adventures in babysitting

so i have been working in the education department at the desert botanical garden, doing tours for field trip groups. mostly they are in 1st to 4th grade, with an occasional older group thrown in for fun. here are some of the interesting stories.

with 4th graders: the teacher says, "this student here isn't feeling well." so i look over, and the girl just leaned over and barfed right in the middle of the trail. nice.

with 2nd graders: i asked some question, to which the answer was, "flower." a little boy shouted out his answer, which was "OVARY!!"

with 8th graders: we were talking about the parts of a flower and i said, "this is the male part, anyone know its name?" one weird kid said, i think, "scrotum." but then another kid said something else right after, so i got to ignore the scrotum comment.

with 2nd graders: everyone turned around to look at some quail. when i tried to refocus the kids, one boy said, "i need help, i have a cactus in my hand." and sure enough, he did, a piece of cholla. he was a trooper, i radioed for a ranger to come help us (no way i was touching that thing or it would get stuck in my hand) and the kid said it hurt but waited really patiently and hardly complained. there was a little squeal of pain when the ranger pulled it out, but no screaming or tears or anything. i had 2 teachers, 2 parents and 12 kids. how come no one saw this kid getting too close to the cholla?

ah, fun in the garden.

science you can use

i know its been awhile, so what better way to get back into the blogging spirit than a nice article on really relevant science. as reported by CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/12/03/bad.kissers/index.html

i forgot to lower my expectations

we went to the state fair last night to watch the demolition derby. you may remember our trip to the state fair rodeo last year. the rodeo was pretty fun, partly because i'd never been to a rodeo. i had high expectations for the demolition derby. my only previous DD experiences were at the monroe county fair in bloomington, so i expected big things from a state fair one!

of course, i was let down. how could i forget that things here are always less exciting than i think they should be? the place was totally packed, but i don't know why. probably because there's not much else to do here? first they had three "qualifying rounds" that we thought might be the whole thing. they took all this time to get about 10 cars in the arena, then let them smash each other up for 1 minute. after that, if your car was still working you could go in the "main event". but its kind of hard to totally ruin these cars in only 1 minute. so there were 32 cars in the main thing. that is just too many. there were some good hits, and one car got flipped on its side, but pretty quickly most of the cars broke down in the middle of the arena. then there wasn't enough room for the remaining 5 cars to get up good speed for smashing the others. so we got bored and left before it was over.

the most impressive part was car 747. it was some kind of station wagon when it started, but its back end got totally crunched up so that there was nothing beyond the rear axle by the end. and it lost a tire pretty early on, but kept going on that bare rim!

there were also some fires. in bloomington, the volunteer firefighters are on hand and immediately put out any fires. here, there's a guy with a fire extinguisher and they only stop the action for him to do his work when they really, really have to. so i was sort of worried a car would explode or something.

the other amazing thing was that the drivers were totally retarded. they'd stop all the cars for some reason, and tell all the drivers they should get out NOW if they want to get out. then they'd let the cars start going again. THEN the drivers would decide to get out. umm, they just told you to get out while there are no cars smashing into each other but you decided to wait until it's totally unsafe????? and towards the end, there was about dead 20 cars all together in the middle, and the drivers were getting out and sitting on the car roofs, even though the remaining cars were still smashing into the pile sometimes. yeah, smart folks we have here at the state fair.

one highlight of the trip was my chili relleno dog. its like a corndog, but the hotdog has chilis in it and there's a pepper between the dog and the breading. it was pretty tasty. i didn't have any of the deep fried desserts because you just can't convince me a deep fried twinkie is worth $3.50 when i can make one at home. we also got free single-serving sample packs of spam.

10 things that make me glad to be back in the US of A

in no particular order...

1. tap water that is safe for drinking
2. drinking fountains
3. bread
4. cheese
5. sandwiches
5. america's most smartest model
6. i didn't have to wear a yellow shirt on monday
7. wine
8. jon stewart and stephen colbert (i could watch them online in thailand, but its not the same)
9. ice cream
10. english

tourists

ok, here is the brief summary of our travels after i left school.

i went in to bangkok on friday night after school, to my friend alex's new temporary apartment. he works for the state department and just relocated to bangkok, but their permanent apartment was still occupied. the temporary place is pretty swank, and the permanent place will be even nicer. your tax dollars a work. then alex, his wife nithya, nithya's friend and i went out to dinner at some really nice thai-for-westerners type place. it was quite delicious and expensive (for thailand). finally around 11:45pm i headed over to the airport to meet tim. we had a general meeting area arranged but i was worried i'd miss him. it was packed with people and i had to stand on my tip-toes to see over three thai people to watch people coming through immigration. but i found him with no problem. not much PDA in the reunion, tim was worried we'd be arrested or something. :)

on saturday we slept in...it had been a late night for me and a really long day for tim. we got a late start, finally went to the national museum and walked around a little. that part of bangkok is kind of hard to get to unless you take a taxi and sit in traffic for forever, so we took the skytrain to the river taxi and then walked some. it was probably an interesting trip for tim. we walked through the amulet market, where you can also buy dentures, and ate at a small restaurant by the river where they barely speak english. it was ok, but not superb. the national museum was interesting. they have a lot of cool stuff but its not at all well-preserved or well-presented. we didn't have much time, due to the sleeping in, but we saw the rooms we were most interested in, old carvings and art and such. after that we walked over to the golden mountain, which is a hill with a big golden dome thing on top. i'm sure its some important buddhist thing, but i don't know what. it was a really nice view from the top, though, and we could see some rainclouds heading our way. then we took the khlong taxi back over to near alex and nithya's (they will be A&N from now on). we walked past the singha beer garden on the way, and how could we not stop?

on sunday we went to jim thompson's house with A&N. jim's an american who fell in love with thai silk and revived the thai silk export industry. then he moved some old-style teak houses to his compound in bangkok. there are some interesting things inside the house, he liked to collect art and all, but you can't take pictures so i can't show you. he disappeared into the thai jungle some time ago. we ate at the cafe there and it was pretty tasty. then tim got a migraine, so he and i went home. later on we ordered in some indian food, it was delicious if you ask me since i hadn't had indian in at least 3 months.

on monday morning we flew up to chiang mai. we found our guesthouse and it was quite nice. right by the river, good location, etc. we walked over to some temple and from there took a boat trip on the river to a "fruit plantaion tour". it was totally lame. don't do it if you go there. although the boat ride was kind of nice, if loud. later we ended up eating at a food court at an outside mall, which is not uncommon in thailand but tim was initially opposed. he ate some khao soi gai and found a new obsession. whatever it was i picked was not as good. tim's migraine came back, so we went back to our room and watched "my girl" on hbo. oh and we found mangosteens in a little grocery store. tim loved them. that was the highlight of the day, when he tasted them and found out how delightful they are.

tuesday and wednesday we went on a jungle trek. it was not all that exciting. we also visited a local market (nothing new for me) and a temple. the hiking the first day was kind of sucky, although we did go through some rice paddies and a guy from singapore fell in, that was entertaining. the first little hike we did was to a waterfall, which was a not-bad hike. but upon leaving the waterfall our guides didn't make sure everyone was together. i was behind tim, who i thought was following the german girls. apparently he couldn't see them and led us (and the chinese couple following us) the wrong way. no one told us we weren't going back the way we came. maybe 10 minutes later, we stopped so tim could marvel at some ants and the chinese passed us. finally we got moving again, went back most of the way to where we started, when one of the guides comes running up and tells us to go back to the waterfall. we were totally confused because he kept running to find the chinese. so we walked back slowly towards the waterfall, trying to figure out where we went wrong. we stopped and waited when we got to the first obvious side-trail. well, apparently we were supposed to make a sharp turn right when we came up from the waterfall, way back, and somehow it took all the others that long to figure out we were gone? it was kind of crazy and poor group-management skills by the guides.

anyway, that night we stayed in a hut in a karen village in the hills. the scenery was nice, and the food was pretty good. there was this crazy little man that hung out with us after dark and had all kinds of crazy magic tricks to share. he showed us how to do them, but i can't really remember them now. then he'd get someone to give him beer. it was entertaining. we slept in a bamboo hut on woven mats. don't worry, we had mosquito nets. it was a rough night. first singapore was snoring sooooo loud and sooooo grossly that i could only laugh. too bad it lost its funniness as the night wore on. then china started snoring. it was a nasal symphony. then singapore and korea got up before dawn to go look for birds. singapore doesn't really understand how flashlights work, i think, so he was shining it all over in the dark. (the previous evening he'd shined the flashlight in my face and said, "can you see now?" and i said, "not when you're shining a flashlight in my eyes" and he said, "i'm not shining it in your eyes!")

the hike that day was better, more jungly but still all secondary forest. and still a surprising lack of wildlife. we went to another waterfall. something in the creek bit tim on the toe. (it didn't get infected or give him a disease, yet.) after the hiking we went bamboo rafting, which was pretty fun. the british guy was not very good at steering, but i didn't actually fall off. he fell off like 3 times and managed to loose the long pole you use for maneuvering. tim displayed amazing balance, standing on the raft behind the thai man doing most of the work, and barely getting wet.

