Countdown to Oz?

My time here is running short. I leave on the morning of the 8th. Everyone's fighting to be the one to send me off at the airport (or maybe it was just one person who asked if they could come along!). I suppose I should start packing soon. I may actually need to buy a suitcase after all. I'm not such a big fan of luggage, but I got to take lots of crap with me so I don't have to buy it over there.

I think I'm going to need to go to Bangkok for one night this week, but I'm feeling lazy to do so. I keep telling my ex-girlfriend from Phitsanulok that I will visit her.

I don't have so much to say at the moment, but I did upload a few pics that should bring some fun stories out of my head soon. In the meantime, here is Jenny, Gai, and Pop. Sorry if its slow loading. It is a large pic, but worth seeing.


Geocities is pissing me off. It can barely handle any traffic. I am going to need to get more webservers.

Girl on Girl Action and other Possibly Interesting Happenings!

Today's picture is a shot of me passed out in New Orleans over 4th of July weekend sometime during the late 90s.


Arctica 12:18am Jenny and Pop's friend um, Gai (Chicken!) felt each others breasts at the table while I wasn't looking. I glanced over to check on Jenny's giggling as their hands were coming off. Bah, I suppose its the only really disappointing thing thats happened to me so far this year so I'll survive. But for future reference Jenny, I prefer to be included at least visually next time! Ah shit.

So based on the above information you might discern that I hung out with Pop again last night. I went to Arctica with Jenny and Pop called to see what I was up to. She came along with her friend. It was fun. Following Jenny took me home and we arrived to find that my (?ex?)girlfriend waiting outside with my clothes (she did some laundry for me). She had a not-so-friendly look in her eyes. She handed me the bag of stuff and then drove off without a word. I walked in the gate and a bunch of girls who live 2 rooms down from me peeked out the window and invited me in for some whiskey. About 25 minutes later, x-gf came back with my shoes. This time she was willing to listen, but not so much talking. I told her we can be friends or whatever until I leave for Australia, but I made it clear that I don't want her waiting for me to come back. I'm not sure I got through on that even though I said "I don't want you to wait for me to come back!" 3 or 4 times. So she ended up sleeping over because I felt guilty as usual. I really tried hard this time. I can't have all these girls waiting for me to come back. When I return I plan to change back to my less stressful 1-girl-at-a-time style.

Today - Jenny, Pop and I went to have lunch at Khun Cheurn (คุณเชิณ)the kick-ass veggie place. After lunch we went to Central (mall) and sang karaoke for 2 hours. Next, we went and took some pictures! The Thai girls love taking pictures. I hate taking them, but its cool to have them. I'll post those tomorrow after I scan them at school. A few nice shots I'd say.

Another side note - I ran into the teacher with whom I had a grading issue and he said he will fix our grades. That reduces my stress level quite a bit!

I bought more clothes! A sweater, jeans and 3 nice fake-designer tshirts for 1500 Baht ($40ish). I need to stock up for three seasons in Australia and I certainly don't want to buy clothes there.

Sorry about the new template. I'm not sure if I like it yet, but for some reason I have yet to determine, none of the other templates display my profile and links correctly.

The Source of My Motivation?

I've been on a strict eating regimen for a week or so now. I've also started taking creatine again and I've stepped up my workout routine at the gym. I want to gain 3 kilos or so of muscle. I've also been very productive about studying both Thai and Japanese. I've increased my daily vocabulary intake. I feel good about things right now. I'm still a bit nervous about going to Australia, but not really. Mostly I'm worried about Pop. I'm infatuated for sure. I'll drop all these other girls of late in a second for this one. I've been taking 100mg of Zoloft every other day. 50mg was no longer enough for me to reap the benefits of it. I figured since the stuff stays in your system for a fairly long time, I could use the same amount of medicine and still get something out of it. Its working so far. I find that when taking drugs, I become immune very quickly to the effects if I take the same dosage for any length of time. I'm not sure where this recent burst of productivity has come from, but I'm guessing its this one particular girl. Is she the true source? Possibly, but I think it is more complicated than this. Sure I can get mushy about girls now and then, but mostly I don't like having a lot of emotional baggage/responsibility. I just can't handle that stuff well and it tends to detract from my ability to function in daily life. I know I will be sad to leave her. 見初める - misomeru - to fall in love at first sight.

