First year:

Next six months:

Enjoy!

With my plethora of free time, I made a list of the food and drinks I plan to consume when I return to the United States. Here it is.

Food
- Bratwurst with Silver Spring mustard
- My pancakes with real salted butter and Aunt Jemima syrup
- Papa Murphy’s pizza hot out of the oven
- A baked potato with butter, pepper, Lawry’s and more butter
- Three scrambled eggs, quality & healthy wheat toast (with butter) and half a pound of bacon, three strips mixed in with the eggs with the bacon grease used to lubricate the pan and flavor the eggs
- A bowl of Corn Chex (with 2% milk) lightly sprinkled with sugar
- Raspberries
- Hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven, peanut butter cookies
- Mom’s homemade lasagna
- Jimmy John’s No. 9 sub sandwich – I’ve forgotten what it is, but I know No. 9 = delicious

Drinks
- Rolling Rock beer
- Red wine (anything but Merlot)
- 2% milk (I have a glass about every month here. I plan to go back to three gallons a week in the states)
- Newcastle beer
- Tap water (I took it for granted)
- A Grain Belt or Summit beer at a St. Paul Saints game
- Real black coffee – not an Americano, but a dark cup of coffee from my own home or a locally-owned coffee shop and maybe a shot in the dark (cup of coffee with a shot of espresso)
- Fitger’s Oatmeal Big Boat Stout in Duluth
- An A&W root beer from an A&W stand/restaurant -
- Any beer that’s handed to me by a friend

As I write this, I have less than three weeks remaining in Peace Corps Thailand.  As I write this, it’s also 100 degrees and supposed to get hotter in a few days.  I’ve started packing and getting rid of a lot of my possessions.

As of now it’s looking like I’ll be back in the U.S. in early May.  I’ll be taking the long way home and spending over a month in Europe before getting home, beginning in Rome.

Ambition is at an all-time low, but hopefully I have one more blog left in me before I leave.

Click on photos to enlarge.

What are you talking about Jeff?  Not sure and that’s likely because Jeff is going a little crazy and writing in the third person. Village life is making Mr. Jackson begin to think about reading James Patterson novels, listening to Creed and rooting for the New York Yankees.

I’m writing this from a Surin internet cafe (though, it won’t be published for a number of days.) I have no major theme to discuss or project to show pictures of. I’ve been offline a lot recently because going online in my village requires more effort than I’m willing to give. This behavior is not unique among fellow Peace Corps Thailand Group 123 volunteers. The vast majority of us are “waiting out” our service time. Sure, we’re still visiting with the locals when we get our groceries and exercise, but there’s not a lot of work being done anymore.

As for Triple J, the booming music, barking dogs at night, roosters during the day and apathetic neighbors are getting to him. He only has about 50 days left in Thailand until his March 20 close-of-service date. He’ll make it, but a few more Leos (the only decent and affordable beer in Thailand) may be required.

I may have actual internet access from my computer this weekend where I can post some pictures of the last month which included a mini marathon in Khon Kaen (11.55 kilometers) and … That’s all I got.  Life’s been pretty slow, but thankfully I’ve had some great friends to help me through – face-to-face and via cell phone.

I’m also working on a video called A Day In the Life, which will give my friends and family back home an idea of what my days have been like for the last two years. Ambition is dissolving, but I’ll rally and get it out eventually.

Thailand, I’ll miss you, but I can’t do that until I leave. Until then, America, I miss you. I miss your four seasons. I miss the fact that you don’t stare at me. I miss your baseball. I miss your diversity. I’ll see you soon.

Monkeys can be found in Southern Thailand, Lop Buri and near the sea, but not in Northeast Thailand.

I walked around the building to get on my bike and go home and there, next to my bike, was a monkey. I asked the receptionist why there was a monkey in the province of Surin and she said it came from the temple across the street and it was visiting. If it was someone’s pet, they certainly weren’t keeping an eye on it.

It was only a few feet away as I got on my bike. The monkey wanted nothing to do with me, but wasn’t afraid either.

Maybe now I’ve seen everything in this country?  Likely not.

To see all the books I read in 2012 (and 2011), click here.  To see last year’s favorite books, click here.

