fluff piece

ive been home for nearly a month now. the surgery is over and im on my way to recovery. i have a few posts left to write about my last month in thailand and about how im feeling now that im home, but havent been able to get all my thoughts together into a coherent block of words that others would be able to understand. so today i reverted back to my old trick for inspiration and went on an internet search of some quotes to try to summarize my feelings. i have made some decent progress on my posts, but until that comes together i am just leaving some of the favorites i came upon.

"a ship is safe in harbor, but thats not what ships are for." - william shedd

"life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. to keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. - helen keller

"only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - t.s. eliot

"do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. for if you do, you may still exist, but you will have ceased to live." - henry david thoreau

"if youre not living on the edge, youre taking up too much space." - anonymous

"live every moment in the present. do it. risk it. buy it if you love it. loving well takes practice, delicious practice. if it feels good, it must be good." - gael greene

"make your choice, adventurous stranger. strike the bell and bide the danger. or wonder til it drives you mad, what would have followed, if you had." - the magicians nephew, c.s. lewis

"live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway." - webb chiles

"if we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." - thomas alva edison

"for everything you have missed, you have gained something else." - ralph waldo emerson

and the top 3 i am currently feeling from this bunch:

"life is full of choices, if you have the guts to go for it. thats why i get immediately bored with anyones complaining about how boring their life is, or how bad their town is. fucking leave and go somewhere else. or dont." - henry rollins

"things change, so do cities, people come into your life and they go. but its comforting to know that the ones you love are always there in your heart....and if youre very lucky, a plane ride away." - sex and the city, sarah jessica parker

"it is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had." - elizabeth kubler-ross

taxi cab adventures.

throughout the time here in thailand, there have been numerous encounters with public transportation that could only happen here, and only happen to farangs. more specifically, they would only happen to us: me, steph and tash together in a cab just meant a deadly combination. of course, there is the typical happenings of drivers trying to charge us exorbitant fees rather than turning on their meters or telling us simply "no can," but sometimes things that are just slightly more out of the ordinary. here are some of the best stories we have accumulated.

also, i just want to say that these are probably a lot more hilarious to me than anyone else will find them. just take them as those "you-had-to-be-there" kind of things.

uh-oh....accident!

i cant even remember where we were going. i want to say it was china town for the chinese new year, but that could be completely made up. it was sometime around that time though, and of course, as always in thailand, it was more than quite hot. we searched for a while for a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go and with the meter on (because neither of those things is particularly easy to find here), and finally we did. we sat in traffic, of course, for about 10 minutes, and then pulled onto a different street, where we gracefully collided with a motorbike. i dont think anyone was hurt, but the taxi driver jumped out and started arguing with the motorbike driver, who then drove off. but the bumper of the cab was sitting in the street, and the meter was still running. rather than sit around and let the fare get higher, the three of us decided to just get out and find another cab.

caught red handed...maybe?

while heading from one excursion to another, we were in a taxi and passed by a police stop. these are rather routine in thailand, and usually they just peer in to see if everyone in the front is wearing a seatbelt. that said, if theres a farang in the car, there is usually even less of an issue, and they just smile and wave the cabby through. not this time. we were not only stopped, but the cop asked the driver to get out of the vehicle. at this point, we thought it was funny, if slightly inconvenient, but obviously we are used to that in this country. then the cop sent the driver over to another group of police officers and made him open the trunk, and thats when we got a little freaked out, not to mention that the meter was still running (see a theme here?).

eventually, he got back in the car with only a ticket, i think, but we never actually found out what was in the trunk or why he got stopped.

how many farangs can we get into one taxi cab?

soi cowboy in the area of nana plaza is known as (one of) the sleezier districts in bangkok. it also happens to be one of the places frequented by farangs at night. a few months into living here, steph and i had not yet explored that area, so one night the boys (of course!) convinced us we should give it a try. after a bit, although by no means sleezier than some other places we have seen, we were not impressed, and thought we would rather go somewhere else. everyone had split up by that point, so trying to get people together to leave was a task. im pretty sure we had two in the front, and four in the back, when we started pulling away and someone shouted that they saw andrew up the street. the taxi driver didnt understand that we wanted him to pull over to get our friend (or maybe he did and just didnt want to, never can tell with these tricksters!) and so we threw open the door as we passed and andrew basically did a dive onto the laps of everyone in the back seat. this made 7 farangs and an unhappy driver in the car. well done.