My sleeping schedule is still pretty messed up. I'm forced to take naps sometimes. I'm exhausted often.

Speaking of her, while I was out with Kumiko and a handful of people who just graduated from Chiang Mai University, Pop and a friend of hers came out to meet me. After we went to another place and had some food. We made plans to eat and go sing some karaoke on Sunday. ตืนเต้น! (ตีน - wake up, เต้น - to dance, wake up + dance = to be excited)

Kumiko came back from Japan and gave me a fantastic Doraemon manga book for learning various types of vocabulary. Great stuff! Its hard to find books in Japanese that I can actually read.

For Japanese homework, I tried to tell the story of my previous post. It's probably not 100% correct, but I gave it my best.

女狂い (Girl-Crazy)

私は最近きれいな女の人とデートをすることが多い。しかしながら、去年全
然違った。その時は彼女がいった。でも私達はもう終わったので、女狂いだ
ろう。よくディスコへ行ったり、遊んだりしたが、だけ少し引っ付いた。で
も正月来悪くなるかもしれないと思う。一昨日の晩可笑しいことが出会った。
友達とビールを飲みに行った。彼女は僕の部屋に連れてくれた。アパートの外蚊がたくさんあったので、いっしょに部屋に 入って行った。それから、四方山話した。ややあって、他女の人僕に パジャマコールをして、「かぎを忘れてしまった！」と言った。だけど、かばんを持っていったが、鞄の中にめしかえがあったので、彼女はうそをついたかもしれません。彼女に目は僕の道に着いた後で彼女一目は僕の部屋を出た。何しろその時う後ろ暗い事が分からなかったので、困っているの人は助け出さなくちゃ。こんどことが少し可笑しかった。二目のは一目のに止めて、僕のアパート名前は聞いた。それから、一目の人は二目の人をアパートに送れてあげた。その日はとても面白かったが、いちばんびっくりしたのは夜の後で彼女二目には整然と僕のお手洗いを掃除した！もう二年間住んだのに、時にはタイ人は全然分からない。

I suppose I could go on, but I got a bit more homework to finish.

Ugly Strippers and A Most Amusing Event

I had a most unusual evening yesterday. I went out alone and met up with a friend of mine at bar I used to frequent. We played pool while I pondered where I might go that night. My friend jokingly suggested Star 6, a strip club that I had heard of but had never been to. I figured we could go check it out as I always like to check out places I haven't been.

It was extremely dark inside and this was probably for the best because most of the "women" were pretty busted. Now there were a few nice ones, but nothing close to the girls I see at school every day. At one point a girl came out and shot darts into balloons that were hanging from the ceiling above the catwalk. Another girl opened a few coke bottles in a rather unpleasant manner. And there was one really stupid show with a girl putting lit torches out in her mouth. The not so grand finale was a shower show, with some frighteningly man-like beast taking a shower in semi-see-thru clothes. Blech. Serves me right for going into some shady dive like that!

Now on to the funny part. We went on to another place after that to get some food before we went back to my place. While in my room another girl called me saying she had forgotten her keys and needed a place to sleep for the night (of course I found this story a little shady when she showed up with a backpack with a change of clothes). So the first girl who is quite understanding left when the second girl called me to let me know she was almost there. I said goodbye to my friend and waited outside for the keyless girl. Two minutes later the first girl returns with the new girl on the back of her motorbike. The second girl stopped my friend and asked her if she knew where Suk Wat Court (my building) was. The first girl said yes and offered her a ride. I didn't realize until the next day when my friend (girl #1) told me what happened. Crazy stuff 'eh? An amusing side note, the 2nd girl took a ridiculously long shower in the morning and after she left I discovered that she had cleaned my bathroom. Toilet, sink and all. It sure is bizarre, but I'd say life is pretty damn good.

