a rant.

im really grumpy today. i didnt think i would be, seeing as theres nothing here to remind me that it is thanksgiving back at home, but i think thats the point. there is NOTHING here to remind me that it is thanksgiving. at least other holidays get acknowledged. and im in a really bad mood.

i have been searching since last week for a place to go in or near bangkok to find something resembling an american turkey dinner for all of us to enjoy. turns out, since they know it could and would only be americans (read:farangs) wanting such a meal, they have hiked up the prices. thats fine, a buffet can still be found for 800-900 baht, or just under $30. id be willing to pay that. but apparently the rest of our group is not as homesick for thanksgiving as me and would rather not spend such an "outrageous" amount.

so most of the rest of the group rallied around that mentality and decided they would rather spend thanksgiving with everyone than have a turkey dinner. i want both. i dont care if thats selfish. some of the people who were saying it was too expensive are not even from the u.s. so i can either eat thai food like every other meal and be with everyone, or have a thanksgiving feast and be alone. a lose-lose situation.

balancing the positive and the negative.

i havent really been posting this week because of two things: first, im getting settled into the routine that has become my new life here in thailand, and second, because im quite homesick this week since i will be missing thanksgiving.

so, i decided for my post, i would make two lists: one of things im missing, and one of things i am thankful for.

first, what i am missing:

-some food: like thanksgiving dinner. specifically, sweet potatoes, turkey and cranberry sauce. and pumpkin pie.

-cheese and juice too.

-fall. its my favorite season.

-internet at any second to calm me down with sporcle games and sudokus. and to download movies and tv shows with. and to vchat.

-talking with friends and family. (some of you could help this by sending me more messages!!!)

-dc.

things i am thankful for:

-this experience.

-the new friends ive made here.

-(most of) my students.

-the school placement i got.

-not being the only english speaker where i live.

-internet, to stay in contact with the friends who keep up.

-7/11 and tesco for offering me things similar to what i could find at home.

-the weather starting to cool down for a bit.

-payday is next week.

-going to the post office today to pick up my first package, which includes my camera.

-the lady at the market who sells salads and is there every day.

added bonus: the fact that my first two classes are canceled today because a monk is here teaching the kids how to wai and pray properly. of course, i just found this out as i went to the classroom. but because of said monk, i was able to write this post and find pretty pictures.

Three Cups of Tea

"If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not bombs." ~ Greg Mortenson

I have a tendency of buying books whenever I see that they are on sale. Because of this habit, throughout college I amassed a shelf of books that I never had time to read because I was too busy reading for class. Since I've now graduated, I've had time to start reading them. I vaguely knew what this book was about beforehand, so once I knew I was coming to Thailand, I kept it to read while I was here.

Hands down, it's one of the best stories I've ever read. And the fact that its a true story, not fiction, makes it that much more incredible. Not only is it amazingly inspiring, but it is well written, and was extremely powerful and moving at various points.

Three Cups of Tea is about a man who attempted to summit k2 and failed, winding up in a small, closed off village in the mountainous area of Pakistan. While there, he made a promise to the chief that he would one day build a school for the kids, who he saw taking classes outside in the cold, scratching their lessons with sticks into the snow. His promise to build that one school, and the struggles he endured to do so, sprung into the Central Asia Institute, a nonprofit which now is focused on building schools and other projects to help make the lives of other mountain tribes a little easier and better. The belief is that the terrorists recruit from that region because the children there have no other means of education, and by building schools, they are giving these kids a different option other than the madrassas that teach Jihadism and eventually recruit for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

What Greg Mortenson is doing and how he came about doing it is exactly what I needed to read about at this time in my life. I decided to come to Thailand because I wanted to make more of a direct and immediate difference than I could have while pursuing journalism. Reading his story simply reinforced my belief that this was something I needed to do at least for a point in my life, if not permanently.

