Anxiety Attacks !!

Learn Thai from a White Guy

2008-09-13T21:50:00.003+09:30

So here is my latest language blog. The following is small, but steady at the moment. Its focus is learning Thai.

I'm working on another somewhat experimental language learning project which will take me a while, but hopefully will operational soon.

learnthaifromawhiteguy.com

Don't Post!

2008-04-14T04:58:00.004+09:30

Sometimes I get really miserable. There isn't usually a sound or even a remotely plausible reason for it, but it just happens. When I was younger it was daily part of my life. I know each time (now) that the feeling will pass and that I should just wait it out. There doesn't need to be a trigger, but as one might suspect, such things ease the process.

Its very strange for me. When I was younger these feelings were much more common. Now they are sparse but still a hassle. Because I am aware that they will pass shortly I don't act on or stress about them. However, when I was younger it wasn't so easy. I did stupid things to ease the pain. And they worked well enough. When I smoked I often put the cigs out on my arms or in the palm of my hands. The pain created there would temporarily allow me to forget my mental pains.

Exposed

2008-04-14T03:57:00.003+09:30

Its been a long time since I've written (read: published) an entry. It became too much of a hassle for a number of reasons. I still have much to say, but as a wise friend once told me, "Don't write down anything you don't want read." This advice may not apply to everything, but it must be considered for everything you write down. After all, when we write it, we aren't usually considering the possible consequences.

Songkran is well in the works at the moment. This is the insane lunar new years festival that is especially famous in Chiang Mai as the centre city is surrounded by a moat. I don't really feel the need to explain this holiday. I'm not even sure if I can. Its one of those things you just need to experience. I don't want to waste energy trying to describe it. Perhaps one day if I'm in a better mood.

Greetings Old Friend

2007-10-31T03:34:00.000+10:30

faithful reader - It has been some time I admit. I can't say this is a return to my past frequency, but hopefully it is a sign of such a return. Many things have happened since we last spoke. I'm in something of a rut I suppose. Certain things have come to me only with great difficulty and often under great duress. There are endless things I wish to discuss, but I just haven't been able to write at all. Even this meager post is something of a struggle and only possible due to the assistance of a controlled substance. You can't even fathom the trouble I have had writing even short essays this term.

Let me sum a few things of late....

auditioned for a small speaking role in the movie Pinkville
planning to spend about 20 days of Dec/Jan in Japan assuming I don't get the role in the movie and/or the pay isn't enough
my nursery school-like university is undergoing all kinds of problems - I worry if it will last long enough for me to graduate..or even more likely...if it will ever offer the handful of classes I need to finish so I can graduate. Its not looking good right now. I don't expect anything to improve.
I did indeed get the hotel job, but not in the capacity I originally expected. I am working M/W/F from 14:00-16:00 there. The pay is good and along with 1-2 private students its enough to pay the bills but I am not quite yet rolling in the baht.
My teachers this semester are imbeciles. This isn't really that unusual, but when the teacher doesn't give a crap about the class, it makes it much harder for me to. And this is the worst I've seen.

More to come when I can pull it off.

Broken Promises - Mr. โดน

2007-07-26T20:24:00.000+09:30

Well, I have some good news and some confusing not-so-good news. First the good news: I got the confirmation call from a lady in HR at the hotel about my latest millionbahtaire job on Tuesday evening. I agreed to a slightly lower wage than I had hoped for, but its still plenty of money for the time I'll actually be working. They want me to start either on the 1st or the 6th of August, the date has yet to be confirmed. Yaay.

Next, the other news. I got a call yesterday from a different person in the HR department. He told me he had yet to confirm anything with the GM. He also mentioned that they were now considering having just 2 classes instead of 4 and would I still be interested in the job at the same rate. I said probably not. I'd need all the details first and then I would consider. Gnilb!

So I have no clue if I have this job or not. As usual, I find myself almost believing what people say only to be let down 100% of the time. Not sure why I can't seem to learn from this particular type of mistake. I never trust anybody, but I guess when I want to believe something I lie to myself or something. Oh well.

I met with a Korean couple who were referred to me by a friend of mine. I'll be teaching them privately twice a week so that will alleviate 10% of my briefly expected fortune in the event I don't get it.

I'm still going strong on my language studies of late. My browsers are either in Chinese or Japanese now and microsoft office software is all in Thai. I'm in the process of making the switch to monolingual dictionaries in all the languages that I study. I've been doing it with Thai for a while, but I just ordered a student j-j dictionary from Japan and my friend is going back to Korea tomorrow and I told her not to come back without a Korean-Korean dictionary mean for young students. Not sure where the hell I am going to find a Chinese-Chinsese one. When I asked my Chinese school about it, they said they'd never seen one nor could they comprehend what I would want with it.

Um, in other news, I bought a new badminton racked as the head of my last one broke off as it collided with the face of my partner. Black eye for him and a shiny new racket for me. Not everything bad that happens needs to be bad for me.

Winning Freedom

2007-07-21T12:34:00.000+09:30

I got the call yesterday. They want me to start August 1st. They are trying to cut about 40B/hour off of what I asked for. I told them I needed the weekend to think about it. At their offered rate, I would still be making much more than I need, but frankly, I'm worth more. They don't need to provide a visa for me as I have one already. I'm fluent in Thai - there are very few people in this city that can explain grammatical nonsense and most importantly, I know how to learn a language. I don't just teach English. I teach people ways to learn. These methods can be applied in any field.

Now my dilemma. This job is too good for me to turn down, but I am extremely tempted to turn down their offer as I feel its not enough. I'm worth more and they realize that.

I need to go teach my kids class in a minute. Mousetrap and twister today. Its too early for twister.

Almost There

2007-07-14T22:22:00.001+09:30

As to where I'm referring, I'm not yet certain. I'm still on my language kick. I'm making use of a few different programs at once now rather than before where I put all my languages into one program. This worked fine for a long time until my hard drive died some time ago. I've since rebuilt my Vtrain cards and twice the program crashed and I lost thousands of flashcards and countless hours of work. So while I am by no means splitting up languages, I am taking it easy not to overload any particular program. I am also using a few web-based flashcard programs. I probably spend in total 20-30 minutes doing flashcards in an average day. This is by no means in one sitting. Depending on how busy/patient I am during a day this could be anywhere from 3 to 30. Seems to be working, but it takes months to know for sure.

In other news, I had a meeting with the director of human resources at the hotel I had the 1-month teaching gig at and although I am restraining myself from getting excited...(actually I never get excited..I just get my hopes up and then dashed on a fairly regular basis) as it will be a week before I have any sort of confirmation in writing. Before the meeting I had already calculated every possible outcome about how much I wanted vs how much money I was willing to accept and I was quite pleased to come out of the meeting feeling like I can get exactly what I asked for.

The salary/schedule I designed was meant to be beneficial to all parties - The hotel would pay me 90% of what they were paying the school who is employing me temporarily at the moment and would therefore save money. I required that I be in charge of setting up the entire program within reason. Everybody studies 3 times/week for 1.5 hrs/session.

I would get nearly twice what the school was paying me. But, I'm more than worth it.