bad-luck american.

frequently when they have a little knowledge of english, the drivers will try to start conversations with us. they ask us the standard questions each time...why are we here, how long have we been here, where do we come from, etc. steph was in the front and tash and i in the back, and the driver had just asked us where we each came from. we told him the three countries (canada, england, usa), and he started to say something else when at that moment i sneezed. the look he gave me, according to steph, was one of absolute horror and disgust. then he looked in the rearview mirror and pointed at me while saying "suay." now this word is ridiculously close to the word "suai," which means beautiful. but thats not what he meant. i had to ask someone the next day, but the tonage he used with the word means bad luck. simply for sneezing. mai khao jai.

round-a-bout.

ive referenced our coyotes nights in a few different posts....the place we go to on wednesdays or saturdays and drink free margaritas for two hours. when going from stephs house, it is only a 10 minute taxi drive without traffic. usually there is traffic, but thats still not a problem. the point is, we know the distance and how to get there. we were on our way to meet people and left with about 20 minutes to spare before the drinks started flowing. 50 minutes later, we were outraged. there was a slight amount of traffic, but the driver was going in the wrong direction. we were traveling around the entire city to get to the restaurant which is just a few kilometers north. when we started seeing signs for where lauren lives, just north outside of the city, we tried saying something to him. he just laughed at us, paying no mind to what we were saying. when we finally got there, we tried to offer less money because he took us the wrong way, but he threatened with the police. so we ended up having to pay for an unwanted bangkok tour AND he had cut our free drinking time down by nearly 50 minutes!

taxi ting tong!

without a doubt, probably the funniest taxi story we have. this was just me and steph, on our way back to her place after one of our sunday night splurges. we tried to explore a new area, surasak, because we had heard that there were good places to party and eat there. unfortunately, we chose to go there during the peak of the red shirts disruption, and so we didnt find much...some overpriced decent curry and thats about it. so we headed back. as we were walking back to the main street a cab passed, saw us heading up that direction, and backed up. we got in and because we knew a little thai (we thought) he was impressed and giggly. most of the ride we spent chatting on our own, but occasionally he would throw a comment and a giggle (and i do mean giggle) back at us and that made us laugh as well. but when we got close to her house, all of a sudden he says "hehehe, taxi ting tong! hehehe." in thai, ting tong means crazy, or rather....crazy drunk. wasted. at that point we were on her back street and so we just looked at each other and laughed, but then he sees another white person outside and rolls down the window yelling "farang! teacha! taxi ting tong! hehehe!" and the guy actually was another teacher at stephs school, but one who was not too impressed with the exchange that happened.

what i miss.

***note. i wrote this last week with intentions of posting today. there have been recent developments that kind of make my feelings about this change, and i will post about them next.***

9 months ago today, i left the states. im 75% through with the initial year away i had intended. as ive been talking to more people who have just recently gotten to thailand, i find that im frequently being asked about things i miss most from back home. around thanksgiving i made a post about what i missed at that time, but the things that make the list now are very different. i think that as time has gone on, i have become more used to what is available here that serve as near 'substitutes.' for example, though its still really hard to find real juice, they have things that are close. for what is on this list, nothing similar exists to fill in temporarily.

1. bagels. lightly toasted with lox and cream cheese, tomato and onion. o man i cant explain how badly i want this. in fact, mom, this is what i would like you to greet me with at the airport, whenever that day arrives.

2. pickles. dill pickles to be specific. most people who know me know how much i love them, and there arent any kinds of pickles here, or anything close to the pickled taste even, to satisfy this craving.

3. turkey. i never realized that this was a bird that asia doesnt have. you think chicken is close enough to turkey, but when you cant get turkey you realize how different they actually are. and when i dont eat ham or most other sandwich meats, lack of turkey is noticeable (not that i really get to eat sandwiches to miss this, but still).

4. my clothes. im so sick of everything i have over here. and it doesnt help that most of it is stained, ripped, or otherwise ruined by the heat.

5. looking nice to go out. the heat here makes it pointless to even worry about this one.

