Got Passport™

Full of Gratitude this Mother’s Day

Posted on 2013/05/12 by J. GotPassport

Sunday, May 12th, is Mother's Day in the states. A day where moms get pampered with Sunday brunch, flowers, and chocolates. Mother's day for me, this year, is quite different (well, there is brunch, flowers, etc. but there's more), which is why I wanted to show my appreciate to the moms.

I’m especially grateful for the moms that are in my life. I want to start with my mother, who, at 71, was able to outlast her lung tumors while undergoing chemo treatment. As of now, she’s been off of primary chemo treatment since January, and just had a terrific report card from the latest Oncologyvisit. While her body isn’t the same, her spirit is stronger than ever. Her voice still projects across the room like it used to, and I’m still amazed at her positive attitude about life. I believe it was her amazing health (and mental health) prior to the time of diagnosis that allowed her to survive far past what statistics would have predicted for her condition.

Full credit must go to my father, who tirelessly did what needed to be done, every day, to take care of my mom. He cooks every meal, does all the housework, and of course, was (and is) fully engaged with my mom’s weekly chemo treatments and other medical appointments. He’s read countless articles and books worldwide about cancer, foods that fight cancer, etc., to become an expert in oncology. He’s also kept detailed statistics about my mom’s condition, so much so that the oncologist wished he used that kind of database for his patients! I know this is a mother’s day post, but my father is my true hero, and I hope I can be half the person he is. If you haven’t noticed, my parents are advanced tai chi practitioners; and yes, my father can still kick my arse at age 74.

I’m not only grateful that mom is still here, but for all she’s done for me and my sisters. Both my parents have done an amazing job raising us, under challenging circumstances. My sisters and I have turned out ‘more than’ okay (okay, the jury is still out about me), and each of us are raising terrific children as well. While my siblings and I live quite different lifestyles, we are all good parents because of our parents’ influence. I’m doubly grateful that M can still enjoy her Ah-ma, hopefully for many more years to come!

Speaking of my two sisters, Jean and Peggy (yes, I’m the middle one), they are wonderful moms, full stop. Jean is raising three fantastic, smart, unique, and creative children that any parent would be proud to call their own. Her oldest just started college, and feels right at home in the college environment. All three are bound to bloom into global citizens that will have great influence and be good for the world (no kidding, they will). Jean is one of the hardest working people I know, and seeing her kids have blossomed is indicative of how great a mom she is.

Peggy, my younger sister, is quite the fighter. She has made 40 into the new 20. Just a few moments ago, we walked to a nearby pharmacy to pick up a few items, and the young cashier assumed she was my daughter. Yeah, that made Peggy’s day, and sort of ruined mine (just kidding…maybe). What I meant to say was that I admire her perseverance, her successful teaching career, and for taking ownership of her health by doing P90X and mini marathons… Peggy’s kids are very talented, both musically, and athletically, and you can tell they’ve taken on Peggy’s strength, and you won’t mess with those kids! Here she is, a youthful 42, with her daughters Jessica, Samantha, along with our M.

My mother in law, Win, also deserves appreciation as well. Moving from Burma, adjusting to life in the states, while raising three children, is not easy. She’s very kind hearted, and feels deeply. She was there for us when M was born, and helped us in our home for the first couple of years when we needed it most. I won’t ever forget that. While most guys make jokes about how bad their mother in laws are, I happen to like mine, and am lucky to be her son in law (aka tech support person..lol).

Whoa, did you think I would forget about my better half? I saved her for last, so I don’t have to worry about having enough writing space below. :-) As for A., she’s my one and only, beautiful (empirically true by the way) life partner and the most GIVING person I know. People might assume I fell in love with her because of her looks, but it was because of her heart (No, I don’t have a cardiac fetish). Ever since our move to Thailand, we’ve spent almost all of our time together, literally. That was quite a shift. Normally, a couple would grow sick of their own company, and need their own space to breathe, but I can honestly say that we love it. We’re not always on the same page, mind you, but we know how to work out our differences, and grow stronger together.

