Daegu

Well, to my grand disappointment, I have finally admitted to myself that there just isn't any financial way for me to make it to Japan on this trip. I'm so close, but it isn't going to happen. This is going to really destroy my credibility with all of the people I told I was coming. I thought I could pull it off, but I erred by coming to Korea first rather than Japan. Therefore, I won't be here too much longer. I'm heading back to Thailand on the 27th rather than the 5th as I don't want to impose too much longer on my 3 hostesses. Tomorrow I am heading to Daegu to visit Will, another Korean whom I befriended in Seoul. I'll just stay there one night before coming back to Seoul.

Yesterday, I saw King Kong. While it did have some flaws, I'm tempted to call it a fantastic remake. Over three hours and I didn't even notice it was that long. Perhaps, that is all that really matters, how long it 'feels'. Good stuff.

I visited Gyeongbok, which was built during the Chosun/Joseon Dynasty sometime towards the end of the 14th century. As my luck would have it, the place was closed and I'm not sure I'll get over there again this trip, but I suppose its possible. The place is huge. Just looking at the outer and inner gates and the maps, the word palace seems a bit weak. It used to have hundreds of buildings, but many of them have been destroyed and rebuilt so I have no clue how many are there now. Oh well. I bet it would have been pretty amazing. Instead, we went in the palace museum next door which was boring and small as far as museums go.

Smokers Die Already!

I've been sick for about two weeks or so now. I'm quite sure its a direct result of my being around people that smoke too much. It started one day after I went out for about 2 hours with a group of people, most of whom smoked. We sat outside, but I was just surrounded by it and suffered badly for a few days following. That along with the fact that I walk through or sit in smoke every day in CM. What its like for me now that I've been away from smoke for a few days is almost identical to when I quit smoking some 6 years ago. Its like a cold, where your sinuses are constantly expelling fluids. For the 2 days before I left Thailand I woke up drowning in my own saliva at 4 or 5 in the morning. Its mighty unpleasant. So I can't breathe as well as I should, and on top of that, varying amounts of yellow goodness are attempting to ease their way from my lungs to the nearest place that I can spit them. Nice eh? It feels a lot worse than it sounds.

Maybe I should move to Bhutan?

Giant Falling Balls

I was at MBK (huge shopping complex) in Bangkok on Tuesday night searching for warm clothes when I saw a big commotion. People were lined up along the railing on the 5th floor. I looked up and saw that on 6 and 7 the railings were also full of people looking down at something. It took me a few minutes to squeeze my way in, but there was a giant football (soccer) on the 2nd floor escalator platform. There was a guy lying on the ground. Police were trying block off the escalators leading to and from the platform. At first I didn't think much about the ball and I was wondering if he jumped or fell. As it turned out the giant football which was hanging form the ceiling (7 or 8 stories up) fell onto this escalator island and hit one guy on the head. The ball was perhaps 3 or 4 metres high. This is where it got kind of funny. After the person was removed (alive or dead, I have no clue) a swarm of police attacked the ball. About 10 of them literally tore the ball apart in a few minutes. Inside was a large metal crossbar frame which obviously is what made the ball more dangerous. In less than 10 minutes, the giant ball was swept up and the frame was carried away and everyone went back about their business. Crazy stuff.

Korea is Cold

It is about -10C today. I arrived last night.

The house is very small. A hallway, with a bedroom and a bathroom. The shower leaves something to be desired. It hangs very low on the wall so I have the option of holding it up over me or crouching really low. At least there is hot water, but the room is really cold. The insulation in the bedroom is good, but the bathroom seems like it is almost outside. Speaking of outside, I looked in the fridge this morning and discovered it was empty. Lana, one of the girls understood my dismay and opened a sliding glass door that led to a tiny alcove that sits outside with another window. This is where they keep all of their food. It is colder outside and it saves electricity I guess.

Korea

I bought my ticket today. I'm going to Bangkok tomorrow morning and I fly early on Wed. Stopping in Hong Kong for a bit and then arriving in Korea around 8:30pm. I'm not sure how long I'm staying yet. I am on the waiting list to return on the 27th or 28th, but the only open flights were 25th, 31st and the 5th. I went with the 5th, so I may not be back until then. I assume I'll make it to Japan during that time, but not sure on the dates yet. I'd like to go there for Christmas and possibly New Years. We shall see.

韓国へ行く！ 日本も行くらしい！

So things have been a bit hectic lately. I've been sick all week, it made my 8am finals a little less than pleasant, but I'm sure I did fine on them.

I'm hoping to go to Korea and Japan next week. I actually have a ticket booked from Bangkok to each of them, but I haven't decided which I should go to first. The problem came in when I discovered that it would be cheaper for me to fly 2 seperate roundtrips to Japan and Tokyo then going rt to Japan, then from there rt to Korea. Sounds rather inefficient to me. Anyways, my friend pointed me towards yahoo.co.jp and of course I found a return for 75 bucks, as opposed to 500+ if I search in English. Of course, now I am learning towards Korea first, as this would give me a chance to be in Japan for Christmas, and possibly New Years if I end up staying that long. But I'm not sure if Korea will have the same low-cost flights or not. I certainly hope so.

Anyways, as I'm going to Bangkok on Tuesday and I'm not sure where I'll be or if I'll be writing anything before next year. I will if I have time or pictures.

Outside Warm Up - Luk Muu

Please stop ruining my efficiency!

Tomorrow is my last day of classes. Monday is the King's birthday (also Father's Day) and then on Tues and Wed mornings I have my 2 finals. I only really need to study for Translation, as it includes a lot of theory and words and stuff that are new to me. The other is just essays on how to fix environmental problems in Chiang Mai. That stuff is easy. I had to do a paper in place of a final for my writing class. I did a critical review of Ha Jin's The Crazed, which was a fairly decent story taking place in post Cultural Revolution China leading up to Tianamen Square. I'll find out my grAde on that tomorrow.

I haven't been to Warm Up for a few days. It was nice to take a break, but I feel I may be missing out on chances to speak lots of languages. Speaking of languages, I feel like I haven't been learning too much in Japanese lately. Which is kind of stressful considering I'm in class 6 hours a week. Its just so late, and I am often so exhausted in that class (I've been studying 10 hours Tues and Thurs). I'll see if things improve now that the term is about to end. If not, I should probably rework my schedules between the four schools next semester.

Korean class has taken a turn for the worse. Another American who teaches at Ratchabhat has managed to weasel his way into the class with me. I can't really complain because the head of the Korean lang dept teaches me for free, but this guy really kills the pace. When it was just me we did at least 3 lessons in 3 hours, but now its a struggle to finish 1 and I'm usually falling asleep (or I just leave the room for a bit) while he tries to grasp stuff. The worst part is that he lived in Korea for 4 years and as far as I can tell, he speaks less than me (which isn't saying much). I'm hoping that he just needs to remember stuff to get moving again.

As for my latest (first?) Chinese class complaint, there are now so many people in the class that we had to move into another room with crappy chairs and really tiny desks. I need lots of space to learn stuff! I need to spread my crap all over the place or I become very disorganized. Beverages, textbooks, class notebooks, portable notebooks. Argh. If I could afford it, I would just take private lessons with all of these languages.

Me and Little-bird-who-can-not-see-over-counter

Me With Some Asian Girls (More Int'l Day Pics)

Issan - School Stuff

Fon and Soe, 2 of my closest friends here, just had a baby on Friday. I had promised to go to their home when it came. So I ended up flying to Yasothorn in the SE for 2 nights. It was nice. I met their families and they took good care of me. Last night they had this ceremony/party which was kind of interesting. As usual the white guy gets the full blown Thai test anytime anybody says I can speak Thai. But Issan (SE) dialect is quite different from the 2 that I know (Central and Northern). It was odd that I could understand a lot.

So as many of you know, I'm always saying how all the song thaew and tuk-tuk drivers in CM should be killed. I feel this would obiously solve the air pollution problem. And I figure most of those guys deserve it for just being such scum bags. Sure, a few innocents would go along with them, but it can't be helped.

On my way back from Yasothorn today, I took a bus to Ubon Ratchathanee than I took a tuk-tuk to the airport from the bus station there. The driver was extremely excited to find that I could speak Thai. It was kind of embarrasing. Sometimes I feel like a language monkey. I'm often asked to perform. He was walking along shouting off to various other people who work at/around the bus station "Hey, I'm talking with a farang. He speaks Thai perfectly! Ask him a question!" Bah. I've never seen anyone get so excited over me. Well, maybe on International Day.

Now, so I was feeling kind of good. The guy seemed genuinely nice as opposed to 'I will smile and take all of your money' nice. But then I thought, if you put this guy in Chiang Mai, he would be like the rest of them within a month. Is it his fault? Partially, but it goes deeper than this. It could be the tourists, but killing them probably wouldn't fix the problem either (but it would make this place much nicer!). So perhaps, someone should just sabotage all of the taxis in CM, so the red car monopoly can shut down and they can actually have the new buses in CM provide more useful routes than the crappy ones they managed to weasel away from the red car association. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore haha.

New topic: I was informed today that I passed the three exemption tests I took a while back. This means 3 classes I don't have to take to graduate. So I managed to get credit for a full load of classes when I only go to Payap twice a week. Good stuff. I hate that school most of the time.

I have more pics from international day. I will post them when I get home. Maybe tomorrow or sat.