And what he is doing in this period in history is phenomenal. I've thought about all the things in that area that I want to see, but have always worried about the dangers, especially to Americns, at this time. He shows that even that hatred is not universal and can be overcome.

But nothing I say about this book can do it justice, so all I can do is urge everyone to go read it. And if you're going to buy it, do some from a website that donates part of the proceeds to the CAI.

my list of reasons for taking this journey

a bunch of things in my life just seemed to fall into place to make this happen. the short list is as follows:

-i was no longer passionate about journalism and the lifestyle it would require to continue down that path.

-i had nothing keeping me tied down in one spot.

-i knew i wanted to take a year off after going through everything during college.

-for a while, i thought that i would maybe go to key west and bartend.

-while watching extreme makeover home edition, i decided i wanted to do something that helped people

-after looking into various volunteer possibilities, i realized to do something outside of the u.s. would cost money that i did not have if i wouldnt be making any my entire time abroad.

-i decided that doing something like this was the best opportunity because i could travel, do something to enrich others lives, but still live without worrying about money.

-thailand was on my first list of "top 6" countries i wanted to visit, specifically so that i could ride an elephant through the jungle.

and now im here, accomplishing everything on that list and nothing from the previous list i made about what course my life would take. and im happy.

my hero.*

my keys and i are not having the best relationship here. not only did i drop them down the sewer, but this past weekend, i left them in my room. and the door locked.

upon returning to the apartment, sweaty and exhausted, i realized i had no way into my room. this made me very unhappy.

i figured since it wasnt even 7, the landlady would be around somewhere, but after searching all the normal places she has been spotted, and without knowing which apartment is hers, i decided i would wait a bit. luckily, steinar did have his keys, so i was able to relax in his aircon for a bit, but eventually decided i should wait downstairs incase she came back. so i took my book and sat on the new benches at the bottom of the stairs.

as it became later and later, and the exhaustion from the weekend set in, i decided i needed to take actions into my own hands, and thought i would be able to break in by picking the lock. i first used steinars keys to see how similar they were, and of course, that made him want to come and watch my patheticness.

while i was picking away, he decided to try to break through my window. now it is covered with slats and behind those has a screen, but it is next to my door and if he could have gotten in, would have been able to unlock it.

which is exactly what he did. and i had access to my room, shower, clean clothes and my nice table-top-like bed.

yesterday, i went running for the first time because it was finally cool enough, and when i got finished, all i wanted was my cold shower. a few hours later, as i was still relaxing, i heard a knock on my door and thought it was our landlady. it was steinar, letting me know that i had left my keys IN the lock on the outside of my door. luckiy, he was the first one to notice.

moral of the story: i am really bad at keeping track of my keys, and thankfully, i have steinar to rescue them.**

*any sarcasm contained in this post is offset by the fact that im writing these notes.****

**comparatively, i am lucky that steinar is the person i am stuck with here. i could have done much worse.***

***i promise i did not include that note because i know that, one day, as he promised, he will read this.**** :]

****minus the one above this one.

props if you kept track of all of those footnotes.

ripple effect

so now im staying after school for about an hour almost every day to babysit the grandchildren of the director of our school. grace and guy are 6 year old twins who go to an international prep school in bangkok. after school, they come to kasintorn and i help them with homework and reading before they get passed off onto one of the gym teachers for swim time. so now, i dont get to walk home with steinar, but i do get some extra cash. me as a babysitter is kind of a funny thought...but then again, so is me as a teacher.

waterfall, part 2

all weekend, though we were emersed among the other teachers, steinar and i were still treated as guests. no matter how much we offered to help cook or clean, we were told to not worry about it. they were always insisting that we were the first to eat, drink, or shower. and whenever we tried something, or were even just sitting there doing nothing, they continually asked us if we were ok. at first, we both tried to insist that we help out or eat second, but after a while we realized there was no point to that and gave in, accepting that this was part of their culture.

