On Thursday, we got in a car
And travelled very, very far
We started in the night at eight
And got to Pattaya extremely late
On the way the ride was long and bumpy
Making me so very grumpy
I tried to sleep but had nothing soft
And the loud music in my ears would waft
They said, “With the diet you’re not happy”
No shit. It’s 3am and I’m crabby
When we got to the hotel, I would sleep
With Hong on a twin. I wanted to weep
Next morning the hot shower was like heaven
I didn’t get out until half-past eleven
Excited that to the beach we would go
Learning of a meeting was a huge blow
I was distracted then, I do suppose
For on my finger the door I did close
Right then and there I almost cried
Then I thought: Loy Krathong! Beauty Pageant! Died.
After smashing my digit in the door
I bled and bled and bled some more
With bandages, my spirit they did not lift
Instead we went to pick up Gift
Two hours later it got some attention
“We’re going to the beach now”, they did mention
They dropped us off and left with glee
In horror I saw how dull it would be
The meeting was boring and oh so long
Mostly bitched about what in the Club was "wrong"
I met other exchange students during and after
And thought they were, (adj.) with their (adj.) laughter
A millennium later we were free
But then there was a Dinner, including me
Left early with the hosts, for no more could I endure
“This has to be more fun,” I thought, “For sure.”
Accordingly, the rest of the night was great
We roamed the lively streets until it was late
The lights, the girls, the bars, the bands…
Wild… And many people from different lands
The next day was supposed to be better
And I kept my fingers crossed for good weather
We jumped on a bus, and put baby turtles in the sand
Then we boarded a boat and left for an i-land
We planted coral and ate ice cream
In October? La! What a dream
I snorkeled and swam all afternoon
And got a sunburn way too soon
Later, we checked out and then crusaded
To the seaside, and ate while the sky faded
And then it was off to Bangkok
Arriving at a crazy o’clock
Next day we shopped and ate, and ate and shopped
At the end in the car we flopped
We dumped Gift back at college
There wasn’t air conditioning, to my knowledge
Then we turned our eyes towards our humble abode
Stopping only once: on more clothes my money I bestowed
After, I munched on grapes and laid on the seat
Feeling closely, fairly… complete.
I suppose it was a long weekend
(For Monday, asleep most of school I did spend)
But from what sucked a lot at first
A wholelotta coolness did, well, burst.
--Anchelle
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Rollin' with the devil cos he's on my level
Okay, so since my Thai language skills basically consist of me being able to talk about if and what I ate, and where I am going (aka: nill), its obvious that I'm going to run into some problems. Figuring out who my family members are is a problem that I definitly was not expecting though.
Around here lately, people seem to be materializing out of the woodwork. Just at the beginning of last week in fact, I was sitting in the dining room watching 'Alias' episodes on my laptop, when the door opened and 11 people came in and settled down around me. Like, I'm just sitting there in the midst of all these people (all ages), some of whom are eating things, and I have no clue who they are. I recognized three of them, that I'm pretty sure are related in some way to my host dad (er, or mom...), but the others? Talk about an awkward situation, at least for me. This lasted for about 5 minutes, when they suddenly all got up, got into a van and left. Well, most of them got in the van, the others, er, apparated...? I asked P'Guy what had just happened, but he couldn't explain it in English so he told me not to worry. Sure... And then there's the cousins. I had been here for about two weeks, when two people showed up. In Thailand, where transsexuals are as common as cows on the side of the road (ie there are many boys at school who wear more makeup than I do), I wasn't sure about the sex of the first 'cousin', but the second one was definitely a woman. I asked Gift who they were, and she said they were cousins who were visiting. Well, they haven't left yet. And I think the woman works here, so I'm not sure about the whole 'relation' thing. And the other, er, 'he' dissapears for days at a time, and then shows back up at the Namyen Resort with a different woman every time, so there goes the theory that they're a couple. Neither speaks a word of English and they always smile and pat me when they see me. I call them Mystery People Numbers One and Two.