I need a guitar. I need a keyboard. I need a pda phone. I need a motorcycle. I need more books. I need a new computer. I need more time in each day. I actually schedule "free time" into my week now. It doesn't always go as planned, but it keeps me productive. Skipping classes and running away from Chiang Mai for a few days was pretty interesting. I read a very good book called The Kite Runner on Tues. It was the first book I have read in many months. I don't have time to read. Staying at my friends house just lying on mats on the floor talking to the family or watching tv. Just doing 'nothing' made me a little insane. They thought I was so bored, but actually I was going insane at the fact that I wasn't doing anything and I was trying to plan out how I was going to redeem myself in exercise, study and such next week. Should be fun.

Magic Beans!

Ok, not beans really. But I got a few sleeping pills from a friend of mine (they are kind of hard to get in Thailand for some reason), and I tried one last night. It was wonderful! I fell asleep around 11 and woke up around 5:30. I woke up twice during the night, once around 3:30 and again around 5, but I was able to fall back asleep. I've been extremely productive this morning, and it feels good. I have to get some more of this stuff.

I'm going to the airport around 1 or 2 today. I'm flying to Bangkok, then to Ubon Ratchathani (in the SE) and then I gotta hop on a bus going for 2 or 3 hours to Yasothorn. My close friends had a baby so I will go to visit for a night or 2. The plane ticket is so expensive, but I can't afford to sit on a bus for 18 hours and the cheap airlines don't have a flight at the times I need. I am considering using some of my flyer miles to get me back to CM on Thurs or Fri. Maybe I'll stay in Bangkok on Thursday, but not sure yet.

I'm getting more pics from International Day today, but I probably won't have time to post them before this weekend.

International Day Pics

Heres a couple of pics. More to come!

Polyglots, Saw Saw and Preying Mantis Style Kung Fu

I think yesterday was a great day. I woke up around 10am. Then I went to the gym and had a nice workout. Then I went and had a light lunch before heading to Ratchbhat for my first Korean lesson. I will study once a week with her for 3 hours. It was really good. I learned an amazing amount of things for one day and am looking forward to rapid progress with Korean.

I've decided to attempt to become more serious about writing about language learning/teaching techniques so I can eventually organize these ideas into something concrete in the future. That blog can be found here.

I watched Saw II last night with Gina and Wei Ni. They were terrified. Great movie! Nice homage to the first one and it was quite clever.

I won a TV

So my costume was appreciated by the masses. Desired effect achieved. Great idea Jenny! I was in many pics, but I don't have a camera so I gotta wait until people send me them. Here is a low-quality taste from my low-quality webcam. Afterwards, Jenny and I went to Warm Up in full gear. It was great.



Oh. And I won a TV. But not really. Jeff called me about 30 minutes after I left Int' Day to inform me that I shouldn't have left because I won a TV. Of course, as I was not there to claim it, they probably just picked another number. Thats bad enough, but you had to write your name down on a list next to your ticket number, so they friggin know who had which number(s). I assumed that was so they could give the prizes to the correct people. I hate Payap. Next time, I don't win something, please don't tell me!

Three hour Korean lesson starting at 1. Japanese test at 6:30.

Crazy Stuff - International Day - Movies!

I think I have finally begun to work out part of the pattern of my slightly unsane line of thinking/feeling. Things tend to run down for me during September, and by late-October I find it extremely hard to be productive. I can't write, think or memorize as effective as I can earlier in the year. By keeping myself occupied I can still manage to get things done, but I feel like the only way to get myself to do things is to trick myself. As crazy as it sounds, thats how things often work for me. This probably won't make any sense to anyone reading this and its more for my own record than anything else. By looking back at what I wrote in certain months, or what periods of time I didn't write anything, I can begin to see the greater picture of how my mood changes throughout the year. Interesting stuff actually.

I got my haircut today and my costume for International Day is almost ready to go. I just gotta wait for Jenny to bring the feathers and makeup! I'll post pictures if I manage to score some. People always bring cameras to int'jam so should be fine.

A whole mess of movies just came out and I'm psyched. I really want to see Saw II!

I start Korean lessons at the uni I used to teach at on Saturday. 3 hours. I don't know how I can do it hehe. It pays off though. There are often times when I'm with a group of people of various countries and I'm able to speak all of their languages. Fun stuff.

Um - Happy Hallo-what?

Flight Plan + Warm Up

Yesterday, I went to see Flight Plan with Jenny. Aside from being absurd and relatively predictable, it was somewhat entertaining. I still think The Island was one of the few well-thought out movies that came out this year.

I went to Warm Up last night. I was flying solo as Jenny was slow to get ready, but this worked out to my advantage. I worked a number of groups. I spent some time with different groups of Thai, Chinese and I managed to invade a table of Japanese girls so I could get my JapanaMeSe on. Good stuff. I can kind of communicate half-ass in Chinese now. I start Korean lessons next month and I'm trying to figure out how I can develop my Northern Thai (dialect). I was feeling lazy for a while, but I feel a productive phase coming on. Not sure how long it will last, but I'll make the best of it.

Exams and Doom

So I did fairly well on my exams. I got 100 on my Enviro. Probs in SE Asia. It was pretty easy. As for Translation, I got a depressing 89. I forgot a couple terms, but for the most part, that test wasn't difficult either. It often doesn't seem worth my time. I'm not sure if I've 'learned' anything in Env class, but it is interesting. On the other hand, I've learned lots of terms and theories concerning translation, but most of it seems pretty obvious to me. Oh well. I'll always have my language schools.

I need to do some journaling for my creative writing class, so I'll probably be posting it all here as I dislike handwriting.

I saw Doom yesterday. It was ok. Kind of entertaining, but it just wasn't Doom. They changed the plot too much. Ah well. Might see Flight Plan today if I have time.

Boat to Rayong

This is a pic from the boat trip back to the mainland. This is one of the girls I met on the island.

Boat to Rayong 

Bangkok Vegetarian Festival

Vegan squares. No clue whats in 'em, but they were good!


Jeh Festival 

Vegetarian Festival Bangkok

This was a great night! Coming back from the island, I stayed in Bangkok for a night. We went out to eat and were very pleased to find that it was jeh-licous!

Gi-normous veggie signs. Dancing girls, hundreds of shops and stalls selling lots of good eats! October is a good month to be vegan.

Lack of Updat'ion

I have been having a really hard time writing anything lately. Just the past few days I've been struggling over my post about what I did last weekend. Its coming along rather slowly.

I have too much work to do for my writing class. Its really stressing me out.

Mid-terms on Thursday and Friday. I don't really have any clue what to expect for Environment class. I suspect I'll just have to write an essay about what I think about stuff. I am a little worried about translation as much of the theory involved is very ambiguous. I often disagree with the teacher on how to classify certain words and such.

I was planning to go to Vietnam for a few days next month because Air Asia opened up a new route and its extremely cheap, but I'm thinking my 2-days/month job kills that plan. It also happens to coincide with the wedding I was considering attending in Japan. I may have to try and weasel my way out of that job. Hopefully, I can meet with the girl and discuss it with her tonight.

Island Adventures

Last weekend I went to Koh Samet (an island east of Bangkok) with Jeff, Joe, Jieab, Teuy and Joe's friend Spencer. We took a bus Thursday night to Bangkok. After arriving in the morning we roamed around Bangkok early in the morning for breakfast before jumping in a van to take us to Ban Phe. After lunch there, we hopped on the ferry to the island.

We swam and relaxed and went to some party later in the evening. The first day there seemed to be no girls at all that weren't part of a couple. It was a bit of a bummer, but things picked up in the evening. We had dinner by the beach and it was pretty fun.

Anyways, after a bit of drinking I managed to make friends with a bunch of girls who didn't have guys with them. If I ever manage to get the pictures of me with all the girls, I will certainly post them here.

Bugs are Cool

I couldn’t say for sure how long the roach had been dead. It was late in the evening when I discovered it. The ants had just found it and were sending that information home so the others could come to feed. I had been terribly sick for days and the boredom was driving me a bit mad. Normally, in a situation such as this, I would remove the food source so the ants would go away. This time, however, I felt compelled to observe how the ants would go about making use of this monster insect that which was more than 20 times the size of the ants. I suppose it was because I had didn’t have anything else to do, but actually it was quite fascinating.

The first few hours weren’t exactly action packed. Piece by tiny piece, the ants whittled away at the deathly still bug. At times it almost seemed alive as the cloak of ants that enshrouded it went about their grim business.

My sleepless night led me to frequent checks on the ants’ progress. There were four supply lines in the procession. From the center of the bathroom floor they carried their tasty prize in a straight line to the nearest wall. Following this, they would move cautiously along the wall to the doorway and from here around it. Finally, maintaining their safe position along the wall, the relentless marchers disappeared behind my wardrobe to their lair.

I managed to doze for a short time in the morning after having left the ants to their work for sometime. I checked in again and finally saw noticeable dissolution of the corpse. It looked lighter and no longer had any semblance of life. Suddenly, the corpse began to shake. The ants were trying to lift it. After much effort, they were able to raise it slightly and they attempted to move the corpse closer to the wall. However, the spaces between the tiles proved to be an obstacle. The carcass kept dragging in the cracks and slowing their progress, so they went back to dismantling the monstrosity.

I checked in on them frequently during this time. As it had become obvious that they could now lift the corpse, I was curious as to where they would take it once they solved their dilemma. A short time later, I again found myself witnessing some impressive feats of strength from my tiny roommates. They had managed to move the corpse slightly out of the crack so they could move it across the tile.
The roach glided across the floor quickly, yet not entirely ungracefully. It seemed to almost be alive again, soaring across the white tiles until it crashed rather unpleasantly into the wall.

At this point the ants dragged the roach along the wall to the edge of the bathroom door frame. It was here that they finished what they started. It took a number of hours longer before they finished the job, but when it was all over, the once mighty roach was an ashen shadow against the wall.

