Well, I've got a preliminary series finale travelling scheduled for myself! I want to hit up Tibet, Bhutan, and India - the heartlands of Buddhism. My mother asked me over the phone why I wanted to go to the tree under which Buddha first reached enlightenment in India. Struggling for the Cantonese vocabulary, and half-jokingly, I said that "I want to sit under it myself to understand Dharma, you want to come and understand Dharma with me?" She laughed and said she hasn't the money. As for Bhutan, I've got a friend there, and I've heard that it's one of the most isolated countries in the world:

“Thus of the whole enormous area which was once the spirited domain of Tibetan culture and religion, stretching from Ladakh in the west to the borders of Szechuan and Yunnan in the east, from the Himalayas in the south to the Mongolian steppes and the vast wastes of northern Tibet, now only Bhutan seems to survive as the one resolute and self-contained representative of a fast disappearing civilization.” (Snellgrove and Richardson, 1968, A Cultural History of Tibet. London)

It's a landlocked country inbetween India and Tibet on the Himalayan mountain range. It'll probably be the smallest country I ever visit if I do end up going there.

As for this week, I'm going to Kuala Lumpur, capital city of Malaysia, this Thursday for a Capoeira Batizado. Given the over-complicated changes in visa requirements, there's the ever-so-slight possibility that they won't let me back into Thailand. There are tons of white people teaching English here illegally, but interestingly when newspapers write of illegal immigrants coming for work, they're referring to Burmese or Laos working dirt-payed jobs.

I wish there were a way to quantitatively measure the improvement of my students' English. As I type this, quizzes and tests come to mind. "Duh!" I sort of tell myself. Look at the test scores! But no, I mean, really, how do I know if I'm really improving their ability to talk to a foreigner, or understand a movie, or read a book, or get a job in the future?

I think all teachers think these thoughts...just as everyone doubts themselves every now and then.