Lift Me Up

I've been working out pretty regularly this past year. I've had some periods where I was ill and had to start over which can be frustrating, but today, finally on the last day of the year, I managed to bench my own weight a few times. I'm pretty sure I've never done that before so it is a pretty good feeling.

As tonight is New Years and this city goes berserk, I think I will be doing a low key night at Niman bar, more commonly known as my "office." Its very cheap and I like the girls that work there. After that I'll see where the wind takes me. I don't like having plans and itineraries, they just make you feel bad about changing up bad situations. Meeting up with my friend/student whom I teach Thai to. I will be wearing my new gear that I bought in Japan. Should be interesting. Wish I had a camera. Oh well.

Happy New Years faithful reader(s).

행복한 새해가 되기를.
明けましておめでとうございます｡
สวัสดีปีใหม

Mad World

I have been pretty down the past couple of days. Part of this I attribute to having run out of Zoloft and in realizing this would happen I have been taking half my normal dosage lately. Part of this I attribute to a handful of bad things that have happened to me lately. Of course, bad things happen to me every day so I don't really put much weight on that.

As for my latest story, I am officially single again! This is actually quite nice, but I don't know how long it will last. My fake girlfriend has broke up with me so many times that I no longer feel anything but relief when it happens. This time it seems that her friend caught me on film with my arm(s) around some other girl that her friend knows or something silly. I hope I can get a hold of this picture/film at some point because I want to see how I look in action.

I've been feeling restless lately. The beginning of a new year approaches and its the first 3-4 months of the year that tend to be my best in regards to my female adventures. I prefer to be single around this time as December just tends to be miserable for me and January I am reborn albeit for a few short months of confident debauchery.

I told the sort-of-gf in question last night about how restless I have been feeling lately. The conversation went something like this ...

Me: I want to sleep with lots of girls now.
Her: Well, I understand. You can if you want to, but don't lie to me about it.
Me: I never lie about anything.
Her: Have you slept with anyone lately that I don't know about?
Me: Nope.

I have been able to control myself for the most part, but I have been getting crazy lately. I have been out attacking girls left and right. I have been rather surprised at my own aggressiveness the past week or so. I scored 11 phone #'s over the weekend. And I managed to remember the names of 4 of them. That must be a record or something. Its ok though as I'm still talking to 6 of them, but 2 of their spots in my phone are silly semi-drunken code words for where I met them. Its not a perfect system because my phone is so old that I have to abbreviate to the point where the next day I can not be certain to decipher the code, but its all I can do. If you looked through my phone you would probably be slightly more confused then I even if you knew the names of the spots that I met these peoples at. Part of the problem is that there just aren't enough nicknames.

Let me show you a few examples of the first few names in my phone to give you an idea:

Air
Air WarmUp
Amp
Amp2
AmpDaily
AnnBangkok
AnnPayap
AnnWarmUp
Ann?
AnnMyspace

Seriously, I need a better system. Just looking at that list, there are 3 numbers of whom I have no clue who they might be. Although my old crappy phone's memory is full at 225 or whatever, there is probably only 70ish names in the phone. Its kind of like how the majority of Koreans have one of 6 last names.

I didn't sleep last night. And I finally felt my first earthquake. I have been through a number of them in Thailand, but I was always asleep or on the 1st floor. Now that I live on the top floor, I get to feel them! My bed shook in a circular motion (as usual, but in a different way) for 3-4 seconds a bit after midnight. I ran out on my balcony hoping to see the city aflame and chaos abound, but alas it was over before I got there. Maybe next time.

Worst of all is that the damned recording industry has decided that guitar tabs are now copyright infringement. Wtf!? If some fools want to listen to a song and guess/improvise the chords to songs so the average loser can jam without learning to read music, can't we just let my people jam? I'm starting to think I should be hording tabs and saving them on my com rather than letting the less-reliable-every-day internet be my resource. Of course my connection is such crap that I would never really do that haha. Shit. I suppose I wouldn't care so much if I was able to buy a nice keyboard, but because I am stuck with my crappy backpacker guitar and its lack of sound, I gotta make music somehow. I've been singing a lot lately, but piano is where its at. Guitar for me is kind of like a fake girlfriend. Its occasionally better than nothing, but you never really achieve satisfaction.

Things I Hate....

.....always:

I hate when people with whom you had some relationship in the past do not acknowledge your existence. When it happens, I get this awful physical and emotional feeling in my stomach that makes me feel very small and worthless every time I see them.

I hate writing papers as the amount of stress they tend to cause me is enormous, however, I am often pleased with the result. But the pain I go through to get there never seems worthwhile.

I hate that I don't have access to a piano/keyboard here.

I hate 95% of taxi (songthaew, tuk-tuk) drivers in Chiang Mai.

I hate the pollution which occasionally gets so bad that I have trouble breathing.

I hate smoke!

I hate all the fools who call themselves teachers and haven't a clue how to even begin.

I hate that my internet is so damn slow most of the time.


.....sometimes:

Sometimes I hate the family of birds that live on top of my air conditioner unit on my balcony when they decide to serenade me at 5am with a song.

Sometimes I hate being treated like a novelty because I am a white guy who speaks a bunch of Asian languages. Although I sometimes appreciate the attention, its much cooler when I start speaking to someone and they just respond to me like a normal person instead of acting like I just flew in on a winged buffalo.

Sometimes I hate not having a vehicle.

Sometimes I hate the little dog from 8 floors below that likes to bark nonstop until I want to smash my head through the screen.

Final final finally

So I had my last exam yesterday. None of the three were difficult. It was pretty much just essay questions and as long as you show some understanding of the material, it should be fine.

I may have a problem next semester as they aren't offering any of the high level courses that I need to finish. My options are limited. I'm looking into doing my internship next term instead of taking classes. If anybody needs an intern, do let me know. Amusingly, it can be just about anything as long as I use English. Of course, I would prefer something more challenging and/or interesting.

Pictures

I have posted pics from the day I shot American Gangster as well as shots form Tokyo. Most of the Tokyo shots were taken by Jeff.

My Flickr

Japan 'o philage

I'm in Japan as of this morning. I spent the day walking around all over the place. Its mighty expensive as expected. The styles here are pretty interesting and very varied. It is very different here. I will write more as they come up.

I have a mission while I am here. I plan to come up with my new style for next year. Mission Impossible: Whiteside 2007 - Should I go with the Japanese construction worker gear complete with MC Hammer pants and Ninja toe'd shoes?





































Or perhaps the typical Japanese school boy's military-inspired gear?


Either way, I'm keeping an open mind about things and we'll see what I can come up with.

ฉันมีเพื่อนเป็น DaaRaa

Friday was a grueling 14-hour day that tested the limits not only of my acting ability, but also of my patience. We rolled up around 8am and were shipped off to the wardrobe spot where we were told to dress quickly. After gearing up they shipped us back to the spot and sent us to the hair and makeup bus at Thapae Gate. Thailand is super inefficient and it was no suprise to see all the ensuing chaos all day. I met a few interesting people that day which helped to reduce the tedium of endless uninformed waiting.

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I was Sgt Wesley for a few scenes. Later in the day we were all called for a big shoot and I was picked out of the line with 3 other guys and led deep inside the bar/set. We all got really excited as we assumed we were going to end up being placed near Denzel and therefore much more likely to appear in the shot. However, upon reaching the top floor the wardrobe guy said "Ok guys, I need you to take off all your clothes."

Obviously, I assumed this was to be my nude scene as Denzel's body double, but I was slightly mistaken. 4 guys in 70s gear who were playing the band in the bar needed to be soldiers in the next scene so we had to trade with them. We managed to weasel our way into a number of shots after that, but I have no idea if I will end up being seen in the film. It was an interesting experience. You my faithful reader(s) will likely be amused when you see my crazy far-too-tight 70s getup with painful high-heeled shoes and all. I nearly fell down the stairs
and my feet were so sore.

Security was pretty much non-existant. Random people (tourists mostly) kept walking into the shots completely oblivious, forcing us to reshoot a number of times.

Oh and finally, the girls were not nearly as smoking as the pics on the wall of the casting office led me to believe.

I got 2000 Baht for the day. The food was crap. Denezel spoke to nobody outside of the people running the show.

Denzel and Me

I got a part as an extra in the upcoming film American Gangster. I gotta be there at 4am tomorrow to gear up for a long arduous day of filming in a bar full of hot prostitutes. I will do my best to score some pics.