6. dc nightlife. no explanation needed.

7. crabs. they have seafood out here, but all the marylanders know nothing else is the same. (though thanks mr winer i do have a small container of old bay which i use on pad thai and in tuna, hehe).

8. driving. i thought that driving so much in high school and college had made me hate driving forever. now that i havent been able to have control over my own transportation for so long, im finding i actually do miss it. especially in the summer when the weathers nice and theres fun music to blare.

of course there are other things i get occasional pangs for. at one point i really wanted pretzels. recently the only thing that i wanted was a watermelon jolly rancher, and they are currently on their way from the states :] i miss wearing heels, but at this point im so used to open-toed shoes every single day that i dont know how i would adjust back to that....or most of western culture, come to think of it.

catch up.

i was going to go ahead and write separate blog posts for everything that has happened since i arrived back from phuket, but if i try to attempt that, i will NEVER get caught up to where my real life is. so this is going to just be a jumbled mess of basically the last month.

so we arrived back at school, and though a week late, went right back into the routine. it turns out that this semester, each grade only has 3 classes rather than 4. this means a few things. first, when they separated the kids into the groups, they did a better job, so now my p#/1s are amazingly good at everything (essentially honors students) and my p#/3s are basically special education classes. i dont mean that in a negative way, its just the way it is, especially p3/3. id say over half the kids in that class have learning disabilities, but thai school systems do not recognize such disorders and just push everyone through together (remember, they cant fail). needless to say, that class has been quite a challenge. also, it means that the classes are a lot bigger. rather than the low 20s, now each class has well over 30 and closer to 40 students in most cases. finally, it means less teaching hours a week for me (wooo!). as i see each class 2 times a week, i was teaching 24 classes last semester. this knocked out 6....but in order to get me teaching 20 hours a week the school tacked on two kindergarten classes once a week each >:( the fact that it is literally only to make me teach 20 hours is blatantly obvious, as there is a separate teacher for kinder classes and she sees the classes twice a week and then i see two classes once a week each and steinar does as well. it throws off the whole consistency thing with the students, and makes planning difficult as we all have to work together. not to mention, teaching kinder kids is a completely different ball game. i definitely am not a fan.

giving me two random kindergarten classes was only the first thing the school changed this semester. they are trying to work to become...different. i leave it at that because i really have no idea what they are trying to accomplish, only can tell that they are working towards some kind of goal. things change daily, and most of these changes make little sense. for that, and a few other reasons, im kind of regretting staying at this school. my main reason was that i was reasonably happy here and used to it, and didnt want to have to learn a new routine. im learning a new routine anyway and not as happy as i was, and had i changed schools at least i could have been in a better location and making more money.

speaking of location.....i had been trying to move apartments since february. i wanted to be closer to the school, the center of town, and have internet at my place. i started communicating this wish to my 'agency' but was told that i couldnt move until april because apparently when i moved in i said for 6 months...which i know i didnt say. whatever. then in may every time i tried to have someone come out to help me find a new apartment, it never worked. by the time they would have been able to get here, it was middle of june, leaving me with just over 3 months, and i didnt see the point. so im not moving, im staying in my place without internet and walking a mile to school in a monsoon most mornings because, o yeah, now its rainy season in thailand. and thats no fun at all.

pictures of my luxury apartment, because i never posted them before.

hmmm, what else?

o, i had a birthday last month. i dont feel any older this year. im not sure if its because it hardly feels like i even had a birthday, as there are few people in this country who even know what day it falls on, because my outlook has changed, or because my life actually feels slightly suspended from reality. but i went with steph, lauren and stephen over to koh samet and had a nice, relaxed, birthday weekend.

to move off of the negative stuff....ive been meeting a lot of new people. since i wasnt getting any new teachers at my school and was not doing the course over, i wasnt really expecting to meet that many new people this semester. steph and i were planning on spending most weekends together on our own, which would have been fine, but its been nice meeting a new group of people too. there are two new ati groups, and because ive been really (i mean REALLY) into watching the world cup games and going out so much to see them, i have met a decent amount of other farangs living here as well. with each new person, the social circles expand. and while at the core there is pretty much always the general similarity of being english teachers, everyone out here comes from different places and has different experiences to share.

