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For those of you not in-the-know, we have a new blog going while we're in Thailand: http://thailandt.blogspot.com. Come on over and have a look!

We bid a temporary farewell to Texas.

We left sunny, warm-ish Texas Sunday late afternoon and - after an overnight stop in Wichita, KS - arrived in the cloudy, frigid North late Monday evening. We'll be spending about a week with our families before we fly out of MSP next Monday morning.

All of our household belongings are in a 4x10 storage unit in Denton. Our house sale will close on March 25th. We're taking a total of 3 suitcases of stuff with us to Thailand, and one of those suitcases is full of books and materials for me to use in the classroom over there. Traveling light is the only way to travel.

It was strange driving away from Texas, and it was stranger still (and oddly comforting) to hear the southern "y'all"s gradually turn into the northern "you guys". :) However, though the Texan accent terrifies me, I like living in Texas and look forward to returning there next January.

Betrayal

Just when the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and the birds begin to nest, THIS is what Texas dumps on us. Traitor.

Snowy front yard

Snowy hammock

Snowy trees

Snowy bushes

These pictures were taken about 12 hours after the snow stopped falling, and some of the snow has melted already. I think we officially got 5" of snow yesterday. And actually, when this is (as the locals claim) a once-every-25-years event, it's kind of fun! I couldn't believe how many snowmen sprang into existence within 1 hour of when the snow began to fall!

It'll all be gone in a day or two, but for today, UNT is closed and I have vacation. As they say down here, yee-haw!

Time's a-wastin'

We have plane tickets and visas for Thailand, a condo there has been rented for us (by my boss' boss' boss), and we have a buyer for our house!

Packing is proceeding apace. Gus has been working hard to cull our belongings into a manageable pile. The Spring I term is now finished at work, so I (Angela) have some time to actually help get us ready to leave - and we leave balmy Texas on Sunday afternoon, March 9th. We'll spend about a week up in the frigid North before we fly to blazing hot Thailand.

Must go pack....

Briefest of Updates:

We've been given the green light for Thailand. It looks like we'll be leaving in about six weeks.

My Thai?

There's an 80% chance that I (Angela) will be sent to northern Thailand in March for at least 2 months to start, head up, and teach English at a new branch of our department. I would, of course, be taking Gus with me. :)

At this point, it looks like I would be the only teacher being sent this first term while we're getting the program going! If it works as planned, then other classes and teachers would most likely be added beginning with the summer term. I have the option (read: they would really like it if I would) to stay for up to a year. Gus and I both think it would be very fun.

The city we would be in is Chiang Mai. It's in northern Thailand and it's the second largest city, after Bangkok. However, Bangkok is 45x the size of Chiang Mai! :D Chiang Mai has about 200,000 people and is - according to a friend of ours who has family in Chiang Mai - a modern city with everything we might need, including broadband internet!

Chiang Mai is located at the base of a mountain range and has a river running through it. There are, of course, lots of local Buddhist temples, a number of large universities in the city (the largest one has 25,000+ students; the one I'd be at has around 10,000), and lots of shopping, including a very cool and very large night market!

Now we just need to learn Thai! :)