after rafting we went on an elephant ride through the jungle! that was fun. its weird being on an elephant, and having another elephant behind you. the little thing you sit on is not very comfortable. but its a different view than you usually get. nothing really interesting happened, we just rode around and then the elephants drank some water and we were done.

when we got back to our hotel we were glad for a hot shower. then we had dinner at the food area of the night market down the street, and that was quite delicious.

our last day in chiang mai (thursday) we just walked around and looked at various things. mostly temples. there was one that had all sorts of weird lawn ornament-type things, including a donald duck. we're not sure what was going on there, maybe they have a special attachment to animals at that one. after a long day of walking, we got thai massages. it wasn't as brutal as the first one i got, they didn't stretch as much or put me in as many weird positions, i think because this one caters mostly to tourists and the other one didn't. my massage lady made fun of the tan lines on my feet and my short hair, even though hers was shorter. tim's massage lady re-tied his pants for him with no warning. and they said something about tim looking like superman and being from hollywood.

we flew back to bangkok that night, then down to koh samui (actually, to surat thani) on friday morning. our plane took off for samui, we started gaining altitude and then leveled off pretty low. after awhile i said to tim, "we're still really low. and we didn't go out over the ocean yet. its weird." and then the pilot came on and said we had to go back to the airport because of problems with the navigation system. so we landed, repair-type people came on and went into the cockpit, everything seemed pretty normal until these 4 russian people started freaking out and demanded to be let off the plane. i guess they didn't trust the repair people. but there's not that many flights to where we were all going, so they probably just screwed themselves. anyway, finally we got back in the air and it was a nice 1-hour flight. from there we had a 1-hour bus ride to the ferry dock, then a 1.5-hour ride on the ferry, and finally a 45-min minivan ride to our hotel. it was a brutal day and i had thought we would be at the hotel sooner. at least we had like 5 minutes to eat some food at the cafeteria at the ferry dock. it was actually decent food, and true thai hot.

we didn't do much on koh samui. we walked on the beach. sat on the beach. went in the water. rented a sea kayak and explored a little, there were some little islands off the coast. waded out at low tide-ish and looked at some exposed rocks, saw tons of sea cucumbers and some fish, i cut my foot a little. in the afternoons it rained some and the beach totally cleared out, but after that it was super nice out. i didn't particularly like the beach, it was pretty narrow, especially at high tide. and there were restaurants and bars and massage places and tour places right up to the water. but we did get offered lots of drugs. people walk around selling various things. the strangest are the guys walking around with tablecloths. until you find out that in their hand under the tablecloth are the drugs. i think we got offered smoke, drugs, marijuana, opium and cocaine. what else could we need?

the best foods we had were for lunch. one day we got some food from a guy on the side of the road, true thai-style. when he could tell tim was considering a particular dish, which i told tim was hot, the guy was all, "spicy, spicy" and looked concerned. but we had that and some fish and pineapple curry thing. they were spicy, especially the one. i don't know what its called but i've had several variations of it and its hot. its basically just pork and chilies, sometimes green beans. the guy was pretty impressed tim could eat it, he was hovering around at first to make sure there wasn't a casualty. and then a lady (wife?) came out and asked in thai if it was good, and i said yes back in thai. yeah, language skills! it was a fun experience and really made tim realize that to get true thai food you have to go places that tourists don't typically go. and maybe risk some gastrointestinal problems. the next lunch was delicious also. it was in a restaurant, but we ate things out of the pots by the road. just like it sounds, there's a table by the road with various pots, and thais come and look in the pots and pick what they want, get a quick meal for here or to go.

then back to bangkok on sunday afternoon! 30-min taxi to the ferry, 2-hour ferry ride (why so slow?), 1-hour bus ride, 30-min minivan ride to the train station. it wasn't as bad as the way out. but then we had like 2 hours to kill before the train. we got some food from, loitered, etc. finally our train came. we had a first class cabin, traveling in style. it consisted of bunk beds, a little table that folded down from the wall, and a little sink. the bathroom was down the hall. but the beds were surprisingly roomy and comfortable. it was nice to have a sink since i wouldn't dare brush my teeth in that bathroom. and we had a window, so we could look out and watch the nighttime scenery go by. we actually slept pretty well, until maybe the last 3 or 4 hours. the tracks were nice and smooth until then, then they got really bumpy. they offered us dinner when we got on, but we already had eaten (we got on at 8:45pm!). i thought they'd bring breakfast but i was wrong. good thing tim impulse bought those pringles. actually, i was looking forward to the dunkin donuts i knew to exist at the bangkok station. :)

so we got back to bangkok on monday morning around 8:30. whole wheat donuts at dunkin d, who knew such things existed? back to A&N's. shower, do some laundry (there was a rum leak in my bag...) tim took a nap while i went to the bank to transfer the money from my thai bank account to my american bank account. that took longer than i expected...first they had to figure out what i wanted to do and then what the right form was, then i had to figure out what to write on the form. then there was some need for my work permit, which i had returned when i left school because that is what you're required to do when you don't work anymore. but eventually it all got sorted out.

that day tim and i mostly just went shopping around bangkok for souvenirs and such. we ate lunch at this outdoor food place by some of the big malls, just pointed at things, noodles, pork balls on sticks, a crab cake in a crab shell. it was all pretty good, except the noodles were just so-so. we had a farewell dinner with A&N at a foreigner-oriented vegetarian place. i had a watermelon-mint drink, it was interesting. then we managed to pack everything back up, get a few hours sleep, and head to the airport around 3am for our 6am flight. and we made it back all in one piece, although super tired.

home again, home again, jiggedy-jig

we made it home from thailand yesterday. the flights were a little brutal. actually, the bangkok-tokyo flight was not bad, got in some decent naps. but tokyo-portland was brutal. two little kids in the row behind us. that's not necessarily bad, but the mom and grandma were not exactly paragons of in-flight manners. you know, when they turn the cabin lights off its usually so people can sleep better. people sleep or watch a movie or read, and pretty much there is no talking. well, mom and grandma started yelling from one end of the row to talk to each other. and what a great time to tickle the kids until the scream! for the first 6 hours of an 8.5 hour flight. i didn't get any sleep.

then i had 6 hours in portland, so i got to see michele arntz and chloe and spencer. cute kids, and i can't believe chloe is so old already! she's definitely a real person now. crazy. and it was fall in portland, something i haven't experienced in awhile. cool temperature, which i was not prepared for since i was leaving a tropical country and ending up in phoenix (high in the mid-90s today). it was a good time in portland. i had my first real sandwich (salami) in 3 months! delicious.

then the flight to phoenix was packed. by that point i could not keep my eyes open, so most of the 2.5 hours was spent napping in uncomfortable positions and occasionally banging my head on the window as i dozed off. interesting story about boarding that flight. it was on alaska airlines, whereas the other flights had been on northwest. my boarding pass was printed by northwest in bangkok. it said something about only being valid with a flight coupon attached, which was not. so i asked someone in bangkok about it, they said no problem its a boarding pass. then i asked 2 people (one from northwest, one from alaska) in portland. no problem, see where it says boarding pass in multiple places? well, when i tried to get on the plane, the lady said, "oh, this won't work. you need a new ticket." umm, what? well, whatever, they just printed one in like 2 seconds, but still. and there was another guy who'd been on my flight from tokyo that had the same problem. (he was a whole day late due to a flight cancellation the day before in tokyo, he was getting on that plane to phoenix.)

ok, that's all for now. more later on our vacation adventures in thailand, and pictures.

so long, farewell...

t minus 5 hours and counting.

this will be the last post for awhile. in a few hours i'll head into bangkok, to alex and nithya's apartment. then around midnight tim will arrive (hopefully!). then its all fun and games for 10 days.

i submitted my final report to the principal yesterday. we had a 10 minute meeting in which he appeared to not pay attention. half of the 10 minutes were spent discussing my travel plans and talking about how his son is a pilot. so, who knows if it made any impact. although at lunch just now he thanked me for the report and said there were many things they could improve. so i guess he read it, at least.

last night was the farewell party with the biology department. the food was delicious. mostly everyone else talked in thai and i just sat there... just like the last 3 months! today i'm alternating between packing, some final internet business (like this post) and not really doing anything.

so, have a good couple of weeks without me. i'll let you know when i'm back in the states. don't forget to write!

i can't leave

this morning i about had a heart attack and fell out of my chair. ok, the heart attack is an exaggeration, but i really did almost fall out of my chair. and not because i'm clumsy. i went to the northwest airlines website to look up my flight itinerary for flying back to the US so i could tell michele when i'd be arriving for my 6-hour layover in portland. according to northwest, i had no flight reservations. that is when i almost fell out of my chair. i looked at that reservation maybe a month ago and changed my seat so tim and i would be sitting next to each other! what happened to it?? then i went to a website for the thai travel agency that the school used to purchase my ticket and tried to find my reservation there because that was supposed to work, too. that site also said i had no reservation. that's when i about had a heart attack.