The staff would get to study with things that I chose/modified to be most efficient. The schools tend to give you a book the first day so you have little time to familiarize yourself with something new and the situation is worse if you don't like the style of a particular book as the school has already charged the students/clients for copying the books.

I have a million ideas of how I want to run things and I think this could be really good for me. Obviously, this would set me up perfectly financially. I would make much more than I currently spend while working just 18 hrs/week. The hours would be such that I would still have plenty of time to pursue most of the other things I do - Uni classes, piano lessons/practice, daily exercise, Korean lessons, badminton in the evenings and a bit of extra p/t work if felt like it. I'd have to give up my night Chinese class for good (I have kind of done this already as I have come to the conclusion that classes that I don't teach tend to be useless - and some of the ones that I 'teach' are also). Showing up for a class for a year or 2 doesn't mean shit if the teacher/book/your own effort and/or etc sucks.

I want to go more into this right now, but I gotta shove some knowledge in my brain so it will have to wait a while. I finish my work slav-a-thon on Tuesday. Then back to the gym to attempt to coax my muskles back from their month-long holiday.

***I'm going to stop there...but it just occurred to me that this could very well be just an 'up' phase in my life. I have been off of Zoloft for nearly a month with no adverse effects. I do feel like I'm dying because I can no longer breath properly and I have coughing fits frighteningly similar to when I quit smoking, but I feel mentally/psychologically fit. I'm still drinking every day, but its more of a habit than anything else. Its extremely rare that I get drunk. There has to be some situation that brings it about. Just coming down from a long day is not a good enough reason for that. I'll try to write again soon, but who knows. Certainly not me.

Possible Promotion in the Slave Pits - 10,000 Maniacs (Or just 1?)

2007-07-06T22:29:00.000+09:30

I have 5 more 8 hour days at the Holiday Inn. I'm teaching 2 different groups now, 4 hrs/day each. One of the managers came and talked to me a bit about how he wants to have an ongoing class for the 4 groups that I've taught/am teaching. He asked how he should go about that...whether through the teacher or the school. I liked how he referred to me as well as the school in the 3rd person. I told him he was welcome to go through me as this would cost them a bit less money and I wouldn't have to fill out stupid evaluation forms with the dumbest questions, make tests for 10-day classes where I don't even have a set book in some of them and of course, I would be able to get paid quite a bit more. I pointed out that 4 hr classes are silly both for the hotel, the staff and me. Most people just can't retain much in a 'learning marathon' of that calibur. As far as classes go I think a minimum of 3 times/wk (though more is better) at no longer than 1.5 hrs is ideal. In this situation both the student(s) and the teacher can hopefully focus for a full hour and possibly a few extra minutes. The extra 30 min covers bathroom trips, loss of concentration, explanations, etc.

So if I get this job, it would be 6 evenings week for 3-4 hrs ( I think this is entirely up to me). Assuming I am satisfied with the pay, this would allow me to continue my other pursuits (Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, piano and exercise) while also having time to finish my degree albeit part-time and be able to buy stuff. As I usually get overexcited at such things I am containing myself quite well. Of course, this could just be because I'm too tired to get excited about anything. We shall see.

I've kicked my Japanese program back into shape. Using a 'new' method. Ok so its not new, in fact, I've done it before for fun without considering using it as a backbone to my other styles of learning. I'm going to learn 10,000 sentences in Japanese while I continue to use Heisigs Remembering the Kanji system to learn a respectable amount of Japanese characters. I have a good grasp of a bit over a 1000 at the moment and I've decided to review those thousand over the next couple of weeks to make sure I know them before I move on to the next 1000. Depending on the success of this mission, I will of course attempt something similar in the other languages.

We shall see I suppose.

7.5 mb

2007-06-30T06:12:00.000+09:30

Well, I'm in the UK on an 8mb connection and its hard not to wet myself. It was even harder earlier while taking a shower and I downloaded a 600mb game which finished before I was and after a few minutes of playing it I just deleted it. Such a file would usually take me a couple on my connection in Chiang Mai. Ah, the Western world does have its perks.

I'll be here until Monday anyways.

Slaving Week 2

2007-06-25T01:21:00.000+09:30

I survived the first week and it wasn't bad actually. I'm exhausted and I'm not too keen on giving up everything else I've got going on at the moment (Chinese, Korean, piano ,exercise), but the job itself isn't too bad. The classes are ridiculously long (4 hours), but I give (take?) plenty of breaks and somehow manage to pull through. While my morning class has made some definite progress, I was mistaken about the level of the supposedly 'more advanced' afternoon class and we have wasted a lot of time. While they are more capable of broken hotel English than the morning class (and therefore harder to fix their bad habits) in a few days I'd say a fair portion of the morning class can actually speak correctly more often than the afternoon class. I keep having to explain to them that years of studying a language in a classroom does not in any way guarantee you will be able to speak the langauge. As a prime example, I point out that I never actually 'studied' Thai and I speak it rather fluently. Sure, there are plenty of things I don't know. But there is plenty of crap I don't know in English either so I just absorb new things as they come rather than stress over the fact that I don't know everything.

Oh well. I'm tired and I'm in the middle of struggling through typing an email in Korean so I better finish that so I can try to sleep and wake up for another English marathon in the morn.

Slaving Away

2007-06-11T19:54:00.000+09:30

I've been a bit busy lately and I haven't had much to write about. I'm going to the UK at the end of this month for my sister's wedding reception. I'll be there from the 28th of June until the 2nd of July.

Starting June 18th I will be taking on a temporary full-time job teaching English to the staff of the Holiday Inn here. Full-time as in 8-5 Mon-Fri. Aside from that I will be working M/W/F 6-8, 4 hours on Sat and 2 on Sunday. Possibly more. I suspect I will need to give up the gym, piano, Korean, Chinese and possibly even badminton during this month. I'm not really pleased about that, but I want to move, get a vehicle and a keyboard so hopefully I can survive this.

In other news, my ex-girlfriend slept over last night and we spent the day together. I was a bit surprised when she asked if she could come over, but I can't say I minded at all. While I don't expect to get back together with her it will be nice to hang out with her sometimes.

I haven't had any time to start my Thai podcasts yet so thats going to be moved to the backburner for a while.

Earthquake

2007-05-17T02:31:00.000+09:30

I was practicing piano today a few minutes before 4pm Bangkok time and the rehersal room began to shake. At first I thought the bench was giving out and it was swaying, but then I realized the piano was swaying too and I wasn't playing that hard. I went outside the room and watched as the lights shook and it was kind of interesting. It must have lasted nearly a minute. It felt long anyways.

Podcast

2007-05-16T12:37:00.000+09:30

I've been listening to lots of podcasts lately. Mostly Chinese - I use chinesepod.com.
I've started collecting some Japanese ones as well, but I haven't looked for a Korean one yet. I did look around for Thai podcasts out of curiousity and I found that there aren't any good ones. So I'm going to try and make some myself. I'm not exactly sure whether I will post any podcasts I do on this blog or my language blog - which I haven't posted much on yet. Twice actually, but more soon. I think it will be better to keep any podcasts seperate.

In other news - my x-girlfriend Ann messaged me yesterday. I ended up calling her in the evening (I was kinda drunk) and we talked for a long time. It was weird and I was kind of depressed at first, but I came out of it. It was right of me to let her go. I'm just too messed up part of the time to properly be in a relationship.