sorry there is such a depressing tone to this post. but hey, it shows everyone who keeps telling me that they are jealous of my life that even though im in thailand, life is still life. its not all buckets and beaches....though it does help to have those things there to turn to when life gets to be like this :]

school year on pause.

aside from one exception, i didnt post on the political situation that was happening in thailand the last few months. it is largely due to the fact that while the serious stuff was happening, i was traveling. but its likely that even if i hadnt been, there wouldnt have been much that i could say that would have been worthwhile because it is so complicated and as a westerner living here, i cannot possibly comprehend everything.

i arrived back in thailand from vietnam on sunday, may 16, expecting to head into school the next day to start of the new school year. i found out when i got home that the next two days had been declared a 'national holiday' so that the government could try to gain control of the situation. this meant that all government businesses would be closed, including schools. since i work at a private school, they were able to determine their own plan of action, and they decided to cancel classes for the entire week.

it turned out that those two days the government was giving as holiday were meant to be used to 'get women, children, and the elderly out of the center of the city before the deadline,' which at first was set for monday, may 17 at 3pm and then pushed back to wednesday morning when it became obvious that people were still not leaving. steph and i found out through some of her teachers that this was because following that deadline, the military was basically going to just go in and open fire in order to disperse the group of protestors.

come wednesday, may 19, things got really bad. the military went in and gunfire was exchanged. buildings and businesses were set on fire. tear gas and rubber bullets set off. this 'war zone,' as it was call, lasted for about three days before the red shirt protest leaders started surrendering, bringing the situation to somewhat of a close.

for days i was checking twitter and the bangkok post every few minutes trying to stay up-to-the-minute on what was happening. there was a lot of chaos and confusion, which is still trying to be sorted. however in the grand scheme of things, everything could have been a lot worse. as time has passed, there have been many comments on how the government handled the situation, and this is what i found to be most notable: no other country would have allowed a protest of that magnitude to continue on and harm the economy to the extent that this one did for as long as it did.

world of backpacking.

its a world where you refer to people, not by names, but by the country or city they are from. where you can tell how long someone is planning on traveling by looking at the size of their backpack, or look at the state of their hair and tell how long they have been away. where one conversation can make you someones new best friend and travel partner for a week or more. where all the rules about what life and society expect from you back home are lost and the only things that matter are the new places you see and the new friends you make. plans go out the door along with all preconceived....expectations. you can lose yourself completely and yet somehow, you are able to find out more about yourself than ever before.

its addictive.

world of vietnam.

crossing into vietnam from cambodia, there wasn't really anything that struck me right from the beginning that set the country apart significantly from any of the others in southeast asia. however, after a bit of time, some differences did emerge.

its hard enough to find bread on its own in thailand, let alone any that is good, but the lingering french influence in vietnam means that street stalls are well stocked with supplies for making good baguette sandwiches and restaurants sell french baguettes on the side of all of their dishes. coffee shops are plentiful, and their coffee isnt just a cup of lukewarm milk with a pound of sugar and a splash of coffee flavoring, as it is in thailand. this is gooood coffee. they even have special little tin filters for each glass that is made. i found myself drinking at least a cup, and usually more that, of coffee each day, and even bought a few packs and the coffee maker to take back with me to thailand.

the famous food of vietnam is pho (pronounced 'fur'), which is a noodle soup. they eat that stuff any time of day. i tried some and liked it, but its not as flavorful as thailands noodle soup, so i was slightly disappointed. in fact, aside from the specialties in hoi an and the fresh spring rolls, i wasnt a huge fan of vietnamese food in general, and i definitely picked the right spot for asian food in choosing thailand. however on the other hand, vietnam does have a better variety of tastier western food than thailand, which was nice to get once in a while for a change.

coffee, bread, and western food might be better in vietnam, but unfortunately there is something which is the complete opposite. and thats the attitudes of the people. in thailand and cambodia, everyone was so incredibly friendly and anywhere we went we were greeted with smiles and found people willing to help us with anything we needed. that was not so here.

i dont say this just because we were robbed in nha trang. maybe its because we are american, but i have a feeling that was only a part of it. i heard from other, nonamerican travelers, that they had the same experience, with people generally just being inconsiderate and rude, not just to foreigners, but each other as well.

