Day 1604. Dengue Fever - a brush with death.

Update

I have been away from Blighty for four and a half years. I am into my fifth job since leaving.

Five years ago I quit work as an IT Tech at Pfizer to pursue an MSc at Newcastle Uni.

Four years ago I was in Chiang Mai on my first ever visit to Thailand. I was hanging out with a lass going by the name 'Goong' from Sukhothai. She told me she was pregnant when I headed back to China! This was my first brush with a lady from the Land of Lies. It was nice to be in the tropical heat before my trip to the Tibetans in the freezing Himalayas.

Three years ago today I was in the Shulin district of Taipei. I had started work as an English language teacher. On this very day in 2007 I headed to Tainan province to meet the lovely Zi Ting for the first time. She was an amazing lass and I'm still gutted I messed things up with her. I went on to live with her and her family for 7 months in southern Taiwan where I learnt a chunk of Mandarin lingo.

Two years ago I was living on Koh Pha Ngan and taking drug fuelled visits to Koh Samui with 'Taff' a deranged Welshman. I was living with Pare. I still have no idea where she got her money from as I never seen her work. I suspect she was dealing drugs at the infamous full moon parties.

Last year I had driven my new bike from Pattaya to Hua Hin. I ran out of money and had to borrow 400bt from a ladyboy so that I could fuel my bike to get back to Trang. When I got home I was dismayed to find that Pat wanted to dump me (just before the romantic Loy Kratong festival). C'est la vie.

This year I am waiting to go to a Halloween party at my new school. I have been teaching GCSE maths and history at Headstart Phuket School for almost one month. I'm enjoying the differences from my last school, particularly the international diversity of the students.

Dengue

I started work here on Thursday 7/10/10 after my trip to Trang and Malaysia. At the end of my first full week I was beginning to feel dreadful. I went home early on Friday 15/10/10 and had a weekend of mental and physical torment. After hallucinating for a while I collapsed in the street as I went for some water (I had nobody to help me with these sort of things). My local taxi driver took me to the hospital (for free - wow) where it was established that I had contracted dengue fever. I was off work the next week.

This potentially fatal disease (also known as breakbone fever, since it can be extremely painful) was easily the worst illness I have ever experienced.

I ended up having to spend two nights on a drip in Mission Hospital. I hadn't eaten since I got the disease and I'd lost 6kg. However, a stay in a Thai hospital is not cheap. Two nights cost me 15,000bt or 300gbp. That is my savings gone! However, I'm simply pleased to have beaten the worst ailment I've ever had.

Local

This is the pool table in my current local: O'Malley's. I think it looks very British??

Vegetarian festival

While I was sick and delirious, the noise from the fireworks and drums of the vegetarian festival were deafening. I had to break out my old crusty earplugs to combat the noise. Additionally, on my way to work last week, I had to wait for mass processions of Chinese people parading past with swords stuck through their cheeks!

War of the Worlds

One of my students noticed this massive insect just outside our classroom.

Swedish Eric

I got out of hospital on Thurs 21/10/10. On Friday I went to see Eric who used to live in Trang. He was in Phuket with his lass from Surat Thani. Here we are in Kata where Eric (not me) is enjoying a beer. I look OK considering this is my first outing since losing the dengue.

On the way to meet Eric my bike passed the 20,000km mark. That means I've done 17,000km since I bought it 13 months ago.

New School

A shot of the front of my new school. Unbelievably we had blue skies this day. There is a lot of rain in Phuket in October. I'm inclined to conclude that the rain had some bearing on me getting dengue fever.

Here's a shot of my own maths classroom. I have tidied, changed things around and even begun a display of the kids' maths art! I have my own computer and everything.

Changing rooms

This has been my room for the last 7 months (except a brief ill-fated stint in Rawai with Oi):

Nanachart Mansion (means international) on Muntri Road in the middle of Phuket Town.

However, I am moving to Patra Mansion at the foot of Khao Rang hill. It has nice rooms, gardens and a pool! I will move there this weekend. A few of the lads I know live there too. It's a little pricier but well worth it in my opinion. I can chill out in peaceful surroundings while I work on my PGCE.

PGCE

As a condition of accepting a position at this school I agreed to do an online PGCE with Nottingham University. A PGCE is a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. The school require their English, Maths and Science teachers to be qualified to this level.

I have just started the course (although I missed some stuff in Bangkok because of the dengue) and I should finish next summer. I met the tutor who came to Phuket for a holiday and she filled me in on the things I missed. I am all raring to go now on another academic adventure. I am going to end up with more qualifications than Stephen Hawkings.

One downside is that the course costs 2900gbp. This is offset slightly by the fact that I earn more in this international school (50,000bt/month as opposed to 30,000bt/month in a govt school).

I now have a Nottingham University email address and online access to all my coursework etc. A few beers tonight and then crack on with this tomorrow.

Lingo

Fever = Kai wat yai.
Hospital = Rong payaban
Medicine = yaa
Doctor = more