Birthday Pics

We waited until nobody was looking, then slid the glass off of the table/tub and Jenny jumped in. Funny stuff.

Birthdays and Stuff

I've been extremely busy lately. I think I cracked a rib at the gym so I didn't go to the gym for a couple weeks. I went back today and took it easy. It still hurts, but I imagine it will still heal if I don't agitate it so much.

As for Birthdays. There were far more than I could handle. First up was a Friday night party for a girl who lives outside the city. I went with about 10 people, of which one or two knew this girl. Shortly after arriving, I realized I had been to the house before. It turned out that I am kind of friends with the girls mother and her aunt. I've known them most of the time I've been in Thailand. I see the girl fairly often, but I'm not really friends with her. She is 18 or so I think. I also met her sister, who was in Australia when I went there and her mother had given me her phone # there, but I never called. After I realized who she was I handed her my phone with her number and she looked at it for a minute before freaking out. It was pretty funny. Anyways, the party wasn't terribly exciting so I managed to talk most everyone into moving to Warm Up which turned out to be more fun. Following that, Jeff, Mike and myself went to Easy to eat. We saw a table of 3 girls there so we went to bother them. It was relatively fun.

On Saturday, I had 3 other birthday jams to attend to. First, I went to a party at one of the first bars I went to in Chiang Mai, CM Saloon, 2.5 years ago and I'm close with all of most of the folk who work there. This b-day was for a guy named Zero who I just met a few days ago. He is a friend of a friend I guess. Seems like a nice guy. He rented a suite at a hotel here for the night and we planned to go there to party around 2am. While I was there, I got a call from a girl I met recently who lives in Chiang Rai (about 3 hours North of Chiang Mai). She said she was on her way to Chiang Mai for my birthday and would arrive around 1am. I was kind of surprised as I've only met this girl like 4 times, but I guess we have become pretty friendly.

Anyways, after I hung out at the Saloon for a bit, I had to sneak off to Warm Up, as it was my friends girlfriends birthday and I guess I've gotten kind of close with a friend of hers lately. So I went there and it was awfully boring and I was kind of uncomfortable so I was polite and hung out for one drink before going outside.

Outside I ran into a friend of mine who happens to have the same birthday as me, and he was celebrating so I stayed with him and his friends. That was fun. Afterwards, I should have gone home as I had birthday plans starting at 9am on Sunday.

I didn't go home. I went to meet up with the Chiang Rai girl and the others outside the hotel where we went up and had a rather fun party. I went home around 4:30 and passed out.

My friend Pop called me at 8:45 to let me know she would be picking me at 9:30 to go to the lake. We (Gai and her bf, Pop, myself and some other girl) went there early and spent the day by the lake. They bought me some cake (which I can't eat0 and I was competley exhausted so I slept for a couple hours. It was fun and I picked up a few Thai words I didn't know.

After that, I went back and took a nap in the afternoon and then did some homework before going to eat with Jenny and Randy. Then we went to Warm Up with a few other people and it was ok. Everybody was pretty tired. We sat at a table which consists of an old legged bathtub with a sheet of glass over it. I managed to convince everyone to slide it aside and let Jenny go inside for a bit. We took pictures of Jenny inside the tub which were pretty amusing. I'll post them as soon as I get them.

Nothing to see here...

I had Chinese class today. I was exhausted, but I still managed to absorb a bit of stuff. I think my obscure Thai vocab has increased rather dramatically as of late. I pick up lots of rather uncommon, but rather important words in my classes as I'm the guy that always has to translate the English from the Japanese/Chinese books into Thai. Good stuff I suppose.

Lia and Lana left for Bangkok today. I had assumed (since they told me so) they would stay considerably longer. Ah well.

I think I'm going to China next month for a few days with my Chinese teacher and a few other students. Should be fun.

I have a few open invites with free accomodation to visit Japan this year. Perhaps if I can score a really cheap ticket I can go.

Sinful and Deadly

Are the Seven Deadly Sins equally bad? Can it be said that perhaps some are more "Deadly" than the others? Throughout history, the Church has often organized and reorganized the ranking of the Sins. While I have certainly encountered them all in my life, perhaps the two most pervasive have been Gluttony and Lust, the two that are usually found to be the least "Deadly".

As a severely messed up kid I gained a lot of weight at the age of eleven. Being relatively independent at this point, I was usually responsible for my own meals. I had no sense of portion size so I would often end up cooking far more than necessary. I could eat entire pizzas or consume ten bowls of soup in a "meal". Prolonging the sensation of taste as long as possible, I would eat until full and then if I had nothing else to do, would wait until later to finish whatever I had cooked/bought as soon as my stomach had room for more.

Growing up in a society where overeating is often encouraged causes me much stress to this day. One of the things that always enrage me about visiting my various extended family in the US is that in meeting with them, I'm expected to participate in these ridiculous rituals of stuffing oneself in the company of family. With me having been a vegan for nearly ten years and my family still not truly understanding what that entails, it is needless to say that I often dread the meals more than the expected family quarrels or their ignorance concerning the world outside their own. By not eating most of what is made and causing a supposedly even greater offence by not being physically capable of gorging myself in their presence for the purpose of being polite, I'm am always made to feel awkward and uncomfortable.

It is a daily battle for me to not eat everything in front of me (as long as its vegan) and hence avoid falling into a pit of gluttony. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that it is a battle against finding myself in situations where there is a lot of food in front of me to begin with. I am able to stay thin in this portion of my life by eating very healthy and exercising regularly. And I suppose from living far away from the US.

It is here, living far from the US that brings us to my next oft-encountered Sin. As a Caucasian male with two arms and two legs living in Thailand, I can easily participate in a rather hedonistic lifestyle with little or no effort. In fact, it often takes a mountain of effort to avoid those self-indulgent cravings.

Whether it's a form of exoticism, or physical attraction or the slew of slightly less pleasant possibilities, for me, finding a girlfriend, lover or otherwise in Thailand is far from difficult. In contrast to my strict veganism, whereas the act of someone attempting to be amusing might shove meat or some other animal-derived product in my face is certainly disgusting, when an attractive girl of my acquaintance attempts something relatively similar which tests my faithfulness to my girlfriend, I'm far from revolted.

Things such as these worry me often. Both involve strong willpower that is tested often. Where as I must fight off urges of Gluttony multiple times per day, I only need deal with the potentially more serious cravings of Lust a few times a week. However you look at it, life is a battle. You can be firm in your mettle and attempt to maintain some semblance of morality, or you can sink into a life of sensuality and gratification. If only I wasn't forced to choose anew each day, it would be much easier.

Tfoloz

As much as I would have liked to be writing lately, I've been drawing blanks. Its not that I don't have anything to say, but I often go through periods where it is almost impossible for me to write anything. So rather than talk about the latest streams of insanity that have been circling through my mind, I will just give a few updates on things in my life.

Firstly, Lia and Lana are arriving tomorrow (today already!) around 6am. Which is unfortunate for me as it is a bit after 2am at the moment. I don't know what form of transportation they are using, so I don't know what to expect.

On top of that, I teach English every Sunday morning for 2 hours now, and I suspect I will have some problems with this. I'm not sure if i can really cancel, as my student paid in advance. In addition, I had a job interview on Friday, and if they offer me a schedule I can handle, I will work 3 days a week for this company.

Today, I am extremely sore. I have stopped being completely antisocial at the gym and now I think i've scored some workout partners. Exercising with weights is considerably more effective if you have a spotter, as you can work with much higher weights and therefore push your body much more. On top of that, I have been researching various forms of body-weight exercises lately and today I tried out one particular leg workout that left me almost incapable of walking. Good stuff! You know you've stumbled upon something effective when you will be sore for 3 or 4 days.

I ran out of Zoloft a couple days ago and I haven't had time to get more. I've noticed signifigant mood changes without it just over 2 days. I'm more hesitant and indecisive than usual, I'm completley incapable of getting started on writing on the paper I need to hand in on Tuesday, and my anger is leading me down the road of giving up on going to Korea, rather than outsmarting the system. This will not do at all.

Song Thaew - New Room - Stuff

I discovered much to my anger today that the song thaews (red trucks that serve as taxis in Chiang Mai) have raised their fare by 50%. This does not bode well for my transportation costs.

I'm about 15% moved into my new room. I sleep here most nights. It is very nice to have ac, but as I am on the top floor, it is very hot and i worry a bit about electricity costs.
The internet isn't terribly fast, but it will suffice.

Lia and Lana are in Bangkok at the moment, and are supposed to be coming here any day now. Or so I'm told. Orginally, they told me they'd be here last Saturday, but I'm fairly certain its Tuesday at the moment.

I have a strong feeling that I'm not going to be able to study in Korea next semester as my 'advisor' is giving me a hard time about it. If it was up to me, I'd go and study intensive Korean for 1 semester and not worry about the credits. But sadly, the powers that be are more interested in me getting credits rather than me getting an actual education.

Its extremely frustrating for me to have to sit through classes where the teachers are picked at random to fill time slots and often have little prior knowledge of the subjects they get roped into teaching. In my environmental class, I usually study Thai environmental words as they come up in class. In the 12 or so hours of this class so far , nothing has come up that I didn't already know. I'd be surprised if I actually gain any knowledge from it. Its pretty boring, and so far there hasn't been any work other than reading or occasionally talking. I try to offer up a nice monologue each class where I attempt to point out that part of the reason the environment is in bad shape is that out of the handful of people that care on some level about it, just sit around and talk nonsense.