so i went down to the office, walked in and said, "i have two problems." (i didn't tell you about the second problem yet.) having a problem is pretty much the only reason i visit the office, so i don't know why i announced it but i did. so i told them my flight problem and khun sujin said, "but you have a reservation." well, but, they don't think i do. that is my problem. but she got right on the phone and made some calls and told me they are working on. ok, on to my second problem. last week i asked to get my last payment early, on tuesday (yesterday), so i could go with someone to the thai bank and transfer money to an american account and not have to deal with cash. "oh, but everyone got paid yesterday." but not me. so sujin calls over to accounting people. apparently i'm not getting paid until next week because officially my last day is october 1. does that make any sense??? no. plus, i won't physically be here and always before they've had me sign something saying i received the money. apparently nothing here can be easy or logical for me. but maybe they'll arrange for me to be paid before i leave on friday so i can sign the thing. i hope so, i don't particularly want to leave without getting my last payment.

then someone called sujin and one of the other ladies in the office offered me some tea and cookies. i needed them because i wanted to cry, i didn't have a plane ticket home and they didn't pay me! so we had some snacks and somehow sujin did some magic and my plane ticket got fixed. my reservation was deleted or something? it didn't really make sense, but it was fixed so i didn't complain. but i still want my money.

it was not a good start to the day. and i had to go to the immigration office to extend my visa so i'm legally here after next tuesday, so i was just hoping nothing else went wrong today. the immigration office was totally packed. we sat there for maybe an hour and they had called half of the people in line in front of me (you get a ticket with a number and it also tells you how many people are ahead of you in line). nathan and lisa needed to go to the vietnamese embassy by 4 and were waiting for me. so then p-ahm (lady at school who deals with all the legal stuff for the foreign teachers) just went up to one of the worker ladies and said something, came back and got my papers and crumpled up my ticket, and we were out of there in about 15 minutes. it was pretty sweet. well, there was a moment of worry when she brought back my passport and the lady had stamped it so that i could stay until september 9. i said, "oh no, not september! october!" and p-ahm made a funny face of shock and went back and the lady changed it.

i was much more relaxed after that all worked out. but i still want my money.

the beginning of the end

i've got a busy social schedule this week, farewell dinners tomorrow night and thursday night. plus trips during the day to the immigration office, the bank, and a meeting with the principal. so tonight i suggested to nathan and lisa that we check out this intriguing place down the street since its my last chance. its a "pub and restaurant" called vintage. we've been wondering about it for the past couple months but hadn't gone. so we met up around 6pm and headed down the street (part of the reason we haven't gone before its that its kind of far down the street, maybe 10 minutes walk, and this walk requires you to risk your life since there are no sidewalks or anything.) we got there and it was empty except for some workers in the back. we looked around and finally lisa went to ask if they had food, because it sure didn't look like it. they said they were closed until 7pm. the decor was interesting, lots of red and black, and the music was really loud.

since we were hungry we went to an italian-style place nearby. i ordered something called napolitano that had no description in english. it was spaghetti with a sweet tomato sauce (sort of bbq sauce-like) and mushrooms and tomatoes. it wasn't bad, but i wouldn't order it again. after our dinners we had ice cream. it was delicious. i got rum raisin. (i couldn't resist the raisins, especially since they were all plumped up with rum!) i haven't had much real ice cream here, if i get any ice cream its usually an ice cream bar from the minimart and its not even made of real ice cream. so it was a good treat.

then we walked back by vintage to decide if we wanted to go in for a drink. we decided against it. there was no one else there! and nathan had said during dinner, "when i went in, i felt like it was a place that might have vampires." or something to that effect. it was a strange place. but at least we went in. maybe on a friday night it would have more people. i hope for nathan and lisa's sakes that it turns out to not be sketchy, so they'll have something to do once all the other foreigners leave. i feel bad for them that it will just be them and all the thai teachers, but not bad enough to want to stay a minute longer.

and, just so you'll know what i'm missing when i leave, here is a picture of the head biology teacher's desk. the desk i sit across from every day. all day.

homesickness

i haven't been too homesick here in thailand. its not like i've never been away from home before, i guess having experience helps some. not that i don't miss anything, but i can generally deal with the loss and longing or whatever it is that constitutes homesickness. i've never HAD to have something you can only really get in the states (or bangkok). but i've decided there are 2 broad categories of things i miss.

category 1: things i know i miss.
these are the things i have more or less missed since i left. tim, luna, family, you who are reading this, my good pillow, good bread. i miss these things, but i do my best not to think about it because there's no way luna's coming to visit, and generally i ignore the missing and do ok. but every now and then, something happens to make me really miss one of these things. i've missed luna more since little cats have started hanging around school. they are so little and cute, and i pet them until they are done being petted and go about their cat business. then i miss luna the rest of the day. and i spent this weekend with my good friend alex and his wife nithya. now i really miss all my old friends. i've gotten to be good friends with lisa and nathan, 2 americans who teach english here, but its not quite the same as friends i've known for a long time (alex for 11 years now, hard to believe)...

category 2: things i don't know i miss until i re-experience them.
then there are the things i never thought about missing until i had them again. at dinner with alex and nithya on saturday, we had a dish with raisins in it. i couldn't stop eating the raisins. they were so good! i think alex thought i was a little crazy, eating all the raisins, but i couldn't help myself. who knew i missed raisins!?!? who knew anyone missed raisins? but apparently i do, and i'll be glad to have a large container of them available when i get home. i know there are other items in this category, but i can't think of them right now...

so, what did i do with alex and nithya this weekend? not much. on saturday we checked out their temporary apartment, mostly to find out where it is because they'll have to commute from there to the US embassy every day. its a nice building and all, but kind of inconvenient relative to the embassy since they'll have to walk to the skytrain in their suits. then we went to one of the malls, where there was a member of the royal family doing something. i thought it was going to be the king because they had the yellow (mercedes) cars all lined up outside, and some thais told me that only the king goes in the yellow cars. but it turned out to be one of the princesses, i think. we thought maybe the queen (it was definitely a lady but from a distance its hard to tell 50ish from 70ish) but one of the thai teachers told me today that the queen basically never goes out these days. so much for the color coded cars. then we went to eat a place called eat me, where the raisin revelation happened. then i went home and they went to their hotel.

on sunday i showed up at the hotel, we watched the end of pretty in pink and 2 episodes of entourage on HBO, then went and walked around lumpini park (the central park of bangkok, i guess). there was a strange interaction with a lady who wanted our empty water bottles. then we went back to their hotel and hung out by the pool for awhile, it was quite relaxing and nice. the weather was beautiful, not too hot and a good breeze. then we had some pizza. thais eat their pizza with ketchup on top, and even though this was a swanky western hotel chain they served the pizza with a bowl of ketchup. i abstained. alex tried it and declared it delicious, but maybe he was just showing off how he's so accepting of this new culture he has to live in. nithya went to take a shower (she had actually gone in the pool) and alex and i just hung out and talked. a delightful evening. then i went home and they went to bed because alex had to go to work this morning. (apparently the people in his office usually work 7am-4pm. i don't think i'll be joining the bangkok embassy staff.)

and, TODAY WAS MY LAST MONDAY. only 4 more days to go. well, 2 full days and 2 half days because i have to go to the immigration office and the bank.

thai talent

last night was a school talent show. i guess that is the word for it. it was mostly a karaoke competition, if you ask me. this was the 3rd talent show of the semester. the first one was karaoke with songs in english, the second was thai folk songs, and last night was thai pop songs.

it was interesting. and long (5:30-9pm). other than that, words sort of fail me. there was a lot of screaming on the part of the audience (probably at least half the kids in the school), and performer's friends would run up to the stage to give them flowers and stuffed animals and half-drunk bottles of water in the middle of the performance.

anyway, i'm posting some videos of it for your amusement. the sound isn't great, due to all the screaming, but you'll get a general idea. sorry, the files are big.



ok, sorry, this is the only video i can upload for some reason.... maybe more later!

weekend excitement

well, another weekend in bangkok. it was interesting. yesterday i went first to a really touristy area (had to pick up train tickets for when tim is here). not my favorite part of bangkok, but what can you do. i got hit up by a classic scam, but i'm so savvy i didn't fall for it. then i was headed to the big weekend market on the north edge of town. to get there, i took a khlong (canal) taxi over to the skytrain station. the khlong taxi is really more like a khlong bus, there's a big boat you got on at specific stops and it drives you down the canal. its actually really convenient, fast, and cheap. definitely the best option for where i was and where i wanted to be. you have to put up a tarp along the side of the boat, though, so you don't get sprayed with nasty canal water. and you sort of have to jump from the boat to the "pier" when you get off. but its an adventure and mode of transport i recommend for east-west travel in bangkok.