Wesley

I went for my costume fitting today. It appears I am playing the vital role of Sgt. Wesley. I suited up and had some pics taken today. We shoot later this month. It will either be one or two days. Hopefully, I can score some pics. The scene will be in a bar with lots of prostitutes. I saw pics of many of the girls and they are smoking. Good stuff.

Extra, extra...

Sean noticed a posting at school today for extra positions for some movie. We called them and went over to apply. I got a call about 2 hours later from the guy asking if I could come in for costume fitting tomorrow morning. Supposedly, the shooting will take just a day or 2.

Rambo 4 is shooting in Thailand, and the adds was for soldiers and cia-types so we assume it was with R 4, but as it turns out, the movie is American Gangster. AG is a Ridley Scott film, loosely based on a true story. Most of the film has already been finished, so I don't think I'll be bumping into Russel Crowe or Denzel Washington. Should be fun for me anyways, the money however, is shite. More on this soon.

Empereor 'Steez

I'm not sure how I got talked into this. Then again, I have a strong suspicion that the girls were a factor. As usual, the rest of the pics can be found on my flickr.

Flip-tastic

Landing my attempted backflip on Jeff's B-day.

Windows

Something is severely wrong with me lately. I've missed classes, been unable to get myself to do even simple homework. I can't focus on anything for more than a few seconds before I begin spacing out. I occasionally have windows where my brain functions relatively normally for a time (if you can call my brain normal anyways).

Yesterday was Jeff's birthday so I pulled myself from another night of trying-to-write-but-not-making-any-progress to go over his place for a bit. I got pretty drunk and was feeling pretty energetic so I decided it would be a good idea to see if I could do a backflip. This is something I haven't attempted in a number of years. I used to be able to do one, but I wasn't very good at it. I did pull off some funny somersaults and some sort of twisting flip move. I also managed to tear a ligament in my left leg and its quite painful. Fun stuff. There are pictures of this. I haven't seen them yet, but depending on how embarrasing they are, I may post them when I get them.

As for women troubles, I don't seem to actually have any. I still see both Anns oddly enough, but I kind of want something new.

I moved my Zoloft intake back to 100mg. I had been taking 50 for a while to save money, but I figured I'd see if it would help me out of this rut.

The only good thing of late is my kanji progress. I now am fairly capable of writing about 850 kanji using Heisig's method. Really good stuff.

Unproductive Silliness

I have been feeling pretty strange lately. I'm finding myself unable to do anything productive in regards to my uni. I need to write a couple papers two of which are due this week and I haven't even started. I've tried to sit down a number of times and have come up with very little. Just now in fact, I have spent an hour and a half researching Korean labour laws for a presentation I have to give on Thursday and I have yet to find one specific case study. I even did it at an internet shop assuming it was my room that was causing me to be lazy or something. Apparantly not. I can sit and study language stuff no problem, but I can't seem to jumpstart anything with schoolwork. Crazy stuff. Why does this crap happen to me?

The other presentation is actually a lesson, or part of one anyways, for my Instructional Skilsl class. I have to write a short paper citing some of the stuff we have read which is all language-teaching theory. Everyone else is most likely going to teach an English lesson, as all the examples are English, so I figured I'd do something different. I'm going to teach a lesson in Korean. Should be interesting.

Oh, and to make things worse, the current junta that has taken over Thailand recently has decided to implement a ban on advertising alcohol. And they want to raise the drinking age to 25 (from 18!). I can't even fathom the fallout that will result in the nightlife community if this really comes about. And what will become of all those attractive young girls who work for all the alcohol companies wearing tight appropriately logo'd outfits who pour my drinks (they essentially serve as backup staff in rest/pubs/clubs working directly for the distributor rather than the place they are working at)? How will they continue to support their education? Who will pour my beer? They hold a special place in my heart indeed.

Update

So I am feeling pretty good. I feel a little sad that I probably can't see the 1st Ann anymore. I like/care about her a lot and would like to maintain some type of relationship with her, but I realize that this isn't likely. On Wednesday, we had our final encounter. Keep in mind, this is after she walked in on me with the other girl and also after she broke up with me (as far as I thought anyways). We went out to this new spot across from Warm Up (the usual spot) which has some rather absurd promotional specials at the moment. We tore up a bottle of whiskey between the two of us and although there was some arguing, it was mostly playful. It was surreal. She was really sad and plans to leave the city for a while. This doesn't make me feel good at all and I will reiniate contact the day before she plans to leave to tell her not to leave because of me. I really do miss her, but I don't feel the pain normally associated with such feelings. I suspect its because she broke up with me before a few times and I suffered the hurt and have since become immune to it, but I'm not sure. I don't really feel anything at the moment actually.

As for the new girl, I do sense some darkness in her and I will try to be wary. I don't really want anything serious with her, but I'm still unsure about our situation. I'm just going to let things play out for now.

Clash of the TitAnns

Whoops. I'm not sure if I truly erred or not, but this is a story that needs to be told. If only to confirm that the silliness of the happenings within my life are real and usually unbelievable. Be forewarned that the following story does involve sex, though I won't be too graphic in its telling.

Anyways, first I suppose I have to give a bit of background on the situation. I have been in an on/off relationship with one particular girl at varying levels for a fairly long time as of late. I met her about 7 months ago, and she somehow (without my realizing) became my girlfriend. It was a strange relationship, as all of mine tend to be, and although she was fun and I liked her a lot, she didn't communicate enough with me for anything long-term to come of it. She had finished with me before and stormed off with promises never to return, but she always came back. But in the beginning I was pretty depressed after her departure. But after the 2nd time, I honestly didn't feel anything anymore when she pulled that move. So the other day we had a bit of an argument and she removed all of her belongings from my room and gave back the keycard to my building and then gave me my presumably final ride to school. I felt ok with the situation actually. I never really wanted a girlfriend in the first place. I am pretty incompetent at making and breaking relationships after all. I had mixed feelings. One part of me considers the wonders of being single while the other suffers a deeper hurt at something lost. So a few days ago when she took everything out, I assumed myself to be single. I moved things up with a potential girl from my uni.

More details are necessary at this point. First, both the (ex??)gf and the new girl are named Ann. I'm more concerned with the now in my life. So, Ann #1 ran out on me a couple of days ago. Her friend, however, needed some Thai to Eng translation help for school and convinced Ann #1 to call me for help. I said sure and when I met them, Ann #1 spoke about 3 words to me while her friend did all of the talking. She looked so sad. It made me feel pretty horrible so I called her a few hours later and suggested we go out drinking and talk. We went out and got trashed, had a great time and slept together. But before that, I said that we could maintain a relationship, but that it would have to be different than before. She slept over and took me to school yesterday.

Fast forward again: After my exam on Monday, I spent the day with Ann #2 (a girl who studies at my uni) whom I had been 'talking' to lately. That culminated in her staying over. Eventually, this led to sex. During the sex, I got a phone call from Ann #1. She asked if she could come stay with me. I said that she couldn't. She asked "Why? You have someone else there?" I replied truthfully as always. The sex went on for quite a while, until a knock came at the door. I was on my back on the bed with my head hanging off of it. We froze. The noise from moments ago was obviously very loud and whomever was outside my door ( I knew whom it would be of course) would know as well. But we froze anyways. The knock came again. Then the worst - I didn't actually think I would be staying in my room when we entered earlier (I was really just dropping off my bag..) so I didn't do the one thing I always do as I enter/exit my room - lock my door. So the door swung open and there I was lying on my back on my bed with my head hanging off looking at my gf of 2 days prior while I am naked under the 'new' girl who was feeling not nearly as sympathetic as I was.

The door opened - we were exposed, then it closed. A moment later, the knock came again. I threw on some boxers and went outside to talk to her. She asked me why I didn't warn her. I thought I did. She had called me earlier and I said she couldn't stay with me because 'someone' was over. I think she came for confirmation. It was my own deserving folly that I for the first time ever didn't lock the door and therefore spare her the sight of my encounter. I spent a while in the hallway with her. She seemed a little stunned, but not really. I don't see how she couldn't have known beforehand. But at the same time, I feel ashamed that she had to see it. She deserves better.

The problem now is - what should I do? I do really enjoy the debauchery I get into when I'm single and I will eventually (presumably anyways) reach an age where I can't/wont want to do this anymore. So I might as well take advantage of it while I can. Right?