About two weeks ago, Mystery Person Number Three showed up. After carefully listening to the sounds of their conversations, I believe that his name is Guy as well as my host brother (uh... confusing much?). And I think he lives here also. I have a suspicion that he's the son of the Mystery Woman, but since she's the size of a small dwarf and he's, uh, not... I could be wrong. Around the same time 'Guy' started appearing right after lunch, Khun Ma started talking about someone named J'Hong. The thing about Thai, is that they have no distinction between 'he' and 'she', so I thought Khun Ma was talking about some dude who was coming in a few weeks. We picked up her female cousin later that day. She was pretty cool, an international pharmaceutical student, who lives like 8 hours away. I could never figure her name out though. Khun Ma continued to talk about a mysterious J'Hong and a few days ago, I finally asked her who this was. Oops. Big mistake. She was appalled. No, it was worse than that.
Because of the J'Hong incident, I'm finding that I'm just going to have to be satisfied with never knowing who these people are, and if more show up, they will go on the Mysterious Persons List. I'm pretty sure I've passed the point where I can politely ask what their names are, let alone who they belong to, and I suspect that I've been about 100 miles past this point for a while now. Sigh. Its a good thing, in this sense, that I don't speak Thai. Because I can just smile, duck my head, and run like hell for the exit when they appear on the scene and blame it on my innability to communicate.
The longer I am here, the more I am starting to learn about myself. Like, I do not take direction or orders very well. Particularly directions from people around my age, especially those that my holier-than-thou 'friends' (mostly girls) frequently try to give me. Uh, on no you didnint. It all started when the Annoying One told me that I shouldn't drink milk. I drink milk every chance I get, no matter how funny it tastes. Pia, mostly a nice girl (except when she tries to boss me) tells me not to cross my legs. I do it anyways. She tries to pull me off the grass and make me walk three feet to my left on the cement. I dodge her tenticles, because everyone knows that 'C' is the easiest way to get from point 'A' to point 'B' and I mean, there are feral dogs everwhere so how nice can the grass be? Today, I wanted to stand on the ledge of the bus, hanging onto the railing (totally not as dangerous as it sounds) on our way to a funeral (yes, another one. Story of my life) and she told me I had to get in the bus and if I didn't she wasn't going to talk to me. Pfftt, like I care. I had fun talking to this boy in my class, whose English is quite good, and sticking my head super far into the wind. After the funeral they handed out bottles of medication, because apparently the dude died of an aneurysm in his brain. Kitti told me that it was the equivalent of Tylenol, and then Pia told me that I had to ask my host parents or sister before I could take any. I opened the bottle right there and took two (in case you're wondering, my stomach is currently killing me). Now, I realize that this behavior isn't very Rotarian Exchange Student of me, but I can't help it. I think it's something in my DNA maybe. Pia tells me, and everyone else, that only woman serve the food and drink around here. You can bet your bottom dollar that I will never serve anyone. Anything. Ever. She tells me that only men smoke cigarettes; I want to go out and buy some then. I can respect the elders and get down with the Budda and most of the customs, but I am not here to become the perfect little Thai wife for someone. I feel like if I compromise my beliefs and personality in this way then I will cease to be myself and I will instead become a cyborg programmed for public servitude (Yes. Master. *zapping noise* Booger. Eliminated.). The day that Pia's comments start to make sense to me, is the day that I might as well just sign a marriage contract to the first Thai man I see. *Pukes*
Today was also the first day of school. Like I said before, I skipped for the rest of the day right after lunch (with my whole class) to go to the funeral of Short James' father (boy in M. 5.1). This morning I was twenty minutes late to school and was almost made to do jumping jacks, but I faked like I didn't know what was going on and got out of it. Heh heh heh... I went to visit with an English teacher after I escaped and she took one look at me and then told me that I looked fatter. In those exact words. She then squeezed my arm as if to make her point. Because over here muscle equals fat. Go figure.