I wanted to focus on A’s role of being a mom. To say that she is an involved and engaged mother would be a gross understatement. She plays the role of ‘life teacher’ very well, and takes many often missed opportunities and turns them into learning lessons for M. As you’ve seen her write about home schooling M, she is extremely creative with integrating everyday resources as part of M’s lesson plans. Who would’ve thought that a ten year old would find the Dr. Oz show interesting? Well, M does now! However, being an extremely humble person (to a fault, in my opinion-don’t tell her I told you that), she won’t ever give herself that kind of credit…

A. underestimates how good she is as a mother. Seeing how happy, creative, fearless, talented, smart, and compassionate M is, at ten years young, is a testament to A’s parenting abilities and as a role model. M feels that anything is possible, anywhere on earth is close by, and just oozes creativity with her school work and hobbies. I know where all that comes from (M claims it comes from ‘her brain,’ but we know better).

Often times, being a mom is under-appreciated and taken for granted. So A., if you ever feel that sometimes, I’m here to tell you, LOUDLY and CLEARLY (that’s our conversational English class motto, by the way), that you are the BEST MOTHER any child could ever have. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Happy Mother’s Day!! M and I love you mucho!

I wanted to end the post with some classic pics of my mom, Sue.

Settling in Texas and the Challenge of Homeschooling

Posted on 2013/04/17 by Avril

We’re settling slowly in Texas and by that I mean getting over jet-lag and illnesses. A few days before we got on the day-train to Bangkok (what seemed like forever, because it was over 10 hours) and then on a plane to Houston via Tokyo, Japan, I was bed-ridden for a few days with the flu. My temp got as high as 103F or 39.4C when my normal body temp is usually around 97.5F. I’ve not had the flu in over a decade. Then Jack came down with allergies, coughing and sneezing etc. A few days before I got sick, M had a fever and had an infection as well. But children are resilient and are true miracles. She bounced back up like a spring, endured the train ride, the plane ride and after about 33 hours, we landed at DFW International Airport ready to play with her cousins. And played she did. She went to bed the same time with her cousins and jet lag? What jet lag? She was fine the whole time they were here, just exhausted after the cousins left.

Jack went to see a doctor here right away and he had really bad allergies but he’s recovering now.

Me? I’ve had a tough time coping with being back in the US. Maybe it was just timing. Maybe I’m still getting over the flu as well as the entire journey. I crashed, emotionally for a few days. And that’s just the way things were. The best way to deal with that, for me, is to let time pass. And having lunch with my friend of 27 years did more good for me than I thought. It was just nice to sit with her, an old friend, and talk, confess, commiserate and plan a girls-only-get-a-way trip in the near future.

So this morning, I woke up feeling somewhat back to myself, I spoke to M about creating “some” structure with our time while we’re back in Texas until June. She’s a trooper. She digs it, she gets it, we’ve done this before, Let’s do it! She started to write everything down on paper then I told her it might be better-off putting it on a google spreadsheet. She calls this IT time.

M working faithfully on her schedule during our time in Texas

And yes, we’re homeschooling M because the school year is still going on and won’t end until June. In the past, I’ve been super anxious about homeschooling her, but this time, I’m confident that I’ll do fine. Mostly because she’s such an eager beaver and always tackle things with a sense of gusto and that makes my job as her Mum and teacher much, much easier.

Here’s what her schedule looks like so far and we may have to tweak it around 22nd April because that’s when all her classmates go back to school in Chiang Mai. She’s super excited about having P.E time because that’s Wii time.

