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