More B-day Pics

Birthday Jam

So I had a big party on Saturday for my birthday. Around 50 or 60 people came. It was lots of fun. Tons of great vegetarian food and plenty of alcohol. I'll put a couple pics up now and some more later after I've sorted through/gotten a hold of them all.

Life + Last Night

I have a lot mess of crazy stories lately, I just haven't had any urge to write them down. I was nearly killed in a rafting accident, I was shot at, I was contacted by my 1st Thai gf with whom I lost contact with when I went to Australia last year and I crashed my new/old motorbike the first night I drove it and broke the clutch off. Actually, theres lots more silly stuff since then. I encounter the most ridiculous situations on almost a daily basis. Last night was no different, but for some reason I have no writing energy. Oh well. Maybe later.

Sober Post to Japanese Forum

I see no need to apologize for this post. The last was drunken in a guilty state of mind. This one is sober (so far anyways!).

Anyways, in about 6 months with a private teacher (3 times a week for 1-2 hours) my level of Korean, in regards to conversational ability, is about the same as my Japanese after 1.5+ years. As for reading/writing and vocabulary, Japanese certainly wins out due to the sheer number of hours spent.

I could probably argue either way whether Japanese or Korean has harder grammar, but whats the point of that? You shouldn't study a language because other people tell you its easier or more useful. Study a language because you want to be able to speak it. Because you want to communicate in the native language of your friends, g/bfriends or it will help you progress in your particular career, lifestyle, hobbies, etc.

The first thing I tell any of my students or anybody else who whines that learning a language is difficult is that if a Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai/Burmese/ Etc baby can learn the language, then so can you!

While learning a new language, you will inevitably fine your previously confident self reduced to the babbling incoherence of an infant learning to speak. There isn't anything wrong with that. The baby/child goes through the same process. Of course, it has no anxieties or past experiences to compare it to, nor does it have any other language to fall back on other than nonsensical sounds (unless baby-talk is a valid language anyways).

The second thing I point out is that no language is truly difficult. No matter which one you learn, it will take a while. It will take forever. You will probably die before coming anywhere close to a native speaker in terms of fluency. But is that really enough to stop you? You don't need to be the best. In fact, you can't! With all the time I spend on these other languages in a country where the level of English tends to be a bit below par to say the least (Thailand), I know that I can never equal to a native speaker. But the rewards for even covering a fraction of that distance are immense.

Which of the following is most important in learning a language?
-perfect pronunciation
-perfect grammar
-mastery of vocabulary

???
None of those of course. Communication is the key. If I understand what you are trying to say, then you are already on your way. You can fix up your inabilty to sound native over time.

If you can't find your own way, then try everybody elses until you find something that works. Once you've learned a 2nd language, the rest come much easier. All your previous mistakes become clear.

Gaping Wounds

About two weeks ago, I had this little pimple-like bump on my forearm near my elbow. I think I popped it semi-subconsciously and about a day later it opened up into a mighty unpleasant looking wound that is a bit larger than a dime. I've cleaned it multiple times a day, but it doesn't seem to want to heal. Oh well.

I just finished reading The End of Oil by Paul Roberts. It gives a very good explanation of the global energy situation and the importance it plays both today and tomorrow. Check it out.

Drunken post I just left to a learning-Japanese forum

# Gwindarr Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:19 am

I haven’t been to this site in a month or so and I was quite excited by your post. I have learned Chinese, Korean and Japanese to varying levels within the past 3 years, so I feel that while I am slightly inebriated at the moment, I can give you folks an idea of a few of the differences. This may take a while to spell out and probably won’t be as clear as it sounds in my head as I type it, but a few of you may find it interesting. Seriously, this will be a long post. If you are really into languages, read on. Really though, this will be super long! And possibly incoherent at times…sorry.

First, some background. I have lived in Thailand for about 3 years now. I had gotten interested in languages a year or 2 before that, but I hadn’t gotten serious until I got here. I spent much of my free time (which was almost all of my time) in the beginning studying Thai. After a couple months I signed up with a friend for a 3 hours (1.5 on sat/sun) Japanese class that was supposed to be for kids. It used the “Japanese for Young People” book (same people who made J for Busy P). After about 9 months I entered a uni that had just opened an international program. I was feeling serious about Japanese and I wanted to learn in an environment that was closer to full-time. I signed up at the uni and took an exemption test to skip the first semester of Japanese and I entered Japanese II with a bunch of other international students. I was a bit ahead of the class, but I still picked up a lot that term.

Speeding things along, the next semester, the teacher was simply amazing. Whereas Japanese II had 15 people, J III had 3. Of the 3 of us, 2 really wanted to learn. The teacher was flexible on schedule, learning styles, and anything else that we came up with. I took in so much that term. For the mid term, we had to write an essay on how we would teach the class if we were the teacher. So we wrote essays that fit our learning-styles and she incorporated a number of my ideas in later lessons.

Fast forward - I got accepted to a study abroad prog from Thailand to Australia (I’m American). I went to Melbourne and studied every language the school had: Chinese, Arabic and Indonesian. On top of that I frequented out English clubs and Japanese clubs so I could keep up with other stuffs.

Sorry - I just realized how long this was becoming. In Australia, I learned to read/write hangul in about 2-3 hours one day in Melbourne. It is so easy and efficient! I was singing Korean karaoke the same night! Admittedly it took a little while to learn the exceptions and the way that the last part of a ‘character’ can often carry over to the open vowel of the next… but thats nothing compared to the time involved in learning to read/write Chinese and Japanese.

Um - Sorry again for this being so long. I just was just trying to establish some credibility.

I speak, albeit at varying levels, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Three years ago, I didn’t know a word of any of these languages. I haven’t studied Korean nearly as long as I’ve studied Japanese, but I have noticed a number of important points.

First, as was mentioned in the above post, Korean is considerably harder to pronounce and therefore beging to register those foreign sounds for the listener. That took me a while. The sounds of Japanese are easy. However, reading and writing require quite a bit of time. Korean grammar is much like Japanese grammar. The order is the same. My time studying Japanese has made Korean a cinch to learn. There are exceptions, but **Wait! I am getting off my points!

Every language is easy!!! That is what I have discovered. This is what I want to stress to you. Method is key. Everybody wastes time and money in crappy situations with crappy schools and crappy teachers. Even if one of those 3 is good, it isn’t always enough to really show you how to learn a language.

I have never been to Japan or China, but I speak Japanese and Chinese. I wouldn’t say fluent, but I would say I could handle a number of situations to the point where I can fake fluency. Or talk myself out of a situation which also ends up faking fluency.

I have discovered that fluency is an endless process. I feel I am fluent in Thai sometimes, but I know deep down that I’m not. The definition of fluency is pretty strict. I speak 5 languages, but I am fluent in 1. I often refer to myself as a language monkey. I am often pressed to perform as people can’t believe that I can speak all of these languages. But it is my firm belief that anyone can do as I have done (with or w/o multiple languages) in the same period of time (or less).

Our first opponent is ourselves. That isn’t entirely true. Let me say it differently. The biggest obstacle is that it gets pounded into our minds by others in the ‘language community’ that such and such language is hard to learn. That is crap. Tonal languages for example. It will take some time to get used to the added dimension to a language, but the grammar of all tonal langauges (that I am aware of anyways..) are far less complicated in grammar than any Western language. It takes time to make up the difference, but the time required doesn’t compare to what it takes to learn to read and write Chinese characters. China, Korea and Japan…they all write/use them differently. But if you can learn one (language) the rest come easy.

**Now I focus on Chinese and Korean as far as classes go and I am on break from Japanese classes (because I can’t find a teacher that doesn’t suck…) while I work through Heisig’s RTK Book 1 (I’m in the 700s). My Chinese teacher is decent, and my Korean teacher is great. Why? Because they listen to my suggestions. I speak Thai fairly fluently, and all the students are Thai aside from me. Since the books tend to be Eng/Chin or Eng/Korean…or Eng/Jap.. I am the guy that has to figure out how to explain how to back translate a concept from Chin/Eng to Eng/Thai or what-not.

The Heisig method for learning kanji has been both a boon and a bane in my Chinese studies. On one hand, when I encounter a character that Japanese doesn’t use but has obvious primitives, I give the class a quick story and they all laugh and think I’m crazy, but they all remember the character. The other times are when the teacher points out some new character and asks what it means…I respond with the Heisig keyword to everyones suprise (thought not always - the meaning doesn’t always apply to Chinese). The problems arise when I try to Chinese-ify the stories from Heisig. It works often, but I feel like I reach overload status.