My next exciting example is Translation class. To my growing amusement, all exercises outside of our 25-year-old textbook are taken from the bible. The teacher seems nice enough and isn't aggressive about the religion, so I haven't had to challenge her yet, but it could happen if she crosses the imaginary line in my mind which shields me from all forms of religion. Again, this class is easy, but involves a bit more brainwork because it forces me to translate passages into Japanese and/or Thai. But I have this class on a long day and I'm always struggling to not pass out.

Rather than go on endlessly (as I surely could) about what's wrong with every class I've ever had, I just want to say that I wish I could weasel an education out of this degree program. But alas, as usual, luck is not on my side.

Freegans and Bee Sufferage

I'm still sick. It seemed to have gotten better yesterday, but I didn't really sleep again last night and I'm feeling pretty awful this evening. I'm hoping to survive Chinese class at 6, but I don't think my brain will be of much use at the moment.

I imagine I'll be able to sleep tonight? I hope so, Tuesday is a really long day for me. If I can't fall asleep, I'll never make it through the day tomorrow.

Heard of Freegans yet? I suspect you will soon enough.

Blah

My illness took a turn for the worse on Friday night, and it was painfully unpleasant. I got very little sleep and was in bed all day yesterday until Japanese class. Following that, I went shopping as I had not much in the way of food or drink at my place.

I went home and tried to sleep, but of course that didn't work, so I stayed up with my usual all night plan alternating cycle of reading/playing a game/studying. I got to sleep around 5:30 and woke up at 8:30 to go out and start on my homework. I'm supposed to translate some sentences into idiomatic equivlents in Japanese. Not so fun.

Study Abroad Application - Sick Again - Good Stuff

I'm sick again. Flu-like symptoms. It would be nice to stay in bed all day, but I have too much work to do! I spent the past couple hours writing the 3 essays for my application to study at Yonsei University in Seoul. I'm having trouble getting reference letters as my advisor is insane and every time I think I've figured out how to stay on her good side she goes wacko on me. My reference letters must be from my advisor as well as one other non-relative. The problem is that none of the teachers that I've had at my school are still here. Some went back to their respective countries, some just disappeared into hedonistic lifestlyes or other jobs and at least one was fired. This may prove to be a problem.

Me: I need you to write me a reference letter.
Her: ::satanic look:: For what?
Me: Study abroad.
Her: But you just got back! You want to go again?
Me: Of course. Don't worry, just write the letter.
Her: Argh, I don't have time now. Come talk to me next week.
Me: Bah.

In translation class yesterday, our teacher read a passage from the bible to us seven time! With different levels of translation from literal to idiomatic. Scary stuff. As much disdain as I have for religion in general, nothing stresses me out more than people who are abusing their position to push their religion upon you(read: me!). She gives homework everyday which is a good thing. It forces me to practice. But the theory seems kind of ridiculous. I imagine I could just take the final and skip the class. Its kind of funny that I could conceivably test out of nearly every class in my major. Of course they will eventually set a limit or something and attempt to make me pay for the full classes. It used to make us really angry how easy many of the classes were, but these days we just can't help but laugh.

There are 3 grad students in my Creative Writing class. I don't know if its common to give grad credit for undergrad classes, but its kind of odd.

What a ridiculous society we live in that requires a piece of paper to show a commitment of time so you can have a fair shot at doing productive things with your life. I've stopped fighting the system as that doesn't seem to accomplish much. Now I do things more subtely than before. Less stress, more fun, more knowledge, same crappy piece of paper.

Lia and Lana are leaving Melbourne on Monday. I'm not sure if they will stay in Malaysia for a few days or if they will come straight here, but I guess I will see her soon enough. Good stuff.

There are many new students this term and I have made a number of new friends.
Some bizzare explosion just happened outside. It sounded a bit like fireworks that were too close. Dunno.

Week 2 Lost in Translation

Today was my first day of Translation I. After one day, I am not impressed. Firstly, our textbook is twenty years old. And I'm a little worried about our teacher's missionary background. She said that we would be translating part of the bible to/from our languages, which ends up being Japanese and/or Thai for me. I suppose it will be good practice or something. I tend to have trouble in classes like these and I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps, I'm not actually challenged enough. Another possibility is that I tend to run into problems with some teachers who aren't terribly fond of my clarifying and/or challenging any of their remarks that I strongly disagree with. I suppose in an ideal situation, this would be used to foster learning, but in Thailand such things aren't a reality.

I worry that this class will be a battle of wits with the teacher. Its fun for me until they get upset, then I have to shut up to maintain an A and it gets boring. Let's see how long she can hold out! I think my CW teacher will do well, but I don't think the Translation teacher has it in her to handle me. Then again Tues and Thurs are very full for me so maybe I will be too tired to cause much trouble.

In other news, among the new students at school there are a large group of Burmese and a handful of Chinese, so I managed to charm a few Burmese girls into getting me started on the basics of Burmese if I manage to find any free time. I don't expect anything to come of this, but its nice to be able to read at least for karaoke purposes! I'm still building up my confidence to talking in Chinese. Soon enough.

Sideways Rain and Cabbages

I was writing this really long post a few minutes ago about where I've been the past couple days and I suddenly realized that its horribly boring. So I just thought I summarize it real quick more for my own benefit then yours.

Skipped Japanese class Sat - Took bus to Payao (3 hours North of Chiang Mai - also my last girlfriend's hometown)
Met up with F, her boyfriend and Jen - Went to a lake, had dinner, went to the town's only disco - Fought off the usual army of masseuseses (which upon checking the dictionary to confirm my spelling, I discovered that this word means a female who gives massages. What do you call her male counterpart? I don't care enough to research this one myself.)

After disco tried to find karaoke - No luck - got a room - slept
Noon on Sunday we headed out to Jen's college in Chiang Rai (further North) - massive rainstorm sidetracked us into a restuarant by a pond where we ended up eating and drinking for a while until the rain let up - Went to the campus - It was nice - Went back to the city (CR) - sang karaoke - tried to get into a disco called Sperm Pub (scary eh?) - Jen didn't have idea and my usually effective method of smoothtalking the doorman didn't work out this time - Dropped off Jen - Got a room - Slept - Spent all of today driving back to Chiang Mai - Fun trip.

Still long and not very exciting, but I think its an improvement on the previous version. I'll spare you any further mundane activities for the day. Chinese class is at 6. Gotta figure out how the hell to say all that in Chinese now. Ugh.

Short Excursion to the North

F told me to come meet up with her in the North and said she would pay for everything for me. So I skipped Japanese class on Saturday and hopped on a bus to Payao, a city about 3 hours North of Chiang Mai. There I met up with F, her boyfriend and another girl Jen. We went to check out this big lake they have there and then we went to have dinner at a nice place by the water. After that went to the only disco in town which from the inside reminded me of the inside of an airport hangar. The music was pretty good and it wasn't overly loud. And because the ceiling was so high, the smoke didn't really bother me all that much. I suppose the only complaint I have applies to many places of this type in Thailand - inside the men's room there are guys with hot towels and such who attempt to massage you both during and after you use the bathroom. They of course expect a tip after so you gotta be a bit aggressive in getting them to back off. This place though had more than I had ever seen at one time. I went to wash my hands and was acosted by 5 at once. Of course, this is just because I'm white in a small city which doesn't have many foreigners, so they all just assume I can be duped into tipping them ridiculous amounts of money. I'm pretty sure the girls room doesn't have anything of the sort.

After the disco we tried to find a karaoke place, but didn't have any luck with that so we went and rented some rooms for the night. The next day we went to Chiang Rai and did something similar there. I was able to get my karaoke on for a bit as well. Fun stuff.

オリエンテーション

最初の週間終わったところだよ。
今日はオリエンテーションをしていろいろな国の人と友達になったと思っている
僕の予定表が素晴らしいね！　火曜日と木曜日だけ大学に行かないと。
クラスが三つがある：　創作的書く、翻訳の理論、　東南アジアの環境問題
そして、日本語と中国語語学を見つかった。　月、水、金曜日６－８まで中国語勉強して　火、木、土曜日６：３０-８：３０まで日本語勉強する。
両校には良いところと思う。　日本語クラスで、ニュースを聞いてエッセイを読んでいている。

So, today was the last day of the first week of classes.
We had orientation and I helped show around the new students (which didn't really amount to much).
My schedule changed again so I actually only need to be at school twice a week now, but those days will be pretty full from 9-4, aside from 1 hour for lunch.

Theres a bunch of new people this semester and I think I've made a few friends. It should be relatively fun. There are many Chinese people this semester and they all seem really nice. Hopefully, I can actually start using my Chinese.

First Week of Classes - Orientation and Stuff

The first week is of classes is at a close, and I think I've managed to pull off a decent productivity-nurturing schedule. Or as much as this is possible anyways in Thailand. I need to go to school early two or three times/week which leaves me some time to exercise and do homework and the like during the other days.

Orientation is tomorrow. I don't understand why Payap has orientation day the last day of the first week. It seems a bit out of sequence to me. Anyways, I "volunteered" to show around the new students in my major. I don't know how I got talked into it really. The school should know by now that I'll tell everyone the truth and how to get things done in this wacky Thai system. That won't help them much.

One of the girls in my Japanese class told me about a free Korean school which happens to be mighty close to my new apartment. I'm going to try and check it out next week. I find its not terribly efficient of my time to study languages if I can't practice them a couple times a week.

I've been doing research lately on PDAs and I'm beginning to wonder if one would simplify my life at all. It would be quite nice if I didn't always have to carry around my little notepads and pencils all the time so I can write down a jumble of notes every time hear a new word and then enter them into my multi-language vocabulary program later. I could see the benefits of being able to organize myself and also have access to dictionaries of various languages. I've also looked at smartphones, as I need a new phone, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be cheaper to just buy a pda and another cheap phone. As convenient as it would be, I just can't decide if all-in-one is really necessary at this point for me. Then again, its also possible I'm just feeling gadget withdrawal due to my laptop and mobile's mutual decision to cease working properly without my consent.

