Rambo: The Sequel

I got the call about 30 minutes ago. They want me again tomorrow at 6am. I had to reschedule my private student. Another long and boring 12 hour day for 1800 baht. Being a stand-in tends to be far less interesting than being an extra. Supposedly, I am getting a speaking part next week, but I have no clue if that will actually happen.

I still haven't been paid by my new job. They owe me 50,000 Baht as of this coming Saturday. And the biggest palm/mobile software company in the world always pays super late. They owe me around $450 US from software translation work finished months ago.

Rambo Can Fly?

So knowing I had to wake up at 4am-ish yesterday I went to sleep the night before around 9:30. I then woke up a bit past midnight feeling awfully sick (of the hot/cold/sweaty/feverish/nauseous/wondering-if-its-food-poisoning type). Due to hot/cold flashes and pretty intense stomach pains and a number of trips to the bathroom expecting to throw up, I couldn't get back to sleep. Around 4:30am I went to 7-11 to get some asprin and water and then I headed to the hotel which serves as home base for the casting crew. I was somewhat surprised to find only 5 other whiteys being taken to the location. 3 of them had already shot at least one day before. We arrived at the national park where they were shooting sometime after 6am. I was unable to sleep at all during the ride. When we got there we had "breakfast." No vegan food aside from fruit and pretty busted salad choices. So I had fruit for breakfast and salad and fruit for lunch. Not exactly filling, but my stomach was still a bit busted so it was enough to keep me moving. Well, not moving so much as sitting and waiting in one boat before we were told to move to another boat for a while and wait there. Then we went ashore for a while in the middle of the reservoir and sat there for an hour or so. To summarize, we waited all day and didn't end up shooting our one stand-in scene with 'rambo' (a chinesy-looking Thai guy with a wig and a red bandana) for a wide shot with the camera being in a helicoptor passing back and forth and circling us in our little shanty boat.

Anyways, the actual scene took a bit over an hour and then we went back, changed gear and left. We got back to CM around 5:30ish or so. The other stand-ins were nice enough, but it was by far the most boring of my foray into the world of being a human prop. I was pretty sure I was going to retire after Rambo, as things can only plummet in life from this particular apex of my life, but then it was suggested that I might be 'needed' for a speaking part 2-3 days next week. We shall see.

Oh, btw, I was a stand-in for the leader of the missionaries that get captured and/or killed by river pirates or some such. The actor portraying my stand-in character looks somewhere around 50. There is no way you can make out my face in this scene for sure, but I could probably point myself out to you if you so desire.

We never saw Sly, but I swear I heard his voice 2 or 3 times on the radios. My assumption was that he was in the helicoptor with the camera the entire time.

Another last thought, I ended up being awake for around 27 hours during this ordeal. I occasionally dozed off for a few minutes here and there, but I couldn't stay down. When I finally did actually fall asleep around 2am the next morning, I still started waking up far too early (around 7am), feeling completely exhausted.

Rambo!

I got the confirmation call. I'm going to film at 6am tomorrow. Rambo IV, my third film now. Not sure how many days it is yet, but I certainly need the money because my damned job has yet to pay me, though I have been assured it will come sometime this week.

Insanity

Today was rather hectic. I practice piano in the morning and then did lesson 2 of FSI's Cantonese program which I am studying on my own about 30 min/day. I didn't make it to the gym today unfortunately as I usually can't on Saturdays also, but I'm going to play badminton in a few so its better than nothing.

Around 14:30, I met up with a Korean guy who is going to be in Chiang Mai for a month and wants to study conversational travel English with me before he goes on to Egypt. That'll net me a nice chunk of change for a bit of my free time. Following that I studied Korean until 16:00, until my next appointment arrived; a Japanese girl who wants help writing resumes. She is planning on working at some hotel in town that gets lots of Japanese tourists and wants Japanese employees apparantly. So thats 2 nights a week after my Chinese class which ends at 20:00. I'm not charging her because its a regular chance for me to speak some Japanese which I sorely need. And shes gonna be buying my dinner. After that I met up with a guy from NY who so my "Learn Thai from a White Guy" flyer and wants to study Thai with me. I think we are starting on Sunday. Hes only here for a month or so also, so I'll just be busting my ass for a month. Not bad. Nor am I finished. I've been asked to do some silly English camp for 5-6 days in a couple months. With 700 freshman. Interesting. On top of that I got another call about Rambo today from a girl I met on the set of the French movie. They want me to come meet the director (casting d I assume) for a possible part or parts. Good stuff in the works.