M’s self-made schedule in Texas

So one of the things I always look for and ask myself while I’m reading and watching videos is “Is this homeschool worthy?” I do find a lot of materials on-line and in everyday life experiences that could fit into her learning at home. Though I’ve been very nervous in the past about this task as a homeschooling Mum, I think I’m totally up to the challenge now. I think we’re going to have fun together during our time in Texas. I am sure there will be challenging times, and trying times, they are expected. And after leaving Texas last summer I wrote about my anxieties and about this issue in my post Thoughts on Finding Balance and Living Few Regrets.

Seriously, challenge accepted.

And when I find videos (articles) like this (see video below), I get excited about sharing them with M and see how she responds.

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I’m Grateful for Today, 23rd March 2013

As I sat beside the bridge, I was overwhelmed with emotion. This happens a lot when I’m at the border (particularly Thai-Burma Border), and had a lot going through my mind and wrote the following:

Click on the image above to see the larger text

Being in Mae Sot means being able to eat Burmese food, hang-out with Burmese people, getting to know other Burmese friends, and think of new and creative ways to support NGOs. I have a lot to be thankful for in my life, and that is an understatement. And so, I’ll do what I can with the resources I have. Not tomorrow. Today!

Message to M:

Double Digit Birthday

Posted on 2013/03/10 by Avril

A decade ago, after nearly 6 months of being on bed-rest in Houston, Texas, I gave birth to a precious baby girl. She was 6 lb 11oz. 19 inches long.

Proud to have you by my side all these years, you have grown into a mature, well-mannered (90 percent of the time), intelligent, creative, happy young lady full of enthusiasm for life.

Happy Birthday to my precious Em aka Alice aka Rosa Parks. Love you so much!

Em's 1st Birthday. at Stonehenge in England.

Em’s 1st Birthday (2004) at Stonehenge in England. During Spring Break of 2004 (the month of March) we begun a family tradition of traveling every Spring Break as a celebration for our birthdays and wedding anniversary instead of giving each other gifts, we give each other the gift of time.

Let’s keep our family traditions alive for as long as we possibly can!

This year, in 2013, we celebrate your 10th birthday, Mommy and Daddy celebrate our 46th birthday, and our 13th year wedding anniversary while still traveling regularly. I hope you enjoyed your time in the pool by the beach in Thailand as per your request in our recent road trip in Thailand.

At a resort between Cha-am and Hua Hin, Thailand, March 2013

I’m grateful to be who we are, where we are and what we are doing together as a family.

Message to M:

Thadingyut aka Festival of Lights: Our Mini Version in Chiang Mai

Posted on 2012/10/31 by Avril

“Thadingyut is on seven-month full moon day of Burmese calendar and the end of lent. Three days of lights festival overtake Burma, namely the day before full moon. the full moon day and the day after. Illuminations are there to celebrate the anniversary of Buddha’s return from the celestial abode where He had spent the lent teaching the celestials about His Law. Buddhist on earth illuminated the homes and streets to welcome Buddha and His disciples.” Many sources on the net has this same explanation and that is how I understood this festival to be.

As a child, I was fascinated by this festival because we lit up candles and oil lanterns (C Mee Gwet), there were lots of Pwea (performances on stages), respect to elders which meant montepho (snack money) when we ask for forgiveness for wrongs we have done as children. Most of all it was a time for family gatherings, making merit at Shwedagon Paya and seeing the entire city, every home, every storefront, every temple lit up by candles and lanterns. It was magical. Yee Ping in Chiang Mai reminds me of Thadingyut (and Tazaungdine) in Burma.

Of course, as a Mum, I want M to learn about the Burmese Buddhist culture as much as I can possibly teach her. Though it is not anywhere close to the way we celebrated in Burma when I was a child, tonight, we took the time to go to the temple, lit candles and paid respect.

Wat Ma Lee in Chiang Mai

Tonight, I prayed that by next year, we shall, as a family, be blessed with the opportunity to be in Burma to celebrate Thadingyut festival. I want to see the lights again and I want my little family to see and experience it too. It will be our first time as a family and my first time back to celebrate this festival after 33 years of leaving it.