All this stuff going on lately has been quite a boost to my self-confidence. What this results in is minimized anxiety. Good stuff I'd say. I managed to go around to a bunch of chemists asking for Zoloft. It is usually very hard for me to do things like that. It also allowed me to pick up some things at school as well go harrass my advisor about a certain grading issue that has caused me to become enraged.

A Japanese girl I met a while back sent a couple pictures from one night we hung out. I'm including one of the better shots as todays completely unrelated visual companion to my hopefully amusing ramblings.


From left to right, Yumiko,Gateaux,Kumiko,Me. We are at Arctica in December. It was actually quite cold that night. Very odd for Thailand.

Sleep and movies

Yes its true! I managed to get some sleep. 8pm to 3am followed by watching Closer, Mr 3000 and the first half of Ray. After that I slept again from about 8am to 11am. Pop picked me up around 12 and we went to have lunch and watch Seed of Chucky. It was quite fun. I'm feeling pretty good about things. It will be sad to leave her. Had I only met her earlier. Ahh well, mayble she'll wait for me?

As for the movies, here are my thoughts:

Closer - The rather twisted plot seemed rather pompous and pointless to me. I didn't find it the least bit interesting, but I will always be able force myself to sit through any movie with Natalie Portman. Great cast, dumb plot.

Mr. 3000 - Somewhat amusing, but there was a side love story that made it seem much cheezier than necessary. Mildly entertaining.

Ray - Only halfway through, but I'd say its very good so far.

Seed of Chucky - Well it was fun to watch. I remember when Chucky movies were supposed to be scary, but the last couple have been more about gore and jokes. I can't really complain. It was a spoof on itself.

Fatigue

I haven't gotten a good nights sleep in ages. Partially due to drinking, largely due to women, but mostly due to anxiety-related stress. I've been worrying about things quite a bit lately. I think at 1 pill/day Zoloft is no longer of use to me. I think it would be too expensive to double my dosage. Also, I'm still not sure if I can take the stuff with me to Australia. I highly doubt it.

Last night I went with Jenny to Chiang Mai Saloon (a popular foreign-owned bar where I am good friends with all the staff) to drop of a birthday present for one of my friends that works there. They invited us out after work (staring at 2 or 3am). I realized it wasn't a great idea, but I haven't had time to hang out with them in a while and I won't again soon so I agreed. Jenny was supposed to come along, but she got into a minor motorcycle accident and banged up her foot a bit. A girl who I met briefly on my birthday came to meet me at the Saloon and I hung out with her after we left there until I was to meet up for the birthday jam. Some things happened with her and she ended up staying at my place. I had a bit of a hard time getting her to leave in the morning so I could get ready for school. I think too many girls know where I live now. Even with only two weeks left here, I could potentially get myself into some trouble. Three girls have pledged their love for me in the past week alone. The usual Thai concept of "love" (in my experience anyways) is nothing like that of the average Westerner. Girl: "Brett, I love you. Do you love me?" Me: "What!?! No! I've only talked with you three times!" Heheh.

Onto a slightly more noble topic, Pop came to have lunch with me at Payap today and then hung out to talk with me for a while. I'm going to skip school tomorrow to hang out with her during the day. We will go see Seed of Chucky. A stunningly-beautiful-nice-girl-who-likes-horror-flicks? Smells like jackpot to me. We'll see.

I'm too exhausted for any lessons today, but I thought I'd offer a picture of me in one of my not-so-shining-moments. His Majesty the King's birthday 2003. I had perhaps 4 large Singha beers and an entire bottle (albeit small) of sake. At least thats what I remember. Bumper cars with some hot girls whos names and numbers I forgot to ask for in my drunken haze. I don't remember this particular shot either, but thats the point anyways. Glad I don't drink like that anymore.

I took a well-needed sober holiday after that night.

Oh my!

