Posts from — September 2007

After a lot of meetings 4 days straight with friends from high school to after college, I almost have enough information I need to decide which path want to choose.

I’m back to opening my own business. A business which I can start doing it on my own without any help at first. A business which I don’t have to invest a lot of money to get start. A business where I can start from my own comfortable home.

I’ll start writing ideas, business plan, marketing plan really soon. Let’s hope for the best.

While I’m still weighing my options here, I’m accepting various jobs my friends/acquaintances are giving me, which are fixing notebook, translation jobs…etc.
A friend asked me, “How did you have this much courage, Note? You didn’t have a job. Your wife was pregnant with your first child, you are a 33 year old man, and you didn’t have a set plan of what you were going to do in Thailand. How did you think you would manage once you got back here?”

Well, I told her I was one of the most fortunate man in Thailand. I have my own house, I have a car(my bro’s old car), and my parents still happily feed us, at least for a while. All I need to think is how I am going to feed my own family.

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It’s not that I know if there’s going to be a part two or three, but the title gives me something to look forward to.
I’m in a process of reinventing myself in this new town. I have a lot of plans, but none of which seems easy. My first plan was to open a little internet cafe close to my house just to give some steady income for my family. However, after I spent some time researching about the particular industry, I didn’t think it was a good idea to invest in that huge amount of money for a really small return. And, like one of my friends told me, I was about 3 years late for this business.

It’s now down to my last resort. It’s not that I hate it, but I used to tell a dear friend back in the state that I would never open a computer store here. Why? I don’t know… I thought after 7 years of working in one, you should just find something else to do instead.
That’s an idealist way of thinking, you might say. Regular people will usually follow their own path, right? After I’ve been working in the computer business for 7 years, why would I want to throw all my experience away?

It’s just that deep down inside, I know I can do a lot more things than just being a “tech”. I’m so in love with myself, I know. But, I refuse to believe I can only be a comp tech. It doesn’t really matter now actually. My precious little sunshine is coming out in 3 months. I’ve got to think of something.

Hope and peace…
…To be continued

I have nothing to add from my last post since it has been a little too long…
It’s pretty long in terms of both distance and time, actually. The US of A seems to be so far away and so long ago I’m afraid I’ll forget all about it soon.

That’s sad if you think about it. I’ve been in Thailand for less than 2 weeks! Not that I’m completely adapted to “Thai way of life”, but I’m getting close. Last time I came here was 5 years ago as a “tourist” with a few filthy American dollars to spend. I remember I was mad at almost everything Thai. I was mad enough to write a complaint to a newspaper about it. Not that it made anything better, but it actually made me more mad. (or madder? is that a word?)

It’s totally different this time. It took me no time to drive, eat and sleep like a real Bangkokean. (My wife is still adjusting really hard, though. She’s still living like a San Franciscan.) Talk about driving, I drive pretty crazy without feeling a thing about it. I could go all the way from the left most lane to the right most without much problems. Why? Because now I know that Bangkokeans are extremely skilled at avoiding driving accident. I could just switch lanes (with about 1 second of turn signal) knowing that the car in the lane I’m switching to WILL either break or speed pass me. The drivers are all really alert, like driving is their second nature or something.

Everything is crazy here. A lot crazier than the Bay area. It’d be nice if I could go back to the bay area… But it’s not possible now. I’ve spent a lot of money for the house already. I’m going to just settle here and be happy about my situation as hard…no..happy and hard should not be in the same sentence. I’m living in the moment and I’ll be happy. That’s what I’m doing.