On the other hand,

Since I got back from Australia, my Uni has yet to offer a language class anywhere close to my level. I am forced to study part-time and privately to progress. But I don’t have the discipline to do it alone. Few of us do. If we can’t find the ideal learning environment, we must create it!

I apologize for the length and general incoherence that may have arose from this post.

I hope that somewhere in the above mess, someone noticed or was curious about where I was going with a point before it became lost in alcohol. If that is the case, please respond. I have much to say, but I am drained for now.

Language is easy. The problem isn’t you. The problem probably isn’t your teacher or your background/education/family/whatever (but these do matter!!!). The problem comes from your methods.

Finally, I apologize profusely for this slightly drunken post. I could go on, but I think its safer to stop here so you can rest your eyes.

First Day of School - (by no means interesting)

I haven't registered yet, but I sat in on 2 classes today. First up was English for Labour Law. I wasn't really sure what to expect before I went in. I'm still not so sure after having sat through the first 1.5 hour class. The teacher is an older American from San Diego. By his numerous references to Christianity and Christian-related activities, I suspect he is a rather devout Christian. Not that its that important I guess, but I'm always wary of missionaryish-types. But I still give them a chance.

Anyways, Eng for Labour Law seems to be a class more about law in general than labour law. And the work would be fairly international which could be interesting. However, 2 of the books he plans to use are written by Thais from Thammasat University, one of the better unis in Thailand. He gave us some worksheets, but they were easy to the point of being silly. It was like 6 pages of questions, but I scanned it and answered everything in my head in under a minute. Its vocab and vocab-usage of law related terms. The occasional uncommon word that a non-native speaker probably wouldn't know and plenty of native speakers don't know (stuff like tort, barrister and the like), but I knew them all and I feel like this is yet another class which I could easily skip with an exemption exam.

The guy seems nice enough, but he has one of those voices that should be taped so I could listen to it at night when I can't fall asleep. I was having a lot of trouble staying awake in 2 1.5 hour classes of his today. He speaks so slowly and reads a lot of passages from our packets out loud.

On the plus side, we will be watching a few movies in class. If I take it anyways.

Next up is Small Group Communication. Nobody knew what to expect on that either. The class consists of Tan, Wat and myself, all 3rd year students. Neither Wat nor I have yet to actually sign up for the class, but we are considering. Its a small group anyways. We watched the scene of LotR where they form the Fellowship of the Ring. We then discussed the process of reaching the decision. While this part was fun, we still spent entirely too much time with the teacher reading out loud to us -therefore making me sleepy- and wasting time.

Tomorrow, a few more classes to check out. I'll need to register tomorrow though.

Sorry if this was boring. You were warned.

Pattaya Again

I'm sitting at a mall in Pattaya. I walked around and explored the beach, but its awfully hot and I don't really have anywhere to go so I'm waiting for my friend to finish work. I came with another friend from Bangkok for the first night, but she went back to Bangkok earlier today. I'll stay here for 2 nights, then head back to Chiang Mai on Sunday.

A minute ago, I got a phone call from my Korean teacher. She is coming to Pattaya tomorrow with the Chinese teacher from her school. She asked me if I wanted to speak to the Chinese teacher and I said no, as I didn't want to waste any minutes of the somewhat expensive internet time. So of course she puts the Chinese teacher on the phone for the usual language test. In this case, "Can Brett really speak Chinese?" So I think I passed the test as usual. I really feel like some language monkey sometimes. Admittedly, there are times when I like the attention, but other times I get kind of annoyed when people test my ability to speak their language.

So lets get this straight. I can speak 5 languages at the moment. This by no means implies that I am fluent in them, but I can say with confidence that I speak considerably more than a little. I'd say I'm fluent in Thai, but there are situations that occasionally occur where I don't know the most natural way to say something. And as far as reading and writing go, my Japanese is probably more advanced than my Thai. I realize I am something of a novelty as there tends to be a limited number of white people running around speaking Asian languages. Here in Pattaya, I can't explain how many times I get gawked out by Thais and foreigners alike once they hear me start talking. Most of the trash that live here never bother to get past their bar-girl-Thai.

I've made the fastest progress in Korean (well probably Indonesian, but I don't really count that as I stopped studying after I left Australia). In about 6 months I have a fair base of Korean and can appear fluent to someone who didn't know any better. But then again, I would argue that I am only fluent within the boundaries of what I've learned. I pretty much only speak with my teacher and she knows the limits of my vocabulary. I attribute my progress to my method of learning to a good book, the method I have developed for learning languages and a good flexible teacher willing to put up with my not very conventional ways.

I realize this isn't as coherent as much of what I write, but I've been feeling a little strange lately.

Bollocks

I somehow got duped into "helping" my Chinese teacher out with his Master's thesis. My cut is a bottle of JD Red, and Chinese lessons twice a week indefinitely. But indefinitely means I probably will have to help him with English stuff regularly. Oh wel, its worth the trade I guess. Red goes down smooth.

I have to come up with about 60 questions to test the level of English of front-desk hotel staff in Chiang Mai. Along with that I need to write up some interview questions for the recorded part of the paper. No fun.

I can't decide which classes I will take for next term. The pickings are slim as usual. Below are the schedules I'm considering.

MWF 10-11 Modern Business
11-12 Instructional Skills
3-4 Sociolinguistics

The good side of this setup is that I don't have to wake up too early. The bad side is the 3 hour gap between IS and Socio. Also, 3 days a week where I won't have time to exercise. I study Chinese 6-8pm MWF as well.

OR

TuTH 8-9:30 Communication Technology
9:30-11 English for Labour Law
12:30-2 Small Group Communication

This would leave me more free time to work/exercise/study independently. However, I would need to wake up around 6am twice a week. And Tu/Th's I study Korean from 4-6 and then Chinese from 6-8.

Both of these schedules suck as far as I'm concerned. While Tues/Thur will certainly be more painful, I'm leaning towards it at the moment. I'm also taking 2 exemption tests early next month. Academic Writing and Business Eng II. I'd test out of more high level classes, but I can't because they never offer them. The end of the semester I can probably take 1 or 2 more. I think I need about 18 classes plus my internship. I should be able to finish in 3 terms, including the one that starts next month.

Argh My Place Sucks - Nothing Interesting Here

I've been looking for a new place to live lately. No luck as of yet. I need faster internet. The speed in my room has been awful lately if its even friggin working. I went to complain at the office today and they said they were upgrading the line again this month. I asked how much to install a private phone line so I could just get internet directly from the company, but my complex charges something ridiculous like 5000 baht to install the line. Thats not including the 1200 or so you actually have to pay the company for the installation. I hate this place. If the building wasn't in such a key location, or if I had a vehicle, I would never put up with this shit. And the moving part is a big hassle. All my friends with cars are nowhere to be found when I need to move.

I just finished this 5 day 2 hr/class course with this 15 yr-old kid from Bangkok. He comes here twice a year with his family to visit relatives. He studies at an international school so his English is pretty good. I didn't have a clue what to talk about for 10 hours, so I bought a paper each day and make him read articles and then we would discuss them. He had no idea about what was going on anywhere. Wars, bombings, etc. I got a call earlier from the same school, they want me to teach for 6 hours tomorrow. Not sure what that is going to entail, but I took it because I need to scrape up some cash quickly. Too many companies/people owe me money right now and I've had to wait far too long and I'm worried. I also have to pay tuition next week because my school won't renew my visa until I've registered for the next term.

I have some crazy injury or something and I'm not sure how it happened. My knee was hurting a bit the other day and then yesterday I woke up and from my foot to my thigh my entire leg has all these pain points that fire up each time I step/move/twist my leg. Its not a pain I'm familiar with.

Crazy Dreams

My cat was a rat, and it could talk. But then it turned into a bug and I killed it by accident.

It began when I saw my cat (which was a rat in the dream for some reason) laying on the floor looking sad. I asked if she was ok. She answered, "I'm ok." Not certain if I heard correctly, I asked some more questions and determined that she was indeed talking. I asked how old it was and she said she was 80. And she said that she would die before the day was finished. I asked her if she wanted to go anywhere that I could reach in a day, but she said it wasn't necessary.