I had dinner with Pop (the girl I met at Fashion House). It was nice. She seems like a fun girl. I told her that I'm leaving soon, and we plan to keep in touch. Hopefully I can get some pictures of her. Later I went out with Sven to Warm Up (as always) and wee ran into the Australian brothers I have grown friendly with. One of them will be heading to Melbourne the day before me and we plan to keep in touch. I was going to goto Fashion afterwards, but I aborted that mission around 1 am due to massive smoke inhalation. It turned out to be a wise decision as I ran into three girls who hang out in the salon in front of my apartment as they were returning from a disco called Jam. One of them sweats me, so the other girls went into their room and I hung out with the third for a while. Needless to say, it went quite well.

I watched a great movie called City of God two nights ago. Its a Brazillian indy flick based on a true story. The direction is superb and its very cleverly portrayed through flashback sequences. It was shot in a way reminiscent of a certain Oliver Stone film. In other movie news, Seed of Chucky has come to Chiang Mai! The wait is over.

Here is another shot from my trip to New Orleans 8 years ago. Jeez, I'm old.

I feel Ill

I couldn't sleep again last night. I've been pretty ill all day. I think I have the flu or something. I watched The Godfather Part II. I don't think I'd ever seen it in its entirety before. Good stuff, but I think maybe I liked the first one better? I can't decide.


This is a shot from my trip to New Orleans. I was 19 and thin for the first time since I was 10.

日本語　－　～そうです It seems as if, it appears as if. While not confirmed, you can offer a supposition that something is so. This can also be used in making an observation on how someone appears to be feeling.

For Verbs, drop the ～ます　and add ～そうです. Note that the following are intransitive verbs and have no direct object and cannot use を. The assumption is that the following are about to happen, but have not yet.
-荷物が落ちそうです。　It looks like that baggage is about to fall.
-火が消えそうです。 It seems that fire(candle, match, etc) might blow out.
ー今にも雨が降りそうです。 I think its about to start raining.

As for Adjectives, drop the い or　な and add ～そうです.
-このケーキは美味しそうです。 This cake looks delicious.
-そのいすは丈夫そうです。 That chair looks sturdy.
-おもしろそうです。　　　　　　(This, that, etc) seems/looks interesting.
-彼女は嬉しそうですね。　　　　She looks happy eh?

Stress

I have been sitting in on Thai 4 and Japanese 4 classes at school. I leave for Australia very soon and I still haven't gotten anything done. I haven't been able to sleep lately either. I'm not sure whats wrong with me, but its not going well. I can't seem to be even remotely productive. I'll try to write more soon. I plan to go to Bangkok for a couple days to see some old girlfriends and stop stressing out.

I hung out with Pop on Sunday and I had a nice time. I called her earlier and we made plans to have dinner on Saturday. I should probably tell her I'm leaving soon.


Well this frighting picture sure didn't cheer me up much.

Rants, Suspect Zero, and the end of debauchery?

I can't stand the smoke! It is bad enough that I'm forced to inhale all the diesel fumes from the vehicles here, but I really hate smoke. All day yesterday and my sinuses and lungs are all mucked up. It is hard for me to breathe, and I feel like crap. Why must I be subjected to this crap. Argh. I took a girl out that I met in Bangkok in October 2003 and at the first place we went to she said "Do you mind if I smoke." I said "I hate smoke, it makes me sick." Then she laughed and lit up. Why do people ask? Now you see I smoked for seven years and for most of that time I enjoyed it. And of course I thought people who complained about it (as I do now) were just annoying fools. Ah well. Perhaps it serves me right? Bullshit. I get so angry sometimes. People just don't get it. It's just a joke to them that smoking makes me ill. On days like today I wake up and cough up all kinds of yellow garbage. Its not pleasant.

Ok that was my first rant of the day. Lets try another:

My sorta-semi-(ex?)-girlfriend (what!?!) as I mentioned yesterday wrote me a goodbye letter. I sent her a text message that her complaints that I don't give her enough time are fairly valid, but the way she lets me know this are not very efficient. And if you know me, you know I like efficiency! She is dodgy and I feel like she is always trying to make me feel guilty. I just want to be single. I think I will end it for sure! I don't know how to dump people though. I don't like to make people feel bad. I think I can make it out because this time she pissed me off. Anger is a great thing if you have some control over it; when I am angry my anxiety goes away and I always feel better afterwards. Also, after any big event where I get extremely angry, I become very efficient and productive for a while. I also think more clearly, have more fun, and am just generally more pleasant to be around. I've theorized in the past that my general mood changes on a cycle. While I originally suspected it had to do with time, I have come to believe that certain events happen in/around my life that triggers the next stage. Am I sounding too insane? Mwahahaha. Erm sorry. Anyways, I'll stop there as if it doesn't sound too crazy it certainly will after I get deeper into it.