at one point while waiting for a bus to go to a different town, outside of the travel agency we heard a loud crash. it turned out that some type of large box had fallen from somewhere right onto the windshield of a car. more than 70 people were at the intersection, and for the first 15 minutes when the three injured people stepped out of the car, the driver with blood pouring down his face, no one did anything. in fact, it was meghan that ran over and gave the guy her sarong to try to stop the bleeding before he got onto a motorbike taxi to go to the hospital.

obviously there have been exceptions, and that story is just one example, but it sums up their attitudes pretty well. and i find it to be such a shame because the country is so beautiful and has so much to offer to visitors who really want to appreciate it all.

robbed in nha trang.

were told about it all the time, in cities back in the states and while traveling alike. its not that we dont think it can happen to us, but its tricky to keep it in the front of your mind 24/7, especially when the majority of the time you are surrounded by people who, even though you have only recently met, are nothing short of amazing and who many times, you would trust with your life.*

but the truth is that tourists are targets for crime. and in a place where you can be looked at from miles away and stand out from the local population, it is even more true. add to that the fact that we were on a beach, during a local holiday, and its obvious that we had probably been watched from the time we stepped onto the sand.

i really did get lucky in that my purse was looted through and, unlike meghans, dropped about 30 meters from where it had been picked up. though all of the cash i had on me (in 4 different currencies!) was taken, my debit and credit cards were not touched. i lost my point-and-shoot camera, but i had luckily emptied the memory card onto my computer the night before and THANKFULLY it was not my slr i had on me. my phone was taken, but since ive left thailand it has really just been serving as a watch/alarm clock and its cheap enough to replace once i return to bangkok.

it could have been really bad. but my passport and work permit were looked at and left.** my bag also contained my glasses, which had my bag been the one carried off instead, would have disappeared as well. not to mention my note book in which i write down important information and notes about my days to later refer to when writing this blog.

the "tourist" police were no help. none of them spoke english and all they succeeded in doing was making us more angry and frustrated. in the end, we filed reports and had to buy them envelopes and stamps so they can ship us the information they gather during their investigation...which im sure will never happen.

we went back on the beach later and some friends told us they had spotted a group of guys who had been snatching things from all over the beach and meghan approached them. obviously it was no use, and they feigned not knowing english before getting really angry with her. after her confrontation, they dispersed, making it clear they had been guilty of something, even if it wasnt of thieving our bags.

its annoying and makes me think of the city of nha trang in a negative light, as that was literally my only experience there. but from now on i will definitely be even more careful about where my things are, especially when in the water.

*mom, im sure this is one of those times you think i am showing/acting my age.

**i wouldnt usually carry this on me, but as we did not have a hostel because we were only in town for the day, i felt safer having it on me than leaving it at the travel agency where we left our other bags.

world of cambodia.

this entire part of the world has economies that are unstable and lifestyles that seem outdated by centuries. the people have been through so much and live life trying to survive from day to day. this is even more so the case in cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world and THE poorest in the region.

but the people here are amazingly friendly and helpful. they have somehow been able to overcome their tragic history, that is surprisingly recent, and work to make the most of their days and their lives. any negative interactions we did have with people were limited to the standard begging or plea to buy something, which was clearly a result of the poverty they are facing.

my days in cambodia were limited and i was only able to see the two main areas of most notable tourist sites. however, in the short time i was there, i saw and learned enough to make me want to go back for at least a month after teaching and volunteer, probably in an orphanage. so it is safe for me to say that my experience with this country is anything but over.

bombings in bangkok

im currently in cambodia, on my first leg of my travels, and i will write about my experiences here in the coming days. however, there is a lot happening in bangkok at the moment that i think i should explain here.

for over a month now, there has been a large demonstration by the red shirts/udd who established their camp near the famous travelers site of khaosan road. on april 10, just days before the new year celebrations were to begin, violence broke out between the udd and the military, leaving 24 people dead and hundreds of others injured and effectively canceling many of the activities in the capitol for the holiday and shutting down the main business and shopping district of siam.

red shirts near khaosan.