We also asked for world peace and the well-being of all living beings.

An Update: One Year After “Online Overdose is Harmful for OUR Family”

Posted on 2012/10/09 by Avril

About a year ago, we wrote a post on why “Online Overdose is Harmful for OUR Family.” A few months later we wrote this one “Disconnect to Reconnect 2012.” We still spend quite a number of hours on-line.

However, we’ve made a lot of effort to minimize distractions while maximizing our attention to family and service. We’ve come a long way.

Photo Source: Becoming Minimalist

We’ve been teaching Conversational English in our home 6 hours a week in the evenings..
We also teach at a Non-profit organization and in our home during the day for 8 hours a week
We now utilize Edmodo to continue our conversational English outside of the class with our daughter, M, helping us record the vocabulary words and the stories (you can listen here) which we use for pronunciation and usage guide. (Uh, yea, it requires more online time, but it is worth every minute of it as long as our students are learning and M gets to be a part of it somehow!)

I still manage a number of Facebook pages (6 to be exact, although I have removed myself or have deleted a couple of others) and 4 twitter accounts. I have cut back and maximized my time where I’m needed and wanted most.
I’ve cut back on volunteering online at Sparked.com (at least for the past several months)
I’ve increased my face-to-face time with specific organizations where my skills are needed and requested.

I still teach Burmese language online via two different websites using skype.
I speak and read Burmese on a daily basis. I have been speaking to M in Burmese and trying to teach her Burmese on a more regular basis as well.
J continues to teach for a college in the US and provide personal coaching online using skype also.
J spent a significant amount of time this summer reading books on distant learning and revamped his class this quarter that which started late September.

We’ve significantly reduced the amount of time we spend on the Travel aspect of blogging, tweeting, re-tweeting, facebooking, etc. Not that we don’t love it, we do love traveling. There are enough people on-line doing the Travel thing, and they are much better at it than we. And frankly, it was just too much keeping up with everyone and every thing out there. Not enough hours in the day. Just too much.

We refocused on what we came to do in Chiang Mai: Raise our daughter in Asia, record memories on this blog when possible, and on smugmug, and be of Service to those in need.

My brother visited us in October of 2011. Though we were in the middle of the filming of House Hunters International and just moved-in to our home, we did our best to make the best out of his time here. I hope he returns.
We spent a significant amount of time (November 2011 to April 2012) with my parents here in Chiang Mai. We took road trips to Sukhothai, Chiang Rai, Mae Sai; flew to Luang Prabang, Laos for 10 days during Christmas and New Year; and spent a month from Jan – Feb in Burma where we attended my cousin’s wedding for a family reunion and traveled to Bagan, Innlay, Bago with my cousins and ate delicious Burmese food throughout our time there.
My Mom spent her first Burmese New Year with us in April here in Chiang Mai. This would be her first back in Asia since we left Burma in 1980.
It was great to have my Mom shared a room with M for a length of time here in Chiang Mai. I think they bonded.

We realized that the home we rented (the one that appeared on House Hunters International) was way too big for us even though we had good intentions of having space for family members when they visit and teaching students out of our home for volunteer English tutoring center.
We have recently moved to much smaller spaces and we are working on down-sizing, again, back to where we started (hopefully fewer suitcases).

I went through an emotionally difficult slump in Chiang Mai from February to June of 2012, before we left to return to the US. I am thankful to have had my Mother here during the majority of those months.
It was indeed a good return to the US for the Summer. I needed to leave Chiang Mai.

Friends we’ve not seen in a long time reunited with us and supported our efforts of raising funds during our time back in the US. We appreciate this more than they’ll ever know.
Thus raising awareness and funds for a few organizations and reconnecting was made easy because of our friends who remained our friends after another year of us being gone.
We spent a lot of time with J’s family in Arlington. We cleaned out their garage, their kitchen and did a yard sale as well as helped de-cluttered. We hope to do more in the future trips when we return.