Tonight I'm going to the Sunday walking market to meet the super-ninja-hot girl I met the other night. At least she was s-n-h through the haze of inebriation I experienced when I saw her. Hopefully she will look as good when I'm sober. Of course I kind of already had a plan to take this other girl to the Sunday market that I went out with last night, but I'll figure out how to sort that out later! No worries.

I watched Suspect Zero. It was about a serial killer with no discernable pattern. Doesn't serial mean "arranged in a series"? Ok the movie was certainly watchable, but not terribly creative. Some of the imagery and the scenes were nicely done. And Ben Kingsley (I think thats his name) is really a great actor.

School starts tomorrow! I'm not registered of course, but I will go sit in on some classes. At least it will get me back into waking up early and not drinking so much or being exposed to too much second-hand smoke.

Perhaps you notice I have a lot of energy today. I will use it to do a quick lesson or two.

I want to give a few examples of the causitive form in Japanese.

武レットは私を困らせた。 Buretto wa watashi ni komaraseta. Brett caused me trouble.

友達は私にチップを払わせた。Tomodachi wa watashi ni chippu o harawaseta. My friend made me leave a tip.

私にさせてください. watashi ni sasete kudasai. Please let me do (it).

Some new vocab　

に対して　- ni taishite - toward, to, in contrast to, whereas, in regard to (this is one of those tough ambiguous words where the context is key to understanding its usage in that situation)

最近イタリアではタバコに対しての考え方が大分変わってきた。　Saikin itaria dewa tabako ni taishite no kangaekata ga daibu kawattekita. Recently in Italy, attitudes towards smoking have changed greatly.

私は政治に対してあまり強くない関心がない。　watashi ha seiji ni taishite tsuyokunai kanshin ga nai. I am not very interested in politics.

おそうしき　－ funeral

กวนตีน/ทะลึง - cheeky (not a word I ever use in English, but somebody called me กวนตีน yesterday and I didn't know what it meant! Bah.)

อาณาจักร - kingdom

Whew. Thats all for now!
　

Poison in the air and possibly in the ladies

The pollution here along with the excess second-hand smoke I inhale is taking a toll on me. I've felt ill all day as my lungs seem to no longer be capable of cleaning themselves since the last few years I smoked in my early 20s. It sucks.

My sort-of girlfriend wrote me a goodbye note this morning. After that I wrote her a message yelling at her for always trying to make me feel guilty (and too often succeeding!). Then we went to dinner and argued some more. She wants to see me tomorrow, but I think I can't take much more of this. Being single is more fun.

I went out with a bunch of girls that I've known for a while, but recently befriended last night. It was quite fun.

Tonight a girl I met at a teaching convention in Bangkok about 15 months ago is in Chiang Mai and I am going to take her out. Not sure where, but going to party with the team as school starts on Monday. I'm not registering, but I will sit in on some classes until I leave for Australia.

Not feeling so great...

Well, I feel a bit fatigued today. As always, I didn't sleep enough and then I went to study Japanese for an hour. After that I laid in bed and watched I, Robot and The Manchurian Candiate on my laptop. Sven lent me about 30 dvds to keep me busy for a while. Neither movie was terribly interesting.

No big plans this evening. I was invited to go out with a bunch of girls, but I just don't know if I'm feeling up for it. However, it is rather difficult for me to say no to going out. We'll see what happens.

Do you really think I look the same? Try this picture from my prom! I weighed around 187 until I was 19. After that I dropped to the 130s. I'll post a pic or two of that time period soon.

Bliiing!