Update

2007-05-06T04:01:00.000+09:30

So my dad seems to have woken up and been awake for a few days now. He can talk a bit and recognize people, but he doesn't know what year it is and he sometimes speaks nonsense. He still has pneuemonia and a fever at the moment. They want to move him to another hospital in Philly so he can get his heart checked out to see if there was a blockage or something that needs to be operated on, but they are waiting for his fever to go down first.

Also, while a bunch of people were visiting with my dad yesterday, his mother started complaining of chest pains and then began vomiting all over the floor much to everyones surprise. I think she is now also admitted at the hospital, but I'm not certain her condition.

I am still debating whether or not to go back. I am supposed to start some new part-time teaching gig next week and I'm not sure what I should do. If I went, it would really only be for a few days. Maybe 5 at most not including travel time. I'm thinking maybe I will wait until the heart check?

Bad News

2007-05-02T20:06:00.000+09:30

Well to start off, I was in a depressed funk for a couple weeks. I had been anti-social and just hid out from the world for a while. I've been pretty much out of it for a few days now, but I just received the following email from my stepmother:

"Brett - Your dad suffered a very severe cardiac event on a treadmill, collapsed, aspirated and at this point is clinging to live. He has not regained consciousness, had developed pnumonia, and at this point, does not present any brain function."

I read that email around 3am East Coast US time so that was all I had to go on until I got called during my piano lesson.

Apparantly, he was on a treadmill at the YMCA yesterday? and had some kind of "cardiac event" and lost consciousness. This probably wouldn't have been so bad, but he hit his head and vomited. He was alone and was without oxygen for an unknown period of time. He was found by the caretaker of the gym. He was blue at the time. He is on 8 types of medication at the moment and while his heart seems to be ok, he wasn't showing signs of brain activity yesterday and he had developed pnemonia from the vomit in his lungs. I should know more soon. I certainly hope he pulls through, but its not looking very good at the moment.

Finally I Can Log In

2007-04-20T04:15:00.000+09:30

Blogger has been awful lately. I have had login troubles for weeks. No matter the browser. You, my faithful reader(s) have suffered because I can never log in to this crap. I have written many things (mostly on the depressing side) in my notebook, but its just not the same. I am too tempted to sensor what I wrote when I wrote it. Anytime I post, its what I wrote. What should I do?

I Guess I'm Screwed

2007-04-09T23:05:00.000+09:30

I went into the school on Saturday morning about 30 minutes early and I told the girl there that I still haven't been paid and its been over 2 months and I won't be teaching that day. She immediately got me on the phone with someone in Bangkok who said that they didn't have my bank account information. The girl in front of me said she sent it twice and when I told the girl that she made a strange face. Anyways, I gave them my info and waited until the girl faxed a copy of my bank book to the head office. Later, the wife of the owner (I think she is anyways) told me she was sorry and didn't know anything about it and I would get paid on Monday. Well I just got back from Rambo and after showering away all my Rambo sweat (from sleeping outdoors on stacks of hay all day) and went to check my bank account a bit after 8pm hoping for my owed millions, but alas, I still have but one lonely circular digit left in my account.

The Rambo money is crap and its so friggin boring. I literally get there, eat breakfast, then change into my missionary costume and then I go to sleep on some hay until noon-ish. The sleep sucks because I am awakened constantly by flies landing on me or sometimes by chickens fighting around me or by gunfire. Today I was woken by something sounding like a helicopter gun. Actually, one time today I was woken up by Stallone talking to some guy next to my haystack. It was better than the gunfire of course. Then I wait until lunch which was very late today-around 14:30. There isn't really anything I can eat so I usually just eat salad and fruit and sometimes some form of potato or rice. Erm, back to the point. I keep doing it for the money because I really need it. I am owed thousands of dollars right now and I don't know if I'll ever get any of it. There isn't really anything I can do about it either.

The next problem is that the Sonkran festival is starting up pretty soon where the country goes berserk and has water fights from about 9am until dusk for a few days. Which means if I don't get the money by tomorrow or Wed, I will have to wait a week (if I get it at all) until the holiday is over surely. I don't think even Rambo can get me out of this jam.

Oh yea, on top of that - my computer has some nasty virus that won't allow me to log on. I need a windows xp cd to fix it and of course I don't have one so I am also computer-less as well as broke. Woohoo.

Rambo whips out his pistol with a blinding flash of speed and easily dispatches with 4 of the pirates...

2007-04-07T02:16:00.000+09:30

Sorry if this is getting boring. But at least take note that is far worse for me. I spent yet another day where we left around 5am and got back around 8:30pm and I was again not used for anything. I slept on a stack of hay until around 12:30. Then just stood around most of the day occasionally talking or watching scenes.

They torched a bamboo house and the fire burned out of control and spread all over the place so they were evacuating people down the hill en masse. I heard them mention that someone got hurt, but I never noticed anything and I don't think it was anything serious.

I saw Sly for the first time tonight. I was in the parking lot of unit 1 (the main unit - I "work" on unit 2) and this lady was fake-freaking out. "Sylvester is coming right here now!" I didn't catch the context, but the fact that she repeated this a few times seemed kind of silly. She came across as if something wasn't ready or what not. I mean, he is the director, and this is the set - shouldn't he be going there? Nobody seemed to be around to pay her any attention anyways. So he rolled in in a sleek suv with 2 Thai guys hanging on either side of the car blocking the passenger doors. Security, privacy? I can't say. It was kinda odd though. Anyways, he was like 10 metres from me and I wasn't even sure it was him as it was kinda dark until I heard him talk. Then I went back to eating my rice-porridge while waiting for my ride home.

I'm going in to the office tomorrow to sign on as a permanent extra for Rambo IV. This means that I will probably be called on 2-4 days/week to play (not do anything) a double for the missionaries who get captured in the film. I will also get paid for the days I went in and did nothing this week so I can actually pay my rent tomorrow even if my teaching job screws me over.

Rambo-izms

2007-04-04T23:39:00.000+09:30

I did Rambo again today. It was unbelievably boring, but I need the money as it is still looking like my "great" new job will not be paying me the 50,000 baht I am owed for the past 2 months. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about it either. Anyways, we went to the hotel at 5am and were taken out to a different location than last time. It was some fake Karen (ethnic people who live in Burma/Thailand, but have no actual state of their own) village. I pretty much sslept all day when there weren't bombs going off. I was never called to do anything so it was super-boring. I need to bring more stuff to do tomorrow.

Rambo: The Sequel

2007-03-28T23:40:00.000+09:30

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?

2007-03-26T22:53:00.000+09:30

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!

2007-03-24T21:56:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-23T21:42:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-21T23:28:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-18T00:41:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-14T00:36:00.000+10:30

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 ?

2007-03-13T00:56:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-12T18:51:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-10T00:52:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-09T03:40:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-06T06:07:00.000+10:30

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

2007-03-02T21:48:00.001+10:30

Picture by Jeff

Punk Rain

2007-03-02T01:51:00.000+10:30

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.