Rambo

I got another call about Rambo tonight. At first they wanted me to come in tomorrow, but then she said not, but she would call me again. At least its still shooting so I hopefully will get a part.

Return to the Bronze Forest

So it wasn't Rambo IV after all. As it turns out I am an extra in some French film. No clue if its good or not. Rambo may still happen next week. We shall see. The shooting turned out to be 2 days. The first one was fun, but the 2nd wasn't so much. The money wasn' t great either, but thats typical for such things.

Thailand considers declaring emergency over haze

Smog

The pollution level is unbeliveable at the moment. At night you can see the clouds of smoke around the street lights. Even if I don't encounter smokers, I still find myself coughing up crap every day, though its not as noticeable as when I am around cig smoke.

Rainbo ?

So perhaps I was mistaken about the punk girl after all. I took a few small observations and situations and drew my own conclusions which turned out to be incorrect. Or so it seems at the moment. I saw her sitting outside her work (a restaurant in my apartment complex) and sat and talked to her her for a while.

I got called by the casting guy again today. He said we would be shooting on Wed night and he asked me to get a few more people. So I got 5 more whiteys for the Rambo IV shoot.

Escalation

Why do Thai people always stop to make important decisions about in life right after they step off the escalator. Almost every day I must dodge such people who literally stop right at the top/bottom with people having to move quickly to avoid a people collision.

So its looking like my short-lived fling with the punk girl is over. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I guess I should be bummed out, but I haven't really felt much of anything lately. Maybe just a bit dazed. My schedule is relatively full so I keep busy enough.

I've been taking piano lessons for a month or so now and I guess its going ok. I'm pretty awful at reading music, and its a problem as I inevitably end up memorizing the song and am never truly reading it anyways. So I gotta change the songs I work on all the time to force myself to improve at reading.

Showbiz

So I got a call today from a friend of a friend asking if I was free to be a double for some French movie being filmed in the nearby "jungle." Although my build, height, hair color and ability to drive a stick were enough, the hair on the sides of my head was a bit too short. The shooting conflicted with my 2 hr/week overpaid job (which hasn't paid me yet for last month actually) so I wouldn't have done it anyways. Oh well. I am still on the list for Rambo IV and they have kept in contact with me and the guy I met today is working on it too.

I got this strange job offer the other day. Some friend of the gym-girl called me the other day and asked me to translate to either English or Korean something she was trying to ask some Korean guy. So she hands the phone to the Korean guy and it turns out to be my friend Jun, who I consider to be my Korean counterpart as we share a number of anxiety-related afflictions. Anyways, this girl eventually passed on the idea of Jun and asked if I was interested in being an interpreter for some Korean person for 3 weeks while they study Thai massage. It would have me interpreting from Thai to Korean I think. My Korean is decent considering I haven't even been studying a year yet, but I'm not sure if I even have the vocab to be able to do well at this. However, the money they offered was rather tempting and the girl actually said if it wasn't enough to counteroffer at my leisure. So I mentioned it to my Korean teacher and asked if she would be interested in doing it together. It would be about 3 hr/day for 3 weeks M-F. Hopefully, she is up for it as it could work out for me as Korean lessons where I get paid (I offered to split it with her 50/50).

In the world of exercise, things are going pretty well. I somehow managed to put up 80kg the other day. I usually go to the gym Sun-Fri and I play badminton for 1-2 hrs every M/W/F night. I have trouble breathing all the time whenever I due anything that raises my heart rate which is annoying when I have to stop to cough up goo or just that I can't play hard not because my body can't handle it, but because I can't breathe. It sucks. I had problems like this my whole life, but when I was young and I ran the pain was different and there was no goo. That changed after smoking for 7 yrs. Gnilb indeed.

Life

I'm ok. Perhaps better than that, but I'm not sure. I have been feeling a bit empty lately. Devoid of emotion, but always on the brink of something heavy. As I previously mentioned, I broke up with Ann on Valentine's Day. As false as it may sound I did it more for her than for me. As hard as she tried, she couldn't put up with my faults. She wasn't perfect either, but she tried harder than I ever could. I just don't know how to have a serious relationship with a girl. Its kind of ironic; if I care/like someone too much, I will inevitably drive them away one way or another, however, if I like them on some lesser, but saner-level, the relationship tends to work. There has only been 1.5-2 times in my life when I pursued and got what I really 'wanted.' While those relationships worked for a while, they didn't last. I miss Ann, but I suppose I miss every person I cared about. It doesn't pass, rather it stays with you and usually becomes weaker over time.