Last night I went to Warm Up with Sven and another German friend of his named Stephan. We ran into a friend from Payap as well as a couple girls we knew. Jenny met up with us later and after it closed we went to Fashion House for a bit. I met an amazingly attractive girl named Pop. Yes, Pop. Short for popular? I realized last night how much I'm going to miss the girls and the nightlife here. There are always people out. The social atmosphere here is just brilliant. Very comfortable. Even for an anxiety-ridden fellow such as myself.

I attempted to pay the balance for my room in Australia, but it seems that my card was declined. Bah! The ever-weakening dollar is growing troublesome.

Great Bloggledorf !!

While Jenny was giving me a ride home from dinner at Khun Chen (kickass vegetarian restuarant) I briefly discussed the expected weather when I goto Melbourne in February.
Jenny: "I've never been to southern hemisphere before, have you?"
Brett: "Nope."
Jenny: "Me neither."

Well we thought it was funny anyways.

My lack of sleep has been horrible the past two days. I haven't been to the gym! I must go tomorrow.

I'll try to put up a new picture tomorrow. Possibly a lesson also.

Sting is playing in Bangkok tonight. I wanted to go, but I couldn't convince anyone to join me. Bah!

Nicole Kidman's Birth!

Ok so Birth is a pretty odd movie. It was well directed and the acting was quite impressive. It was very immersive. The score was great, but the plot seemed a bit incomplete. I felt as if the ending was a bit vague. As if someone thought to suggest a solution, but didn't actually know for sure or possibly just wanted to leave it up to he audience?. I liked it, but I suspect a lot of people wouldn't based on some of the loose aspects of it. The bathtub seen was no big deal. I had absolutely no clue that Anne Heche was in the movie until I read something afterwards! Unrecognizable.

Yesterday I went and found the scarves and purses that my friends wants me to ship to her so she can sell them at her shop in London. I'll get around to that by the weekend.

Last night I went out with Jenny, Tristan, Saylesh, Michael and Kara. We went to Monkey Club for a bit before going to check out this karaoke bar I drive by every day, but have never been inside. It was lots of fun. A bit expensive, but we didn't drink so much and got to sing a bunch of songs. I did a rather brilliant rendition of Winds of Change by the Scorpions.

Today's picture is of myself when I was about 17. I was in my friend Andrew's dorm while visiting him at Boston University. I think I was trying to play Satellite? My hat was badass.

No beer = no sleep?

Well, I didn't drink last night. It was also a miserable night trying to sleep. I watched 6 episodes of the third season of Family Guy on my laptop (borrowed DVD from Jenny who has returned from the US). I think I fell asleep around 3am or so, but I woke up many times after that during another of my crazy dreams.

My Japanese teacer shaded out a bit, but has emailed an apology and is offering to teach me on Wednesday. This is something of a relief. I really need structure if I am to become productive again.

I caught up on my vocabulary in my program. I was about 300 words behind. The program I use to memorize vocab and anything else I want to remember is called Vtrain. It is extremely useful!

My friend in London has a market stall where she sells stuff from her occasional trips to Thailand. She asked me to resupply her, so I am pricing various things of interest. Hopefully, I can make a few baht!

Movies, dreams and other nonsense...

I saw The Forgotten the day before yesterday and Cube Zero yesterday. The Forgotten was great! I had seen the previews and it looked interesting, but it was much more than I expected. I can't really tell much about it without spoiling it a bit. As for Cube Zero, it was also rather clever. The Cube movies are short, low-budget films which don't tend to come around full-circle. If you don't mind that they all end without really ending, you can enjoy them. Its a clever concept and they added some new twists and traps this time around. Considerably gorier than it's
predecessors. I saw the first trailer for the next Star Wars installment. I guess it was interesting??

I had this completely insane dream which surely had some connections to Cube Zero! I was trapped in this tall high-tech building. I was given a low-level pass that allowed me to get to my room through the card-key run elevator. There were stairs in a seemingly endless grand hall. Well, it just gets really strange after that with showers and a play and a number of escape attempts, so lets just leave it at that. Sorry.