Depressing Shit

2007-02-14T19:31:00.000+10:30

The gym girl Nut has me all depressed. I was sitting at my usual spot because I have to translate this one page and I have tons of Korean homework and I wanted to study a little bit. I saw her walk out with this Australian guy who also goes to the gym and is nice enough but kind of annoying as he is always asking/interrupting my work- out to ask me Thai questions.

My mood just sunk into pretty heavy depression so I took an extra zoloft hoping to stave it off, but I couldn't do anymore work/studying so I went home and had a beer and watched the latest Heroes episode hoping that would distract me enough. It didn't really so I pressed the rounded edge of toenail clippers deep into the flesh between my fingers and eventually the inside of my elbow to get my mind out of that state. I haven't done that in a long time, but it helps. Even as that mode kicks in I know I will get over it and I know I'm freaking out over something thats probably nothing, but whether I am so conditioned to react to that kind of situation or if the seratonin levels in me are just so screwed up I couldn't say, but my little strategies do manage to at least reduce the potential for me to kill myself/someone else. Neither is even remotely likely, but they arise very strongly for a few moments until I can stop them.

Meanwhile, Ann (the sorda x-gf) keeps coming around and though its Valentine's Day, sometimes I really want to finish with her for good. I don't know how to do it and I don't know if I can do it today, but I am not sure if I can be in this relationship anymore. I just want to be alone for a few days and then possibly go out again for a couple weeks to get my self-esteem back to where it was a couple of weeks ago. I think I know how to do it now anyways.

Million-baht-aire

2007-02-04T13:53:00.000+10:30

I started the new job yesterday. I got there 5 minutes late. There was this huge parade in the city that I didn't know about and we actually had to invade the parade and go at its pace for a while before I had to jump off the bike and clear a path so we could get off of the road on the moat much to the chagrin of the locals. It took nearly an hour to get to the mall that is about 12 minutes away.

My "class" consists of one 6 yr old boy who speaks pretty much no English. He can respond to a few basic questions and knows the typical transliterated into Thai pronunciation of some English words, but he can't really spell much and I wasn't really sure where to begin. The main problem is that I will only see him once a week and its a 2 hour class! That is too long for anybody, especially a little kid. More likely we will be studying for 20-30 min at best and playing for an hour and a half. As I am salaried, until the school finds more people and therefore more classes, I am making 3,125 Baht/hour (around US$90ish) . And I just work Saturdays. This is a completely unheard of wage for esl teachers in Thailand, or anywhere for that matter. The cost of living here is very low, so that actually covers all of my bills and then some. Good-tastic.

Я иду в Россию? Действительно ли она - тот?

2007-02-02T20:18:00.000+10:30

There is a chance I might be going to work in Russia for a bit this summer. Well, if the money offered is enough. The CEO of the pda/mobile software company that I do freelance work for (translation, brochure writing, web site checking, etc) wants to send me there for a month to teach English to the team of translators a couple hours a day and spend some time checking over (Read: rewrite) ads, web sites and the like. Could be interesting, but it would have to be a lot of money for me to give up the new 25,000/month job that I'm starting tomorrow. I'd need to touch up my Russian a bit as I can't remember much at all. Fun stuff indeed.

Got trashed at a little Korean jam last night at my teacher's place. Her and 3 other Koreans were there and we had lots of Korean food, beer and wine. I got a few calls from the gym girl so after the party I went to hang out with her for a bit, but I'm almost ready to give up on her. While I was considering her as a potential girlfriend, I'm starting to wonder if she has any real interest in me. Sometimes it seems like it, but I'm just not sure.

Regina Girls College

2007-02-01T13:56:00.000+10:30

This is the end of my 2nd week teaching at this school. There has yet to be one day where all the classes went according to the schedule. My first class today was supposed to start at 10:20. I just came back from the room to find nobody there. I really hope I get paid for all of these hours that I was supposed to teach, but there was some other event or test going on that nobody bothered to inform me of.

One more week of this nonsense and then I'm free. This is a good thing as I don't function very well on this type of sleep schedule. No word yet on when/if I am supposed to start that new job. If I don't hear anything by tomorrow, I will call the guy again and find out whats up.

More Schoolage

2007-01-31T13:40:00.000+10:30

So yet again I came in expecting to be teaching 4 50 minute classes today only to arrive at the first one to find it empty save for one student who was running in to drop her bag off. "Is anybody coming to study today?" She replied, "No class today ajarn, there is a ceremony for some lady who turned a 100." "Is it going to take all day and is everyone in your grade in it?" Alas, she didn't know. It seems I will still have the other 3 classes, but nothing is certain. I better get paid for all these hours I never taught.

School of Rock

2007-01-30T12:52:00.000+10:30

This school that I am subbing at is just plain ridiculous. I arrived around 8:45 today as I have a 9:30 class. At 9:20, another teacher happened by and informed me that all M. 3 (14-15 yr olds) classes are cancelled as they will be taking tests all day. This might have been perfect as the normal schedule I picked up only has me teaching M. 3 today, but I picked up two M. 1 classes for a Malaysian guy who went home for the weekend so I gotta stick around all day. Oh well. At least I will supposedly still get paid for the hours that I would have worked had there been a class.

In other news, I think I actually did score the best job in Chiang Mai. I got a call last night from a guy I know that works there already who said that the boss wants to talk to me. So I called the guy and he said he'd give me a trial run at it. However, he said that the students prefer British teachers for some silly reason. Most people tend to think I'm from the UK anyways so I can talk to them like a chimney sweep if they so desire.

ARgh

2007-01-24T15:48:00.000+10:30

Ann stayed over on Sunday night. I fell asleep pretty early and I got my usual midnight call from the gym girl. Ann made the worst move ever and answered it. The girl asked to speak to me, but of course Ann told her I was already asleep. Terrible. I was extremely pissed when I found this out in the morning and I might have overreacted in my yelling at Ann.

Ahh the guy whos job I was hoping for was fired yesterday. Ironically, the day before he was going to quit without any notice. The boss told him some people didn't like his teaching methods. I had to stifle a laugh when he told me this because he doesn't actually have any teaching skills whatsoever.

Teacher Brett

2007-01-24T15:35:00.000+10:30

Today is my 3rd day of substitute teaching at Regina Girls College in Chiang Mai. I am teaching M. 2 and 3 which is the equivalent of middle school. 13-15 yr old girls. Today went rather well so far. We finished watching Pirates of the Carribbean 2 then after they refused to make an attempt at answering my questions I had them write down a few sentences on why they liked the movie. As hard as it is to teach in a classroom of 40-50 kids, its probably worse to learn in such an environment.

The fact that I speak Thai fluently spread like wildfire, but there were a bunch in each class who didn't know so they were still plenty of surprises. Today, for the first time, one girl asked if I spoke Northern Thai. I understand it pretty well, but I can't speak very much. Its the usual language monkey scenario, but I don't mind it so much when its kids because they treat me like a celeb rather than an oddity. In the class I just finished, I walked to the back of the room and noticed most of the back 2 rows hadn't taken out any paper to start the assignment. I asked them what was up and they said they didn't have any paper. I gave them some and they all went berserk. Seriously, girls that had paper put it away. Some of them were smelling and hugging the paper after they got it. Silliness.