after a week, tensions started to build again and the red shirts planned a protest near the silom area, another business and tourist district, and the military dispersed more troops with the orders to contain but not fight, even though soldiers were set up around the streets with rifles and barbed wire blocking certain areas. days later, they threatened that violence would be used if necessary. and thats when the bombs and grenades began.

barbed wire and soldiers in silom.

one went off on the bts, the skytrain in bangkok, effectively shutting it down, but so far, the deaths have been minimal. there is a movement called the multi-colored shirts which have formed in opposition to the red shirts and who are now demonstrating against them. the yellow shirts, government supporters, are expected to arrive in bangkok within the next week.

the red shirts believe that the elections by which the current government was selected into office were unfair and illegal. their goal with this protest is to have the current government dissolved and new elections held. they have currently proposed an extension of their timeline, giving the government 90 days to plan for the new elections.

the entire thing is still complicated and im not sure exactly what is expected to come of it, but this is a guideline based on what i understand of the situation. as much as im glad to not be in bangkok during this time, a great part of me wishes i was there to experience this important political time.

venting

im writing this now because i have 15 minutes to use on this computer, and im using every second of it. and im beyond pissed off at the moment.

the computers and printers at school suck. thats all there is too it. they are too slow, usually dont have internet, and the printers cant make dotted lines. this is a problem when im trying to teach writing the alphabet to 4-year-olds. for kinder classes, i need a worksheet every day. ive been making them at internet cafes but its been lots of work since the free sites offered to help teachers are usually not compatable with whatever these computers over here are using.

today, im waiting on khaosan to have dinner with steph while she waits for her friend to get back from cambodia. so i came into an internet cafe that advertised it also had printing. i asked the lady when i came in which computer to use for internet AND printing, and she said any. so i sat down and started making worksheet after worksheet. i found a great site and got done all of them for summer school.

when i went to print, a notification came up saying that something was off on the printer, so i asked her to fix it. thats when she says to me "o...no print."

are you $%^*!@# kidding me?! im sitting on khaosan road making worksheets that i cant print, or save to my thumbdrive. im pissed. so i just wasted my time and money on this place. which is why im writing this now, to use up the last minutes i do have. ill be damned if i leave any more extra time to be wasted by someone else.

occasionally, i cant stand this country.

south korea follow up

ive been back in thailand for a few days now and have had time to think about my trip. first, i was really surprise by the feeling i got when i arrived in the airport and heard thai again. i dont understand it any better than i do korean, but something about hearing that familiar foreign language was comforting. also, i was literally hit in the face with the heat when i stepped off the plane. i wasnt happy with the snow and cold in korea, but this heat is not much better. is there anywhere in asia where i can find a happy medium???

sightseeing on my own, freezing my booty off.

the flowers hopes were crushed by mother nature.

anyway, it may be because it was something much more like home than my life here, or because im heading back to work and no longer on my time off, but its funny how much i miss korea when i was only there for such a short time. the people, the food, the semi-routine i had gotten into...all of it. my friends who are still here have been asking me about my trip and i cant stop gushing about everything i did and all that i didnt get to do that i want to go back for. two of those friends are actually heading to teach in korea in the next few months, so obviously they are pleased with my report.

i stick with my statement that if i had gone to korea before resigning my contract i would be going there instead, but im accepting the reality that i am staying here. i do love thailand, and have things to look

forward too, and at the end of the day, i still have steph here.

a few things i learned while in korea:

-gamsa hamneeda means thank you. its the one korean word i mastered.

-korean ages are very strange. they are born and are automatically 1 and then on january 1 everyone turns a year older. as erik put it to me, a baby could be born on december 31 and on january 1, even though its only 2 days old, would be considered 2 years.

-seoul is much more fashionable than bangkok. by far.

-they celebrate valentines day, but then a month later, on march 14, is something called white day. apparently, on valentines day guys give girls gifts and on white day girls give gifts to the guys.

-couples like to wear matching outfits on the regular. down to their underwear.

-heated floors. best invention ever, in my opinion, considering how affected i was by the cold. they have a special name for it and stuff, but all you need to know is that its heated from underneath. erik insisted on giving me the bed most nights but one night i did take the floor and it got so hot i was sweating without a blanket!

-thai sounds like whining and korean sounds like you are constantly being reprimanded.

