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.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Nothing Interesting Today
A number of crazy things have happened to me lately. Last weekend I threw a guy into a table and came mighty close to getting into a brawl. I also managed to get about 10 phone numbers from various girls. But I'm feeling lazy to go into those stories so I won't.
Last night, I went to Glass Onion with Wad and Gateaux for some wine and some whining. Its really interesting how much of my day is spent complaining or listening to someone else complain. I kind of like it actually. The biggest stressors in our lives here are trivial in comparison to the troubles I had in the states.
After Glass Onion, I headed over to meet two Chinese girls, Wei Ni and Gina, with whom I used to hang out a lot, but that kind of died out after a while. I never figured out why. Anyways, I was rather angry to find out that they called me just to ask me some dirt on this guy who recently began studying at my uni. That ended kind of badly for her when I told her to just call him and ask him rather than me. I barely know the guy. She went off to call him and came back crying and wanted to leave.
I have no classes next week so I hopefully can get some of my mid-term papers started. I gotta write a 8 minute informative speech, an article about a speech on women's rights that I am going to attend on Thursday and I have one exam on Monday.
The other day I gave a short introductory speech in my speech writing class and I felt no anxiety at all. This has never happened before. I had taken my usual 100mg of Zoloft late the day before, and I had only took 50mg the morning of the speech so I'm curious as to if 150mg is the magic number for me. Its a bit too expensive so I will just try it next time I need to do something that causes me anxiety.
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.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Too Busy
Too many papers, too little time.
My plans to fill up my schedule have gotten a bit out of hand. I am now employed at three different places. Although, one job is twice a month, and one is once a week. The third will fill in most of the blank spots in my schedule during the day. The blank spots used to be nap time. Therefore, I'm friggin exhausted now.
The main problem is that I got hit with a few papers at one time, and due to my inability to concentrate on one thing for more than 120 seconds or so, I am pretty awful at writing papers. What this entails is me sitting in front of the computer many nights for many hours. This would be more bearable if I wasn't already tired from studying/working all day.
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.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
1 Night in Sukothai
I flew to Sukothai yesterday afternoon for the wedding of my longtime friends Boom and Olaf. We went to her aunt's house first for the ceremony, which happened to be my first Thai wedding.
They kneel on a table and rest there arms on some pillows and everyone crawls by and everyone pours water over there hands and then ties a string around both of there right wrists. After this you drop an envelope of cash into another tray after you pass by them. There is a tray of food offerings next to them which happened to include the face of a pig. Obviously, I didn't dig that so much. Its eyes were open a little bit.
After everybody ties the strings and hands over some cash, some elder guy chanted and sang and stuff. And then I guess they were offically married. Lots of pictures. It was a long time to be sitting on my legs.
After that came whiskey and socializing. I sat at the Thai table and had to go through the usual language-monkey routine until they would talk to me like a normal person. Eventually, I won most of them over so it was decent enough.
Later we went to a resort for the dinner party. There was one really attractive girl so I made sure to sit at her table. This turned out to be a brilliant move on my part.
Someone made the mistake of pointing out that I am capable of karaoke in Thai (it might of been me) so I was forced to go on stage and 'perform'. It went fairly well I think, considering I was fairly drunk. It certainly won over the girl at the table. She had to go to Bangkok for 4 days for work and she asked me to go with her. I had to decline due to the fact that I'm poor and have too much homework at the moment. Ugh. So, unfortunately she had to run off to wake up super-early so she could drive to Bangkok. I think she will likely come to see me in Chiang Mai next month.
After the dinner jam, about 12 of the survivors, including the bride and groom went to some karaoke joint called Kitty World or something. It was inundated with Hello Kitty paraphernalia. I found myself doing most of the singing. At some point, some guy sat down with us and turned off the tv and played guitar for us. It was pretty fun.
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.
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