I've been sick for almost 2 weeks now. Its the damn pollution. Its so thick lately, I have trouble breathing when I'm walking outside at certain points of the day. I wake up with a sore throat every day and have lots of unpleasantly thick goo coming up out of my lungs. Not really sure what to do about this. Do I start walking around with a gas mask on?

New Stuffisms

2007-01-21T19:24:00.000+10:30

I applied for the best job in Chiang Mai today. The manager wasn't there so I didn't get an interview, but the staff seemed to dig me. I have asked both of the guys who have the job to reccomend me. One of them is leaving and won't be telling them until Wed in fear of not getting paid. I tried to convince him to just tell them and let them know I am happy to be the replacement, but no luck as of yet. It could very likely still work out in my favour. As they will only have 2 days to find a replacement for him they might as well just call me! Good stuff.

I start the substitute job tomorrow morning. I am feeling a tad of anxiety, but I expect it to be a good time. I think I will spend the first class with each group just introducing myself and trying to get a bearing on the level of their English ability. I am wearing a tie tomorrow, but dunno if I will do it everyday or not yet. I'll see how everyone else is dressed.

Working Out

2007-01-20T20:42:00.000+10:30

I've decided not to study at Payap this semester for a number of reasons. One of the main ones being that they are only offering one class that I haven't taken already. Its kind of ridiculous. I'm not sure how I can graduate if they never open the higher level requred courses. Oh well. It looks like I will be working this term.

I got a substitute teaching job at this girls high school for the next 2 or 3 weeks. The pay is less than I would usually work for, but I figure its just a couple weeks and there are plenty of hours and it might even be fun.

In other news, there is a fair chance I am going to score the best teaching gig in Chiang Mai. I'll know in a few days I suppose. 2 people have this job. They work 4 hours a week and get 25,000 baht. That may not seem like a lot of money if you think about it in US$, but thats more than I usually spend in a month here, so with that and a few more private students whom I will teach Thai to and I'll be doing great financially. A much needed boost in my life.

I put an ad in a local free magazine in English and hopefully I'll get some inquiries. I've been teaching an English guy Thai for a bit over 2 months now and the progress is pretty impressive. My methods are too simple. Foreigners tend to scoff or laugh when I tell them I teach Thai. "But your not a native speaker!" Indeed. Plenty of foreigners speak at least some Thai here, but ones who speak clearly, correctly and are able to read/write or extremely rare. My current student is essentially my protege. I want to create the first whitey that can actually speak ชัด
(clearly) before he is even fluent.

My confidence is still going strong. I've been getting numbers competely sober lately which isn't very common for me. I keep expecting to get hit with anxiety and there are a few seconds where I tense up, but I think its just a reflex. I feel invincible.

The pollution here has been unbearable lately. I was stuck in bed with some serious lung problems for a few days this week from it. I woke up in the middle of the night one day with this awful pain similar to heartburn, but much worse and this awful crap oozing up out of my lungs. I couldn't eat for most of the day as anything I tried to get down intensified the pain. Over the next couple of days it turned into a pretty bad chest cold. Its not quite gone yet as I still wake up with a bit of a sore throat and some heavy unpleasant goo coming up. My lungs are so messed up. Itwill be rather surprising if I end up dying from something unrelated to my lungs. Oh well. At least my anxiety is low and my confidence is high lately. Now all I need is money.

Machine

2007-01-07T21:57:00.000+10:30

I went out with a bunch of whiteys last night. It was pretty fun. I thought I was gonna hang out with the gym girl, but it didn't happen so I got a few phone numbers in front of Warm Up before going to 7-11.

While I was having lunch today I went through my phone to figure out how many girls I'm talking to at the moment. The numbers were actually quite frightening. There are 17 of them if you count the three I met last night. One of them remembered me from when I tried to jeeb her some ages ago. I have slept with 4 of them already. There is no chance I'll get them all. I'm just not good at maintaining anything. What often happens is that I'll give up after a few days and not talk to them. Then sometime in the future I will run into them again and they will usually remember me and stare and/or smile at me which is the open door I need to go talk to them. Then the game begins again. I even got attacked by this one German girl last night. She came up to me and said something in German that I couldn't hear nor understand. My German is pretty limited to "Where is my hat?" and similar nonsense. I wasn't interested and I didn't know what to say. I didn't wanna be mean. She seemed pretty cool anyways. But, I was feeling more confident than I've felt in ages and I wanted to sweep through the club and see if I could either find any girls I know or find a new one.

Actually, one of the 17 girls I counted, I've never met. I ran into a friend last night and he gave me the phone # of some supposedly cute girl he met and somehow talked me into calling this person I've never met/seen (as far as I know). The conversation was pretty interesting. It went something like this:

me: Hey, where are you?
her: Who is this?
me: Its Brett!
her: Who?
me: Brett
her:Who?
me: Brett
her: Where do I know you from?
me: I just met you earlier at Warm Up (club name)
her: Oh. I don't remember.
me: Its ok. Where are you now?
her: Fashion House (club name). Where are you?
me: At 7-11.
her: Sorry that I can't remember you. I'm too drunk.
me: Haha. Its ok really.

I never met up with her, but it was kind of amusing all the same. Perhaps I'll call her tonight. Being single is refreshing, but it eventually gets old. I can't do this all year, but I try to capitalize on this odd burst of confidence I have during the first few months of the year. It inevitably tapers off around April or so. I have time.

Gym-tastc Stuffage

2007-01-05T18:44:00.000+10:30

So the gym girl was over again last night. Her x-boyfriend called her in the morning. Here is the translation of how the conversation went.

biggymguy: Hey. Where are you?
gymgirl: In my room.
biggymguy: I don't think so. I'm outside your room. I was going to take you to work.
gymgirl: Um. I'm with Brett.

I'm not sure what he said after that, but the girl said about ten times that there was nothing going on between us (me and her) and that we were just friends. Then after that she was telling me that if he asks me, I should say a bunch other girls slept over too. She ended up telling him that we just met for breakfast I think.

He greeted me at the gym with a smile, but his eyes didn't smile. Its uncomfortable for him, but I don't think he will say anything to me about it. That would be more uncomfortable. Also, it appears the chances of me dying in a freak treadmill accident have diminished considerably.

Meanwhile, the original gym girl I was sweating is pretending to jealous much to my amusement. Life is tough sometimes.

In other news, my x-girlfriend called to see if she could stay over tonight and got pissed when I said no. She has broken up with me so many times and come back its pretty ridiculous. So I'm single as far as I'm concerned. Whether or not she keeps coming over.

Reap the Harvest

2007-01-03T02:08:00.000+10:30

The New Year has arrived.

How ironic. I was just about to talk about how good this year was going to be. However, as I was ending the previous sentence I knocked over my drink and it spilled all over my desk while splashing my desktop and keyboard. Fun stuff.

This is the time of year where I usually shine. During the first 2-4 months of the year my confidence and ability to get things done are quite good.