then the weekend market. they have everything there. i got some souvenir stuff and food. it was exhausting, as always. too many people and things and too hot. but i did speak enough thai that some of the vendors would answer me in thai, and usually i understood. because i just asked how much did something cost. then i took the metro to the nearby train station, and then train back to school. i'd only been to that train station before when i was already on the train, but i was able to talk to understand when the guard asked me if i was going to hua lumpong (the main train station) and tell him no, i'm going to salaya. and he understood and sent me to the right place! it was a proud day for me and my thai skills.

today i went into bangkok again. i was supposed to meet the other american and one japanese teacher for dinner. first i went to a mall noted for cheap electronics because i wanted some new headphones. in the atrium part of the mall, there were just sort of stands all over, not real shops, more like a market. they sell all sorts of stuff. and then there were some real stores... all the stuff i looked at was clearly fake--i'm pretty sure Sony doesn't have major typos on their boxes--but i bought some headphones for about $6 anyway... at least they stay in my ears, even if they aren't real sony. and they work, so...

now, i'm pretty used to seeing weird stuff every day. i saw two very interesting new weird things today. first, people eating ice cream off of hot dog buns. the mushy, wonderbread, 5 bags for $1 kind of hot dog buns. with scoops of ice cream where you'd usually put the hot dog. i just can't imagine how that tastes good. and then, at one sausage/meat ball stand (pieces of sausage and/or balls of meat on sticks), i saw what appeared to be a corn dog! i couldn't believe it! but i was on the far side of the sidewalk and it can be hard to navigate and really i needed to get into the mall to find the bathroom. so i missed out on the corn dog! its not really a weird thing, a corn dog, but its the first such thing i've seen in thailand. sure, sausages out the wazoo (some are gross, some are good, i am pretty good at distinguishing now). but never a batter dipped sausage on a stick!! i should have gone back, but then i was running late.

and then dinner. we had mexican food! who knew, mexican food in bangkok! surely there's not many mexicans here... it was actually tex-mex, it said on the door. which isn't the same. but they did have quesadillas and burritos and chimichangas and enchiladas... it was alright, i can't rave and i don't know that i'd recommend it except for a serious mexican food craving when you've been without for several months. there was cheese on the quesadilla, but i'd like more and i can't really verify its authenticity as cheese other than that it was not american cheese. and the sour cream...grainy. but it was an experience.

my friend alex and his wife arrive on thursday night! i'm sooooo excited to see them! they better be ready to see me, because i plan on visiting them in their swank hotel (your tax dollars at work, i believe) all next weekend. and sure, i'll show them my limited knowledge of bangkok. at least i can show them shopping centers and movie theaters. and tex-mex food.

10 days of work left.

the power of positive thinking

as of right this second, i have approximately 2 weeks of work remaining. i should have a party! but its still 10 days of trying to think of something to do with my time. well, maybe only 9 days because one half day is another "inquiry teaching" workshop and one half day will be required to extend my visa at the immigration office. and maybe an additional half day taken up to go to the bank and transfer money to my US bank account. so that's really only 8.5 days! now i really should have a party. i can see how well this positive thinking business works.

so, keeping on that positive note, i have created a list of things i will miss when i go back to the states:
-witnessing 2 people, neither of whom speaks english well, try to have a conversation in english. (it sounds mean, but it really is quite interesting, seeing how they use the language and how different it is from real english.)
-fresh coconut milk
-most of the fruits
-the food in general
-rain (it might be a good many months til there is rain in phoenix again)
-being able to completely ignore everything that is going on around me because i have no idea what people are saying

ok, that is all i came up with. but i think its a pretty good list. the fruits are interesting... i haven't figured out why thais like to eat some fruits before they are ripe. ripe guava = delicious. unripe guava, the only kind you can get here, is hard and flavorless. like a pear that's not ripe yet. i know they are really good for you and all, but i just don't like them. you shouldn't have to dip your fruit in sugar+chili flakes to make it tasty. also unripe--the oranges! there's lots of little clementine-sized oranges at the market, but they are green! maybe they taste alright, i've never actually tried them. and a more recent appearance--pomegranates. the outside of the pomegranate is yellowish, and the seeds on the inside are basically white. that can't taste like much, can it? i think not. i personally like the ones that are really red.

Avast!

ahoy, mateys!

ye best be preparin' yer poop deck... it be TLAPD next week! ready the grog, scalywags and wenches, or ye be walkin' the plank!

iron ethel.

news you can use

groundbreaking science here

nasty #2

today at lunch i picked up what looked like a tasty dessert, sticky rice with what i thought was some spice and coconut milk. turned out the spice was powdered fish. who comes up with these ideas for desserts????? and why does anyone need to eat powdered fish??? luckily i could just remove the top layer of rice that was contaminated, and the rest tasted just fine. sticky rice and coconut milk, can't go wrong.

on a completely different note, i'm watching a movie called "vampire bats" at the moment. who i imagine will be the heroes of this bad horror movie are both biology professors. the man is teaching ecosystem ecology (he used the phrase 'ecosystem structure and function' and i almost swooned), and she teaches animal behavior and evolutionary biology. how can this be a bad movie?? i can't possibly imagine! i can't tear myself away! i can't predict what is going to happen, especially since a student already got drunk and disappeared! you need to go out and get a copy of this movie right away, move it to the top of your netflix list.

i give up

update on the workshop last week: went ok, better than i expected i guess. the teachers didn't talk when i was talking, but i tried really hard to make it so i never talked more than 5 minutes without asking them some kind of question so they could talk. i was assimilating their cultural ways and all into the structure of the whole thing. how considerate of me. it did go like 30 minutes over time, but it wasn't my fault. and i think they learned something, even though they seemed utterly shocked at my suggestion that they should focus their teaching on scientific processes (e.g., basics of experimental design, how to draw a graph) rather than on the minute details of specific methodology.

then this weekend was camp. i was cautiously optimistic about camp. they asked me to design two "experiments" but gave me absolutely no idea of how camp was structured or what sorts of things are typical "experiments" for such a camp. so i came up with 4 ideas, presented them to the boss, and she said they all look fine so i should just write up 2 of them. so i wrote them up, directions, data sheets, questions for the students to answer, the whole shebang. gave them to the boss to look over, said she should change things or have me change them if they didn't fit with the plan. to my knowledge, nothing was changed.

so we left at 6am on saturday morning for the 3 hour drive, which was followed by a full day of activity with like 30 minutes of rest scheduled. holy crap, that was brutal. because of course we were running late. so my first experiment was scheduled for 2pm. we started that part i think at about 3:30. this experiment was supposed to look at ant diversity in different habitats. each group was supposed to get pork balls and some jelly to put out to attract ants (or whatever) and then the students were supposed to collect whatever came, compare and contrast among the different habitats. well, they were given 4 sugar cubes and i think told to put them wherever they wanted. pork balls are not hard to come by!!! and i gave you a weeks notice that i wanted them for this!!!

my second experiment was basically an excuse for me to hopefully see some cool insects. we set up a blacklight after dark. but my understanding was we didn't have an extension cord, so our options for placement were extremely limited. so i put the lamp in a crappy place and crossed my fingers. it totally sucked, basically nothing came. there was better stuff out by a huge floodlight on the field across from the cabins. so mostly we collected stuff there. then i found out, low and behold, we had several extension cords! oh i was so pissed, why did they tell me i could only plug the lamp into the outlet???

so it was a totally crappy time. it could have been so interesting. but like so many other things here, it seems to me that they like to just do things for the hell of it, with no real plan for what the learning goals are or anything. and totally inconsiderate of whatever i planned or asked them to do or anything. sooooo frustrating. not to mention that someone's alarm started going off at 5:30 in the morning and they just kept hitting snooze. oh, they just ooze the respect for other people that they pride themselves on.

i won't even go into what we did on sunday. suffice it to say, it was perhaps the most boring morning in my life. absolutely dreadful. the whole time, i couldn't keep myself from thinking, "i should be watching elephant polo right now." because i could have been. i was supposed to be. and how could it not be interesting???

i'm ready for this to be over. only 18 more days.

mental list i made while bored out of my mind--things that make me excited to go home:
-pizza (especially chicago style)
-cornbread with honey (just sounds good right now)
-bread (not the wonderbread style you get here)
-people will talk to me (it sucks when almost everyone you know tries to avoid talking to you because it means they'll have to speak english)
-having a sense of expectations and knowing what is going to happen
-cooking for myself so i'm not surprised when a whole chicken leg appears in my green curry (**clarification--by "whole chicken leg" i mean the whole part from the claws to where the feathers start growing, not the drumstick and thigh**)
-not having to answer the questions "can you eat spicy food?" and "do you like thai food?" (have you ever met anyone who doesn't like thai food?)
-my pillow (why did i not bring it? its awesome.)
i think their are other things i forgot. its hard to remember things when you are soooooo bored.

culture shock 2.0

sometimes i think, "why do i bother?" about my work here. no one else seems to care what i do, so why should i? its somewhat frustrating, especially since they do want me to be in the office all day (they come looking for me if i don't show up). some days are fine, i just entertain myself all day. today is a frustrating day.

