I have discovered recently that our dogs, Gatit and Kaikaem harbor a secret and unrequited love for eachother, throwing it in the faces of a condemning society and a bunch of southerners who are probably condemning except it’s hard to tell ’cause you can’t understand a word they’re saying. Aka. our dogs are gay. Either that or Kaikaem thinks Gatit is a girl because of all the pretty pink bows and ribbons in his fur. I now call Gatit Gatoi when I’m bored.

That was actually just one of several titles I came up with, some of the others including “Blogito egro sum” and ”Cogito quay Cogito ergo Cogito quay sum.” Thanks to Prof. G. W. Burns for the assistance in latin editing. These of course were only a few of the great many midnight hilarities that I came up with, that somehow don’t seem quite as funny anymore. I even breafly considered a carrer as a writer for Iron Chef, just so I could fit in the tagline of “His defeat was inevitable. And inedible!” or maybe just taglines, like BCTF: Accept No Substitues. Like I said, it  all seems a lot funnier after midnight.

Couple of good books I’ve read lately, both of which gave me that wonderful feeling of I-don’t-want-to-stop-reading-even-though-it’s-a-school-night-and-I-have-to-get-up-in-four-hours-and-lets-make-this-book-never-end which is second only to the feeling of this-book-is-really-exciting-and-the-sequal-is-for-sale-beside-that-ice-cream-shop. Or possibly love (the half melted look, right… wendy?) (or was that Annie, or other?). but yeah, books rule. Namely the books lately have been Kafka on the shore, by Haruki Murakami, and amazing book walking the fine line between reality and fantasy, every time I thought it had gone a bit too far into mystical to hold onto that really grouded reality feel, it pulled right back, went dead real and left you wondering what had really happened, a dream, magic, a Greater Power, or just the perspective of an old, insane man. Towards the end it gave a more definite feel of spirtual, but not magical, it never lost a sense of reality, and for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what the plot was. I could tell you what happened, sure, but what the main goal was, where the story was going, and where exactly it ended, I’ll be darned if I know. I really have to get more of this guy’s stuff. It’s amazing, it really fits what I want from a book, they’re long, and while he may have random, almost out of place bits of maturity, he doesn’t take away from the book its self. Also I’ve been introduced to Keley Armstrong. Those who know her, don’t laugh.  She’s good, a pretty captivating writer, i genuinely really enjoyed her stuff. To give a sense of why one might be embarrased by this I’ll say she’s somewhere between Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton, with werewolves. Yes, a good “tormented dark soul” book that isn’t about vampires. Yes it’s a guilty pleasure, but darned if I’m going to let that stop me from enjoying it. I like it. So there *crosses arms and pouts*.

For those who care, and those whove asked for it (Yay! Thankyou! I feel loved!) here’s my new adress.218/5 Thinanon Rd., Moo1, Guerng, Mueung, Mahasarakham, 44000.

How’s that for a mouthful?

In thai that’s … nevermind, that’ll take way to long to write. My name in thai is รด่ง I’m not sure if you can read that but it says Dong with a falling tone, and is made from the letters that represent Snake and Child. SnakeChild. I like it. My full name อภิวัฒน์ จันทรสมบัติ  OH MY GOODNESS THAT”S HARD. I can’t find the key’s on the keyboard because they’ve fit on 44 consanents plus a good fifteen tonal markers and vowels and such by doubling up like mad and hiding them on far off keys that nobody actually uses. Now here’s a language that’s actually fun: One, two, three: Bajumbo moi noi noi jecker, Dabatto bunkergait jun jun, Nora juerue-rotto pura-pura petto…

Oh, I’ve got a nasty headache now. ghargle. Mim phoned me, it made me very very happy.  I’ve been singing the Katamari Theme all day, so now I’m listening to it on repeat.

Please headache, go away, I will be happy and fart rainbows just for you if you do.

Can I throw something at you that’s going to possibly make a lot of people hate me, though I’m not neccesarily agreeing withit, but it make for really entertaining debates and funny angry people. “the only way to be truly misogynistic is to be a woman.” Actually that’s by R. K. Milholland, and just in the mood, here’s some other quotes form my great teachers, Messers Milholland and Jacques.