Staring into the mirror, convinced that I haven't gained weight... But then again my uniform didn't exactly fit,
Anchellee
Around here lately, people seem to be materializing out of the woodwork. Just at the beginning of last week in fact, I was sitting in the dining room watching 'Alias' episodes on my laptop, when the door opened and 11 people came in and settled down around me. Like, I'm just sitting there in the midst of all these people (all ages), some of whom are eating things, and I have no clue who they are. I recognized three of them, that I'm pretty sure are related in some way to my host dad (er, or mom...), but the others? Talk about an awkward situation, at least for me. This lasted for about 5 minutes, when they suddenly all got up, got into a van and left. Well, most of them got in the van, the others, er, apparated...? I asked P'Guy what had just happened, but he couldn't explain it in English so he told me not to worry. Sure... And then there's the cousins. I had been here for about two weeks, when two people showed up. In Thailand, where transsexuals are as common as cows on the side of the road (ie there are many boys at school who wear more makeup than I do), I wasn't sure about the sex of the first 'cousin', but the second one was definitely a woman. I asked Gift who they were, and she said they were cousins who were visiting. Well, they haven't left yet. And I think the woman works here, so I'm not sure about the whole 'relation' thing. And the other, er, 'he' dissapears for days at a time, and then shows back up at the Namyen Resort with a different woman every time, so there goes the theory that they're a couple. Neither speaks a word of English and they always smile and pat me when they see me. I call them Mystery People Numbers One and Two.
About two weeks ago, Mystery Person Number Three showed up. After carefully listening to the sounds of their conversations, I believe that his name is Guy as well as my host brother (uh... confusing much?). And I think he lives here also. I have a suspicion that he's the son of the Mystery Woman, but since she's the size of a small dwarf and he's, uh, not... I could be wrong. Around the same time 'Guy' started appearing right after lunch, Khun Ma started talking about someone named J'Hong. The thing about Thai, is that they have no distinction between 'he' and 'she', so I thought Khun Ma was talking about some dude who was coming in a few weeks. We picked up her female cousin later that day. She was pretty cool, an international pharmaceutical student, who lives like 8 hours away. I could never figure her name out though. Khun Ma continued to talk about a mysterious J'Hong and a few days ago, I finally asked her who this was. Oops. Big mistake. She was appalled. No, it was worse than that.
Because of the J'Hong incident, I'm finding that I'm just going to have to be satisfied with never knowing who these people are, and if more show up, they will go on the Mysterious Persons List. I'm pretty sure I've passed the point where I can politely ask what their names are, let alone who they belong to, and I suspect that I've been about 100 miles past this point for a while now. Sigh. Its a good thing, in this sense, that I don't speak Thai. Because I can just smile, duck my head, and run like hell for the exit when they appear on the scene and blame it on my innability to communicate.
The longer I am here, the more I am starting to learn about myself. Like, I do not take direction or orders very well. Particularly directions from people around my age, especially those that my holier-than-thou 'friends' (mostly girls) frequently try to give me. Uh, on no you didnint. It all started when the Annoying One told me that I shouldn't drink milk. I drink milk every chance I get, no matter how funny it tastes. Pia, mostly a nice girl (except when she tries to boss me) tells me not to cross my legs. I do it anyways. She tries to pull me off the grass and make me walk three feet to my left on the cement. I dodge her tenticles, because everyone knows that 'C' is the easiest way to get from point 'A' to point 'B' and I mean, there are feral dogs everwhere so how nice can the grass be? Today, I wanted to stand on the ledge of the bus, hanging onto the railing (totally not as dangerous as it sounds) on our way to a funeral (yes, another one. Story of my life) and she told me I had to get in the bus and if I didn't she wasn't going to talk to me. Pfftt, like I care. I had fun talking to this boy in my class, whose English is quite good, and sticking my head super far into the wind. After the funeral they handed out bottles of medication, because apparently the dude died of an aneurysm in his brain. Kitti told me that it was the equivalent of Tylenol, and then Pia told me that I had to ask my host parents or sister before I could take any. I opened the bottle right there and took two (in case you're wondering, my stomach is currently killing me). Now, I realize that this behavior isn't very Rotarian Exchange Student of me, but I can't help it. I think it's something in my DNA maybe. Pia tells me, and everyone else, that only woman serve the food and drink around here. You can bet your bottom dollar that I will never serve anyone. Anything. Ever. She tells me that only men smoke cigarettes; I want to go out and buy some then. I can respect the elders and get down with the Budda and most of the customs, but I am not here to become the perfect little Thai wife for someone. I feel like if I compromise my beliefs and personality in this way then I will cease to be myself and I will instead become a cyborg programmed for public servitude (Yes. Master. *zapping noise* Booger. Eliminated.). The day that Pia's comments start to make sense to me, is the day that I might as well just sign a marriage contract to the first Thai man I see. *Pukes*
Today was also the first day of school. Like I said before, I skipped for the rest of the day right after lunch (with my whole class) to go to the funeral of Short James' father (boy in M. 5.1). This morning I was twenty minutes late to school and was almost made to do jumping jacks, but I faked like I didn't know what was going on and got out of it. Heh heh heh... I went to visit with an English teacher after I escaped and she took one look at me and then told me that I looked fatter. In those exact words. She then squeezed my arm as if to make her point. Because over here muscle equals fat. Go figure.