Later, I was sitting outside and the rat came outside and died. It turned into some funny-looking bug with long feelers. It seemed to be motioning to me so I put it up to my ear. But the feelers going inside my ear was rather ticklish and I dropped the bug. It fell apart into 3 or 4 pieces. I tried to put it back together to no avail.

Later on there was a Korean/Mexican food party at my house. I was completely baffled to why this occured and annoyed that I had just gone out to eat and was full as nobody told me there was going to be a party. A number of Koreans I knew and hadn't seen in a while (x-gf for example) were there and so I was a bit surprised/anxious/uncomfortable. I think this was mainly due to the fact that I would surely be expected to do my usual language monkey dance routing where my Korean ability is tested. I broke out of the dream when some old fat guy at a table with a few other people in my kitchen was asking me if I could run downstairs and get him some dried italian dressing. I may have wanted to kill him. It was blurry as I woke before I was able to respond to him.

Orli's B-day

Picks from last Saturday at Flix on RCA in Bangkok.

Ah Shit

I made a rather crucial error this morning. For some reason I thought that my flight to Bangkok today was at 1:40. I had some tinge of doubt in my mind and because the internet sucks in my building and doesn't work half of the time I went to a net shop across the street. I checked my schedule a few minutes before noon and was rather horrified to find out that my flight was at 11:40.

I went to the airport and the people at AirAsia's counter told me that I could get my flight changed to another time only if I had some valid note from a doctor giving an excuse for missing my flight. I think this is the only Thai airline that does this. There wouldn't be this kind of hassle with the others.

Anyways, I went to a hospital with Ann (gf/mia). The first place I was pretty honest and the doctor wouldn't have any part of it. The doctor refused to lie so I could get to Bangkok and save me the pain of losing 2000 Baht. I went to another spot, and I sat with Ann and stared at this really hot nurse for a while before managing to go up to the counter with my story.

I told them I had a nasty case of ท้องเสีย (tóng sĭa) which translates literally to stomach-broken (diarrhea), and I couldn't make the flight. So I waited a bit then got my blood pressure taken by this really cute nurse who was asking me mighty specific questions about the fun I was presumably having in the bathroom. She named 4 kinds of diarrhea in Thai and asked which one I had. None of the four choices were words I had heard before so I just guessed the one that had a nice sound to it. I'm sure it meant something mighty unpleasant. She took notes and sat me down to wait again. After a short while I got sent in to see the doctor who struggled with a few words of English before I informed him I could speak Thai. I never lie for the most part, but I didn't know any other way around the situation. I told the doc my troubles started the afternoon before and I hadn't eaten anything yet today (which was true) so I wasn't sure if I would still have a problem or not. He offered me a bunch of pills and I threw in the "Might it be possible for me to get a note also?" I explained the situation as he wrote it up. He was surprised that they made me get a note. He experienced a similar situation (he just woke up late) and he called and they let him change his flight - no hassles.

The hospital visit cost me 574 Baht. We rushed back to the airport, as the next flight was the last flight, and gave them the note. They sent me upstairs to their supervisor who was looking kind of mean. But eventually she said she could get me on the flight, but she had to increase the already outrageously expensive fare. She wanted 107 Baht. I'm not sure if that was a bribe or a tip, but I seriously doubt it was legit. From her office, I rushed to the gate just before they started boarding.

Following that mess, I spent about an hour and a half in shitty Bangkok traffic to get to this Japanese vegetarian restaurant that I really like here. After my first meal of the day around 6pm, I went with my friend Eve to get a flower and a cake for Orli (I came to Bkk partly because of Orli's b-day). Now I'm going to shower and go out to some club where I imagine there will be some serious drinking and I didn't get a room tonight so I'm not sure where I'm going to sleep yet. I hope somebody has a camera at this jam.

I think I'm going to go visit this other friend in Pattaya tomorrow. Still debating that one. It should be a fun weekend either way.

Let Me See Your Feel !

I'm going to some party at a resort an hour or so outside the city tomorrow. Its hosted by the local radio stations here (the only one in English) and a few of my friends are DJs so I got an invite. Free beer and karaoke sold me. More on this later.

I've been using the Heisig system to memorize the writing/meaning of the Chinese characters (for learning Japanese) for some time now and I have been finding it quite useful in Chinese class as well. However, sometimes it can be confusing as the simplification methods used for each language were different. The stuff works really great. The other day I was waiting around at my Chinese school for my class to start and this girl asked me what 袜子 meant. I had come across that a while ago and it was very easy to come up with a story to help me connect the pieces and remember how to write the character without having ever actually written it (I just do it with my finger on my hand or on a table). As for 袜子, it means socks. The first character consists of 2 parts. The first is a slightly thinned form of 木，which means tree. the second part is a more heavily modified version of 衣，which is related to cloth, fabric, clothes and the like. The way to remember that (assuming you know the pieces first, as this is vital) is to briefly picture a tree wearing socks. The second character is extremely common and it doesn't seem necessary to regard it in this image. When I explained this to the girl, she said to me, "Pii Brett, I don't understand why a tree would wear socks..." Um. So I told her to picture a treant from Lord of the Rings if that makes it easier. The more ridiculous the image, the harder it is to forget.

Speaking of Chinese stuff, I ran into a Chinese guy who I met through my teacher today. He was with 5 other Chinese people who have come to study their final year of Uni at Ratchabhat University in Chiang Mai. I'm pretty shy with my Chinese so I didn't say much beyond small talk. I do need to find some Chinese people to talk to if I'm ever going to improve. My classes are ok, but I feel like we waste a whole lot of time and I have very little chance to speak. My Korean lessons on the other hand are extremely efficient. I just refuse to do anything I consider a waste of time.

I started taking Zoloft again yesterday. I was off it for over a month I think. Anyways, I've been feeling pretty lethargic and I thought it might be a good idea to start it up again at a lower dose. During the time I wasn't taking it I did manage to increase my exercise considerably and lower my alcohol intake, but I am too prone to anger over trivial things.

I was at my usual vegetarian restaurant the other night and there was some girls eating at another table and a couple of them were fairly interesting. I ran into one on the way out and she asked for my number for her friend who had left already. I gave it to her and she called me later that night. She wanted help with some English homework apparantly. So I met her for lunch yesterday and she pulled out this 6 page paper about agricultural econmics and the King of Thailand. She wants me to translate it from English to Thai. I'm not sure if I can do that. I said I'd look it over, but I probably wouldn't have time. Certainly not enough to finish before the day she is supposed to hand it in. Meanwhile, she is going to hang out in Bangkok for the weekend. Girls are crazy. I'll probably stick it in a software translator and let her sort out the mess. But that would entail me typing up the stupid 6 pages. Hrm.

I went out for drinks and karaoke last night. One of the spots we went to is called See You. Below that on the sign, it says "Let me see your feel..."

Life Is Tough - Other Stuffs

I have a problem. A female friend of mine who lived in Bangkok previously has moved to Chiang Mai (the city I reside in). She got here a couple of weeks ago, but left for a week to do some things elsewhere. She came back a copule nights ago and I met up with her yesterday. She brought me a present: bedding. While on the one hand, I am super-pleased when people think of me and buy me things, I am a little stressed about one factor of the gift. She bought me bedding. I'm talking , a large plastic bag-like beast full of sheets, blankets and pillowcases I imagine. Very thoughtful, however, as comfortable as I am with my sexuality, pink and yellow bedspreads are sure to cause me some stress.

If I use these beddings, if my white friends see it, they will mock me for certain. If any of my girls see it, they will ask who bought them for me (I don't lie, but I often do my best to avoid situations where I wish I could). If the girl who bought them DOESN'T see them, she will get upset because I didn't use her rather expensive gift.

The beddings are mostly pink. They are covered in flowers, cutesy little animals and messages like "You are always in my dreams," with hearts scattered everywhere. Only in my ridiculous life would such a challenge arise. Honestly, I can handle sleeping on/under the beddings designed for a 12-yr-old girl without giving it much thought if it wasn't for the outside harrassment from every possible angle that I will surely face.

Any thoughts on this?

***************

I'm fairly sure I have latched on Mike and possibly Jeff to my badminton routine. We are by no means skilled (we suck) in comparison to the people in the gym. However, these guys recognize that the exercise we get from getting are asses handed to us repeatedly is also unmatched. Nobody puts us down apart from ourselves and possibly each other. And its pretty fun. I think we are good for 3-4 times/week until our bodies can handle more. We can barely last 90 min and leave as soaked as if we had went swimming. I always feel great after.

