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?