Staring into the mirror, convinced that I haven't gained weight... But then again my uniform didn't exactly fit,
Anchellee
Monday, October 5, 2009
Oh, The Woes of Modern Technology
Communication in the Middle Ages must have been hell. I cannot imagine having no television, no telephone and no postal service. Oh, wait. I take that back. I believe I stand a better chance of writing my message on a banana leaf, finding a peasant and sending him off on a fruitless quest to find the recipient, than I do of ever getting a message out by modern technology. While I thought it was annoying to have a 'Very Low' connection to the wireless Internet about a month ago, I am now finding out that a 'Very Low' connection in which it takes 5 minutes to load a web page is better than no Internet at all. I am truly living in that Verizon Wireless commercial, you know, the one where the family walks into the car rental agency and the zombies tell them they are in a dead zone? That's me. Only, the zombies are speaking in Thai, there aren't any subtitles and the nice guy in glasses doesn't sporadically pop up with his minions of connection.
Now, before I go on my rant about living an untraceable life, let me assure you that generally, life in the Land of Smiles is improving. It's not so much a problem of "too much to do, too little time to do it in" anymore. It's quite the opposite, actually.
My troubles in communication all began about 3 weeks ago, when Gift left for university in Bangkok. I woke up that morning, tried to access my email and failed. Hmm, I mused, it must be down at the moment, and I gave it no more thought until right before Gift got in her car and drove into the highway mirage. After she left, I asked my host brother P'keng why the Internet was down. He told me that Gift had taken the wireless with her. To Bangkok. Is that even possible? I still can't figure it out. At any rate, I was taken with a sudden urge to chase down her car screaming, "Don't take it away! For God's sake, don't take it away!", instead of screaming, "Please don't leave me! No one speaks English!", that I think would have been slightly more appropriate. Well, it turned out that I could still kind of connect to the Internet by manually plugging my computer into another phone line. This lasted only a few days, however, before I walked yawing into the dining room one afternoon, to see three computers gutted over numerous tables. What the... When P'keng came home he told me that the connection was broken. Right around this time, I started realizing that the text messages I was sending on my phone weren't actually reaching their destinations, and then suddenly the messages I was receiving were loading without any words. When I logged onto P'keng's computer for a few moments last week, I realized that the snail-mail my parents had sent me still hadn't arrived. And so, my quandary is thus: If I no longer have access to Internet, and if my phone is malfunctioning, and if my mail is not arriving, is where I'm living actually even in existence? I mean, I could have easily gone insane in the early days of September when the modern world began to fail me and been tranquilized and moved somewhere else. Or maybe I've been watching too many episodes of 'Criminal Minds'...