so after sleeping on a hard marble floor in a freezing room without a blanket, i was awoken earlier than id prefer for it being a sunday. after another small feast, we were told to shower and pack up, as we were getting ready to leave to head out to a temple and then back to bangkok. what we were not told, was that we would not be getting back home until about 8 hours later.

we stopped first at the temple, which seemed more like a bazaar to me. it was a tiny structure in the middle of stands and racks of everything imaginable, and of course, the lotto tickets they sold as you were walking out after finding your lucky numbers. it reminded me nothing of the temples i had visited while in india, and i was a little disappointed.

we piled back into the van and went on, to where i had no idea but assumed it was towards home. i was wrong. next i knew we were back by the army base we had accidently gone to on our way in. but this time, we didnt turn around. instead, we continued inside until we found a tallish structure. then everyone emptied the van for a second time.

it turned out that here, we were doing some "army training," and did something similar to a zipline, but we were hanging much lower from the apparatus. it was amusing that the first in the group to go turned out to be bai thong, as she was only 4, and they werent even sure at first that she should do it at all because of her size. but shes a daredevil and went without thinking twice. afterwards, some people repelled from the side of the structure as well.

bai thong was upset that she couldnt take a second turn, so after getting in and out of the van yet again, we came upon a quiet place by some water that had paddle boats, kayaks and a zipline designed especially for little kids. bai thong went numerous times, and after a while, the guys decided they wanted to do paintball, which was also available at this area. it seemed too hot for me to even consider putting on all that padding and running around for an hour.

et again, we got back into the van, for what i thought would be the last time. i was wrong again.

we drove around the base to a monument for king rama v, perhaps the most revered monarch of thailand. the day of his death is even a national holiday. so everyone got out here and went up to pray to his statue as well.

we got back into the van, drove around and saw some buildings, and finally hit the road. for about 20 minutes. then, of course, it was time to eat again, and we stopped at a small restaurant for lunch.

finally getting back into the van for the last time, my shirt drenched with sweat from the constant movement in the humidity, i put on my headphones and zoned out for much of the trip back. at some point i turned off my music and at 6 i was woken up by the national anthume playing on the radio, as it does daily at 8am and 6pm. we werent too far from home, and so i decided to stay up for the reminder of the ride...luckily, as i would have been woken up a few minutes later by the guitar and another sing a long anyway.

all in all, i was very happy with the weekend. it gave me a different perspective of thai culture and i even had a lot of fun. it was also nice getting to know some of my coworkers in a different, more relaxed setting than at school when we are at school and seen as the outsiders.

waterfall, part 1

this weekend was interesting to say the least. steinar and i went with some of the other teachers from our school on a trip to what was only described to us as "the waterfall." we were told to meet at the 7/11 by our school at 6 am on saturday with 700 baht. as we were walking in the dark to meet, we got a call saying that it would be a little later. turns out, we didnt end up leaving until almost 8. such is life in thailand.

so we drove about two hours to get to this waterfall, nang rong. the place we were at was actually a bit of a distance from the waterfall, so we dropped our stuff off and changed before heading out. im not really sure what the point of changing was though, since thais swim in their clothing. i put on my bathing suit underneath anyway though.

at the bottom of the waterfall.

all of the pictures from actually being in the water were taken by the others from our group. i went right into the water and didnt want to ruin my camera so i ended up not taking it out. i was so excited to be able to get water for the first time since leaving phuket, and it was actually really clean too, if a little chilly. but the humidity made the water feel amazing, and we stayed there climbing and relaxing for a few hours before we were toldto pack up because we were heading to raft.

most of the group at the top of the dam, after rafting.

so we arrived at a river just past a huge dam, as it happened to start drizzling. by the time we got all of our gear on and were piling into the two rafts, it was a full out thunderstorm with lightning and thunder, which im sure was not the safest thing. still, as we made our way down the river, in the raft with the group who really didnt speak english, we had a blast battling the rain, rapids and language barriers. at one point, we bumped into a raft in front of us, causing ours to tip, and everyone got dumped out. i have to say, except for the coldness following the rain stopping, it was a fantastic experience. once we got to the bottom of the river, we piled into the back of a pickup truck, standing, and rode back to the start. it was a truly thai experience.