a few weeks ago they told me (with less than 2 weeks notice) that i would be presenting a workshop on inquiry teaching. that was all the guidelines i was given, its a workshop on inquiry teaching. in less than 2 weeks. oh, and there would be a second workshop 2 weeks after the first one. so i worked pretty hard the next 10 days to put something together that would be useful and informative and educational and not too boring, etc. 2 days before i was scheduled to give the workshop, it was moved back a week. too bad for me, i was ready and wanted to get it over with! but good for them because i had given the teachers a test to take that assesses their scientific inquiry knowledge (topics like what is an appropriate control, why is replication important, how to interpret a graph and draw conclusions from it). they originally had 5 days to complete this test. i figured that was a decent amount of time since the test is in english and they are not so good at english. (bonus: practice your english reading skills!) so they ended up with 12 days to take this test. it took me about 40 minutes to take the test. 12 days should be no problem for anyone. right? (i won't even go into the disturbance i caused by telling them they had to answer the questions on their own, no copying off each other, but could ask other people for help interpreting the questions/answers.)

well, the workshop is tomorrow (wednesday). they were supposed to turn in their tests on monday. the head teacher wrote a note on the board on friday reminding all the teachers to turn in their test. who wants to place a bet on how many tests i have received?? come on, it will be fun! well, i will just tell you. the answer is 2. 2 out of 12. wow. what the hell do i do with that? sure, its hard. sure, it takes time to take a test and you have other things to do. but give me a break here, folks!! i didn't do this just for my own amusement! YOU TOLD ME I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THIS WORKSHOP AND THE TEST IS PART OF IT. if you can't complete an assignment, what kind of model are you for your students?? (ok, so you can't fail your students, but still.) there is clearly a reason that none of the students has decent critical thinking skills! and i am not going to get started on how poorly they did on this test. holy crap. some of it can be chalked up to poor english, but sure as hell not all of it.

so, i'm totally irritated. but what exactly can i do? nothing. god forbid i freak out on them and embarrass myself. well, i have no problem yelling at them or chastising them, but they'll sure have an opinion of me since its such a sin to "loose face" here by freaking out. but i feel like someone needs to knock some sense into these people. i can't believe that some of them want to go to universities in the states for masters or phds in education. they take zero advantage of me being here to practice and improve their english, they can't follow simple instructions, and they ignore deadlines. boy are they in for a shock if they go to the US.

and do i feel any desire to really help them when they treat me like this? no. especially since thais love to talk about how their culture is so great and so respectful of others, especially those with more training or higher rank, etc. i really just can't get over the amount of hypocrisy here. its unbelievable. so, i'll do the workshop tomorrow but i don't know that i can put any enthusiasm into it. and i'll have to say something about the low test return rate. i can't hold back.

AAARRRRRRRRRRR.

cooking school

this weekend i took 2 cooking courses. if you are ever in bangkok and in need of a cooking school, i highly recommend Silom Thai Cooking School. its owned/taught buy nusi, who is a very nice thai man who started a master's degree in ecology but decided he liked cooking better. who can blame him? not that i've been to other cooking schools (there are many in bangkok), but i imagine the others to be much more institutionalized. this was more like if i went over to your house and you showed me how to cook something. the classes were small, too--6 on saturday and 3 on sunday. the cooking school is actually in his apartment building, on the top floor. we cooked out on the porch using 2-burner propane stoves. it was awesome!

first we went to the market and bought all our ingredients. then we learned how to prepare the different dishes and make curry pastes. we talked about how to cook white rice vs. sticky rice, and learned how to make coconut cream and coconut milk (n.b., coconut milk is just diluted coconut cream!). on saturday we made pad thai, tom yum koong, green curry with chicken, a chicken salad (no mayonnaise here) and rubies in coconut milk (rubies = water chestnuts soaked in a red liquid, you can use water+food coloring or red fanta or anything else you like that is probably made with red #5). we also made our own tamarind paste for the pad thai. on sunday we made chicken with cashew nuts, tom kha gai, red curry with chicken, spicy glass noodle salad, and fried fish cakes. oh, and we ate everything we cooked. i ate so much! it was so good!

so what i learned is that thai cooking is easy as long as you have good ingredients. hopefully i can find fresh things back in the states. i know the chilies shouldn't be a problem! (our friend shu-ching is growing many chili plants) the fresh coconut milk was awesome, let me just say. but i don't know where i can get someone to shred coconut for me right when i want it.....

anyway, below are some pictures of my creations (i didn't take one of everything, i was too busy eating!)

all our ingredients...
tom kha...
chicken with cashew nuts...
fish cakes...

new pics

alright, here are some new pictures for you to gawk at. because they are so awesome. i've been slow with the pictures lately, i know, i appologize. i don't have an excuse. so now, for your entertainment....

the grand palace and temple of the emerald buddha.
buddamonthon.
pattaya.
sirindhorn environmental park (we went there yesterday to check it out, we're taking a bunch of students next weekend for "camp".)


i'm taking some cooking lessons in bangkok this weekend. i better be good at it, because we get to eat our creations! nothing much new other than that. tomorrow is field trip day, but no one has told me what the field trip is. maybe i'll just have my own!

only 6 weeks to go...

watching this video made me really impatient to get back to the US...
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772684/

only 31 days left until i'm done with work. i should start answering questions like this miss south carolina.

culture shock

some things i can't get used to, even after 2 months here:
1. saying "toilet" instead of "bathroom".
2. the man purse.
3. the frequency of same-sex displays of affection, some of which seem inappropriately affectionate.
4. the lack of heterosexual displays of affection (i stared at a couple holding hands this weekend).
5. how the money-taker on the bus remembers who paid already.
6. the lack of driving rules.
7. the lack of accidents despite the lack of driving rules.
8. packs of mangy dogs roaming the streets (anyone ever heard of neutering?)
9. feeling conspicuous, even though only a few people usually stare at me.
10. how many high school girls still wear ribbons on their ponytails.

some things i didn't expect to get used to:
1. wearing skirts.
2. being of above-average height.
3. seeing the king everywhere i look.
4. being functionally illiterate. its really not that bad. if they didn't use the arabic numbers most of the time, then i'd be in trouble.

pattaya

i spent our 3-day weekend in pattaya, which is a beach town about 2 hours drive (if no traffic) southeast of bangkok. its a big tourist place for thais and foreigners because its the closest beach to bangkok, and its renowned for its "nightlife". the theme of older western male with younger thai woman (or sometimes man) was common. i learned that more people need to consult mirrors when choosing swimwear. i swear some of those men were wearing women's bikini bottoms! inappropriate!

we went to a cabaret show on saturday night. i was pretty disappointed. there were a few transvestite performers, but i think most were real ladies. and almost all of them were lip-syncing, badly. but it was interesting to see thais dressed up in traditional costumes from other cultures (the belly dancers and geishas, especially). there was no ban on picture-taking or filming during the show, but i wish there had been. all the flashes constantly going off annoyed me, as did the man who stood in front of everyone and filmed the whole show, ignoring the ushers telling him to sit the hell down.

after that we went to the "walking street". it was essentially bourbon st. or key west. a street with no car traffic, lined with bars and go-go clubs and street performers. we stopped at one bar for a drink and there was some amateur muay thai going on. one white guy fought a thai guy about 8 or 10 inches shorter than him. it was a tie in the end. but the white guy was way slow. i don't really think its a sport for westerners, but i'm still going to try to keep up with my lessons.

the next day i went snorkeling around on of the offshore islands in the gulf of thailand. i think ko lan, but i don't actually remember what josef told me. josef was my slovakian group leader person. i was the only person snorkeling, so i got to do whatever i wanted while they all went diving. the first stop was about a 30 min boat ride from the pier. the water was choppy. i felt nauseous when we stopped but i figured i'd feel better once i got swimming in the water, after all i've never been seasick from snorkeling before. well i did feel a little better for awhile, then i must have hit a rough patch of sea and started feeling really sick. i was wearing a life jacket (i like to just float around when i snorkel, so what? and i was all by myself, seemed safer.) and i wasn't exactly sure what would happen if i tried throwing up while bobbing around in the life jacket. i'm used to bending over to barf. so i swam back to the boat and barfed in the bathroom. i don't recommend pineapple before a boat trip, just fyi. shortly after that the divers all came back and we headed for the second spot. and it was lunch time. the smell of food made me want to barf again. i just laid on a bench while everyone else ate. then we stopped and i felt a bit better so i tried a few plain spaghetti strands. it was iffy. then i snorkeled at this second place for about 2 hours. i felt pretty fine most of the time, it was a more sheltered site. then back on the boat to go home. i was feeling good so i had a cup of tea to warm up and get some blood sugar. well, that was apparently a bad idea. this time i just barfed over the side of the boat. i don't know what the deal was, i have never been that seasick before. and i felt fine once i got off the boat.