That ranted, without the addicting distraction of Internet, life as I know it has been rather dull. I know... you all have probably been thinking that I'm just growing too busy to write anymore, but sadly, that isn't the case. I think the most interesting thing that has happened to me in these past few weeks, has been chipping my tooth on a glass coke bottle. Or maybe last night, when I saw a Marie Claire magazine with English writing on the the cover in the middle of Lotus (think Thai-version of Safeway) and I flipped out, loudly exclaiming things like, "Omigosh! I can't BELIEVE this!! It's English!! And on a Marie Claire!! I haven't seen one of these the whole time I've been in Thailand!! Holy crap!! This is AMAZING!!". Until I opened it. You know, I really don't understand why they put English on the cover if they're just going to write all the articles in Thai. Talk about Letdown of the Century. Oh, and I suppose I could count two Sundays ago when I was forced into teaching at another English Camp, this time for all the teachers of my school. My station was supposed to be "Asking and Answering Directions" but the English teacher I was teaching with thought it would be more educational if she sat me down on a stool with a microphone and fielded questions. One woman asked me about American culture and then which I thought was better: Thai culture or my culture. "Well..." I wanted to say, "in my culture, when it's 95 degrees outside, I can wear shorts, so I would say, my culture..." but I didn't. I told her (and repeated it twice) that the two were so opposite that I couldn't even begin to compare them. Then another teacher asked me if we ate rice in America.
I didn't have to go to school last week, because all the students were taking their semester exams, and I have the next two weeks off before the next semester kicks off. Last week, like I said before, I pretty much watched episodes of 'Criminal Minds' and 'Numbers' all day and I watched the whole first season of 'The Big Bang Theory' in about two days. I have killed Minesweeper over and over again and I have a 72% win rate at Spider. I have organized and re-organized my music collection on iTunes and photo shopped a lot of my pictures so that now I have green skin and neon hair, or no face and purple sunglasses. I even tried sunning myself on a particularly hot day while I read a book and listened to jazz. I fell asleep and woke up covered in monster-sized red ants. I tried bleaching parts of my hair (apparently my dirty blond color is the brightest color of blond hair dye they sell), I clipped every other nail, and I discovered my bathroom has good acoustics for ghost noises. I wonder what I'll do for the rest of this week and next week...
The last image I want to leave you all with (for it could be another long stretch of no Internet, and using P'keng's computer is totally a guess and click enterprise, as everything is in Thai) is the ceremony I attended yesterday. We left the Namyen Resort at about 8am, drove around Kanthralak in a long procession and then went on some random country lane, inching along like worms. We ended up in a tiny tiny village at about 10:45am, that is actually only about 20 kilometers from Kanthralak. Anyways, we got to the temple to see dancers dancing around the actual building, with a hoard of people following. My host family walked right past them and sat down at some tables and then we began to eat. We ate for like 30 minutes, and the whole time I was wondering why no one else was around. My host mom kept telling me to keep eating because all the food was free. When we were done eating, we got extra bags of desserts, briefly watched them put the Budda up on the podium (part of the ceremony), and then we left. Apparently, (I learned in the car) we arrived late to the ceremony, so we skipped it altogether, ate the free food and then left. When we were walking back to the car, an old man asked P'Guy (host brother who came home from Bangkok for a while) if the bags of sweets he was carrying were a loi ma klap? (very delicious?). I was laughing so hard thinking about how we only came for the free food and now we were leaving with bags of it, that I tripped over a rock and almost fell flat on my face.
Still laughing about how we are now like Crazy Evelyn, but instead of crashing funerals, we crash temple celebrations,
Anchelee
Now, before I go on my rant about living an untraceable life, let me assure you that generally, life in the Land of Smiles is improving. It's not so much a problem of "too much to do, too little time to do it in" anymore. It's quite the opposite, actually.
My troubles in communication all began about 3 weeks ago, when Gift left for university in Bangkok. I woke up that morning, tried to access my email and failed. Hmm, I mused, it must be down at the moment, and I gave it no more thought until right before Gift got in her car and drove into the highway mirage. After she left, I asked my host brother P'keng why the Internet was down. He told me that Gift had taken the wireless with her. To Bangkok. Is that even possible? I still can't figure it out. At any rate, I was taken with a sudden urge to chase down her car screaming, "Don't take it away! For God's sake, don't take it away!", instead of screaming, "Please don't leave me! No one speaks English!", that I think would have been slightly more appropriate. Well, it turned out that I could still kind of connect to the Internet by manually plugging my computer into another phone line. This lasted only a few days, however, before I walked yawing into the dining room one afternoon, to see three computers gutted over numerous tables. What the... When P'keng came home he told me that the connection was broken. Right around this time, I started realizing that the text messages I was sending on my phone weren't actually reaching their destinations, and then suddenly the messages I was receiving were loading without any words. When I logged onto P'keng's computer for a few moments last week, I realized that the snail-mail my parents had sent me still hadn't arrived. And so, my quandary is thus: If I no longer have access to Internet, and if my phone is malfunctioning, and if my mail is not arriving, is where I'm living actually even in existence? I mean, I could have easily gone insane in the early days of September when the modern world began to fail me and been tranquilized and moved somewhere else. Or maybe I've been watching too many episodes of 'Criminal Minds'...
