If I were earning my salary in the United States, I would officially be in poverty.� In Thailand, however, I�m obscenely overpaid.� This is because NAU negotiated salaries for instructors in our program.� The reasoning was that any instructor that has graduated from the MA-TESL program at NAU probably has student loans and/or other financial responsibilities in the United States.� If we were paid the standard salary given to language teachers at KKU, we would not be able to pay our bills in the U.S.

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I�m grateful for my salary; it would be really hard for me to be here if I earned less than I do.� Still�I feel embarrassed by it sometimes.� For example, today I needed to go to the bank to transfer some of my baht over to my bank account in the U.S.� A student came with me to translate.� That was great, except that now she�s seen my bank book and knows that I make almost twice as much as Thai teachers at KKU.� She didn�t say anything about it, but I felt embarrassed.

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I also feel embarrassed by how much I pay for my apartment.� My rent is less than $100 a month, but that�s high for Khon Kaen.� When people find out where I live, they often remark about how expensive it is and how they can�t afford to live there.� Of course, most of the people making these comments are students who live in dorms that cost 300 baht (about $7.50) for an entire semester!