Here is a couple pics from the flooding at F's house.

F and friends.

The Great Flood

I got a frantic phone call from Moon at 6:30 in the morning on Monday. It went something like this:

Moon: Hey! What happened in Chiang Mai!!?! My sister called me and told me there is water everywhere! Was there a tsunami?
Me: Moon, its 6:30 in the morning and there are no oceans anywhere near CM.
Moon: By my sister said there floods everywhere!
Me: Its fine here, I haven't heard anything. Let me sleep!

Anyways, upon being woken up an hour or so later by Rob to say that we might not be able to make it to school today because the roads are flooded. We attempted to go our usual route, which didn't work. The water was pretty deep most of the way, but we hit one area wher the water must have been nearly a meter high. The river is completly full and many areas were hit very bad. I'm not sure on the numbers, but a fair amount of people died. A number of my friend's houses had their first floor submerged and lots of furniture and the like ruined. I'm told the smell of the filthy water and the mud left behind as the water receeds is awful. The flood didn't come near me (center-city), but it made traffic just awful in the city.

Not so many people made it to the first day of the new semster. As such, a number of classes were cancelled for the week. I did sit in on Academic Writing, Creative Writing, Environmental Problems in SE Asia, Chinese III and Thai IV. Academic Writing seemed like a bit more than writing then I want to get into this term, so I picked up Creative. The other major changes, are that I dropped Chinese and Thai IV. After one class I knew that both classes would just be a waste of time and money as my level exceeds that of the other students considerably. So, I dropped 3 classes and added two more in total. I'll be studying Translation I, EP-in-SEA, and Creative Writing. The CW teacher is a published author and liberal feminist. Should be interesting. Its always a pleasant surprise when a qualified teacher pops in among the rather mundane lot of teachers I'm used to. As 3 classes isn't really enough credits for me this semster, I'm going to test out of 3 or 4 other classes later this term so I can catch up on some credits.

Tonight was my first Japanese class at the new night school. The stuff is pretty good for my level, but its kind of boring and I have my doubts about the efficiency of the teacher's methods. I did however learn a bunch of new words and the class is small (3 girls and me) so I will make the most of it and hope she improves.

More Odd Happenings

So, I decided against the whole bowling thing yesterday, perhaps because I don't terribly enjoy bowling to begin with. But I briefly met Jiu's students beforehand and one of them went to Petty(dd?) in Heightstown NJ, another to The Lawrenceville School, and one girl who I didn't find out until she was gone went to my high school and was a year below me (or maybe 2 years?). Strange eh? Mira something.

The conversation went something like this:
Me: Bowling sucks, I'm leaving.
Them: Well, it was nice to meet you, where are you from anyways?
Me: NJ.
Them: Where?
Me: Central.
One of Them asks another: Where is Lawrenceville or Princeton?
Me: Um, I'm from Lawrenceville.

I met this really interesting Japanese girl today. She writes for a free bi-weekly Japanese newspaper here and I think novels as well.

Old Friends - New Place - Queen's B-dayu (Thai Mother's Day)

I ran into an old friend today at Central (the shopping center I frequent). A Swedish guy named Karl, who was the only foreigner I really spent any time talking to during my first year in CM. We lived in the same building and exchanged some funny stories of the horrible building we lived in. From the crazy alcoholic dentist who owned the building and sexually harrassed his secretary to our 40-yr-old Burmese friend Sunny who had an interesting past as a soldier in the rebel army who told us some pretty harsh stories himself. I could go on about the time all the rooms on my floor were broken into by an Iranian guy and his Thai girlfriend and how they stole my CD player and I had to go to Thai court and "testify" to get it back after they caught him.

Anyways, we had lunch, watched Thom Yam Gung which stars this crazy martial arts master from Thailand (he was also in Ong Bak). I think his name is Tony Jaa? The story was a bit ludicrous at times, but the action was intense as always.

I reserved a room in the new apartment building near my gym. I got a corner room on the top floor. It has a pretty nice view of the city. It will be so nice to have internet in my room again. I'll start moving in there towards the end of the month, but I imagine it will be a gradual process. I may let Lia and her sister live there while they are in Chiang Mai and I will stay in my current room in the meantime.

I think I'm getting dragged into bowling with Jiu and a couple of his CMU exchange students tonight. Its raining pretty hard and last time I went home in the rain, I was sick for a week so I think I will go to bowling rather than face the weather.

School Starts Monday

Payap classes start on Monday and my first Japanese class is on Tuesday night.

I took the Thai placement test today and it was pretty easy. It consisted of matching words with pictures then sentences, then read a few passages of consecutively more difficult level before writing a short essay about a picture of a family. I said the father cheats on his wife all the time, the mother is a stripper and the 3 year old daughter is a heavy smoker and a thief.

Anyways, because the test was so easy, I don't want to study in Thai 4. I feel it would be too far below my level to be beneficial. I'm hoping they will make an intensive course for me. We shall see.

After the test, I went to a funeral for a friend's father from school. He died of cancer very recently.

In the evening, I had dinner with Pop and Jiu and I'm supposed to meet up with F later. Tomorrow is Mother's Day in Thailand as it is the Queen's birthday so my Chinese school is closed.

Update

I decided at least for the time being, I will stay as an English major and take 2 classes for that major and Chinese 3 this term. Then on top of that, I will take an intensive Thai course during the day. I'm going to take a test on Thursday to determine what level. On top of that, I'm going to try and set something up with the Japanese department so I can either sit in with a Thai class, or do some sort of independent study which I could then transfer as Japanese 5. The Thai won't get me credits, but it appeases my need to study. The Japanese would move me a step closer to filling that requirement for the English degree. As I have no clue what country I will end up in, a degree in Japanese may or may not be useful for me. But I suppose if I have an English degree, and I can speak a few Asian languages, I shouldn't have any problem finding something lucrative in the future in various countries.

Anxiety Acting Up

I went out with Jiu last night. We went to GawTawMaw (little place which is named after the abbrevated name for Bangkok). Following this we went to check out Monkey Club 2, a slightly higher class, middle-aged atmosphere version of Monkey Club. It was actually pretty nice.

I've decided that I will not change to the Japanese major. Not now anyways. I will drop the math class and the environmental problems class and switch it for a couple English major classes that interest me. Possibly translation and sociolinguistics. Then I will start the application process for Korea. I don't know how easy this will be or how much of a fight my advisor will put up, but she is just an advisor after all?

I am having some pretty bad anxiety lately. I need to buy some shoes and clothes. I need to get some more zoloft (I just took my last pill) and I also need to go check out this new building to see if I want to move there. The problem is I just walk by and don't shop. Sometimes I don't have any problem doing things like this, but sometimes I can't move in to initiate the contact. Its extremely frustrating.

Bah

Today has been rather boring. And I have a massive headache for some reason. I woke up around 10 and went and had lunch, studied a bit and then went to the gym. I had a really nice workout today. I actually felt like I had some energy. I did 30 minutes on a bike (I almost never use s.bikes) and studied while I did that.

I tried to go check out an apartment I heard about, but there was nobody there. Supposedly the room has TV, internet, fridge and ac for 3,500฿/month. As long as the room isn't horrible, I'm already sold. Its in a great location for me. 3 minute walk from my gym and usual internet shops (not that I'll need them, heh) and much closer to my night schools than I currently am.

I think I need to go back to school and drop the 2 classes I don't want. I will also tell my advisor that I will not switch to the Thai program in Oct. I will apply to go study in Korea in January and I intend to study the English major as if this never happened. I never should have let her bully me into making a life-altering spur-of-the-moment decision when I hadn't slept for 3 days. I've already talked to the international coordinator and he said I had a fair chance of going to Korea, but students who haven't gone anywhere would get priority.

Retoxification Day 1

Myself and Lia at a place in Chinatown in Melbourne I went to often.
As I didn't actually drink until after midnight last night, we can say that today is my first day back on the magic juice.

A fairly new friend of mine named David (Born in HK, but grew up in Australia), invited me out today to talk to a Japanese friend to him. He has been thinking about studying Japanese and I guess he wanted to be around it. The girl's name is Mao and she seemed really nice. We hung out for a while and then I read this pamphlet to her and she told me the handful of words I didn't know. Here they are:

世論 - (se ron) public opinion
児童 - (ji dou) young children, infants, pupils
治療 - (chi ryou) care, treatment
自由 - (ji yuu) freedom
活動 - (katsu dou) activity
批准 - (hi jyun) ratify
認める - (mito meru) admit, accept
定義 - (tei gi) definfinition
差別 - (sa betsu) discrimination
平等 - (byoudou) equality
障害 - (shou gai) disorder, handicap
出きる鍵の事する (de kiru-kagi no koto suru) - to do everything possible
扱う - (atsuka u) to deal with (something {transitive})

I'm sure that was some exciting vocab for ya. I might get dragged into bowling tonight. Or at least going to sit and drink while other people bowl. I just never can't get into stuff like that. I'm sure it will be equally exciting.

Day 6 - Stumble and Fall

Well, its about 2am on day 6. I've had two large heinekens and they were quite nice. I'm writing this from the bar. I tried to stay in my room, but it was too hot and I was so bored. Having had two beers I'm confident I can sleep, I didn't get trashed and I'm not a raging alcoholic. Not yet anyways.

Ah well. It was a long enough detox I think. I'll do it again soon if I end up drinking heavily.