-korean is much easier to learn to both read/write and speak than thai...i taught myself in the span of one morning. nevermind that i couldnt tell you what i was saying, but i still could make out the sounds.

travel plans

in the recent emails ive been writing, ive found myself repeating this information numerous times, so im just putting it on here instead.

ive finished teaching, and until next wednesday, all i am doing in class is giving final exams. it takes about three class periods for each class because i have to do a speaking portion with each student one on one. and next thursday and friday, we have no classes because the students take their 'thai' exams all day, which means every class other than english. and we just sit in the room all day. following that, i have that monday off and then my contract goes until march 12, and i spend the days doing paperwork, writing an evaluation for each and every one of my students.

when my contract is up, im heading over to south korea for just under two weeks to visit my friend from high school/college who is teaching there. erik has been there since last april and finishes his first contract at the end of april, then heading home and then off to africa where he will make his way down to south africa for the world cup before coming back over to asia to do another years contract in korea. before he starts teaching again, he will come visit thailand. so he will be able to show me around and then i can return the favor. it should be cool.

i come back on march 24 and on march 25 start teaching 12 days of summer school. the summer session is broken by the holiday of songkran, which is the thai new year and lasts 3 days. the days are tuesday-thursday, so we have that entire week off. but because they only have enough students for one english teacher, i wont be coming back after that, steinar is taking that portion. so from april 9th, im off until may 17th when the next semester starts.

it actually works out because april 8th, a mr. adam winer is coming to visit me for 10 days! we are going to head up north to chiang mai on the 9th when i get off of school with steph and some other friends and spend the holiday up there, because it is suppose to be the place to be for the new year. and while we are there, we will do our long anticipated elephant trek!

winer leaves from bangkok on the 18th so we will come back down here and spend his last few days in the city and after he leaves, meghan and i are going to be doing a three week trip through laos, vietnam and cambodia.

needless to say, there is much for me to be excited for. now i just need to get through these last couple of weeks!

gobbledigook

just a series of random statements about my life or from my observations here in thailand, which i either cannot or dont want to contribute an entire post to on their own.

-i dont understand why ALL of the parents have the SAME laugh for when their children ignore our 'good mornings' and simply walk by us.

-ive gotten really good at killing mosquitoes in mid air.

-i still cannot bring myself to eat chicken feet. or crushed up bones curries.

-i spend more money on the weekends i stay in bangkok than when i travel to other parts of thailand.

-kids still get nervous over here for speaking exams even though they know they CANNOT fail. seriously, i have to give them at least 50%.

-i will think again before getting another oil massage.

-taxi drivers who try to take advantage of white farangs need to learn how to tell when the said white people actually live here and know of their schemes.

-some people have surprised me in how well they have kept in touch with me while ive been over here, while others have let me down.

-its crazy how easily we meet people who went through ati at other times or place.

-ive changed a lot since ive been over here.

-there are still moments when the though of "omg, im actually living in thailand" overtakes me.

-the people who living in the building next to my apartment building just got two puppies, and that makes me so happy :]

*the title of this post is also a reference to the song by the same name by sigur ros, which i have recently become slightly obsessed with, especially on beach weekends

logistics

i dont know how much ive said about how my teaching works, so ill go into that a little bit now.

everyone asked me how i was planning on coming here and teaching english to kids who cant speak it when i cant speak thai. fair question. this is how it works: exactly as it sounds. there are so many communication issues that its almost not even humorous. but, in each class, there is a "thai assistant" teacher. they, for the most part, speak english and thai and communicate to the kids what i am asking or want them to do and then the kids do it...kinda.

anyway, for my p1s and p2s and two of my p3 classes, my thai assistants are great and the kids listen. the other two classes...theyre another story completely. but ive kind of given up on them anyway so its not even an issue now. today though, i had no thai assistant teacher in my p1/2 class, as she was setting up for tomorrows greatly anticipated sports day. and i wanted to murder them.

they were jumping on chairs and desks, running around, throwing water on each other, etc. i know from stories that this is what most of my friends deal with on a daily basis, but when ive gotten used to having children do as i ask, its hard to regain the control. the reason why the thai teachers have so much control over the classes is that they are allowed to hit the kids, and usually do so with rulers. so i tried hitting the desk with a ruler, and it broke. then i started having flashbacks to my first day of teaching practice and was ready to throw the cards at them and walk out, when the bell for lunch finally rang.