me with bai thong, the daughter of ms. tuk ta, another teacher at the school.

once back at the house, we were fed. actually, we were fed constantly. it seems as if the thais eat every half hour, which is why, steinar decided, they are so tiny, because their metabolism never stops. perhaps. but we had a thai barbaque, steaming meats and vegetables for literally hours. following food, or rather during food since it never really stopped, one of the other teachers broke out his guitar and started to play some thai songs, followed by steinar playing some songs from the us. it continued on like that for hours, back and forth between thai and american songs, and sitting outside that night listening to everything, both cultures coming together, and surrounded by thais doing what they normally would whether or not i was here, it hit me that i am actually in thailand.

TGIF.

im worn out. this week went by much faster than last week, probably because i am getting more used to the whole thing, and thats a good thing. but as i get further into teaching and the lessons, its becoming harder to explain to the kids and the more familiar they become with me, the less they are paying attention. its hard to find the right balance of friendliness and discipline, especially with the younger ones. i dont want them to come to fear me, they have the thai assistant to fulfill that role. but today especially, even they didnt care enough to control the class.

this weekend steinar and i have been invited by the thai teachers here at our school to go to what has only been said to us as "the waterfall." all i know is that we meet at 6:00 tomorrow morning, get back around 8 sunday night, and need 700 baht for everything. im convinced its some kind of initiation event for the new foreign teachers, and that we will show up with them in robes and fire and chanting before throwing us into the woods to find our way out. but ill let you know how that goes if i get back next week :)

simple pleasures

when im at home, one of my all time favorite things is a hot shower. on cold mornings, i like staying buried under many blankets. fresh squeezed lemonade in the summer. bubble baths with candles lit after a particularly stressful day. breaking in a new pair of high heels walking down the sidewalk. here, i have two new ones: finding a message or email from someone from back home, and stripping out of my "teacher clothes" after the walk home in the smoldering heat and sprawling out on my bed in my underwear with the aircon blasting overhead. in fact, all of those other things would probably make me miserable here....well, except for the lemonade, but they would probably ruin it with too much sugar anyway.

why thai people are amazing

the best story from my weekend happens to have occurred before the weekend even really started. while on our way home from school, i was looking forward to catching a nap before heading out to meet everyone on khoasan road. as steinar and i were rounding the last bend on the street leading to our apartment building, i reached into my bag to get my keys. they got caught on one of the pockets and slipped out of my hand, falling directly through a hole into a sewer, without even gracing the edge of the concrete.

the sewers here are covered by slabs of concrete with holes the size of the bottom of a solo cup. luckily, this one was not one of the deeper ones and there was no water in it, just brush and some weeds, and we were able to see exactly where the keys landed. so we went to steinars room and got a wire coat hanger.

apparently, 4:00 friday afternoons are quite a busy time for traffic in our little town. as we were kneeling and sitting on the ground with our faces pressed up against the concrete and hands below the surface, the stares we got from the locals were beyond amusing to experience, and just a glance sent me into hysterics enough to make it hard to hold the flashlight on my phone steady. im also sure the fact that i was still in my polo with the name of the school on the back of it made it even more of a sight for them to witness.

after about 20 minutes of us having absolutely no luck, a motorbike "taxi" pulls over and tries to ask us what we are doing. through gestures and steinars limited thai, we were able to convey to him the problem. two minutes later, he waves over another friend, speaks to him for a moment, and then sends him off. he tried to explain to us what he was thinking, but communications got crossed and at one point we were under the impression the other guy went to get a vacuum.

when the other guy returns, we find out the idea was string and a powerful magnet. within a minute, the keys are retrieved, and i am utterly grateful but left without the proper language knowledge to thank them. boo.