It’s going to be strange having far less free time when I return to the states and not being able to read between six and 10 books a month. However, it will be nice to have the great American library again.

Here are my favorite books (fiction and non-fiction separated) of 2012.

Fiction

1. Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
   I bought this in Chiang Mai in October of 2011 and held off reading it knowing it was one of Roth’s best and wanting to save the best for last. It’s hard to pick a favorite Roth, but this is definitely in the top three, but I wouldn’t recommend it to most of the people I know … especially family. Only Roth could take a character as despicable as Mickey Sabbath and make the reader root for him … to fail. Okay, maybe Bukowski. After passing it along to Josh, Joe and Dev, it’s back in my hands and I plan to reread it before going home.
2. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine
   The main character travels from the trenches of WWI to Africa to Detroit and then back to France where he reflects on life, love and relationships in a beautiful language. Josh gave it to me and I didn’t know if I’d like it, but it turned out to be a surprise and something I will recommend to others.
3. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
   A British woman in her twenties has an affair with an older man which leads her to working for the secret service where her knowledge of literature puts her in a position to be a spy for an up-and-coming young writer. McEwan has become a favorite author and this isn’t his only book in my top 20.
   
4. The Counterlife by Philip Roth
   It’s the only Roth novel I got lost in and didn’t know what was going on at parts, but the greatest living novelist cleared it all up and blew my mind by the last page.
5. The Innocent by Ian McEwan
   A young British man goes to West Berlin in the fifties to help build a secret tunnel between the divided city. He falls in love with a German girl and McEwan tells the dark and fast-paced tale with beautiful and easy-to-read prose.
6. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
   The Japanese author’s depressing story of two lovers divided by sanity and distance, I fell in love with Murakami’s words with this book.
7. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
   A generation-spanning novel starting in India in the mid 1970s during a civil rights battle involves four main characters and what they do to get by together despite their original differences. It’s one of those long novels you’re sad to put away when you’re done with it.
8. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
   Some say it’s McCarthy’s most autobiographical novel. Suttree is about an intellectual living among country folk off the Tennessee River near Knoxville. There’s not much of a plot, simply the main character (Suttree) going from situation to situation reflecting on life through the outcasts of society.
9. Solar by Ian McEwan
   If you don’t like depressing novels, don’t read this. Strangely, depressing literature cheers me up. Maybe it’s because a sad story like Solar is so damn well written and much like Sabbath’s Theater, I found myself rooting against the main character, but still loving him.
10. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
    I could tell it was well written when I got done with it and realized I loved this story of an English butler in a modern society going through his memories of a past when butlers were a much more important part of the British landscape.
11. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
    I’ve since tried multiple Greene novels and none of them were nearly as good as this one. Greene writes of the possible end of a relationship while taking the reader through the divided moral and religious thoughts of the characters.
12. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
    Another one of those novels (like A Fine Balance) that is a little sad to put down when you’re done because it’s been such an enjoyable part of your life for the past week.
13. After Dark by Haruki Murakami
    Don’t expect to know how everything turns out in this short novel taking place in one crazy evening between a number of strange and very different characters.
14. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
    Why I waited so long to read this classic, I don’t know. If the second half was as good as the first, this would probably be in the top 10.
15. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
    The adventure of a woman crossing the American southeast more than a half century ago to find her abandoned child whom her brother (also the child’s father) told her had died. McCarthy takes a strange situation and makes it light hearted.
16. From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
    I never picked up a James Bond novel until this year and this was the best of the ones I’ve read so far (also Casino Royale and The Man With the Golden Gun). The quality of writing in paperback novels has gone downhill significantly since the 1950s.
    
17. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Debus III
    Strangely, it’s not as depressing as the film with a different ending.
18. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
    The last of three Border novels (starting with All the Pretty Horses), McCarthy makes me want to camp and drink coffee by the fire.
19. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
    The second of three books, The Crossing makes me want to ride by horseback through the deserts of Texas and Mexico.
20. Women by Charles Bukowski
    An extremely repetitive story (drinking, sex, insults and more drinking), but some great insights from Bukowski.
    