“The quickest way to a mans heart is really through his stomach, because then you don’t have to chop through that pesky ribcage”

“Forgiveness is one of the horrible sides of loving someone”

“Sometimes the measure of friendship isn’t your ability to not harm but your capacity to forgive the things done to you and ask forgiveness for your own mistakes.”

“The shortest verse in the Bible is ‘Jesus wept.’ The only thing wrong with it is the past tense.”

“In the end, we decide if we’re remembered for what happened to us or for what we did with it.”

“We all have a few failures under our belt. It’s what makes us ready for the successes.”

They’re both delightfuly bitter authors, pulling of just enough to be both funny and at times profound, plus great for a bad mood.

I’d just want to say  thank you to all thepeople who commented on the last post! Yay! Those really make me happy, finding new little bits of home thrown at me. Honestly, if you’ve ever considered commenting, seriously, go for it, anyhting, doesn’t matter what you say, just say something and I’ll be really glad to hear it, trust me, tell me about home , life, canada, nelson, quebec seperatist inclinations, whatever. Please. Thankyou.

So I’ve been to bangkok, shopped about , spent only a little, (my purchases are limitted to a few books, a cd, and ice cream) and picked up Alex. Now I’m back in sarakham, back at school, of sorts, and back to my life. I live here. I have a life here. I’m goign to miss here. I think that’s important. When I have a bit more time I’ll share the revelations I had speaking with Dad too, just because I think they’re important to me, and Dad says they’re important to recognize in general. I saving money from work, I aim to upgrade computer wise when I get home, and maybbe even get a ps3! ‘CAUSE THAT WOULD BE AWSOME. Yes, yes it would. I’ve decided against the laptop, at the assurnce of Charla that it would be superflous and having a good desktop comp would be more useful. Y’know, maybe this isn’t major, but I can recall a lot of important decisions based on things Charla told me. Just where I was going in life, or making an effort to change things about myself or my character. She may not taljk a lot but what she does say seems to be insightful a ghood portion of the time, and I think that’s helped me make the right decisions at times. Maybe it’s because she’s so frank. But if frankness equalled insight, I’d have to have a revelation a minute hanging out with Jen sometimes (and she’s all the more enjoyable for it) but no, I don’t real;ly know why what Charla says turns out to be so important. Somehting to think about. So I guess this is a shout out to Charla, thanks for helping me make the right decsions (as cheesey as that may sound).

Alex is very cool. He’s a bit of a nerd, and a music buff, plays the guitar. He’s from Joberg, SA, translate that as Johannesburg, South Africa. He’s in my school, in 5/5 and is sixteen, like me, another leo born only a week before me. Leos of the world unite! He’s struggling with the thai food (”the bathroom’s just out there” *responds with a grateful nod I’ll interpret as “Thanks”*) and anjoys ice cream. That’s the important thing after all. He didn’t bring many books because he thought he would buy them here. Where? Not in sarakham. 

But enough about him, his computer, back in Joburg. First of all, let me say Quad-Core. Yes the $1333.99 brand new, expansion upon the dual core phenomenon is posesed by somebody I know. 8MB Cache. 2 gigs of RAM, DDR2 running at 800Mhz. 2 gigs. 800Mhz. Liquid cooling system, two thermometres to measure the CPU temp and display on side by side digital displays on the case. 580 gigs of hard drive space. Nvidia 7600 Gt video cards. Oh, wait, two of them. Why two? I dunno. Holy Poop! Buying that in SA costs a total of over $5000!!!111 Holy Poopzorz/amaze.