***************

It is Sat night, but I got too wasted last night and I didn't really feel like going out tonight. However, an old friend called me up and said he was at a local bar with 4 Chinese people who wanted to meet me. As I have little chance to speak Chinese in real life, I headed over there. Between the 4 Chinese, I spoke Chinese with one, Thai with 2 and English and Japanese with the fourth. It was surreal. The one with whom I spoke Chinese is only here for a short time and wanted me to help set him up to meet the international affairs people at Payap as his Uni in Kunming province wants to have an exchange program with Payap. I'm interested for sure.

****************

I was recently informed that I did score some money for the scholarship I applied for, but its almost worthless and I am by no means pleased with the outcome. Each major was allocated 80,000 Baht (About $2000ish US$). Only 4 from my major applied.

My "advisor" assured me and Jenny that she would call us to inform us when the interviews would take place. Then one day, Kaz, another student at Payap went to school to drop off a paper and found a bunch of other students hanging out, apparantly waiting for their scholarship interview. So he called to let me know and I called Jenny. We rushed over (rainy season = completely soaked) and I was fucking drenched during my interview. The interview was uncomfortable for many reasons. I was honest with my situation, but I didn't really feel like they got it or perhaps they just didn't care. I really felt like they couldn't see through my skin color. That is a common problem here.

In the end - Jenny and I got 10,000 Baht each. This is for 2 semesters. For us, that pays for 1 class over 1 year. Almost useless for me. I'll take it, but it doesn't fix my situation in the least. The Thai person who applied go 20,000 (Thai's pay 20% less tuition + fees than foreigners - but he is my friend so I'm not complaining, just noting) and the Burmese girl who applied got 40k.

I also heard through the Payap gossip-vine that my 'advisor' was opposed to myself or Jenny receiving any scholarship funds. The committee was mixed on us and ended up on giving us some scraps.

My uni really sucks in too many ways. Its a shame because there are a number of talented people trying to improve it (or at least survive in it) and they ineveitably give up because Thai bureacracy is tough to permeate. Complainers get no-where and I just can't lower myself to kissing ass (which always works).

***************

I always have so much more to say. I just need people to tell me they want to hear it sometimes.

Team: I Apologize

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I've been too damn busy!

Its true. The end of my semester was extremely stressful. And after it was over, I didn't feel the relief I was expecting. In fact, I took on more work and it was rough. I just finished this 12 page translation job that was just awful. It must have taken me nearly 20 hours over the course of 3 days. The 2 papers were for this guys doctorate course in Bangkok. Philosophy and theory of Thai music. It was not well-written in the least and extremely confusing. I got plenty of good vocab out of it though.

ปรัชญา (bpràt-yaa) - philosophy

My computer died yesterday. This isn't good. I gave it to Gateaux who is going to attempt to recover my data. It would suck to lose the endless hours I put in to my language program.

In the meantime, I have been studying Korean a lot lately. 3-4 days a week. This Tuesday I'm starting up a Business Chinese course. So with my other course I'll be studying Chinese 5 nights a week for a total of 10 hours. No luck with Japanese classes lately. I also rarely get the chance to speak to anybody with J'nese.

Awesome - Trifigulous even...

By far the coolest thing I've ever read about Italy since last October when they began to implement Vietato fumare laws (no smoking). And before that, I suppose it would have to be stuff I read about the Roman empire. Good stuff. Having been a smoker and a meat-eater due to peer-societal-familial pressures/ignorance for a large portion of my life, I am aware of the ignorance that brings us to do these things. However, being drunk is a pretty crappy excuse and ignorance is pretty much intolerable. While the shortening of my lifespan and my daily suffering from second-hand smoke is frustrating when I can't breathe during relatively aerobic activity and I often spend hours of my day hacking up little bits of other people's poison, I am perfectly happy to slightly de-prioritize the global banning of smoking in public places to recognize a greater problem in this world, the systematic torture of animals for profit. I am unable to sympathize with people who are so oblivious of the horrors they allow/support/inflict by buying/eating/wearing/toruturing/killing life. Maybe you think I'm odd. I am. As for those of you are stubborn because of your upbringing/scared to investigate or learn something that may affect the way you view the world, I disdain you. Salute to the Italians for making such gi-normous steps in the right direction. As for the rest of you, I offer up my whatever phlegm I bring up today and promises of the best food in the world which involves absolutely no animals. Good luck and good night.

Restaurant Fined for "Cruel" Lobster Display
Reuters
ROME (April 28) - An Italian restaurant was fined 688 euros, or $855, for displaying live lobsters on ice to attract patrons, in an innovative application of an anti-cruelty law usually affecting to household pets.

A court in the northeastern city of Vicenza ruled the display was a form of abuse dooming the crustaceans to a slow death by suffocation.

"We're appealing," said Giuseppe Scalesia, who runs La Conchiglia D'Oro, or "Golden Shell," restaurant along with his brother Camillo.

"They said that the lobsters, laying on the ice, suffer... They compared them in court to other animals, like cats and dogs."

The case was brought by Gianpaolo Cecchetto, a former environmental activist, who took his two young children to the Vicenza restaurant in May 2002.

"They were shocked by the display," Cecchetto told Reuters, adding he immediately got in touch with the ENPA national animal protection entity. "ENPA took care of the lawyers and legal proceedings."

Italy has some of the world's toughest animal rights laws. The city of Rome in October banned goldfish bowls, seen as cruel, while Turin passed a law last year that would fine dog owners 500 euros unless they walked their canine friends at least three times a day.

Mae Sa Waterfall

 

Mae Sa Waterfall - Songkrahn 2006 

Fallen Sidekick - OR - Noodles of Doom?

This is my Eulogy speech given for my not-really-fallen-sidekick Jenny. Comments/criticisms are most welcome. I have to deliver this on Monday.

Born to Laurie and Gordon (Moose) Fleury, Jenny was a short girl who lived a short, yet full life. She was born and raised in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin – a small town just outside of Madison. The actual instance of Jenny’s birth was a bit odd – Born one week late she was just 5.5 lbs or 2.5 kgs. On top of that – she came out butt first! While many of us plunged forth headfirst into this life, Jenny somehow got all tangled up right from the start and came out backwards – She never was good with directions.
As an unusually little girl, Jenny was very active, but unsatisfied with her size. She realized early on that she was much smaller than usual and she would pray each night before going to bed – she would pray for something she could never have – tallness. While she never achieved this childhood dream – she was never deterred and lived a full life – She was a cheerleader, a gymnast, and much more. And what she may have lacked in height, she made up for in climbing ability and sense of humor. 147cm of giggly tree-climbing energy.
I don’t think she would be surprised to see so many people gathered here to mourn her. She was an outgoing, energetic girl. She was a giving, helpful person and she didn’t like to be alone for any length of time. I’m pleased to say she certainly isn’t alone today.
Jenny managed to survive a few near-death experiences in the way she was constantly defying certain laws, such as gravity and common sense – When she was 4, Jenny was watching a children’s show on the Nickolodeon channel with her mother and somehow from this they got the idea that it would be lots of fun to swim in a baby pool full of pasta! So Laurie spent all day boiling up macaroni – Pot after pot was dumped into the tiny pool. And as it had been sitting all day – her mother assumed the noodles were cooled down enough so Jenny ran and jumped into the pool – Her screams were quick and quite horrific I’m sure – The noodles at the bottom had retained their heat as those of you familiar with cooking pasta may already be aware. Jenny was scalded by the still near-boiling temperature noodles towards the bottom of the pool – She suffered burns over most of her body.
Her next run into with heat was much less painful physically, but it was still a significant moment in her life. When she was 11, her house burned down and her parents finalized their divorce. Certainly a time of turmoil – it nevertheless shaped her into a person who could appreciate the hardships of this often cruel world we live in – A world full of hidden dangers; like pasta!
Jenny was often stealthy in her good deeds. She didn’t advertise the way she would help everyone out in subtle ways. I suspect most of us here today have at one point been on the receiving end of her kindness. Myself especially! I’m not sure how I would have gotten to school this semester if Jenny hadn’t picked me up everyday. Then again, had I found another way, I could have been on time more often! Whether she was giving rides or just cheering people up, she was always there doing more than her part to make things easier for everybody else.
She especially loved children and because of her playful nature and possibly her size, they loved her. Children, Jenny knew, are the best judges of character. When she taught first grade here at an international school here some years ago, she really connected with them – and it helped her to regain some of that childhood way of appreciating the wonder of things that most of us seem to have forgotten. I will miss her as a fountain of complements. If I ever needed to be cheered up or helped out, she was there.
I will also miss our adventures together. Sometimes a simple night out a Warm Up was sufficient, but she also accompanied me on one very special occasion where I essentially got Kreng-jai’d into going to this strange vegetarian event to which we were invited to by the staff at the old vegetarian shop that used to be in the canteen. We were taken out to a house far outside the city and shown around mushroom garden-sheds where they grow all the mushrooms for the vegetarian products. Then we had a really great vegetarian breakfast – Everybody was in good spirits. Soon after this we were led into this open building which we quickly realized was some sort of temple. Even then we didn’t realize what we had gotten into. We were separated, as males and females must sit separate for reasons which we were completely oblivious. What followed was a grueling full-day lecture with all kinds of praying and such – Of which Jenny understood absolutely nothing – and it was a struggle for me to understand much of what was going on. We had been lured into an evil Chinese-Buddhist-Vegetarian Cult recruitment seminar. We were trapped there all day until we finally had anxiety attacks and I had to go a little crazy to get someone to drive us out of there. The food sure was good though.
A few semesters back when we were in higher spirits and more likely to be found doing musical things around Payap we would go to the chapel a few times a week and jam out some pretty sweet versions of Evanesence songs with a piano and 2 voices. I will miss her not only as a karaoke and musical partner, but most of all as a sidekick because good sidekicks like Jenny don't happen often in a lifetime.