anyway, there were lots of different kinds of corals, in all shapes and sizes! brain corals, ones that looked like fans or shelves. and lots of different colors, red, purple, green, etc. and of course lots of fishes! in lots of colors and sizes! i can't tell you what most of them were because i don't know. i did see one puffer fish. and a million sea urchins and sea cucumbers, and some crabs. no octopus or shark. :(

the other highlight of the trip was a random guy i met on the street. oh, this sounds like a good story, doesn't it. you are thinking, "liz, don't talk to random men on the street!" well, i usually don't. they try to talk to me and i give them my "go away" look and they go away. it works. but this guy pulls up next to me on a motorcycle and asks me for a restaurant recommendation, so i say i have no idea and give him my look. and he's strangely persistent, keeps asking me things, especially since its clear we are both american (not a lot of americans here). finally he says, "do you really not recognize me?" and i'm like, "um, no, should i?" and he starts making fun of me, "don't you ever watch tv? maybe some music channels? mtv, vh1?" and i say, "well, not that much" and i'm thinking why would this 60-year-old man be on vh1?? so finally he tells me he's from the eagles, as in the old band. now reunited. i was thinking, "that's a little old for me" but i didn't say it! be nice to rich people, it can't hurt! and i know he could just be faking it, but he seems pretty genuine so i agree to go have a beer with him at the bar across the street (we rode on his motorcycle for about 50 m, a little honda kind not like the big harley he has at home). so we have a beer and chat for awhile. he hits on my, i turn him down, we chat some more. he was quite interesting to talk to. then he left me for some russian ladies. i wished him luck and went on my merry way. oh, i forgot to say his name. joe walsh. you know him? i didn't. i couldn't even tell you any of the eagles until i googled it (i know the name don henley, but i didn't know he was in that band). i looked at joe's recent pictures and i'm sure it was him, he wasn't pulling my leg. just too bad i didn't have my camera for proof!! i guess joe is used to people recognizing him, but he struck out with me. haha! it was all pretty amusing for me! and a nice story to tell, i met a famous person on the street, etc.

oh, nasty

i accidentally ate durian, the gross fruit i thought might make me puke. well, it didn't make me barf but i didn't enjoy it! it tasted and smelled like a natural gas leak (from the sulfur they put in it) and something else gross and vaguely like garbage. i was not paying attention when the lady asked me what dessert i wanted and i ended up with sticky rice covered with coconut milk and durian. sticky rice and coconut would have been delightful, but the durian ruined it. now i will pay closer attention when i'm getting dessert.

on a brighter note, 2 new foods i quite enjoy:
1. something in the rice krispy treat family, but way better. no marshmallow, something like caramel instead. also has peanuts, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. its more gooey, not solid like rice krispy treats. delightful! the lady at the market who sells this stuff, she knows me now.

2. imagine something like an elephant ear, a round of fried dough but not super cripsy. then you take that hot fried dough, drizzle it with condensed milk, roll it up like a burrito, and sprinkle on sugar. then eat. oh, its delicious! i think this could be a big hit in the states.

the holiday weekend

it was a busy holiday weekend, let me tell you. ok, so i am exaggerating a bit, but i still did some interesting things.

on saturday, i had a pizza lunch with two other teachers, took a nap, and then we went into bangkok. matthew was looking for presents for people (he leaves at approximately the same time i do, but he's been here for 5 years) so we went to some "handicrafts mall" that had the same stuff you see at a market, but in an air conditioned, uncrowded environment. and some of the things i've seen at markets look better than some of the stuff there, so i think i'll take my chances with the market in the future. then we went to see the simpson's movie, which had funny parts but wasn't fantastic. there was a part where rod/todd flanders ask if buddha will be in heaven with jesus, and flanders yells NO! that made me cringe a little because i don't know if the humor translates in the thai subtitles. there was also a sign with a billboard written in korean. after it was over, mr. kim told us that it said, "i will teach you a texan accent" and wanted to know what texan accent was and why it was funny. the funny part was that only someone who knows korean could tell what it said, and why would a korean know a texan accent? i don't think mr. kim really go it. he also thought arnold schwartzenegar might be offended by them making fun of him. hahaha! then we had dinner at a sushi place and i was not impressed. that was the end of saturday.

i had told yan, a chinese teacher, that i would go with her on sunday morning to some ceremony for the queen's birthday. we were supposed to leave at 7:30. i didn't get out of bed until almost 9. then i saw she had left me a note that they were leaving at 8:30 instead. oh well. i'm glad i missed it, in the end, because yan told me it was a mostly a person or a monk talking (in thai) about the queen and you stand up and sit down and kneel and stand up and curtsy, etc.

but later that day i went to the grand palace and the temple of the emerald buddha. i think these are must-see tourist places. i would have enjoyed it more in different company, that is all i will say. the buildings were impressive, extremely elaborate carvings and enamel-work and paintings. i have seen pictures of the emerald buddha and, i have to say, i was not that impressed. i had imagined it to be much larger, so i was a little let down when we finally got there! it is maybe 3 feet tall, on top of a 30 foot tall pillar deal. so its hard to see it because you can't get even get very close to the pillar, and you aren't allowed to take pictures either, and there are a million sweaty people also trying to see it. and it was past my lunch time, so maybe i was a little grumpy.

today i walked over to a huge buddha park near our school, called buddhamonthon or puttamonthon or puta mon thon or however you feel like spelling it. there is a really tall buddha statue there and the park is gigantic and peaceful. well, maybe buddha statues don't like me, beacuse after i walked all the way over there and finally found this buddha statue (its hard to see past trees, and i'm illiterate) it was almostly completely covered up. they must be resurfacing or cleaning or something, but i could see a sliver of face through the netting. another disappointment. i did see a bunch of turtles, a new bird, some small lizards, and 2 monitor lizards, so it wasn't a total waste of a walk. then i went back to school, had lunch, talked to tim for a bit, took a nap and then got a 2 hour thai massage. that was awesome. it was like a yoga workout, but the lady did it all for me. she stretched muscles i didn't know could be stretched. she used this spearmint/menthol lotion on my arms and legs, so i felt like a peppermint stick when i left. it was sort of like icy hot, it was cool and first and then got hot. the only bad part was that i have a bruise on my foot and it was super painful when she massaged it. oh well, it was worth it. especially since i have thai boxing lessons tomorrow!! well, maybe i should have had the massage after boxing, but at least i'm all limber now.

pictures later, i'm feeling lazy.

surprises

surprises in the past 24 hours:

1. the gym teacher is excited that i'm switching from badminton to thai boxing lessons! first boxing lesson is on tuesday.

2. we get 2 3-day weekends in a row! this weekend for the queen's birthday, next weekend for the national vote on the new constitution because people are supposed to go to their hometown to vote on sunday, so they need monday to travel back to the big cities where they work. i, however, plan to take a holiday. i just need to make some plans! hopefully will go away for a few days with yan, a teachers visiting from china. or the other americans.

right now its about time for the class i help out with. today we are going to collect insects. i hope the rain holds off for a couple of hours so we can find some good stuff!

news flash

in case you missed the big news out of thailand today, i suggest you read this. never mind that there's still some political stuff going on here and a vote on the new constitution coming up, or that there's a drought in some areas (all the monsoon rains went to india and bangladesh instead?), or that thailand feels burdened by all the hmong political refugees from laos so they have to go back to laos.

at a loss for a title

been awhile since a post. its been full-time drama here, that's why. about started an international incident. long story short, i had some money stolen. the school is so embarrassed by it, how could this happen at our school?? (answer: it happens everywhere, you are not that special.) but they feel so responsible that they are gonna give me money to make up for what i lost. or, what i estimated i lost since i wasn't actually keeping track of my spending. so that was a good end to a long, dramatic few days.

this weekend i went into bangkok and just wandered around, mostly. yesterday i went to the chinatown area, although it was disoriented so i didn't really even penetrate into the neighborhood. but i did find out where the train station in bangkok is, and got a schedule so i know when i can take the train from or to school (train station 4 blocks away). its cheap, takes about the same as the bus, but isn't air conditioned. it just depends on where i'm going as to what is the better option.

today i went to a weekend market. it was gigantic. i got there early and it wasn't too crowded, but it was pretty packed by noon. it was tiring, walking around and looking at things for hours. plus, it gets hotter and hotter, so that wears me out as well. i have to make sure i eat and drink something regularly or i get totally pooped and irritable. there was some so-so stuff and some pretty amazing stuff, i have to say. lots of clothes, jewelry and art. although it was probably all cheaper than it would be in the US, some of it was expensive.

anyway, that is all for now... this cracked me up:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=90339

khorat

spent yesterday and today (monday and tuesday) in the mountains northeast of bangkok.

see pictures here.

it was quite nice. we drove up through khao yai national park, visted thap lan national park to see a waterfall with no water, saw some cultural sites. i went with sataporn (the head biology teacher, my de facto boss), her husband and her mother. we visited her husband's family, who run a grocery store in wang nam keow. it was all very green. there is a lot of agriculture on the flatter parts of the mountians. papaya, mango, rubber, corn, sugar cane, some rice here and there, banana, jackfruit, watermellon, grapes, all kinds of things. not just corn and soybeans.