With the help of my friends in Houston, we collected approx 50 kilos of donation items brought back to Chiang Mai. I call it “Trash to Treasure.”
We have distributed most of the 50 kilos of donations to a Kachin village, Shan Women Action Network, to church members, and a couple of other organizations with which we work.

I organized and conducted my first NGO tour (an idea I’ve had for a long time) recently with the help of my partner-in-crime.. He drove us all over town to different organizations. It was a positive turn-out and I hope there will be more individuals interested in my NGO tours.

Currently, I am working with an organization to help organize and promote an upcoming cultural event that involves performances, a fashion show, lots of food and handmade products. Really proud to be a part of this project.

We’ve accompanied most, if not all, of M’s field trips from school and just about every event there is for us to be present at like their assembly, the talent at twilight, parent teacher groups, birthday parties, and school bar-b-q’s.
We try to be as involved in her academics and her social life as much as possible.
It’s been tough when some of her friends leave or move back home (to Scotland, Korea), but teaches her to be creative with keeping her friendships alive via skype and emails. Though many of her friends have a facebook account, she does not have one.
New classmates have been added to M’s class this year, and she’s being such a great host to one of the girls who happens to be very shy and does not say much in class.
We’ve encouraged M to be friendly, kind, empathetic, and giving as it is sometimes difficult to fit-in in a new group.
M writes journals on most days and loves to write creative stories. We have encouraged her to write children’s e’books s that she could narrate herself. We’ll have to see where this takes us.
We are very proud of M and her love for theater and performing arts Starting with Fantastic Mr. Fox tin 2010, to dancing at the Songkran celebrations, having a role in being Egyptians during assembly, being on stage with her good friend Emily and sang a song bravely and together have all been preparing her and building her courage and confidence to the news she received today.
M is performing the role of “Alice” in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the school play in February 2013.
She was awarded the first student of the month for September in Year 5, Grade 4. She is serving on Student Council for 2012-2013 school year and has advanced to Intermediate Thai class.

We are doing our best, staying focused on what matters to us as a family.

I’m very proud of us!

Message to M:

When in doubt, remember these words.

“Before I Die, I Want To —- “

Posted on 2012/10/07 by Avril

I wouldn’t say that I’m preoccupied with death all of the time. I would say that I think about death in ways of living my life that’s true to me and that when all is said and done, when I’m six feet under, it’s important to me that I have had a fulfilling life, one where I made small and large impacts while I was here. I probably do a lot of it more often than average perhaps because most of my adult life I’ve worked and volunteered in places like MD Anderson Cancer Center and other hospitals in Houston, Hospices, Alzheimer’s care and elder care facilities, children’s hospitals, and refugees assistance programs to name a few.

I also think that through all our travels over the years to places like Burma, India, Cambodia, Laos and now living in Thailand as well as our many service trips to Mexico and New Orleans have opened my eyes to living with constant and continual gratefulness. Simple gratefulness for the life I’ve been privileged to in America for 30+ years. So each day, I live mindfully, painfully aware of how fortunate I truly am. Gratefully aware that I must give back and I must do so until I no longer feel physically and mentally possible.

It’s simple. Before I die I want to continue doing what I’m doing being mindful of these things I wrote about not too long ago.

I’ve read and heard about Candy Chang in late 2009, early 2010 when she started this project in New Orleans. I thought “WOW! How inspiring!” Recently she appeared on TEDx in Scotland. I am inspired once again by her talk. Here is her video of that TED Talk.

“Make space for reflection and contemplation, remembering what’s most important to us as we grow and change. Two of the most valuable things we have are time and relationships with others. In our age of increasing distractions, its more important than ever to find ways to maintain perspective and remember that life is brief and tender. Preparing for death is one of the most empowering things you can do. Thinking about death clarifies your life. ” ~ Candy Chang

What is your answer?