Too Many Papers to Write - More Work

I have to write 2 papers with 2 presentations for my Short Story/Novel class. 10 page critical analysis of Mrs. Dalloway. Not sure what I was thinking choosing that book. No easy task. Next is a slightly shorter analysis of a short story.

For Speech Writing class I have about 12 days to come up with 3 speeches. One is due tomorrow. A Eulogy - which I will be writing for Jenny, though she is still among the living.

As for new work, a friend of mine called to inform me that he knew a guy who wanted to study Thai and I was suggested. So we started today, and will be teaching him 4 or 5 days a week I believe. This along with my 1.5 hour Monday session with some older Japanese folks should serve to boost my rather non-existent income for a little while anyways. I expect it will be a while before I finish any of the software translation (Eng-Jap) that I'm working on as I just won't have much time to work on it until the term finishes (or rather when I finish all of these damn papers!).

Good night and good luck.

He Fell from the 3rd Floor

As I was returning to my apartment from my Japanese private lesson I was coaxed by the laundry shop at the bottom of my building to drink with them for a bit. After hanging out there for an hour or so, there was apparantly a loud noise (which I missed) and somebody looked outside. The owner of the shop came to me frantically saying something that was was hard to comprehend. I could only make out that something fell.

So I went out to the fake balcony of the first floor and there was a guy lying on the pavement with 2 people holding on to him. There was blood everywhere. So I jumped over the railing and went outside to see if I could do anything - which in Thailand means to stop the fake security guard/worker/(slaves - as they we sometimes refer to them) from doing anything stupid like moving him. He said he fell from the third floor and that he hadn't been drinking and he hadn't jumped intentionally. His girlfriend said little and it all seemed kind of strange.

First, it seemed like there was a whole lot more blood than one would expect from the third floor. There was a large puddle a few feet from where he was lying. Also, the trajectory was odd. I was trying to work out originally how he might have flung head-first over the balcony - but it didn't seem to match up. Based on the way he landed (as far as I could tell by when I first saw him maybe 20 seconds or so after he fell) I would say he was probably sitting on the edge and and fell/was pushed backwards.

He was conscious and his arm was broken, but otherwise he didn't seem that bad. But then again, I wasn't sure where the blood was coming from. It was all over his shirt in various patches and plenty on the pavement.

The emergency team must have taken 7 or 8 minutes to get there. This is kind of ridiculous because the hospital they said they called could be walked to in a less than 5. The medical treatment here is good, but the emergency response system isn't much to fawn over.

Songkhran Festival

Gift (a girl from my uni) and another girl named Nai picked me up in a jeep around noon yesterday. In the back of the jeep was a a barrel full of water and some buckets. These are for throwing the water onto passerby as well as other cars. It took us over an hour to drive down the main road to the moat that surrounds the center of the city. Normally, it would take about 6 or 7 minutes to walk that distance, but the roads are completely packed. Later on we picked up a few more girls.

We spent the entire day drinking while driving around the city moat throwing water at other vehicles as well as the thousands and thousands of people who line the street. 3 days of insanity. You can't go outside if you don't want to get soaked. Its a lot of fun.

That night I went out to Warm Up, and it was more packed than I had ever seen it before. I only lasted about twenty minutes before I realized how ill I had become and I went home to try and sleep. Of course sleep never came until about 9 in the morning.

Three hours later the girls called me again saying they were picking me up in 20 minutes. That was tough, but this time there was a lot more girls in the jeep and the barrel was smaller to accomodate the extra people. Eight of us again circling the moat, getting hit with freezing cold water (people sell huge bricks of ice on the side of the street for the people in cars to drop in their buckets) one second while being blasted with warm filthy water from the moat the next. At the end of every day I am always quite ill, but its worth it. 17 died in the city last year from traffic accidents. This year's tally is 8 people dead and 59 injured.

I'm still covered in bruises from the day at the waterfall, where I slipped a few times on the moss. Of course, it didn't hurt at the time.

Water Falls

Today was fun. It is the first unofficial day of the Songkrahn festival in Chiang Mai. The real holiday starts tomorrow, but people get excited and start early. I was invited to go to a waterfall in Mae Sa (Northern Thailand) with a girl whom I am kind of friends with. Actually, my relationship with her was rather strange and I once wrote a post in Japanese about some rather crazy things she did.

Anyways, today we went to this waterfall with everyone that works in her office. So it was me, 5 other guys and 3 girls. I had to go through the usual process of them seeing a white guy and assuming/wondering if he can speak any Thai. Of course I can fluently, but although I often seem to get tired of this almost daily situation, I am not sure if I really am. In fact, I'm fairly sure I like the attention. I got almost none (good att) during my childhood and I have been making up for it since.

So there was swimming and drinking and such. Sitting under waterfalls which bash the hell out of you, but feels like a great massage. I have a large bump on my forehead, a scrape on my arm near my elbow, cuts on my feet and torso. I suppose I wrestled with a mountain and came out ok, but scraped up a bit. The facial scar is probably the worst. It didn't hurt until I noticed it of course, but now it hurts when I touch it hehe.

Tomorrow the festival begins for real. A girl from my uni is picking me up around noon and we will circle the city moat throwing water at people. Should be fun!!

5 Nights in Bangkok

I was off from some of my schools, so I decided to skip work and the rest so I could get out of Chiang Mai for a few days and attempt to "relax." But of course, I hate relaxing most of the time because I see it as an awful waste of time. Really, my purpose there was to buy some books that I can't find in CM as well as some clothes because they tend to be cheaper in Bangkok and of greater variety.

I fared well on books I suppose. I bought Cell, Stephen King's new book which is about a plus that happens one afternoon turning everyone speaking on a mobile network at that moment into a zombie. Actually, it was really good. I couldn't stop reading it so I stayed up (not that I can sleep anyways) until 4:30 or so when I finished the book that I had just bought a few hours before. Aside from that, I bought a beginners book for Burmese. I had been helping a Burmese girl to fix up her papers - which means fix up her English so our American teacher can understand what she is trying to say, and in exchange she was only responsible for feeding me and teaching me a Burmese for a few minutes. It seemed easy enough so I figured I could passively study it and see what happens. Finally, I bought a Chinese book. It was pretty expensive, but I thought it offered some interesting information on the first 1500 characters or so.

As for clothes, I scoured the markets for hours and only came up with a handful of shirts I would wear. The most expensive of these being 180 baht (about $4.50 US). Good stuff.

Slightly more exiting than my shopping adventures, I did manage to get to RCA, a street in Bangkok with a number of high class clubs. I went to Route 66 with a girl I met through her older sister in CM. The older sister is one of the Nestle salesteam/distributors that I teach twice a month in CM. It was pretty fun. Not nearly as expensive as I expected it to be, though certainly not cheap in comparison to CM spots. The place we were at was huge. There was a huge hip-hop room and a nearly as big live Thai music room. We stayed in the hip-hop spot and it was pretty fun. The only downside was the smoke. It was just awful, I knew I'd be sick for at least all of the following day. Stop smoking you idiots! It makes me sick. That night, as fun as it was, had me coughing up crap for 2 days. I'm gonna die fairly young because the world isn't catching on fast enough to the problems of smoking. There probably isn't any saving of me now, as my lungs are almost as bad as they forced me to quit smoking 6 years ago, but I won't stop complaining and harrassing those that accost me with their noxious fumes.