Day 5 - Not Drinking is Boring

Well, I'm still surviving, even though I found myself craving a bit last night. I fell asleep too early last night and woke up at 1:30am and couldn't get to sleep again until around 6am. I then woke up again at 10 and went out to discuss some language exchange with a friend of mine.

I felt very weak and fatigued again at the gym. I went swimming and ate one meal, and I guess I feel ok at the moment. A little lethargic. I'm starting to wonder if 5 days isn't long enough? Hehe. I'm so bored. I better ask my girlfriend as I promised her I wouldn't drink for a while.

Day 4 - And There Was Sleep

Yes it is true. I finally passed out. I'm not sure what time it was, but I'm fairly certain it was around 10pm. I woke up at 6:30 feeling completely exhausted. I slept a bit more and then got up at 9am and ran out the door to go to school with Moon. After that I went to immigration and took care of my visa.

I'm still exhausted and feel very weak today, but still no drinking. I suppose the problem will be me managing to stay awake until the night. I'm pretty sure I could go home and pass out for 6 hours or so right now. Ugh.

Detox Day 3

So I'm still off the booze. I haven't even remotely craved it which is kind of nice. Of course, I didn't sleep at all the first night, and while I fell asleep for about 2 hours last night, I woke up at 1:30 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep. Its 5:30pm now and I had a long rough day. I tried to offer a better solution to me switching majors as a number of things came to my mind. I shouldn't make decisions when I haven't slept, but I had not time. I need to go to school again tomorrow to pick up my papers. Today I paid and picked my 4 classes, Chinese III, Thai IV, Enviornmental Problems (in SE Asia?) and some strange required math class. I'm going to be extremely busy. And after mid-terms, if I do make the switch, its gonna be really rough as I will essentially be studying at two universities along with 12 hours/week at private schools.

I suppose my main worry, is that Lia is going to come here for a month. I'm going to have to find some free time to spend with her. I also need to figure out how/if/when I can go to Korea. I'll figure something out soon hopefully. Or perhaps I'll just die from language-overload?

Wasting Away - Detox Day 1

My drinking has gotten a bit out of hand so I've decided to take a break for a while. 10 days of detoxification. Not sure if I can pull it off, but I'll give it my best shot.

I went to school today to talk about registration and my visa. There is no Japanese this term so I flipped out and said that this was unacceptable. I explained that its completely ridiculous that they offer a course and then pull it before I can fill my graduation req's. My advisor suggested I transfer into the Thai program and major in Japanese. I said ok! But as the Thai program is on a different schedule, I'd need to wait until October to register. This won't do well for my visa. So, I said I'd take 2 or 3 classes (Chinese, Thai and something) in the meantime and transfer over when the next Thai semester starts. I'm not sure how/if this will work out, but I'll manage something.

The downside to me switching my major didn't occur to me until I left school. Thats what I get for making decisions when I wake up and I'm still drunk. If I start studying in November, my plans to go to Korea will obviously be affected. I'm not sure when the semester ends. Hopefully, I can work something out with Lia. Nothings final yet anyways.

I Really Hate Smoke

I haven't complained about smoke in a while, so I figured now would be a great time! I went to a bunch of places last night and inhaled plenty of smoke, so all day I have been coughing up surprising amounts of yellow goo! I wish all you smokers would hurry up and quit or die so I can go out to (indoor places) and poison my liver each night and only have to worry about harming my own health [I don't drive here (^.-)]!!

Here are some words I picked up in the past few days:
ลามก - pervert
งับ - to chomp (I'm pretty sure it needs to be a bite from something big)
เหยียด (ขา) - straighten out (legs)
หีฮ้อย - lightning bug (first time I ever saw one in Thailand was yesterday)
ทดลอง -(to experiment)
เพิงคิดได้ - just thought of (something) a moment ago

翌日　- the next day (yoku jitsu)
集中講義 - intensive course/lectures (shuu chuu kou gi)
何故か - somehow, for some reason, without knowing why (na ze ka)

Stress!

I didn't drink last night. And somehow I did manage to fall asleep, but I woke up after 2 hours and couldn't sleep again the rest of the night. Now its morning and I'm starting to feel the fatigue slip in. Insomnia really blows. I don't think I had it this bad in Melbourne.

Ah well. I think we all know how I'm going to have to fix this later!

Ugh

So I didn't take it easy yet again. Sometimes I can be such an ass. It was fun though hehe. I went with F and two of her friends to a lake and we just hung out. In Thailand they have these parks where they have little shops around huge lakes and little raft/dock things so you can sit out on the water. Its really nice. After that we went to some place called The Loft which is on the top floor of a hotel which is the tallest building for a few blocks. Nice view, but the place wasn't all that special and it cost too much. Then we went to Chleum Kreung (It means something like Celebration City). But the crowd was pretty young there and I wasn't really up for dancing so we changed to the Fashion House, renamed Fashion Paris for some reason. The place is great, we stayed in the trance/house room, but they also have a hip-hop room. Gateaux came along with us there. We got a bottle of red label and when Fashion closed we went to a place called Jam in Chiang Mai Land. It was too full and not terribly exciting. The two Thai guys (F's friends) were really wasted so they went home. Gateaux and I went to Easy for some food after that and then went home.

So of course I slept all day again and didn't go to school to take care of my visa. I think I am putting it off for a number of reasons. I'm worried about what classes will be offerd. If they really don't have Japanese 5, I don't really want to study there anymore. I also heard they mysteriously raised the air conditioning fees for certain classes. They just jack up the prices for the most ridiculous things. I'm gonna get so stressed out and angry. I gotta do it, but I'm not looking forward to it.

I'm trying to find schools international schools in Seoul where I can apply to study for a semester. If anybody happens to know of any, please let m know!

Whachyu talkin' bout Willis?

Ok - So I managed to go home early last night in an attempt to "take it easy" and not drink. I was tired and sick. I lasted until a quarter after midnight or so. Then I went to Chiang Mai Saloon and drank until it closed, then went out to eat with my friends (the staff). Bit of a hangover, but I feel much better as far as the sickness goes. I went to the gym and because it is super-hot today,I went swimming also.

Speaking of swimming, while I was doing laps, this tiny old man with a kickboard starts doing laps along the width of the pool. He swam dreadfully slow, so every few laps I would stop and wait for a seemingly endless time before he passed out of my path. Eventually, I got fed up and turned my lap into something of an obstacle course, having to dodge both the guy and the lady swimming next to me. Um, well the point of this, aside from the absurdity of the old guy paddling back in forth in front of me, is that I developed a new stroke! Yes, its true. I was doing the good old-fashioned breast stroke, concentrating on getting the most out of each stroke, when I angled my body to swim diagonally between the two people, I felt pull in muscle areas that don't usually get much work from the breast stroke. Realizing instantly with glee that the efficiency of my discovery would possibly make me more fit if I bothered to stick to it, I tested it out for a while. As for details on how to perform this stroke, I'm not ready to reveal them to the general public. Well, not until I am sure its completely brilliant!! I've decided to name this future style of swimming the Brett Stroke. So called thus, because of my name and its similarity to the word breast! Also, being that many Thai people have trouble pronouncing my name at first and often refer to me as 'Brest' to my dismay, I figured it would be amusing.

I managed to get some more pictures from Melbourne. I'll begin posting them this weekend.

I'm also thinking about how I can use the "Remembering the Kanji" method to memorize all the Chinese characters. Being that I managed to essentially zap 300 Chinese characters into my head in 2 days and I have no doubt I will retain 80% or more of it, I think it would be quite useful to apply a similar technique for Chinese. Any thoughts on this?

Beer is Not the Best Medicine

I wasn't going to go out last night as I wasn't feeling well, but as difficult as it is for me to turn down a night of drinking, there just isn't any way I can refuse karaoke. First we (bunch of friends from school) went to 12 Huey Gaew to a private room. After that we went to a place that stays open pretty late, but has no private room. You sing on stage for that one. I sang a couple Thai songs with Kun and then one or two English. They closed pretty quickly, so we went to Godzilla and sang some more. Gateaux was completly wasted. He couldn't even talk. It was kind of funny. I got home around 4am or so. Screwed up my sleeping schedule again hehe. I gotta take it easy today.

An Evening on the Binge

I'm still sick. Not as bad as I was, but I still feel like crap. I was hoping to go to the gym today, but I don't think I'm up for it yet. Hopefully, tomorrow.

I tried out Chinese class yesterday. Apparantly, it is a level 5 class. I attempted to fumble my way through an interview in Chinese, but it was kind of embarrassing as I've supposedly studied Chinese for quite a while now. The teacher seems pretty good. Hes very strict on pronunciation, which is fine with me. He corrected me a lot at the beginning, but by the end of the two hour class I had slowed down my speech and by the end of the class he said I had improved my ability to speak clearly considerably. We read a rather long passage which had a handful of words I haven't learned or had forgotten. There were only 2 other people in the class (both Thai girls). We read a conversation with the pinyin, then he reads it, then we cover the pinyin and try to read the characters. Throughout the class, he asks various questions about our lives relating to the new vocab. Good stuff. 6 hours/week of this, along with me hoping to catch up on vocab and speaking should have me able to converse in basic Chinese very quickly. Its about time anyways.

Some girl called me yesterday. She started speaking in English, and then switched to Thai. She said she had moved to Bangkok and was wondering when I was coming there to visit. I didn't recognize the number and although I pretended to know her, I haven't a clue who she is. I sent her a message later asking who, but I didn't get a response. I hate when that happens.