Spent some time yesterday helping a friend study for the TESOL exam. She has taken it a number of times and has yet to pass. It is quite difficult, I know plenty of native speakers who probably wouldn't score too high!

I bought four really nice shirts for 1,200 Baht (around $30). Hoping to stock up with a nice new wardrobe for Australia.

The girl who owned the salon that is connected to my apartment building sold her shop and the new girl who bought it charges me nearly three times as much for a haircut! Argh. That means I have to pay $3 now of course. And she does cut it much nicer so no worries.

Today's fun word is: Lubricious!

Lubricious can mean lewd, lustful, tricky, shifty, slippery or smooth depending on the context. Does anybody ever wonder who comes up with these words? Is there a bunch of guys who sit around in a room brainstorming variations of root word combinations? Sounds like a great job to me!!

Trifigulous - describes a situation or event containing high level of excitement or generating much interest
**Examples of correct/incorrect usage:
O - This has been a most trifigulous evening!
X - That sure is a trifigulous shirt you have there!
X - Your mom is trifigulous!

Gnilb (Ga-nilb) - denotes an unpleasant event has happened or is expected to in the immediate future.

Selling clothes and some new vocabulary!

Ahh here is another shot of the waterfall on Doi Inthanon. I'm with Moon and her cousin. Her cousin couldn't speak English or Thai, so there wasn't much communication there.



Well, I am currently in the process of posting an auction for one shirt on Ebay. It is the slowest, most horrible web site I've come across in a while. It pains me to think how many people make their living waiting for Ebay to load. Of course, I am attempting to jump on the boat, but I will certainly make good use of the loading times (writing this post for example).

I had this crazy dream last night where my sister attempted to kill me. I was in a boat or something and she was shooting at me. I took one hit in the leg! What!?! As soon as I finish the plans for my dream recorder/player machine, I can get to work on making some wickedly insane movies!

I went for a walk last night and ran into an old friend who opened a massage shop near the infamous Night Bazaar in town. After a few beers I discovered that she has two stepdaughters who happen to live in Melbourne. She gave me their numbers. During the evening I picked up some new Thai words as shown below. Good stuff.

ภาษาไทย -

เนรเทศ - to exile (pronounced เน-ระ-เทด)

สัญญาณ - signal

สถานการณ์ - situation

Debauchery....

I managed to be slightly productive yesterday. I bought two large plastic containers for the purpose of storing my things when I leave. I also managed to find some reasonably priced undershirts! I'm excited anyways.

I checked out some shops here and I found some really good cheap clothing! I need more clothes for Australia. I'm fairly sure I will see three seasons or so during my term there.

I got invited to go camping in some far away national park this weekend. I can't decide if I will go or not. It would probably be good for me to take a break from the night life, but I'm not sure what to do. The other option would be to goto Bangkok. Sting has a concert there and there is an animation film festival! I am due to visit a few girls down that way anyways...

I want to goto the Mtv Asia Awards in Bangkok!! I've spent a fair amount of time searching, but no luck as of yet. I can't find contests or anything.

I'm attempting to sell some clothes that my friend designed on Ebay. We hope to start a business of sorts in the near future (after I return from Australia).

Thai people like to take pictures of each other. They also like to drag their friends into those damn photo shops everywhere and make them suffer through various poses as the computer voice babbles incoherently while your picture is taken every 6 seconds!! Argh. Well, here you go. You were warned. Don't let them take you in those scary shops if you can avoid it. Noom, Jenny, F, myself and some guy?



If you've survived this long, it would be wrong of me to leave out all the debauchery! Last night I went out with Sven. We started at this one pub near my place before heading to Warm Up. There was an Australian DJ and he was quite good. There was also far more amazing girls then I had ever seen before. Possibly because it wasn't as crowded as usual? Afterwards we went to Fashion House and it was pretty fun. There were so many girls and I attempted to talk to a few of them, but I was feeling pretty anxious even with the amount of beer I had consumed! I managed to get one number from a girl named D who is studying for her masters at Payap. It was a blast. After that we went to Forte for a bit, but we were both too drunk to drink anymore and I had harrassed enough women for one night. From there we went to the famous noodle shop near my place. Then off to sleep!!