Best sex scene ever. Period. http://www.go-girly.com/go/121

just thought I’d throw that in there. Somebody commmented again! Major yays! We likes the comments. I’m sorry about the irregular posting, my lifes been rather strnage, every time I really think I’m settling down, there’s something else brewing on the horizon that I suddenly have to start to work around/towards. So even though many of my days are relaxed, and I will post then, if I can get to a internet enabled computer, but then I’ll go to bangkok, like I did the other day. Speaking of which. Bangkok. I went. I saw. I ate ice cream. Call me CEASAR! Bwarg! But yeah, I was totally safe. No big issues or anything. ON the other hand, (and I’m debating whether I should say this, but it’d be worse to find out another way or later, I think) apparently there was some sort of explosion in the big fair the day I got back. Now I don’t know if this was a bomb, or a gas leak or what, bt there’s been a big fair/party thing here for the last ten days (closing now) and thousands of people have been streaming through. Unfortunately it’s so loud there’s no actual possibility of  communication, even with shop keepers, due to the Bingo things every few metres with the announcers screaming for more people to come on in and check for B12!!!!!!!  Seriously, their pure volume, routed though 6 Huge speaker boxes is insane. And painful. Remember how I said once that the reason Thailand didn;t do too well in international sports was that the lacked that capitallistic competitive strive and drive? Well that’s not entirey true. They are completely, insonely obsessive over a couple of things. They practically become blood sports, raging over the country in regional and national tournaments and huge onling gathering dedicated solely to training these strange arts. These two are… bingo and scrabble. yes. except it’s not scrabble anymore, it’s “crossword” I’ve seen people play and i believe they memoize those entire “crossword dictionaries, learning words like qi, and droo. and bingo. why bingo? why the screaming mob, desperate for their next live giving fix of number/letter combinations? i have no bloody idea. deliberate lack of use of capitals, even for the ‘i’s, in an attempt to convey my total lack of comprehension for their enthusiasm.

“…recently taken over by the iron fist of Evil Beagle! ‘Me and my skeleton tank army have brought this dimension to it’s knees! It’s tasty, succulent knees! God, I love knees.’”

“Remember how I used to knuzzle your knees? Let me do that one more time.”

“Welcome to Knees To Love Christ”

People are strange.

I was on a Song Tau the other day, a minibus, coming from school. This one girl kept giving me these strange looks/glares. eventually I heard her lean across to her friend and say that she was afraid of me. Afraid of ‘the fulung.’ This made me really sad. I’d never seen her before in my life, I was just sitting on a mini bus in a small town, reading a book, and I like to think of myself as unthreatening. But just by being a fulung, I was so inhuman to her as to be scary. that’s really what I am here in smaller towns, inhuman, becauseI’m just so beyond anyhting they’ve seen before. Many peopl I meet  say they’ve never seen a fulung before. I’ve been asked to autograph people or their shirts or books maybe that’s how youget all the racial issues. Either I’m almost worshipped by those new to fulngs, or I terrify them, or both, or sometimes hated. Usually a combination there of. I can imagin the spanish arriving in South America and such a huge mix of those emoptions swirling in everybody, spanish and aztec, and wasn’t the conflict almost inevitable from there on in. I accept that new things are scary. Most racial violence is inbred into the peopl involved at childhood, not a result of shock, so we can blame them, and say how close minded they are. And we can hate people like the spanish, saying how inhuman they acted and how awful and prejudiced they were, and in some waays believe ourselves better than that and educated, openminded. But I don’t think that’s true. Maybe there is some element of that, a strict and strange moral code greatly varried from ours, but only the product of tuime, and change, not closemindedness in individuals. I believe they both the aztec and spanish, the british/americans and the natives, they all just get caught up in those emotions, to encounter something so totally new and diferent, we con comprehend ordeal with it, we just fall back upon a holier than thou attitude to find a black and white, good and evil, criminal and victim, when we can’t, we can’t blame anyhting on anybody, we can’t say it’s their fault, we can’t say one is bad and one is good, we can just say they were thrown into a river of emotions rarely fond today, and swam to oppisite banks. They reacted according to their upbringing, ont some fault or somehting that made them bad or evil, the just did the best they could, what they could interpret as right in a situation where they lost their sense of right and wrong. I’m not trying to justify the world’s teragedies, a lot of crimes and injustices are the result of closemindedness and prejudice, but I’m just saying maybe give the butchers of history a thought, not thoughtless condemnation, because that’s naught but a great hypocracy closing our minds to a situation we don’t want to understand, rather than their case which is a mind layed open in a situation they can’t understand. Maybe. I can’t claim to know or understand either. but I will defend anybody against a claim of being evil (a serious claim, I call people evil all the time and that’s almost never true, or serious)because I think that’s important. I guess that’s really my bone with all activist groups. Almost every one ends up with shippers (people who just join up because that sounds so cool), hypocrits, and ‘blind eyes,’ people who are so focussed on their cause, they fail to notice the damage they’re doing, or the exceptions and opposites. It just drives me crazy, they take it to a point where a powerful meaningful cause is reduced to petty arguments and picking on the people weak enough to go along wihth their agenda  who are the ones with their own problems to get through. And the trouble in often those ‘closed eyes’ belong to the people who actually care, they just care so much they lose track of other important things. And then there are the rare, the rational, and the kind, who are the unpublicized, unrecognized reason everything still moves, because their efforts actually tend to help and make a difference, and do some damage control for all the other nacks whove joined up, taken their uniform and bayonet and stabbed the wrong person (It’s stab then twist to the side, otherwise they might get back up and show you how to do it the right way). Andwhat are the limits? how far can you push it? When does sufering become less important then death? Could an oppressed but nonthreatening body justify attack? So often our assistance just results in people getting killed. When does line get crosed that it would be better dead than living there? What its the porportion, lives lost to people ‘liberated’ or ’saved’ how much can you help people by hurting them?  Is htere some sort of granted percentage? Oh, we’ve killed 10% of the population, and it looks like some more of the little buggers are going down before we actually get anything done around here, guess we better pull out, leave them miserable. Why does every important choice have to be so loose, and arbitrary? Bah. Morals. Bugrem all. Y’know, this was going to start out as a two sentance thing on how I hoped I wasn’t actually scary and I didn’t like to scare people. Sigh.

