But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

You would think that, after making a solid investment in teaching English as a foreign language (which includes traveling half around the world twice!), I would now be riding the wave, living the dream, but I'm not.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that life in Bangkok is not paradise on earth - it's just life - and the same applies to my working life - it's just working life.

In practice, this means that I wake up every morning knowing that my daily fix of positive energy will come from whatever happens outside school; that I'll get to the end of the day physically tired but still craving for a challenge; all in all, I feel like I will listen to a song but won't have to dance to it.

I met Mark after work yesterday and, in our search for a cool and inexpensive place to have a drink, it started raining. In order to avoid getting soaked, we took shelter next to a building, where we ended up sitting for a couple of minutes.

Mark doesn't believe in the "calling" and, to be fair, lately I've also started thinking that there's little more to life than finding a job, getting bored to death doing it and, if you're lucky, spending most of the time in between with the people who really matter.

But the truth is that I don't really know - maybe we all have a special talent (and it's just a matter of time until we find it), maybe we don't; what I do know is that, regardless of what it is out there that fulfills us all, I haven't found it yet. But I plan to. The search is (back) on.

The tastiest margarita ever

One fine day I checked my Facebook and noticed that Amelia, an old friend of mine, had posted a photo taken in Koh Lipe. A couple of fine days later, she was giving me a call - and we arranged to meet in Bangkok. 

It was great to be in her company when paying a visit to Wat Arun - probably the city's most beautiful spot; it was awesome to have the chance to walk through a kind of second-hand market - markets being one of the most genuine attractions in Thailand. Probably.

It was amazing to have some refreshing drinks while watching the sunset from the Amorosa Bar - probably one of the nicest places to watch the sunset in town; it was unforgettable to have dinner and a margarita at the River Vibe Restaurant & Bar - one of the nicest terraces I've ever been to. Probably.

Most of all, it was incredible to get lost in Chinatown's confusing sois while having great conversations about life and love. If there's something I take out of this whole experience is that some of life's greatest moments happen when you least expect them. And they are gone in the blink of an eye.

The bottom line

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that life seems to thrive around here and you can't even imagine the extent to which this is true. I often see rats and cockroaches whenever I walk around Sukhumvit; hell, the other day I had finished having dinner when, soon after a cockroach went up one of my friends' leg, we saw two rats running around. As one of the girls put it, "welcome to a third world country".

To be fair, most of the time this statement is a bit of an exaggeration but it's impossible to go around the fact that:

- the air pollution in this place is such a problem that I'll soon have to start sniffing eucalyptus;
- it's not uncommon to listen to racist remarks, which would make a red traffic light blush;
- if in your free time you read more than eight sentences per year, you read more than the average Thai.

But nothing is perfect and that's why we should just focus on the bright side of life.

After a few days trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together, the time came to... get some perspective. On Saturday evening, I went for dinner with Mai and Boom and had a really nice time. At the end of our suki meal, I also discovered that each of us had ingested 542.3 kcal worth of energy, 40.2 gm worth of protein, 34.2 gm worth of carbohydrates, 25.7 gm worth of fat, 1.1 gm worth of dietary fiber, 1.1 gm worth of sodium, 114 mg worth of calcium and 4.7 mg worth of iron - very... precise, isn't it?

On Sunday, I went out for drinks with Ben and Leon and had lots and lots of fun. It was hard to have to go to work only two hours after falling asleep but still - it was totally worth it.

The other day I watched "Skyfall" with Liana - this was the very first time I went to the cinema in Thailand and was surprised by the fact that we all had to get up in order to pay respect to the king just before the movie started.

Somewhere along these experiences, I managed to complete he puzzle - wherever you go, whatever you do, it will be the people around you giving meaning to your life. And that, my friends, is the bottom line.

And then the clouds came...