and so it becomes routine....

ive officially become an old person. i go to bed at 9 and wake up at 530 before my alarm goes off, though that can be blamed on the two roosters that live right outside my window. after work i come home, relax for about an hour, then go out to get dinner and come straight back home to get some lesson planning done before i pass out.

i think part of the reason im getting homesick is because once im in my building, i have no way to communicate with the outside world. no tv, no internet, and not much to do. it would be different if people lived by me who i could talk to, but the number of people who understand me in this town is very limited. even just having the internet in my room would give me options beyond belief, and im sure it would cure some of my homesickness. ill have to find out if that is even remotely a possibility, because im zipping through the few dvds of tv shows that i did bring

i realize i havent said much about the food here. thats partly because until this week, it was mostly a let down. i was told before i came that once i got back, i "wouldnt be able to eat thai food in the states" because it was nothing compared to what id be eating here. in phuket, that was very untrue. they catered to farangs and nothing was spicy. essentially, it wasnt the real thai food.

now that we are in bangkok, its very different. for dinner every night this week steinar and i have ventured up to the market, which is really just a bunch of vendors gathered in the same spot. they all cook right there and have a few various dishes set out in plastic baggies or cooking on skewers, and you just walk up and point to what you want. theres another stand for rice or noodles to go with whatever you choose. but the meals ive had this week are what ive been expecting since ive gotten here, though im still waiting for the one that pushes me over the edge with spice.

the ants go marching one by one hurrah, hurrah.

and they marched right into my room. unlucky for them, i spotted those suckers the other day and when i was at big c (similar to wal-mart or k-mart, not target, its not that good) bought some bug spray. i was not, however, smart enough to also buy a broom and dustpan.

so i didnt spray the other day, as when i got home they were gone. when i went to finish unpacking today though, i found them. nestled into my clothes. that was gross. but i dealt with it, shaking everything off and then spraying the giant pile that had formed in the middle of my room. i looked back again a few minutes later and it was just a pile of ant carcasses. i did some quick thinking and decided a makeshift broom and dustpan could be used, grabbing the first pieces of paper i saw, and mopping up as much of the ant bodies as i could.

after i threw it away, i realized those scrap pieces of paper were some of my students drawings.

im a horrible person.

but now my new goal is to find as many uses for those drawings as i possibly can.

whats in a name?

boss. pin. earth. chair. ice. kiwi. milk. barbie. arm. armbig.

those are some of my kids names.

seriously.

not at birth, but they all adopt nicknames, not just for english class, and that is just a short list of some of the ones that stood out to me. arm is actually decently popular. the most popular so far is new, and in one class i have three girls that go by that.

so some of their real names are natchaya, pornpansa, napatsamon, pruetipron, wachirawit, aracheraya, suthungritat, napatsawan,siriyakorn, gloychompoo. and those are just of the ones who already know how to write their names in english.

i usually pride myself on being able to learn and remember peoples names fairly quickly in group situations. this time, with all the names being at least three syllables long, and on top of that them having nicknames and numbers that they go by...ill be happy to learn half the kids names by the end of the semester.

welcome back to school!

i am shocked at how much i dont hate this. i was sure, especially after last week,

that i would be awful, my kids would be devils and i would have no idea what i was doing. it turns out i was wrong.

at my school, kasintorn vittaya, which goes from kindergarten to about grade 6, there are 4 foreign teachers. myself and steinar split p1-6, with me taking the three youngest. beth is from the philippines and teaches kindergarten, as she is the "head" of the foreign teachers, and there is another girl who teaches chinese.

for us, all of our lesson plans are pretty much already written. the kids all have a book to follow for english and we essentially have to make sure they get through it, with activities and worksheets that are already planned out. so there really isnt much for us to do except stand at the front of the classroom and say the words. as someone else put it, we are getting paid for our accents and for being white, as here in thailand, they are kind of obsessed with that concept. apparently, sometimes they wont even hire someone on the basis of race.