i was on the lookout for a rogue elephant raiding a field, but i didn't see anything. i caught a toad at once place. it was just sitting there, waiting to be photographed and caught for closer inspection. it was very obliging. sataporn told me to go show it to her husband because he doesn't like animals, so i took it over and as soon as he looked at it the toad went and peed all over! it was pretty funny! then later we saw a snake swimming in a pond along the road. sataporn's mom said it was a king cobra because they can swim along the surface like that. she knew this because she grew up around a lot of rice paddies and there were a lot of king cobras. i will just assume that is true and not personally verify it, although i may look it up somewhere. (certainly other snakes in the US swim, so maybe other thai snakes do?)

for dinner on monday, various members of the family cooked things and then we took all the food to a family friend's house out on the edge of a mountain. he owns a lot of land out there, grows mango, papaya, and banana. it was very nice, we could see really far off into the distance to the east, south and west. after dark, we could watch the lightening in the rain clouds. it was quite beautiful. when we were getting ready for bed, we heard a tokay gecko. too bad it didn't show itself! then maybe around midnight, after we had gone to bed out there, it started pouring.

today we just visited some cultural sites. a statue of a herine of khorat, thao suranaree. she saved the city by getting the invaders drunk, or something along those lines. now people leave flowers and other offerings for her so that their wishes will come true. we also stopped at The Mall, where there was a display of carved (or molded, not sure) wax floats that were made for asanha puja day and the start of buddhist lent (today). they were huge, like any parade float. they show scenes that are important to buddhists, but i don't know the stories surrounding them. they also, of course, feature some tribute to the king. the floats were very intricately done, it was quite impressive. during the buddhist lent, the monks can't travel and most stay in their wat (temple) so they don't ruin the crops.

after that, we went to a huge wat that is still under construction. it is the largest wat and/or houses the largest statue of a monk. i'm not clear what the correct superlative is, or if its both. the whole thing is funded by a famous thai movie star. they feed whoever shows up for free, but of course its always nice to make a donation. and if you can throw your coin in a cup at the top of a fountain, you'll have good luck.

after that, we went to a dairy farm. they had excellent ice cream. didn't get to taste the cheese. :( we didn't actually see the cows or anything, just had ice cream and looked at the western-themed gift shop. i was so tempted by the large belt buckle featuring texas, let me tell you. there is a good thai souvenier for you.

the saturday adventure

today was the start of a long weekend. there's no work on monday or tuesday pretty much anywhere. its some sort of buddhist holiday, i haven't heard an actual name for it that i could even guess at spelling. but on monday most people will to go temples and make offerings. but most thais are travelling, i hear either to the beach or to their hometown to see family.

my friend kook's family is from the very southern part of thailand, near malayasia. they come up here to visit her and her younger brother, who's at a university in bangkok. today they invited me to come with them for some touristy things. first we went to the don wai floating market, which is not far from here. i didn't really notice anything floating other than the boats in the river. but the market was right next to the river, so maybe it used to be actually people selling stuff from their boats. there was a lot of tasty-looking fruit, but i didn't actually buy any. we had a great lunch there. they ordered a few spicy dishes and i could eat them!

then we went to the samphram elephant ground and zoo. doesn't meet the american standards for zoos, but they seem to treat the elephants well. we got to pet them and such, and take lots of pictures with them. we also saw a show were the elephants danced and played soccer and they re-enacted how elephants were used in wars (like horses were, they rode them around and attacked) and that sort of thing. there was also a race where the elephants had to run along and pick thing up and put them in a basket the mahout was holding. it was pretty fun. there were also about a million crocodiles there and a performer guy who put his head in their mouth. crazy man.

pictures here.

on monday and tuesday i'm going to the khorat area, which is northeast of bangkok 250 km or so. the head biology teacher's in-laws live there and they invited me to go along. its mountainous and there is a large national park (with wild elephants and sun bears and other fun things!) in the area. i hope we have time to walk around in the forest some. supposed to be pretty nice area, very lush, lots of birds and butterflies. and it will be interesting to travel with people i only know a little, and stay at a stranger's house in the country. it will certainly be nice to get away from the city....

cuisine on a stick

i'm sure most of you are somewhat familiar with thai cuisine. pad thai, curries, fiery hot spiciness, etc. there is also a lot of "street food" in thailand, where there's a little stand by the road and the lady (some times a man) makes the food right there for you. its hard for me to eat a lot of those things because i don't know the words. but i can always find something i can point at and ask for, because so many things come on a stick. like a kebab, but its only one thing on the stick. chicken, pork (sidenote, the thai word for pork is moo, so i get it confused with beef), meatballs (these can be made of any kind of meat, including fish, so its a surprise), squid or octopus, shrimp, chunks of various sausages and sometimes they are even wrapped in bacon. these are all roasted on a grill and then you get some kind of sauce with it. the chicken with satay sauce is delicious!

you can also sometimes get roasted plant matter, usually bananas. there is a lady across the street from school who makes some delightful roasted banana slices. then there is the fried things on a stick. those come in all varieties also, but there are more sweets on a stick when its fried instead of roasted.

or say you feel like some fresh fruit. well, you pick out what you want and the lady chops it up for you and puts the pieces in a plastic bag and gives you a stick. then you use the stick to pick up the fruit pieces. or if you get a dumpling or patty sort of thing, the lady chops it up and puts it in the bag and gives you a stick. you can't avoid the stick. its how you eat.

on a related note, you may have noticed that i said "delightful roasted banana slices". you may or may not know that i have always found bananas rather revolting. something about the texture and the smell combined. but since i've been here, i've had some good banana snacks! banana chips in a variety of flavors, long slices rolled up and covered in honey and baked, battered and with sesame seeds and deep fried... i have to explanations for this newfound like of bananas. (1) i still think raw bananas are gross and haven't eaten one yet, so they are still gross in that form. (2) there's something like 10 varieties of banana cultivated here, each slightly different and i think none of them are the variety we eat in the states. so maybe i just am revolted by that one variety and the rest are ok for whatever reason. regardless, i'm gonna keep eating the banana snacks.

two new fruits i tried today: rambutan and duku. i like the duku a little better than rambutan, but they are both good. they are more common in southern thailand, near malayasia. kook is originally from there, her parents brought them up with them (they are visiting for the weekend). can't hold a candle to mangosteen, though. i need to go eat some mangosteen right now...

bangkok and beyond

i went into bangkok this past weekend to (1) see the harry potter movie and (2) buy the new harry potter book. it was pretty fun, i went early to avoid a long bus trip due to traffic. the movie theater was very fancy. it had assigned seats, so i got to choose where to sit. only about 6 other people were there. they had leather seats. the movie was in english with thai subtitles. i confirmed that, without a doubt, you don't often use spaces between words when writing thai. not that i can read it, but when a whole sentence is one long string of characters, its pretty obvious. shopping is a big national pastime here, so right in downtown bkk there are a lot of huge shopping malls. nestled between 2 of the largest is a temple.

then on monday i went on a trip to a mangrove forest along the gulf of thailand with 2 of the biology teachers and 6 students. the students were working on projects of some sorts, mostly about crabs. i didn't really follow everything that was going on, but i got to see some new areas. there are pictures of that here. while the students were working, i wondered around and looked at whatever i found interesting. i could hear monkeys off in the forest somewhere, but it wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that they came to check us out. first there was just one male, who climbed a tree above the boats. after watching us for awhile, he ran down the tree and onto one of the boats and stole a bag of leaves the students had sampled! one of the boat drivers climbed up the tree and made the monkey give it back. then the monkey pooped and it almost landed on someone. then a few minutes later we were surrounded by an entire troop of monkeys. it was fun. they didn't come very close to us, they were much more wary than the ones at the summer palace. three videos of the monkeys in the picture album. it was a good trip, but kind of tiring because it was super hot and never rained to cool things off.

last night i caught my second amphibian. this time it was Kaloula pulchra. it was very attractive (my book gives the common name as painted burrowing frog) and pretty big. when i grabbed it, it puffed up with air. then i hid it under a bowl while i went to get my camera. it was pretty good for about 5 minutes of picture taking, then it kept hopping around and trying to hide under my foot. a couple pictures of it in the "school" album.

this week is the mid-semester break so most of the students are gone. but there is some sort of camp for kids from southern thailand, so its not like the place is deserted. i'm not sure what they are doing in this camp, but there is a lot of singing and such, so it sounds like fun at least. i don't have anything to do with it other than watching the kids sing and dance from afar. they are only hear til thursday.

we have a long weekend coming up, its some sort of holiday. no work on monday or tuesday! then back to business as usual on wednesday.