I spent New Years Eve with 2 friends that live here. One is English, at least 10 years older than me and my Thai student, the other is American, 3-4 years younger and can't afford to be my Thai student. After the countdown (which is all anyone cares about here..."Where were you for the countdown?") things got better. One of the 2 girls who work at my gym (they are essentilaly pretty girls to lure people into trying out the gym. They sometimes pretend to exercise after removing their high heels - perhaps out of boredom), ended up calling me shortly after to see where I was. I have hung out with both of these girls, but I noticed that one of them had been showing strong interest in me since she broke up with her boyfriend, so I said she was welcome to join me out anytime. So New Years Eve was the first real time. She had just broken up with her boyfriend of 4 years. Of course as I am the unluckiest person in the world, this x-boyfriend is the largest guy who works at the gym. He is also the one that is most polite to me. I didn't find this out until she was already in my bed, but who am I to stop things there. I should probably refrain from asking him for a spot for a while anyways.

Aside from that girl (whom I am actually going to meet in 10 min), I met a really cute girl who is here from Bangkok last night. Actually, I've met far too many girls in the last week. I can't keep track of all of them so I often have to pretend to know who I am talking to/where I met them/what they look like. I get more numbers when I'm drunk then sober and therefore the supposedly clever names I put in my phone are limited in creativty. Many of the names in my phone look something like what you see below. Obviously, I can make more sense of it than you because I often include abbreviations of the locations I met them, but I can't always figure out what I was thinking when I typed that crap.

Ex:

DisGrlNoGd
Ice Ice
Lin Chinese
Joob Dis/
MaTa Niman
NookKawee?
?

Lift Me Up

2006-12-31T23:22:00.000+10:30

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

2006-12-14T03:28:00.000+10:30

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....

2006-12-13T12:22:00.000+10:30

.....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

2006-12-09T21:06:00.000+10:30

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

2006-12-03T00:04:00.000+10:30

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

2006-11-21T20:33:00.000+10:30

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

2006-11-12T15:14:00.000+10:30

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

2006-11-10T00:32:00.000+10:30

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

2006-11-04T22:57:00.000+10:30

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...

2006-11-04T00:08:00.000+10:30

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

2006-11-01T22:56:00.000+10:30

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

2006-10-29T19:59:00.000+10:30

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

Windows

2006-10-25T19:45:00.000+09:30

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

2006-10-15T18:13:00.000+09:30

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

2006-10-08T00:17:00.000+09:30

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

2006-10-04T04:26:00.000+09:30

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

2006-09-19T21:51:00.000+09:30

Birthday Jam

2006-09-18T20:58:00.000+09:30

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

2006-09-10T22:18:00.000+09:30

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

2006-08-27T21:55:00.000+09:30

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

2006-08-26T21:58:00.000+09:30

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

2006-08-16T01:26:00.000+09:30

# 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)

2006-08-15T23:56:00.000+09:30

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

2006-08-11T20:25:00.000+09:30

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

2006-07-26T20:04:00.000+09:30

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

2006-07-21T20:22:00.000+09:30

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

2006-07-18T12:06:00.000+09:30

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

2006-07-12T00:59:00.000+09:30

Picks from last Saturday at Flix on RCA in Bangkok.

Ah Shit

2006-07-08T22:50:00.000+09:30

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 !

2006-06-24T23:53:00.000+09:30

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

2006-06-18T03:55:00.000+09:30

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

2006-06-16T03:07:00.001+09:30

While I have had much to write about in the month or so since I've last posted, I haven't written a word. I'm not exactly sure why, but I suspect that it was partly due to the fact that I haven't been feeling so great lately.

First, I should recap on previous problems in my life. My hard drive died. I can't even begin to explain the amount of data that I lost as far as my language studies are concerned. Thousands of words and timed flashcard data between eight languages. By not keeping those words in my life (via my using of the program every day for a couple minutes) I risk losing a lot of those words. If your are exposed to or are given the opportunity to think about something every now and then you can not forget, however, without some form of exposure, much of your supposed 'learned knowledge' will deteriorate. Crap.

On top of that, I lost most of the papers I have written in the past few years, as well as pictures, and loads of other data.

As for the porn on my dead hard drive, I do have some sentimental attachment to a number of those movies, but alas, due to the increasing censorship on the internet here, I can no longer reach the best site out there for replacing such indulgences www.empornium.us. Enjoy it, as I cannot. I have attempted a number of proxy servers and other ways around censors, but I haven't had any luck, and I can't really devote much time to it. Rather tragic to be honest. The last thing I need is the loss of a major outlet of stress. I'm sure the censorship here is a fraction of what it is in China, but it has been stressing me out more and more (not only porn, of course - just mostly ;P).

I have done a few things of note lately. I bought a new computer (desktop) to replace my super-messed up laptop. I am pleased so far with its performance. I picked out all the parts myself to essentially build a high end system from 6 months ago. This allows me to play any current games as well as function as my multimedia center and giving me full functionality for language studies.

Needless to say, I have spent a lot of my mornings and really late nights playing games. This is something I have longed for in the years since I came here. I'm not sure if I miss the immersion or just having one thing that I tend to be better than most everyone else at, but either way, it just takes down my worries a few notches.
Games I'm Playing: Half-Life 2, Oblivion.

As far as my studies go, I suppose its going fairly well, though never as efficient as it should be. I'm taking 2 Chinese classes at the moment. One is M/W/F from 6-8 and is a lower-intermediate class CG 3 (CC 1-8, CG 1-8, CZ 1-8, CC is 30 hours per unit - 240 per level) (even though the school calls it 'intermediate'} and on T/Th, I study Business Chinese. While I can read a bit and understand a fair amount of spoken Chinese, I just don't feel very fluent.

On Tu, Th and Sun, I study Korean with a volunteer at a local university. She is a good teacher, but I feel comfortable telling her how to teach me which makes the lessons much more efficient. If she starts doing something that I feel is a waste of time, I refuse to take part. Risky, but efficient. I wish I could do this with all teachers. I can't even begin to explain how much Korean I have learned in the past couple of months. I went through a book that is designed for a 200 hour course in around 40 or 50 hours. I'm by no means fluent in Korean, but I am still rather impressed with myself. I strongly believe this is due to a patient teacher who doesn't get too offended by my criticisms of her teaching. Actually, I'm sure she doesn't like it, but I am fairly sure she understands that I know what I'm doing as far as how I absorb data.

I've had little Japanese action of late. However, I stumbled across an amazing site which is helping me finish learning the Heisig Kanji. I had made flashcards by hand for the first couple hundred kanji, but I gave up on that. Later I started again and did about 300 by cutting and pasting pieces from pdf files. That turned out to be a mistake because the images of the pdf files were huge and slowed the program down to the point where I had to take out all of them so it could run. This website is most useful for those who have James Heisig's book Remembering the Kanji, but even if you don't you might get something out of it. Koohii If for some reason you want to check my progress, my user name is Gwinarr.

Since I have been feeling pretty messed up lately, I decided to go off the Zoloft for a while. That had its ups and downs, but I feel so-so lately. I don't think I can give up the meds for good, but it was actually kind of nice to take a break from them. I can't say I have been depressed, but my mood has been really strange since I was slammed with lots of stress from a vareity of sources a month or so ago. I have been getting angry at people lately too easily. I can usually control my rage unlike my youth and it makes me kind of nervous when I get enraged over relatively trivial things. Aside from that, I have just been feeling bored with parts of my life. It doesn't help that I have awful insomnia.