so we have breakfast and lunch provided for us in the separate cafeteria for teachers, where we pretty much sit together, segregated from the rest of the staff. it is difficult because not only is there a language barrier, but weve been told that they often will resent us, since we are getting paid so much more than they are and do less work. i really cant blame them.

i have four classes at each level, making it a total of twelve which i see twice a week each. for the first day, i was told to not have them start lessons. i expected such but had no idea what to do with 50 minutes and kids who could barely understand what i was saying. the typical name games and icebreakers were out. luckily steinar had told me about something they had done in their training group where the kids draw three pictures and share. i modified it and just had them draw pictures of their family, where they live, and what they do for fun, as i walked around and talked to them, trying to learn their names (which is another post completely).

i now have a large and ever-growing collection of personal anime, as that is what most of these kids automatically draw when asked to draw people of any kind. most of them are even quite good. o, and all the females always have boobs and they use rulers for anything they have to write.

im thinking ill use their pictures as wallpaper to liven up my apartment.

one night in bangkok and the worlds your oyster....

i left phuket friday at 630 pm, arrived in bangkok saturday at 530 am. the bus was different than any other i had been on. it was two levels like the mega busses but the seats were much bigger. we had so much space to spread out that i couldnt even find anything to lean my feet against when sleeping to do so comfortably. also, it was freezing cold.they gave us blankets similar to those on an airplane, but they didnt do much since they were so small. also, the roads are very bumpy and windy, so being on the top deck was almost nauseating. we made a few stops along the way, which were apparently for a free buffet, but since we had no idea what they were saying or how long we would be stopping for, we didnt get off for fear that they would leave us.

so when beth and i arrived at the bangkok bus station, we knew we had to wait until at least 8 for anyone to meet us. we wandered around a bit until we found some seats inside in the air conditioning and after lugging all of our stuff up, decided to just wait to meet our people.

ya came to get me around 8 and we had to leave beth for the other person from the other group to come. even though we are both just to the west on the outside of the city, we are still a good distance away from each other. so i was suppose to leave with ya and another person from the chiang mai group, but we could not find him and decided to just leave to start apartment searching.

we drove up to my school, which is in a semi-small village and then started working backward to find me a place to live. we stopped at one spot and waited for about 10 minutes for someone to answer the office, but we had no luck there so we moved on.

it turned out that the next spot would be my new residence. its a 4 story orange and coral gated building. the landlady speaks absolutely no english, and so if she needs to communicate something, she calls ya who then calls me back. its a bit burdensome, but she is still really nice. the "apartments" here are really just a bedroom with a bathroom attached, so thats what i got, though i do have aircon and a king size bed, that is as hard as a table top. its rather plain, and i will need to get some things to make it feel more homey. the good thing is its only 2500 baht a month, which is only 1/2 of my allowance for housing, so i have enough to also cover the water and electric bills, which shouldnt be high since we dont have the option of hot water. also, its just a 15 minute walk to school. its not so bad because the other person from the ati program up north, steinar, ended up getting an apartment across the hall, so we can be farangs(foreigners, mostly a term applied to westerners) in the neighborhood together, and not have to walk to and from school alone.

beth lives the closest to me, in a city called pinklao, which is about 30-40 min by cab. its not expensive to get there and i even went to see her saturday night since we all wanted to go out to koh sang street for halloween. it is the area where all of the other farangs go on normal nights so we figured it would have the most halloween action. it did, and we met up with some other girls from the group who were already in bangkok, but after such a long day, we just had no energy for partying at all and headed in early. its a shame, because halloween is at the top as one of my favorite holidays, and i wish i had planned better and actually brought a costume so that i could properly enjoy it.

in actuality, i wasnt really in the city of bangkok at all, but stayed just on the outskirts. ill have to make a weekend trip to visit someone in one of the coming weekends to explore more.