Even though I've been sick, I went out with Jiu last night after the class. In part, because I needed to get out, but more importantly, I wanted to get trashed so I could force myself back into a semi-normal sleeping schedule. We went to a place whose name was the abbreviation for Bangkok in Thai. Stupid name. They had a great promotion going on. 2 large Asahi or 3 Leo (beers), ice and peanuts for 150 baht(about $3.25). We had a heiniken, then 2 Asahi, then 6 Leo. 2 people vs 9 beers. The beer won.

F showed up somewhere in the middle of all of that beer. I hadn't seen her yet, nor been able to contact her so it was really nice. We caught up on things and after she drove us to some other bar with a bunch of her friends. I successfully got decimated and passed out. I woke up around 10am. Mission accomplished.

Argh!

Well, I'm still sick. I haven't slept any time the sun was down in the past 5 days. I have however managed to get a few hours during the day over the weekend.

Before I went to sleep this morning, I thought I was starting to feel better, but having slept a bit, I still feel like crap. My friend Toam stopped by with some medicine and such today and yesterday her and a friend stopped by to bring me food. Thailand is a great place to get sick. Everybody is always running over to take care of you. Nobody does that anywhere else that I'm aware of (children aside). Why I remember this one time about a year or so ago, I got very sick and I sent a message to my friend asking if she could bring me some juice and medicine when she finished work that night as I was too sick to go out. She showed up with 2 other girls and I got a whirlwind of 'take care'. One kept wiping away my sweat with a warm damp towel, one sat behind giving me a massage and the other fed me med's and juice and such.

Anyways, I didn't even get out yesterday. Its rained all weekend. I have my trial Chinese class tonight. Hopefully, I can survive it. I'm also considering drinking tonight to help break my daytime sleeping schedule. Possibly not the best idea, but I just can't fall asleep. Its awful. Try to imagine what its like to essentially be trapped in your room and around 9pm, you start considering the fact that there isn't anyway you will fall asleep for at least 13-15 more hours so what should you do? My dvd-rom drive is busted, so I can't install the three games I bought in Melbourne nor can I watch any movies. So basically my 12 hour routine goes something like this, play Age of Wonders 2 30-90 minutes (or until the laptop gets too hot - it will shut off if I keep playing), review vocab program 5-10 min (all languages), review/make new kanji flashcards (RTK mnemonic system), 10-15 min, practice reading Thai stories from sea.edu and add new vocab to prog 20-30 min, read one chapter of whatever horrible book I'm reading (about to finish the third since I've been sick), make some tea, rinse and repeat. Fun stuff. I never realized I could be so productive. Of course, I wouldn't want to make this a normal schedule as I'd go insane before too long.

I wanna go to the island!

Please forgive me if I'm a bit off today. I am still sick and was unable to sleep at all last night. I studied the night away. But more on this later.

The Island is absolutely the most fun I've had at the movies in quite a long time. Considering I went by myself, and I've seen almost everything that came out this year, thats pretty impressive. The action was intense. I suppose it did have some flaws and a few minor holes, but all in all, fun stuff. I may very likely go watch it again, and thats something I almost never do with my twisted memory.

Speaking of memory, during my all-nighter I studied quite a bit. I tried out James Heisig's preview of his book Remembering the Kanji and somehow managed to memorize around 150 of the characters over the course of a few hours. Just by reading through once, a number of characters remained in my head for easy access. I made flash cards for the ones that didn't make it through, and I'm pretty confident with them now. Its a great system and I just ordered the book from Amazon.

I'm getting sleepy now. To hot to go home. Maybe I will go walk around the mall to stay awake. Argh.

Ill

I feel like crap. I stayed in bed until about 6pm today. Sore throat and an unpleasant cough. Thats what I get for being caught in the rain a few days ago. Oh well.

Yesterday morning I had one of the most bizarre, yet intense dreams of my entire life. I've spent nearly two hours writing about it and its still not finished. I may finish it tomorrow if I don't forget the ending.

I picked up some new words in Thai yesterday. We went to a place called '20 Baht'. So named because all the food prices were 20 baht before it moved and turned into a nightclub. The only thing you get now for 20 baht is ice. Anyways, heres the vocab:

แดก - to eat (very impolite)
บ๊วย - apricot
เหียก - gross, hideous, excessively ugly

I'm so bored. I might go see The Island tonight. Or I could just go back to bed.

Too Hot

Its been terribly hot these past few days. I've just been hiding out in the internet shops and roaming around the mall. I've seen all the movies. I don't really have much to do.

I did pretty well on the Japanese test and I think I'll be placed in their highest class which is supposed to start sometime this month. It sounded like we will be listening to newscasts and writing essays. Good stuff. I will sit in on a Chinese class on Monday.

Goodbye Old Friend

He was never one to go without a fight and this last one was no exception. Smaller and much less attractive than his brothers, my lower left wisdom tooth was cut into thirds and forcibly removed from my jaw with some rather intimidating instruments that looked suspiciously similar to a screwdriver. More than five hours later and my mouth is still kind of numb. I managed to eat, but it was tricky as I had no feeling in the bottom of my mouth. I have something of a dull ache in my jaw, but no serious pain. Now if I can just keep the food out of the gaping hole in my mouth, all should be well.

I went to check out two schools (Chinese and Japanese), down the street and I somehow managed to inquire prices and schedules without drooling too much. I'm taking a Japanese placement test tomorrow and I'm gonna try out a Chinese class on Monday. I'm excited.

Godzilla vs Mothra

Last night I went out with Jiu and a friend of his named Kevin (from CT). We went to Warm Up for a bit and then to some place called Godzilla following that. It was a real dive. We went into the karaoke room and after I was suitably inebriated, I sang a few Thai songs to everyones delight. Or at least thats how I remember it. Jiu left because he had to work and Kevin vanished at some point and I just hung out with this girl I met and she gave me a lift home around 5am. It was a lot of fun.

Tonight I'm getting my wisdom tooth extracted. Since I've been to the dentist lately, I've taken in a number of new Thai words related to dentistry. The most frightening one is ผ่าฟันคุด which transltes to something along the lines of rip/tear-out deformed tooth. Thats what they wrote on my appointment card. Why couldn't they just write ถอนฟัน (extract tooth) ? Bah.

In regards to the recent comments of late, I'd just like to say thanks. Based on my traffic reports, I can see that some people actually read this stuff and its nice to get intelligent responses about my thoughts on occasion.

Back Home

I've been back in Thailand since Tuesday morning. Its hot, but not brutally so. I met up with a few friends, rejoined the gym ($125 - 6 months), got my teeth cleaned ($10) and filled a cavity ($10). I'm getting my impacted tooth pulled on Monday. That should be fun. I went dentist-hunting with Sean and we found a great place with very fair prices. Good stuff.

Things ended up working out with Lia. Sorry I never got around to mentioning that. She understood eventually and we spent my last few days together. She also booked tickets with her sister to Malaysia at the end of next month. And they plan to spend a month here. I'm going to look into studying in Seoul next year.

I had lunch with Pop yesterday. It was nice to see her.

Last night I went out with Wad, Gateaux, Aww and Tai. We got trashed at a nightclub called Architect and then headed to Fashion House which has moved to a new location. Much closer to my house. Its improved dramatically, but the prices sure haven't. 130 baht for a small heinekin! Thats more than $3. Crazy. Gotta stick to whiskey in those places.

I'm mighty sore today from working out combined with a rather nasty hangover so I've been pretty lazy. I'm working on translating some Korean stuff people wrote to me before I left. If anything interesting comes up I'll put it up. I have a journal that I have people write something to me that I can read on the plane whenever I leave one country and go to another. They must write in their native language. So far I have, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Burmese, Thai, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, German, French, Russian and English. I can't read all of them, but I'll get around to it eventually.

Singapore

I just got off the plane at Changi. I have about 90 minutes before I board for Chiang Mai. The weather looks like rain there. Its 27/80 degrees here. Probably worse in Chiang Mai.

I exceeded the baggage limit by quite a bit, but I talked to the airline-rep-lady about 30 minutes. I gave her the run-down of the past two and a half years of my life and she was quite entranced so she let me out of paying the $90 which I thought I would have to pay when the conversation began. Good stuff.

When I get back to Chiang Mai, I need a haircut. And I really should get one of my wisdom teeth pulled. Its been driving me crazy lately. Or I may just sleep all day. We'll see.

Heading Home

I have about 14 hours or so until I need to go to the airport. I'll be spending the day with Lia (problem fixed) and packing and repacking my stuff so I don't go over the weight limit on the flight. I'll arrive in Thailand mid-morning on Wed.

Bombs in London

Multiple bombs went off in London a few hours ago during rush hour. There are over 40 confirmed dead and more than 1000 injured. At least three subway cars in the Tube were hit. At least one bus was detonated as well.

Love vs Obsession

Ok - This post may get a little strange. I'm having a bit of a crisis, but I'm not as worried as i was an hour ago. In fact, even though I've had a couple beers and a brisk walk to calm me down since the trouble began, I'm still stressed a little bit.

You see, I'm a bit sensitive about certain things. Firstly, I would say this applies to any acquaintance of mine, of which I am at least slightly fond of, whom I view as either defenseless or not terribly interested in/and or aware of how they can defend themselves in any given situation. I don't like to argue for myself much, perhaps because thats what I did for the entire first 20 years or so of my life. Secondly, I am very defensive of my close friends and girlfriend(s). Having said that, I must make it clear that I am even more sensitive about things that directly prod my sense of self. While people outside my sphere of acquaintance don't generally apply except on rare instances, the opinios of people within those boundaries and their opinions have great value in my psyche. I would like to expand on this line of thought longer, but its best if I get back towards the title. I felt it was necessary to give my reader(s) a basic idea of how I view relationships.