wildlife

last night i caught my first amphibian! it was a toad, probably Bufo melanostictus but potentially B. macrotis. of course, i didn't have my camera or my amphibian book anywhere near. it was on the steps outside my room. it was pretty small, maybe 30 cm. it was not an exciting catch, it just sat there and let me grab it. didn't even pee on me. maybe it will be back tonight and i'll be ready with my camera!

i also saw a wierd beetle and a bumblebee-type thing yesterday. the bumblebee was as big as the toad. no pictures of those either. i should just strap my camera to my body...

there is a special market at mahidol university on fridays (tomorrow) that i'm hoping to go to again. i might have to go by myself, the teachers all have to proctor midterm exams tomorrow. it is huge and they have everything. the food section is huge, and last week we got some that was really delicious! i'd like to try some other things... and i can buy more mangosteens!

fruit

current favorite tropical fruit: mangosteen. i could eat about a dozen of them at once if i weren't afraid it would make me sick from too much sugar or something. they are so delicious!

i haven't tried durian yet. i don't know if i can do it, it will depend on the smell. i don't want to barf. (which reminds me that when i was flying over here i heard someone use the word "up-chuck" and i thought it was funny because i hadn't heard anyone say that in a long time.)

finally, some pictures!

geez, who goes to an exciting tropical country and doesn't post pictures for like 2 weeks? me...

anyway, here are some pictures of the school i'm at and the beach i went to this weekend. there are a lot of beach pictures, beware! actually, at the end are pictures of the summer palace of king rama IV in petchaburi (right now its rama IX, so this place is pretty old). its on top of a big limestone (i think) hill and you take a cable car to get up there. it's mostly pictures of monkeys (i think macaques, but no one yesterday could tell me and none of the biology teachers are in the office this morning) because it was hard to get good views of the buildings, there were too many trees. there are 2 monkey videos, also.

we stayed at a fancy resort hotel this weekend. it was for some sort of annual school meeting, but mostly i didn't have to go to the meetings since they were all in thai. on saturday afternoon we went into hua hin. (our hotel was between hua hin and cha-am.) it was raining so we went to the mall, shopping being the national pastime. then we went to the beach, which was quite nice. but i didn't have a swimsuits so we just waded in a little. i am with my friend kook, who is also a biology teacher. she got to go on this trip with me instead of sit in the meetings because she was my buddy for the weekend, lucky her! then we went to the night market (even though it was only like 4:30) and looked around. they have all sorts of things at these markets. this one was especially rich in fresh and dried seafood. i got some fruit, kook got some shorts, and these teachers visiting from china got a lot of dried seafood. i'm sorry, but it is just gross. especially because the shrimp they leave in the shell.

on sunday morning i spent most of the time walking along the beach. i was by myself so i didn't go swimming, just in case. there are a lot of pictures of the animals i found along the way, and of the fishing boats. the tide was out, so i could see lots of things. meg, there are pictures of echinoderm tests just for you! there were a lot of dead sand dollars washed up, most small, but a few as big as my palm. i also saw some jellyfish washed up, and one trapped in a pool between two sandbars, so maybe i'm glad i didn't go swimming. the washed up on in the picture was about a foot across.

we also had some good seafood dishes. after we went to the palace, we had dinner with some guy who is a vice principal of some school. there was some good seafood! a delicious fish (called 3 flavors) and yummy fresh crab and a very spicy fish dish (i think a green curry) and a stir-fry noodle thing called 8 gods. i am getting really tired of people asking me if i can eat spicy food...i guess its good, so they don't try to feed me something i can't handle, but then i do surprise them with what i can eat sometimes. and some of the thais don't like spicy food, so they will pick out non-spicy dishes that they like so i can try new things that way. but i'm not retarded, i can identify chili peppers and seeds from 5 feet away! i just don't eat them. and i eat small bites of hot things in between non-spicy things, and i do ok.

anyway, i'm going to the library now to see if i can find a wildlife book in english. i'll update this if i find out any of the species names.

gym class

this evening i decided to go to the gym and get some exercise since i haven't done much of anything since i got here. not even much walking because the school compound is pretty small and most of the restaurants and stores are right across the street. i was good for about 15 minutes before i thought i might pass out from the heat, since the building isn't air conditioned. on my way out i saw the head gym teacher. he asked me if i play badminton (thais are somewhat obsessed with badminton). when i told him i didn't really know how, he insisted on giving me a private lesson right then. so we played for about 45 minutes. basically, i can do ok but i can't serve to save my life. he showed me a way to serve that i can do, but i think it must be cheating or something. he was making me run all over and totally wore me out! now i think i will have to practice every time i want to go to the gym or he will give me a hard time. after the gym closed he invited me to the gym office for some water, probably because i was sweating like a pig! there was another gym teacher there and we all did our best to chat. well, it came out that the head gym teacher used to be a professional thai boxer. (someone else used to be a professional badminton player, but that is not so impressive.) and then, he offered to teach me thai boxing!! and tried to show me some right there, but it didn't work out so well in the small office and me being about to fall over. i didn't know they would teach girls thai boxing, but then i don't know anything about it. i told him first i would watch some and see what i thought, since i have never really seen it. but maybe i will take him up on the offer. i think thai boxing skills could get me far....

the other thing that happened today is i found out i am getting a paid school trip to a beach resort this weekend. there is some sort of meeting with teachers and alumni and parents and the school board, i don't really know what about, but they invited me and i think don't expect me to do much since i don't know thai and all. i'm all about beach resorts!

new experiences in the last 5 days:



1. seeing buddhist monks close up (but not too close since i'm a woman)

2. eating food so hot i thought i would get a hole in my tongue (really not exaggerating)

3. eating a salad so hot my mouth burned and my nose ran

4. eating spaghetti with a spoon. i had a fork, but in thailand you don't put the fork in your mouth, you just move food around with it.

5. corn-flavored yogurt. i didn't actually try this, but i'm sure that the picture on the container was of corn! maybe next time i'll feel more adventerous.

6. some new tropical fruits-sala and longan. they are tasty, if some work for a little bit of flesh.

7. being woken up 5 times in the night by some sort of dog turf war. i'm pretty sure the alpha male of the winning pack was wearing a collar, but not the others.

8. about 12 different kinds of banana snacks, including bbq flavored banana chips. most didn't actually taste like banana.

9. about 500 high school students doing aerobics at the same time. and the principal. apparently there was going to be a "marathon" (i think pretty short), but it got canceled because it started pouring.


i still didn't take any pictures, although i will. soon. then you can see. its actually quite similar to central america in terms of climate and lushness. and random dogs all around (i saw 2 cats yesterday). not too many mosquitoes yet, thank god. it rains pretty much every afternoon or early evening. heavy, heavy downpours with lightening and all. yesterday it had that sort of yellowish look you sometimes see in tornado weather but i think it was just because it was clearing up in the west and the sun was setting.



next week is midterms, then a midterm break. a little vacation i guess. maybe i will go for a little trip, i'm not sure if i will have any responsibilities or not (i think not). there are a few other americans here, and i made friends with a korean guy who knows english and thai pretty well. so i won't be by myself! and kim knows where we can go to see the harry potter movie in english! i think it opens here on thursday.



now, i am apparently going to play badminton. or watch. i said i would watch, i hope they don't expect me to play since i have no idea what the rules are or really how to hit the thing. they don't understand this is a game you only play at picnics and don't take seriously.

well, i made it to thailand. today is my third full day. i'm still not adjusted to the time. so far the food is not TOO spicy, not that its totally calm either. instead of all the things being written in danish on the computer, its all in thai. thai is worse because at least i could guess what the danish was. oh well. i need a nap. more later, just wanted to let you know i made it.

pics from denmark

ok, i put some of the pictures we took in denmark here. the files are large, so be warned they might take awhile to load but the thumbnails should be ok for a quick view.

it was a pretty fun place. the weather was not great but it was ok. we saw some castles, with moats and all. we even went to the castle where hamlet is set. not many vikings, unfortunately. we even went to a viking festival, but it was pretty disappointing. i was looking forward to that.

an interesting thing is that people kept speaking to us in danish, and then we would sort of stare at them and say "we don't speak danish" and they would seem genuinely surprised. its not like we were the only tourists around or anything. so i guess we can pass for danish, if that is a good thing i don't know....

things danes like: ice cream (cones, bars whatever), bicycles, sandals with socks, baby strollers (there were about a million kids, all over, and we only witnessed one tantrum), walking.

things danes don't like: sunglasses (most of the sunglasses-wearers were tourists, no idea why)

the natives didn't seem to think that a high of 60F was cold, but i did. especially because it was also windy. not natural for late june, if you ask me. especially when its daylight for like 20 hours a day. actually, i'm not sure how many hours of daylight there were, except that if i was awake it was daylight. i didn't manage to stay awake past 10 pm any night, i just lost all control of my eyelids and fell asleep. didn't matter where i was, in the bathtub, a chair, the bed, i was out like a light. the jetlag wasn't awful, but then i/we spent hours every day walking around so it was pretty exhausting.

and now, i have to go pack for thailand. next post will be from the tropics!

email me your address if you want a postcard.