Non fiction

1. Baseball Between the Numbers by the Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts
   I realize this isn’t the most important non-fiction book I read this year, but it was the most eye opening and entertaining for this baseball geek. The book, like Moneyball, shatters many of my preconceived ideas about baseball and how it’s played such as the study that finds managers have been putting their batters in the wrong order since the beginning of the game (statistically speaking, a team will score approximately seven more runs a season if they bat their best batter first, second-best second and so on).
2. Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind
   I study baseball, I study music, I study literature and I also study films. Biskind impressed me over a decade ago with Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and he impressed me again with the story of independent films in the nineties.
3. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
   Gladwell blows my mind every time I read his books (The Tipping Point, Outliers). Blink is about how those first impressions of people and things really do matter and he always has the numbers  and studies to back it up.
4. Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin
   I’ve been a fan of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band since I was a kid and listened to my sister’s copy of Born in the USA, but this was the first time I’ve read a career-spanning biography of the boss.  I was happy to find out that despite his good-guy persona, he can be a bit of a dick just like the rest of the rock stars.
   
5. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
   The story of the U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 1933 is fast-paced and suspenseful. It propelled me to read …
6. The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard Evans
   The first of three Third Reich books, this one doesn’t miss a detail beginning in the mid 1800s and ending with the Nazis seizure of power in 1933.
7. What is the What by Dave Eggers
   Eggers has become another favorite author in the last two years. This one tells the story of a Sudanese refugee and his escape of his home country destroyed by civil war along with his attempts to fit into American society.
8. The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant
   The greatest baseball player of all time? I may or may not agree by what day it is, but I won’t argue with you. From Alabama to Eau Claire to Milwaukee to Atlanta and back to Milwaukee, Bryant is a great sports writer (also see Juicing the Game) and The Last Hero is another great baseball biography I can add to my list.
   
9. The Third Reich in Power by Richard Evans
   The second of three books (the third, The Third Reich in Power, I’ll get to next year), this one covers Germany in the years between the Nazis ruling the country (1933) and the beginning of WWII (1939). Every time I put it down I couldn’t help but say to myself, “What an ass.”
10. Have Glove Will Travel by Bill Lee
    One of the greatest baseball personalities to ever play the game, Lee tells the story of his final year in the big leagues followed by his ambition to keep playing even though the majors had black balled him. Lee plays in the minors, goes to Cuba and the USSR and kept this reader laughing all the way.

I’m almost ready to leave. The only thing I am not ready to leave are my fellow volunteers. Thankfully the majority of them are coming back to the United States as well and I plan to visit their various locations on the map on my next road trip. But it won’t be the same. Whenever I see Joe, Josh, Mark, Christine, Dev, Erica, the Sprinkles and everyone else, the vast majority of the conversation will be about the glory days of Peace Corps Thailand.

I love Thailand, but like that girlfriend who was great, but wasn’t meant for a lifetime, I’m ready to walk away. I will miss this place. I know that. I miss my apartment on Farwell Street and playing baseball with Brian, but all things must pass.

With those thoughts, this could be the hardest three months of my service. I am no longer allowed to take vacation days, so my traveling is restricted to weekends and holidays. I will be spending my last 90 days at my site and there’s not a lot to do. I have some great books to read, but even Philip Roth can only take up so much of the day.

The Jentlemen (from left): Joe, Josh and Jeff at the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand. We brought something nice to wear.

I can also see the light and I’m anxious to get there. I won’t be going straight to the United States after my close-of-service on March 20. My good friends Josh and Dev and I will be heading to Europe where we’ll spend at least a month traveling around. There will be hardly any plans – just a starting point which looks like it’ll be Italy.

I’m ready to go. I’ve sat through an hour of Sunday morning mass, received communion and am just waiting for everyone else to take their seats and the priest to make the announcements so I can leave and get a sausage skillet at Village Inn.

The Twins are up 9-1, it’s the top of the eighth and I want to go home to have a bowl of cereal while I watch the highlights on TV before going to bed. The game is in the bag (imagine we still have Joe Nathan) and I’m ready to leave, but I can’t leave quite yet. What if we make a great defensive play? What if the opposing manager gets thrown out? I can’t miss that! I have to stay to the end.