i could not have been happier.

and to make things better, because of sports day tomorrow, i have no classes :)

friends <3

i talk about these people in many of my posts and many people have asked me about them. i thought it would be smart/fun to write a little blurb about each person to give everyone back home some info about these people in my life. so without further adieu, i introduce to you the cast of characters that make up my life here in bangkok:

beth (aka bee-tan), wales

first person i met from the group. she was stepping out of the shower as i walked into our villa in nai harn. now she lives in pinklao (dont pronounce the l!) and works at a different kasintorn school. hers isnt as good as mine though. shes fun, enjoys her buckets, sarcasm, and singing made up queen songs to everyone when hungover. o and she speaks welsh, which is apparently its own language and its people are british but NOT english.

i have taken many awesomely bad pictures of beth. it was hard to settle on one.

emily suPATCHa, wisconsin

my other roommate from the wonderful, glorious days down in nai harn. shes from wisconsin and is now living in the north of the bkk. shes got quite a nice setup at her school, having one class of 12 four-year-olds who she teaches everyday until 12:30. but, shes also in charge of the science club. give and take people. emily has nine brothers and sisters, but her father is NOT a pastor, as is the common misconception. one thing to know about emily: she poses with her arms when shes dancing.

stephanAY, canada

she shocked us all when we discovered that shes hiding her natural blonde under those dark locks. i hate her because her apartment is amazing. seriously, she has a pool and restaurants and shops and a gym in her building, but what im most jealous of is the hot water and lack of ants. shes kind enough to let me stay there and use her for her shower on the weekends though :)

i dont know why i dont have any pictures of just her.

meghan "my body doesnt bend that way" buckman, new york

shes known to many of you as the bright spot and entertainment in my posts. its probably no surprise that when we had to list an adjective before our names on the first day of training, hers was 'sarcastic.' im shocked by most of what comes out of her mouth. but as we discovered in nai harn, we are soul mates, even though her favorite things in this world are likely the beach, hairy lumberjacks, and nachos.

tasha, known by her students as jane, england

natasha was first placed down south, but after her first day, knew she wouldnt enjoy it down there. SO she headed up north to us in bkk. now shes at a new school. but the first day, she was told the students wouldnt be able to pronounce her name, so she has to go by jane instead. its not so random, it is her middle name. her accent is heavy (think: wallace and grommet), and at first, some of us had trouble figuring out what she was saying. also, tash is the one who usually convinces us that the best option for what to do is a massage, and usually, shes correct.

jake, riha, bierle, "the guys," minnesota

though they actually only comprise 2/3 of the males in our group, the three of them knew each other from college and came her together, so they get lumped together for everything. theyre probably alright with that, because as anyone who has seen my facebook albums knows, all of the guys in our group have developed a tighter-than-necessary bond. riha and bierle are both named chris, and jake can usually be found in the same pair of shorts with a white tshirt.

(in the picture: bierle, riha, jake)

andrew, england

i really cant describe andrew in any other way than saying "mustang sally."

eric, pennsylvania

a self-proclaimed "skater" and "loner," hes usually off exploring on a motorbike whenever we cannot find him. but then, he will randomly pop up out of no where and without explanation. up until this week, he didnt have a job, but was still getting paid >:( now, he lives and works at the school that is just next door to me. the very wealthy school that is right next door to me. but hopefully now ill have someone in town to play with on weeknights...and im going to try to get him to tell me the password to their schools wireless connection, hehe.

here he is juggling coconuts.

wild will, somewhere abouts the midwest....

just an easily likable guy. hes quiet but also always up for a good time. hes taught before and so this is just his thing, but he is placed about an hour west of bangkok and so we dont get to see him as often. he just turned 30 a few days after new years, but he can still party like hes in his 20s. the picture is of him eating his first bug in thailand, where else, but on khaosan road.

steve and lauren, england

theyre dating. theyre fun. theyre cute. theyre from manchester. theyve done a lot of traveling and just have...more life experience (hehe) so we go to them when we have questions or need advice. but lauren has her work cut out for her, as bierle and steve have a bromance going that she may not be able to compete with. we shall see.