I think I am probably done with the punk girl, she is nice enough, but she has annoyed me a few times and I'm leaning towards the 'friend is better' path with her.

Meanwhile, the gym girl is currently in a car on her way home. She is back together with the old boyfriend and they are going back to their hometown to resume their previous life because her mom was lonely. I really dug her for a while. She is a cool girl and her boyfriend is nice enough but she deserves better. Much better than me as well I suppose, but I can still like her, right?

On happier notes, 2 nights ago the gym girl sent me an sms saying she was at this club if I wanted to go. So I went there to discover it was her the ex-nonex? boyfriend and another guy. So I mainly talked to her and drank their whiskey than when it closed at midnight, I went with the other guy to a late-night spot assuming the gym-girl and bf were coming. We got there and were not there long before I attacked a table full of girls. I got a # from the best one and then I went home to sleep. I waited a day before calling her tonight. She was pleasantly surprised and she remembered me the first time I said my name. This is probably the first time such a thing has happened in my life in Thailand. I always have to explain the situation for them to realize who I am. Anyways, this girl is in the middle of finals, but she is certainly interested and she seems cool so far. We'll see what happens. More on this later.

I would write more often but this blogserver is awful. I can't log into it most of the time so I can't get in to write when I have things to say.

mus-kles

I broke up with Ann on Valentine's day. Since then I have mostly hung out with the punk girl, but I still find myself missing Ann quite a bit. I've been dreaming about her quite often and it can be a bit stressful. I don't feel depressed or anything, I am just bored. With my current schedule I am finding myself with far fewer friends than before. It feels strange, but I seem to be ok.

I play badminton 3 nights a week, I go to the gym Sun-Fri and I am probably stronger than I haven been in my life. The other day some guy training at the gym asked if he could switch off with me on the bench press and I said sure. When I went to max out he told me I could do more than I thought my max was and he was right. I somehow managed to put up 75kgs twice and I am extremely sore today. Today I did shoulders and triceps. And I played badmintion for about 2 hrs for aerobic-isms. I am sore all over. I drink soy protein shakes everyday and I try to take one meal at the food center near my place where I just order some dish and give them a brick of tofu to throw in it so I can get the protein. It seems to be working.

I changed my routine lately. Before I did Day 1: Chest/biceps - Day 2: shoulders/back - Day 3: \triceps/legs

It worked well for quite a while, but I've devised something more efficient.

My new regime gives me 2 days rest for chest and has me alternating tri/bi-ceps each day. Aside from that I do legs, shoulders and back 1-2 times/wk, chest 2-3 times, triceps 2-3 and biceps 2-3. It seems to be working really well but its hard to measure my progress.

Punk Jam

Picture by Jeff

Punk Rain

I am a crazy guy. I suppose this isn't news to anyone reading this. Its certainly not to me. I really wish I had a bit more control over my emotions. I broke up with Ann (previous gf) on Valentine's day. It actually went well. After I told her, I said lets go get drunk together one last time. So we went out and got wrecked and had some final physical-ness stuffs. Basically, I told her that she is a good girl, but as she already knows and isn't willing to admit, I am just not capable of giving her the attention that she requires. I need lots of alone time and I am not very outspoken in my appreciation of or my cares for people. I blame this at least partially on my screwed up childhood where rather then teach (explain to) me why we have to send thank you cards and be so polite my parents just thought it a acceptable to force me to do such things ("Because I said so!") which of course makes a child question and rebel against such a concept. So even now such situations are extremely uncomfortable for me. Its not that I'm not thankful. I just have an anxiety attack if I think I am expected to express thanks for it.

Anyways, the reason I sometimes need to distance myself from people who have grown to close is because I begin to despise them. I can become enraged over relatively trivial things. Because I am aware of these things I try to shoo away anyone I am unable to avoid. This is because I realize I just need a few increments of time to get over whatever I am preparing to blow up on. Some of the things that trigger this murderous rage inside me are obvious as I remember feeling them as I was growing up, however, many come about rather unexpectedly and even though I feel part of me is urging to kill the nearest offender, I also at the same time am completely aware of how ridiculous these feelings are, but the only way I am able to avoid taking it out on the "offender" is to get away from them (everyone?). This is usually not a big deal with friends, but girlfriends are a bit more tricky. I've tried to explain this to my previous Thai girlfriends but they just don't get it. Its just a different kind of ignorance.

Moving along... while I was hoping to be single for a while, I am no longer sure if thats a possibility. While I am feeling rather invincible on and off lately I am still hesitant. I got a few numbers last Thursday. The situation with the girl in question was rather unusual.

She is a punk. More on this soon.