I slept about 4 hours, but I feel pretty good today. No lesson today. Brain isn't fuctioning at full power today.

Nothing terribly exciting today I'm afraid..

I went and saw National Treasure last night. It was considerably more entertaining than I expected it to be. The premise was relatively interesting even if bit far out. I'd say it was worth the 90 Baht ($2.25)! Alas, the characters were a bit too generic.



Today's picture is of myself and Andrew (the only American who has visited me in Thailand so far...) at Doi Inthanon (tallest mountain in Thailand). As you can see we are completely comfortable and feel at home under the scruitinous eye of the camera.

The wait is over...

Thank you for your patience. I shall be rewarding it with something particularly special, a picture of me! Anyways, my friend Andrew drew this a few years back. I'm not exactly sure when, but I suspect 2001ish.

I went to Warm Up again last night with Sven. Gateaux met up with us later and we went to Fashion House(disco), then Forte(Late disco, not good, but open until 4am) and finally Easy (very big place to go eat until 6am - sells beer). I flipped out a bit on my friends due to some stress lately combined with a moderate level of inebriation. I managed to calm down and eventually worked everything out. There have been some things driving me crazy lately as far as my friendships with people. Perhaps I have unfair expectations on what a friend is? With the exception of those people I've known a long time, I cut ties with people very easily if I feel they are disloyal to me or if they waste my time. Am I too harsh? I think perhaps that the problem is that I am always so sure I know what everyone is thinking and that they always have motives behind everything they do. I suspect that this is largely due to who I am and how I think. It is hard for me to comprehend that most people do things all the time without really thinking about it. I can't do the simplest things without first playing out all the possible outcomes I can think of first. I'm not sure if this is a side-effect of my anxiety problems or the root of the entire matter. I just finished my first box of Zoloft. While it has helped my general mood considerably, I don't think it has done anything for my anxiety. Also, I'm afraid I will need to raise my dosage to continue benefitting from it. I also worry if I am allowed to take Zoloft into Australia with me. We shall see. I still have so many things to do before leaving in February. I haven't even bought my planet ticket yet!

日本語　- Today's Japanese lesson includes an idiom! Try to contain your excitement please.

貧乏くじを引く - Binbou kuji wo hiku - to draw the short straw (lot)

僕の命はいつも貧乏くじを引く。　It is my fate to always draw the short straw.

貧乏（びんぼう）poverty, impoverished

命　（いのち） fate, destiny, decree


Caustive Verbs! -- To make the caustive form in Japanese you just add saseru! No problem! Of course, as in every single grammatical rule in Japanese, there are always exceptions. But that is part of the fun you see.

Ex. あのう誰か武れっとさんが全部ビールを飲まさせてくれたんが。
　　　Um, someone let Brett drink all the beer...

For group 1 verbs, change the ending sound to the あ-line and add seru. 聞かせる - to make/let someone hear.

For the え-line verbs (group 2), drop the ru and change to saseru as 食べさせる。 This means to make/let (someone) eat.

する　来る become させる and　こらせる respectively.
　　


ภาษาไทย -

ระหว่าง - between (as in "I will arrive between 2 and 3pm today)

ระหว่างทาง - on the way to ..

Not so Happy New Years...

Well, New Years wasn't so great. I went out with a few friends and it was pretty uneventful, but not bad. After that I met up with a few English guys I befriended recently. We went to Warm Up and it was obscenely crowded. An uncontrollable sea of people. It took around 30 minutes to get to the back room. Once there we were stuck for a while. The countdown was pretty bland. Ah well. The worst part of the evening was that two of my "good friends" neglected to answer my messages. I think I'm done with them for a while. I don't understand why everybody feels the need to be so shady sometimes.

I'm all set to throw some more pictures up, but stupid Geocities has a much lower limit than I had thought. Pics will need to wait until tomorrow before I can post them. I'm sure all of you loyal readers can wait until tomorrow.