I have tried to combat this rut with exercise. Its going relatively well. I exercise 6-7 days/week and I have begun playing competitive badmintion a few nights a week which is a lot rougher than it sounds. I go to this gym that is open until midnight and get my ass handed to me by professionals who play for hours every night. But I make up for my 10 year break from playing by determination and willingness to dive, roll, break my toes on shots that nobody else seems willing to go for (Thai stereotype - lazy). So I don't always lose, but more importantly, nobody puts you down for losing. Thats why I can handle it. We all put ourselves down a little, but for me anyways, as long as people are telling me I'm doing good or improving, I always give it my all. Too bad I had absolutely none of that for most of my life. A little praise might have saved me 20-odd years of misery. Oh well. At least I know where I don't want to live anymore.

I have a lot more to say about stuff, but I don't want to bore anyone, so I will go play games for an hour and see if I get tired. I'll write again soon. Comments are necessary for me to keep writing posts like this. Thanks Todd!

I've been too damn busy!

2006-05-28T18:51:00.000+09:30

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...

2006-05-01T00:13:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-30T19:25:00.000+09:30

Mae Sa Waterfall - Songkrahn 2006

Fallen Sidekick - OR - Noodles of Doom?

2006-04-29T00:23:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-27T21:14:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-18T22:23:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-14T09:39:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-13T02:53:00.000+09:30

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

2006-04-11T23:38:00.001+09:30

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

2006-03-11T17:31:00.000+10:30

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

2006-03-04T20:01:00.000+10:30

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.

2006-03-02T02:32:00.000+10:30

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

Too Busy

2006-02-22T04:22:00.000+10:30

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

2006-02-11T23:32:00.000+10:30

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

2006-02-06T01:44:00.000+10:30

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.

Japanese for Busy People

2006-02-02T16:08:00.000+10:30

I begin Japanese private lessons today at two schools, both of which I have previously studied at. 2-4 at YMCA followed by 4:30-6 at Kokusho. Following that marathon of JapanaMese, I gotta run to yoga class at 6:30. I will do one course with each and then choose whichever one I feel is better to continue with. I'd do both, but I'm kind of poor at the moment and private lessons cost a helluva lot more than courses. The biggest friggin problem with language study here is that you reach a certain level and you can't find upper intermediate or advanced classes anywhere. Sure, you may find classes that are advertised as advanced, but its really a load of bollocks. Sometimes I feel like I might kind of like to study Thai, just so I could get a grasp of newspaper vocabulary and score high on the 6th grade exam, but I'll get there eventually without really studying anyways. I suppose I'm not really in a hurry. Even if I was, what could I do?

Payap is going ok so far. I'm still worried about the workload for one class, but I should be able to manage it. We shall see. I have to give my first speech on Wed. No clue what my topic is. Perhaps Chiang Mai nightlife, or maybe Thai girls? Hrm.

Could I perhaps trouble you for some ice?

2006-01-29T20:04:00.000+10:30

Yesterday was fairly interesting. I got woken up by a phone call at 9:30 by a friend of mine who was attending the same wedding I was. Its a good thing she called as the wedding started at 10am. I ran and got my clothes from the laundry shop, showered super fast and finished dressing in the elevator.

A Korean guy I don't know terribly well married his Thai girlfriend of two years. My Chinese teacher and Korean teacher were both at the wedding, as well as a couple friends from Payap and from my Chinese school. Aside from that there weren't many people I knew, but I met a few interesting folks. The wording of the ceremony was rather odd. The sermon spoke rather specifically about sex, which I had never heard in a wedding before. They played some awfully tacky games where people would answer questions about the couple to win a prize. Then lunch, which I couldn't eat. I had salad over rice. No jehlicious (vegan) treats for me. Bummer.

Saturday I went and played badminton for a while with this one girl Sayu whom I've been hanging out with a bit lately. She seems cool enough, but I've made it clear I have no interest in a girlfriend at the moment. She doesn't seem to mind. Not yet anyways.

I went to Warm Up later to meet up with the crew, but I was surprised to find that nobody was there at around 11ish. They are always there on Sat night. I called Jeff and said "Where you at?". Somehow, he thought I said "Whad jyu got!?" and that has since become the funniest thing anyones ever heard. So basically, I have this new tag line which I didn't even say. Ah well. It will be funny for a while.

Later in the evening, I hadn't found any girls to invade, so I went to the bathtub table with the team. At the table next to us were 5 girls. Rather than stress over what I was going to say to approach them, I just asked Jeff. "Go ask them for ice." It worked rather nicely. I went and got a glass then went over and asked for ice. Then I sat down and asked if they could give me something to drink with the ice. Somehow we ended up playing jenga, at which I am a master, but I haven't a clue where that came from. Crazy times. I went out with them after for more debauchery. Got home late. Fun stuff.

The Return

2006-01-21T00:05:00.000+10:30

I finally managed to register today. It was quite late, but I don't really attribute this to myself as my advisor is nowhere to be found most of the time and when she shows up she is mobbed by all the others that were looking for her all day. I often feel that if we traded her in for a puppy, things would go smoother and I could actually start to get things done.

Anyways, I decided to go with the three writing classes. As much as this worries me and will surely cause me many hours of stress during the semester, it might be good for me. It also might be especially dangerous due to my inability to initiate the writing process without some outside assistance, but we shall see.

As such, the course load is as follows:

M - W - F

9am - 10am - Short Story and Novel - Basically, we read stuff, discuss it and critique it. The teacher is a hardcore feminist and published author. I always feel I must beware what I write with her. I think she means well, but she is too defensive. Also, she occasionally reads to us her own published works and then asks us to discuss them. Asking for feedback is one thing, but this is the person who will be choosing my grade later. I don't trust anyones ability to be objective.

11 - 12 - Speech Writing - I'm not really sure about the purpose behind this class as obvious as it may seem, however the teacher seems really cool and so far it has been fun. I don't expect this to be an obscene amount of work. I am fine with assignments which require us to think about - then present some sort of discertation to the class, but weekly papers are a bit tougher for me.

1pm - 2pm - Mass Media - This class seems to be about the purpose behind the various forms of media and what their purposes are and how they differ. I suspect this will be the least stressful class for me. Much writing, but the assignments are to be more specific than the previous two. The less choices I must make, the less alcohol I must consume to make them. The instructor is the same as Speech Writing.

Sorry So Long - What Can I Say?

2006-01-18T05:59:00.000+10:30

I haven't slept in two days.

I'm not sure where to begin. I haven't written in a while for a number of reasons. Certainly, the first trigger was my trip to Korea. I'm not sure how much I can speak about, but it is safe to say that I am single again and enjoying it very much. Korea was an awful trip for many reasons. There was a few good nights and I didn't spend so much money there, but overall, it was pretty awful. I felt very uncomfortable there. Not the country, but the situation. It was an interesting place and I would probably enjoy living there somewhere outside of Seoul. I visited one other city that seemed more my speed, called Daegu. Anyways, I just don't see any need to go into details about that trip, but I feel comfortable saying that my night there (in Daegu) was the only night I truly enjoyed myself in Korea without any worries.

