkok and the neighbourhood we live in. It is a decent walk to the train, but we always choose to walk it, and most nights are cool enough for pleasant evening walks through the winding alleys and canals of our little corner of the city.
Second, I’ve become really close with Maya, and although I thought I would be ok doing this alone, having her here makes everything so much more fun and better. For the last three months other UVic engineering interns have also been here, and they used to come down on the weekends to hangout or join us on our weekend trips, and that has also really eased the transition. They have left now to go back to school, and this is the point of the internship where I thought I would feel like it’s dragging on. It will be September soon and I should be going back to school, but instead I’m here, missing yet another school term in my 7 years long journey to complete my undergrad. When I was applying for this internship, I was nervous about missing another term of school since I have taken so many years off and I still have three more terms of school to finish. I wondered if it would be a waste of my time, if I would regret it when I got to this point, if I would try to do online classes to keep up, but I don’t. Maybe this is because I’ve been out of school for so long, so not going back to school is not an alien concept for me, but I am more affirmed in my choice to come here. I have fallen in love with Bangkok, and I enjoy my life here immensely.
This also feels like a new chapter of the internship, my daily routines and comforts have been disrupted, the UVic interns have gone home so we no longer have built in friends in the city, summer back home is ending so I will no longer be jealous of my friends hanging out at the lake or floating down the river in the glorious Victoria summers that I love so dearly but have missed so often in my life. And rain season is (supposedly) here, so after work pool sessions and long walks are in jeopardy (although so far, they have not been at risk). And most of our planned trips, which felt so far away when we were planning them, are over; we’ve been to Penang for our visa run and to Phuket for our planned intern trip. Both were amazing and I highly recommend.
Now I am developing goals for the second half of this internship. I want to develop a new routine, and to commit to doing more after work, even if it’s just going to the gym for an hour, or if it’s going to a different part of the city and trying a restaurant or street stall that I’ve heard of.
I want to make new friends in the city outside of our coworkers and UVic interns, this hasn’t felt necessary up until now, and it still doesn’t, but there was a huge group of European exchange students who just moved into our building, and we need to break the ice with them.
I should stop buying books and read the ones that I have, or else I’ll be forced to leave them here, and there would be nothing so sad as having to do that.
I need to go up north, Maya and I want to visit the refugee school that Matthew is working at in September for our birthday long weekend, and I am really excited to leave the city and see the landscapes of northern Thailand.
There is a 30 year anniversary conference that we are hosting for GAATW in October, and I want to commit myself to networking and forming connections with the people who attend. The last conference we had was in June, not too long after we first arrived, and involved over 60 women participants who were our partners and workers/entrepreneurs that have been involved in projects that GAATW has founded. This was a really rewarding conference to attend, but during the conference, we had so much work to do and the days were so long that I did not appreciate the opportunity to bond with the women and become involved in the community they created. They still have a WhatsApp group chat that is incredibly active, months later. For this conference our jobs will be a bit different, less notetaking and more comms and documentary work, and I know now a bit of what it takes to put on a conference and am more prepared for the long days. I am so inspired by the connections I witnessed at the first conference to make connections and get to know the women and the work they are doing at this one. This is probably my biggest and most important goal.