As for love, I hold the partial belief that I have been in love 5 times. I'm tempted to name them, but maybe thats not a good idea. T-Y-P-N-L should be enough for those who know me. This is not to say that I haven't gone berserk over other girls before. Like when I sunburned NN into my back when I was a severely depressed 13-yr-old fat kid madly obsessed with a girl who I'd never spoken with in my class. But I seperated her and other similar feelings from these 5 and called it love.

This year, for the first time, I started to think about my feelings toward these people and what that meant. What is love? If this is love, why does it always make me miserable? This line of thinking begins to point me in another direction.

I'm starting to think that the word 'love' is just crap. The way I view a person is based on a number of factors. These would be based on my intentions with them as well as my expectations of them as acquaintances/friends. When I look back about the 5 girls I've supposedly loved, I'm left to wonder what that really meant.

Ok, I have been drinking a little. However, these are things I think about and really want to discuss, but writing this kind of stuff when I'm completly sober is absurd. Heh, its absurd when I'm drinking also I suppose. No worries!

Tonight, Lia seemed to be acting a bit strange. I've seen her like this a couple times. She gets like this when angry or upset. She doesn't let negative emotions out easily. We had a really nice day. She came to meet me quite late, but I adjusted the plans rather than stress about it. We went and saw The Machinist, and then went to my place where she made dinner and such. It was very nice, but still a bit different than the past few days. Looking back on the evening now, the possibility exists that it began as a misunderstanding. I'm not too sure. It was getting late so I walked her to the tram. Neither of us said a word. It felt very awkward for me, but I didn't know what to say. I had started to get a little angry, as she never tells me if something is bothering her and I have to drag it out of her. Perhaps I overreacted, but while we were on the bench waiting for her tram, at one point in frustration, I left out an exlamation in Korean, which I had learned recently and seen used repeatedly in a war movie I watched the night before. It is a swear word that can be used for numerous English equivlants. I meant it in the manner of "oh Sht, this situation sucks" - or something like that. She took it as "F-You!". And I fear that may be the end of Lia. When it first hit me how seriously she was taking the situation, I almost cried a bit. But I've trained myself against such things. If I truly love someone, I can let them go. If its a misunderstanding, I can only do my best to make that clear to them before moving on. If I call/msg her a lot and bother her to come back,maybe its just obsession? I'm not sure. I may write more on this soon. Of course, I might not. Now I should give sleep a chance and I'll find out soon enough if I am returning to Thailand single or not. I'll be alright either way. Don't worry about me. It is a bit sad to lose a 'keeper', but at the same time, there is something to be said with my emotional state at the moment. I know everything will be ok. Its not going to kill or ruin me in any permanent way. I no longer live in the past or the future. Only the present really matters.

Update

Erm, it seems that I will be online at my new place after all. Its a really nice place, but its only 1-bedroom, which I hadn't realized. While, I don't mind sleeping on a couch, or even the floor for a week, I can forsee a number of problems that may arise due to the fact that I can't go to sleep until my roommate and his girlfriend do so. We shall see how this goes. I'll try not to worry too much.

Ill - Moving - Offline

I've been pretty sick all day today. Maybe the flu or something. I've run out of medicine and I can't really buy anymore tonight. Sucks for me.

Lia came over again today and we watched Untold Scandal, a Korean movie based by a certain novel by the name of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which has spawned at least 3 movies in the US of which I'm aware. It was actually very good. The acting was very impressive, and as it was set in the Confucian-based Joseon Dynasty, it had lots of interesting takes on the story. The premise of course is still the same. Good stuff indeed.

I'm moving into the city tomorrow, so I may not get a chance to update again until I'm back in Thailand. I'll see what happens. I have no clue if they place I'm staying has internet or not. It would be nice.

Good Stuff

Lia 
Lia came over today. I made lunch and then we watched Deep Impact and just hung out. I also packed up most of my stuff for my move on Sunday. Of course, I'm still not sure where I'm moving to.

Its kind of nice living here alone, even if its just a short time. Its clean, there aren't any ants. I can relax.

Vocab Stuff

As I'm at the point in Korean where I'm attempting to memorize some of the more useful emotion-related words, I thought I'd post them here. More for my benefit than yours of course ;-) It also forces me to type Korean, which isn't terribly hard, and while its certainly very useful to be able to type many languages, it still sucks to learn each time. That deep ache that comes from forcing your brain to work so hard in memorizing the key layout. I hope its worth the pain.

기뻐 - happy
슬퍼 - sad
위로워 - depressed
지겨워 - bored (as in not being interested in whats going on)
화났어 - angry
우울해 - depressed
재밌어 - fun
무서워 - scared

Also, here are a few ไทย words I picked up recently. They came from gambling discussions.
เท่าทุน - to break even on a financial investment; sell at par
เจ๊ง - to lose on an investment
เจ๊า - to tie, a draw

Correction!

It seems I made an error when I said "ประจำวันนอนไม่หลับเลยคิดว่าจะตายแล้ว" the other day. Here is the correction.

นอนไม่หลับสักวันจนจะตายแล้ว

Thanks Wad!

Quiet House - どうすればいいんだよ？！

Cody left on Saturday, and Dan left about 4am this morning. So I slept most of the day and then cleaned up the kitchen a bit. I'm still in this house for one more week so I will gradually make it look nice. I have nothing else to do after all.

I'm moving in with a Japanese guy in the city on the 3rd. That will be another week with nothing to do. Perhaps, I should change my flight date? I'm not really sure if I have the money to be doing nothing for 2 weeks. Hrm. I've studied a bit today, but thats about it.

I can't remember if I mentioned this already, but I went to the Melbourne Zoo with Lia last week. It was crap. I felt really bad for the big cats. Their cages are far too small and they just eat, pace and sleep. What a miserable exsistence. I suppose the only decent display was the butterfly room. It was in a special nursery where the heat and humidity were jacked up real high. They just fly all around you. Some of them are huge.

Farewell Jams

I went out for dinner and drinks with Will, Tomo, Ashin, Lia and Lana as Will is leaving fairly soon. I got pretty drunk before heading home. When I got back there was a big goodbye party going on at the IH, so I started drinking again. It was a blast! We took lots of pics and I got a few people to write in my book of many languages that I will hopefully be able to read all of someday. I'll try and get some pics up asap.

I hung out with Yun one last time today, as she is leaving for NZ on Tuesday and she won't be back to Melbourne before returning to Korea. I had a great time with her, and am lucky to have met her.

More New Stuff

Exams are all finished. Chinese was pretty easy for me as I expected. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of people failed. I was surprised how well everyone was expected to be able to read/write the characters after one semester in a class with a worthless teacher.

Last night, I saw A Tale of Two Sisters with Lia. Its a Korean horror movie that got quite a bit of acclaim. It was an interesting movie. It also had a number of major plot twists. Perhaps most of all, its mighty confusing!

I will move into the city on July 3rd. It will be kind of nice not to have to sit on the tram/train each day. Then again, what will I do with all of that free time?

不眠症 = ตาแข็ง

僕の一生を通じてしつこい不眠症に悩んでいる。残念なことに、最近事態はますます悪化している。
どうしたら不眠症を治せるのか教えてください。

ประจำวันนอนไม่หลับเลยคิดว่าจะตายแล้ว

Anyways, my insomnia has been pretty rough lately. Today, I managed to wake up reasonably early, but here I am at 1:30am and still not even remotely tired. Its very frustrating. A few weeks ago I decided make sure I don't drink at least 3 days/week. While, not exactly fun, I figured it would help in some regard. It seems to have kickstarted the worst bout of 寝不足 I've had in years.

On another note, I think I have stumbled upon some interesting successes in vocabulary assimilation. Its not perfected yet, and its variable in its effectiveness dependant both upon the subject and the word in question. However, it does seem to work great for certain words. More on this soon (hopefully^^)!

Drinking And Stuff

Well, according to my traffic report, nobody reads my blog anymore! I suppose I can understand as I have been unable to update as often as before. This is partially due to work and school, but I think also that it has something to do with my rather strange mood cycle. I suppose the only reason I'm writing at the moment, is because I've spent a while studying and I need a break (other than news). Its kind of amusing that I'm getting a spurt of energy just as my semester comes to a close.

First off, lets go over my drinking habits of late. As those of you who know me, I am a drinker. Not a drunk exactly, nor a lush, but I drink almost every day. Perhaps I actually get drunk 2 or 3 times a month, but never beyond me becoming extremely talkative, or on rarer occasions, emotional. Lately, most of my Korean friends (and girlfriend) have been bothering me about my 'red nose' which in Korea, seems to be the primary sign of alcoholism. Now, I suppose I'm an alcoholic already by the standard definitions, but I'm not going to worry much about this today.

It has been expressed to me by a number of sources, that my Zoloft, of which I am currently taking 100mg/day, would be much more effective if I didn't drink. Having considered this, I decided to attempt to sever a few days of drinking from my week.

Its been rough, but certainly possible. I had to wait until the bulk of my exams were over, as I knew it would interfere with my endless sleeping problems. The past few weeks I haven't had any alcohol from Sat-Mon. Following this, Tues and Thurs tend to be light drinking, while Wed I often go out with my Thai friends and Friday I can often be found drinking a moderate amount with Lia or others. I think this schedule is fine for me. Unfortunately, on the days I don't drink, I can't fall asleep, and I get these crazy carbohydrate cravings. My diet consists of at least 75% soy products and vegetables. Although the exact mix of that varies considerably based on where I am living at any given time.

Well, I was actually going to do a language lesson when I started writing this. I'm not quite sure what happened. Ah well, maybe soon. I'll end my babbling for the day. I have too much free time!