The crazy water festival which officially begins on Wed will probably start tomorrow and there will be chaos in the streets. I will try to keep you informed on the good stuff that comes of that.

I Like Fruit - Cool Jobs

I'm suffering from a rather severe anxiety attack at the moment. Its been going on for the past 25 minutes or so. Its fading, but its still making it difficult for me to work on all these assignments I am trying to do today. My heart is beating very quickly, and I'm shaking a little bit. When I tell this story, I will say that it was caused by an apple, but really its more about the seratonin problems in my brain. Don't worry, that will make sense shortly.

Moving along, I go eat at this restaurant about 3 times a week that is very close to my house. The food there isn't really that great as far as Thailand goes and it is overpriced. However, I really dig the atmosphere there and so I go often. Its the only place I seem to be able to do any writing that doesn't involve drinking to allow myself to focus. I can't actually focus on anything for more than a minute or two, so I need lots of distractions to get anything done. Sometimes, I will study one language for a minute or two, then work on a paper, then switch to another language, back to the paper, then maybe a third language. Its the only way I can get anything done.

Recently, in this particular restaurant where I do most of my studying and homework, an extremely cute girl began working there. I wanted to talk to her for a long time, because she was always smiling and seemed really friendly, but I couldn't do it. Then one day, I just started talking to her. But I never asked for the number. I finally managed to ask for the number today. She hadn't been at work for a few days, and I thought she quit or something and I missed my opportunity. So since I saw her today, I realized I had to get the number. I asked her where she had been the past few days, as I hadn't seen her. So I said "เราสนใจรู้จักกัน ชอเบอร์ได้ไหม" which translates to something along the lines of "I want to know you, can I ask for your number?" And she said yes of course. They pretty much always do. I think I've only heard no twice in my three years here.

During this conversation the anxiety attack started. And it lasted up until about mid-way through the last paragraph or so. Thats about 40 minutes of anxiety. It sucks. Oh and her name is Apple.

As for cool jobs, I got one now and maybe more soon. I teach a varying number of 7 year old boys 10 hours a week now. When I say 'teach', I of course mean that a varying number of boys climb all over me for 2 hours 5 days a week. I literally have to tackle them to make them read stuff or answer questions. They are insane. But its fun.

I got a phone call today for a bi-weekly job that would involve me spending 3 hours with 3 people (presumably Thai). The interesting part is that we would go on outings for this. Shooting club, ATV racing, mini-golf, movies, etc. It pays fairly well and it sounds pretty cool, so I'll take it if the schedule works for me.

The other job is organizing an English camp for 150 kids. I wrote up a propsal schedule and I think they like that, but they didn't offer me enough money so I counter-offered and I'm still waiting to hear back. I probably won't get this one. I asked for a lot, because it would be a lot of work and my studies would suffer. But I really could use the money.

Nothing Interesting Today

A number of crazy things have happened to me lately. Last weekend I threw a guy into a table and came mighty close to getting into a brawl. I also managed to get about 10 phone numbers from various girls. But I'm feeling lazy to go into those stories so I won't.

Last night, I went to Glass Onion with Wad and Gateaux for some wine and some whining. Its really interesting how much of my day is spent complaining or listening to someone else complain. I kind of like it actually. The biggest stressors in our lives here are trivial in comparison to the troubles I had in the states.

After Glass Onion, I headed over to meet two Chinese girls, Wei Ni and Gina, with whom I used to hang out a lot, but that kind of died out after a while. I never figured out why. Anyways, I was rather angry to find out that they called me just to ask me some dirt on this guy who recently began studying at my uni. That ended kind of badly for her when I told her to just call him and ask him rather than me. I barely know the guy. She went off to call him and came back crying and wanted to leave.

I have no classes next week so I hopefully can get some of my mid-term papers started. I gotta write a 8 minute informative speech, an article about a speech on women's rights that I am going to attend on Thursday and I have one exam on Monday.

The other day I gave a short introductory speech in my speech writing class and I felt no anxiety at all. This has never happened before. I had taken my usual 100mg of Zoloft late the day before, and I had only took 50mg the morning of the speech so I'm curious as to if 150mg is the magic number for me. Its a bit too expensive so I will just try it next time I need to do something that causes me anxiety.

Gift's Birthday Party - I don't trust that smile one bit.  

Too Busy

Too many papers, too little time.

My plans to fill up my schedule have gotten a bit out of hand. I am now employed at three different places. Although, one job is twice a month, and one is once a week. The third will fill in most of the blank spots in my schedule during the day. The blank spots used to be nap time. Therefore, I'm friggin exhausted now.

The main problem is that I got hit with a few papers at one time, and due to my inability to concentrate on one thing for more than 120 seconds or so, I am pretty awful at writing papers. What this entails is me sitting in front of the computer many nights for many hours. This would be more bearable if I wasn't already tired from studying/working all day.

1 Night in Sukothai

I flew to Sukothai yesterday afternoon for the wedding of my longtime friends Boom and Olaf. We went to her aunt's house first for the ceremony, which happened to be my first Thai wedding.

They kneel on a table and rest there arms on some pillows and everyone crawls by and everyone pours water over there hands and then ties a string around both of there right wrists. After this you drop an envelope of cash into another tray after you pass by them. There is a tray of food offerings next to them which happened to include the face of a pig. Obviously, I didn't dig that so much. Its eyes were open a little bit.

After everybody ties the strings and hands over some cash, some elder guy chanted and sang and stuff. And then I guess they were offically married. Lots of pictures. It was a long time to be sitting on my legs.

After that came whiskey and socializing. I sat at the Thai table and had to go through the usual language-monkey routine until they would talk to me like a normal person. Eventually, I won most of them over so it was decent enough.

Later we went to a resort for the dinner party. There was one really attractive girl so I made sure to sit at her table. This turned out to be a brilliant move on my part.

Someone made the mistake of pointing out that I am capable of karaoke in Thai (it might of been me) so I was forced to go on stage and 'perform'. It went fairly well I think, considering I was fairly drunk. It certainly won over the girl at the table. She had to go to Bangkok for 4 days for work and she asked me to go with her. I had to decline due to the fact that I'm poor and have too much homework at the moment. Ugh. So, unfortunately she had to run off to wake up super-early so she could drive to Bangkok. I think she will likely come to see me in Chiang Mai next month.

After the dinner jam, about 12 of the survivors, including the bride and groom went to some karaoke joint called Kitty World or something. It was inundated with Hello Kitty paraphernalia. I found myself doing most of the singing. At some point, some guy sat down with us and turned off the tv and played guitar for us. It was pretty fun.

Insomnation

I was so exhausted earlier tonight and yet here I am slightly after midnight and I'm not even the slightest bit tired. This is my life.

I gave my first Thai lesson today to my current Korean teacher and her successor. While they both seem fairly capable in some regards, they are lazy/confused with tones (like most people beginning to learn a tonal language) and less problematic, but equally troublesome (for the teacher) have yet to learn how to correctly pronounce the 32 vowel sounds. After studying Korean for 3 hours, its pretty tiring to teach Thai for an hour, but I can't refuse the lady who teaches me for free 3 hours/week.

I got word back that I managed to pass the Business English exemption exam. I got an A. Big surprise. I wish I didn't have to pay to take exams whose classes offer me no information that I don't already have. Or in this case, information that I spent nearly a year of my life teaching.

I miss piano. I really wish I could afford a keyboard, but until I score some work, I don't see myself being able to get one. I have a few job opps in the work at the moment. I have an interview next week and I'm waiting to hear back on some writing jobs. On top of that, there is a chance I will get a 3 days gig organizing a language camp in the south of Thailand. If I can score this job, I will be a happy guy. It would mean I could probably buy a nice keyboard and a new computer. In the meantime I won't get excited. I live a life of broken promises. But I can hope, can't I?

Pictures are a problem. As my writing abilities are somewhat limited, I wish I could better illustrate my life with actual pictures. Alas, I have no camera. My words must suffice for now.