I hate Payap. Payap is my university. While, I don't necessarily hate the school as a whole, I hate it as an institution. And perhaps more specifically, I am referring to the international college. I honestly feel that all my attempts at a real education are thwarted by an administration full of corruption, cronyism and mounds of bullshit of which pains me to mention. Often, I feel that it is just the best scam ever. The standard of education in Thailand is lacking to begin with, but then again, there are very high levels of education to be found in certain departments of certain institutions as is the case anywhere. However, one of the major differences is how financial status has an effect on the level/standard of education. In the US, money alone or extremely good grades and high standardized testing scores (along with money and/or scholarships) can secure one a place in a decent institution. In Thailand however, admission to private uni/colleges is entirely dependant on tuition. Government funded schools have testing standards (which of course aren't necessarily fair for people who have handicaps or disadvantages related to testing, but at least they provide some level to work with) which are based on quotas which are based on majors and birthplace (similar to many Asian countries).

Let me try to spell things out in basic English. I live in Thailand. I want to learn things. Languages in particular. However, I have many interests. At my university, I am an English major. Most of the classes are far to easy for me. This doesn't bother me as I think the concept of a degree is rather ridiculous in the first place. But, as it stands, I must have this silly piece of toilet paper to secure a working visa in most of the countries of which I wish to live. I think I have slipped away from basic English. Let us move on to another angle of my worries in the following paragraph.

I have no clue as to what I should study this term, if anything. Originally, I had thought I would study 3 or 4 classes on M/W/F, however, I was rather horrified to discover that each of these classes involved much writing. For me, my ability to write comes and goes based on a number of factors. Unfortunately for my health, writing papers almost always involves drinking. Moreover, having three classes that all involve papers would, without a doubt, severely impair my progression with languages. I can study for classes that require me to memorize/learn theories or terms while waiting for the elevator, in between sets at the gym, or sitting in taxis, but to sit and write involves many hours for me. Classes such as this don't interfere with the other three schools at which I study. Nor do they truly impair my ability to cope with studying at four schools and working part-time simultaneously.
My schedule tends to get very full for most of the year. I have found that the less time one has, the more productive one can truly be.

There is much else I want to say sometimes, but I just haven't felt comfortable writing about them lately. I have so many stories that I want to write, but I just don't feel that I can. I feel my Japanese level has deteriorated, while my ability to communicate in Chinese has increased signifigantly. My Thai, while already quite fluent, is in a state of transformation. My Korean ability, I feel, is just a few months away from being able to truly converse (albeit at a basic level).

As for women, not unlike last January, where I broke up with my previous girlfriend of one year before going to Australia ( perhaps so I could have one month of guilt-free debauchery?) I came back single and so far I've had a similar amount of action. While, there is one potential serious relationship, I have about six others which I would like to play out first. In a culture where the expectations of monogamy are all a farce to begin with, it is difficult to weed through the underbrush of ladies to find something of quality. Then again, the adventures that come of these missions of 'gardening' can be pretty sweet.

I fell asleep this afternoon for 4 or 5 hours and I know I won't sleep again this eve. Question me before you misunderstand. I'm a bitter guy, but I care about some things. And, I never allow those around me that are naive or defenseless to be tread on.

This doesn't even remotely begin to cover the things in my life in the past couple of weeks, but I hope it offers an accurate glimse.

New Years and Stuff

2006-01-02T03:26:00.000+10:30

I've been in Bangkok since the 27th. Most of the plans I had were cancelled and my money seems to be evaporating here so I'm going back to Chiang Mai tomorrow. I watched Narnia and March of the Emperor, both of which were very good. I also so a Japanese movie called Nana which was a great film.

I originally had planned to go to Kanchanaburi with a girl I met the night before I went to Korea, but things got kind of awkward with her somehow and it made me very hesitant to go travel with her for 2 or 3 nights. So I went to Pattaya instead with 2 of the girls that I met on Koh (island of) Samet a couple months ago. It took a bit less than 2 hours to get there and then we spent another 2 hours driving around trying to find a room. They would have gone on longer if I hadn't been able to convince them that we really didn't need a room. So we went out and it wasn't that exciting. Too hot, too many people, too much smoke, etc. The only nice part of the night was when they took me to a Russian strip club. I wasn't even aware that they had a Russian community in Pattaya, let alone Russian strippers. Good stuff. Most of them weren't terribly interesting, but they certainly put on a better show than their Thai counterparts in the other room.

I spent the day with the Koh Samet girl and then we met up with 2 of the other girls that I met on the island and we went out for a bit. It was ok.

Overall, I think December was a miserable month. I've lost about 5 kilos somehow and I've been sick almost the entire month. On top of that Chiang Mai is oddly a little cold. Well, maybe like mid-50s at night, but when you are on a motorcycle with a t-shirt it feels super cold. Physically, I feel very strange lately.

Next round of Chinese classes starts tomorrow. I need to fill up my schedule as quickly as possible.

Daegu

2005-12-21T00:17:00.000+10:30

Well, to my grand disappointment, I have finally admitted to myself that there just isn't any financial way for me to make it to Japan on this trip. I'm so close, but it isn't going to happen. This is going to really destroy my credibility with all of the people I told I was coming. I thought I could pull it off, but I erred by coming to Korea first rather than Japan. Therefore, I won't be here too much longer. I'm heading back to Thailand on the 27th rather than the 5th as I don't want to impose too much longer on my 3 hostesses. Tomorrow I am heading to Daegu to visit Will, another Korean whom I befriended in Seoul. I'll just stay there one night before coming back to Seoul.

Yesterday, I saw King Kong. While it did have some flaws, I'm tempted to call it a fantastic remake. Over three hours and I didn't even notice it was that long. Perhaps, that is all that really matters, how long it 'feels'. Good stuff.

I visited Gyeongbok, which was built during the Chosun/Joseon Dynasty sometime towards the end of the 14th century. As my luck would have it, the place was closed and I'm not sure I'll get over there again this trip, but I suppose its possible. The place is huge. Just looking at the outer and inner gates and the maps, the word palace seems a bit weak. It used to have hundreds of buildings, but many of them have been destroyed and rebuilt so I have no clue how many are there now. Oh well. I bet it would have been pretty amazing. Instead, we went in the palace museum next door which was boring and small as far as museums go.

Smokers Die Already!

2005-12-20T12:09:00.000+10:30

I've been sick for about two weeks or so now. I'm quite sure its a direct result of my being around people that smoke too much. It started one day after I went out for about 2 hours with a group of people, most of whom smoked. We sat outside, but I was just surrounded by it and suffered badly for a few days following. That along with the fact that I walk through or sit in smoke every day in CM. What its like for me now that I've been away from smoke for a few days is almost identical to when I quit smoking some 6 years ago. Its like a cold, where your sinuses are constantly expelling fluids. For the 2 days before I left Thailand I woke up drowning in my own saliva at 4 or 5 in the morning. Its mighty unpleasant. So I can't breathe as well as I should, and on top of that, varying amounts of yellow goodness are attempting to ease their way from my lungs to the nearest place that I can spit them. Nice eh? It feels a lot worse than it sounds.

Maybe I should move to Bhutan?