That ranted, without the addicting distraction of Internet, life as I know it has been rather dull. I know... you all have probably been thinking that I'm just growing too busy to write anymore, but sadly, that isn't the case. I think the most interesting thing that has happened to me in these past few weeks, has been chipping my tooth on a glass coke bottle. Or maybe last night, when I saw a Marie Claire magazine with English writing on the the cover in the middle of Lotus (think Thai-version of Safeway) and I flipped out, loudly exclaiming things like, "Omigosh! I can't BELIEVE this!! It's English!! And on a Marie Claire!! I haven't seen one of these the whole time I've been in Thailand!! Holy crap!! This is AMAZING!!". Until I opened it. You know, I really don't understand why they put English on the cover if they're just going to write all the articles in Thai. Talk about Letdown of the Century. Oh, and I suppose I could count two Sundays ago when I was forced into teaching at another English Camp, this time for all the teachers of my school. My station was supposed to be "Asking and Answering Directions" but the English teacher I was teaching with thought it would be more educational if she sat me down on a stool with a microphone and fielded questions. One woman asked me about American culture and then which I thought was better: Thai culture or my culture. "Well..." I wanted to say, "in my culture, when it's 95 degrees outside, I can wear shorts, so I would say, my culture..." but I didn't. I told her (and repeated it twice) that the two were so opposite that I couldn't even begin to compare them. Then another teacher asked me if we ate rice in America.
I didn't have to go to school last week, because all the students were taking their semester exams, and I have the next two weeks off before the next semester kicks off. Last week, like I said before, I pretty much watched episodes of 'Criminal Minds' and 'Numbers' all day and I watched the whole first season of 'The Big Bang Theory' in about two days. I have killed Minesweeper over and over again and I have a 72% win rate at Spider. I have organized and re-organized my music collection on iTunes and photo shopped a lot of my pictures so that now I have green skin and neon hair, or no face and purple sunglasses. I even tried sunning myself on a particularly hot day while I read a book and listened to jazz. I fell asleep and woke up covered in monster-sized red ants. I tried bleaching parts of my hair (apparently my dirty blond color is the brightest color of blond hair dye they sell), I clipped every other nail, and I discovered my bathroom has good acoustics for ghost noises. I wonder what I'll do for the rest of this week and next week...
The last image I want to leave you all with (for it could be another long stretch of no Internet, and using P'keng's computer is totally a guess and click enterprise, as everything is in Thai) is the ceremony I attended yesterday. We left the Namyen Resort at about 8am, drove around Kanthralak in a long procession and then went on some random country lane, inching along like worms. We ended up in a tiny tiny village at about 10:45am, that is actually only about 20 kilometers from Kanthralak. Anyways, we got to the temple to see dancers dancing around the actual building, with a hoard of people following. My host family walked right past them and sat down at some tables and then we began to eat. We ate for like 30 minutes, and the whole time I was wondering why no one else was around. My host mom kept telling me to keep eating because all the food was free. When we were done eating, we got extra bags of desserts, briefly watched them put the Budda up on the podium (part of the ceremony), and then we left. Apparently, (I learned in the car) we arrived late to the ceremony, so we skipped it altogether, ate the free food and then left. When we were walking back to the car, an old man asked P'Guy (host brother who came home from Bangkok for a while) if the bags of sweets he was carrying were a loi ma klap? (very delicious?). I was laughing so hard thinking about how we only came for the free food and now we were leaving with bags of it, that I tripped over a rock and almost fell flat on my face.
Still laughing about how we are now like Crazy Evelyn, but instead of crashing funerals, we crash temple celebrations,
Anchelee
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