Over 333 hits!!!!! I feel popular. Though it slowed down recently. *pout* I supose that’s my fault. Check out the pictures of thai singers I uploaded!

I go to bangkok and Friday! W00t! Newbie Alex is in on Sunday at 5:45 in the morning and I’ll be there to greet him. This computer wouldn’t qualify as poop. I’d just like you all to know that. If you open more than two windows (of anything) it wigs. You get five to ten errors every time you,load a website. The internet randomly stops. Pages suddenly close. Most common is the not enough memory fto run this program, please close another application error. But I’ve only got a text document and an internet window open, I acn’t have two websites at once? What the rotisary chicken???

Anywho. You know what the ultimate in irresponsible fun is? That thing where it’s just a rush of heady immature goofing off-ness, the beauty of a completely childlike action, in defiance of all responsibility and age. The best thing to do around old people to drive them crazy. Blowing bubbles in chocolate milk. Darn that’s fun, it’s just goofy, good, honest silly fun.  I drink a lot of milk here, a good portion chocolate, and I always make a point to blow bubbles, just ’cause. Yay! Join us! BRAAAIIIINS!!!!!

Here’s some funa and useful basic thai vocab, some of which is permeating my english speaking, so it might make talking to me a lot easier in the future. Plus learning is fun! (The more you know…)

Khrup - Polite word for men, use at the end of most sentances

Kha - Polite word for women

Sawadee - Hello / Goodbye

Aroi - Delicious

Arai - What

Sanuk - Fun

Pai - Go

Qwai - …Buffalo

Klai - Near

Klai - Far (seriously, one is mid tone, one is low tone)

Klai - Chicken

Kai - Egg (in this case the Chicken came first or at least above)

Pom - I (male)

Chan - I (female)

Krungthepmahanakhon Amornrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharat Ratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphiman Awatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit - Bangkok (We call it Krungtyip for short)

Ma - Come

Ma - Lots/Very

(four other definitions of ma that I can’t remember)

Mee - To have

Rawn - Hot

Rak - Love

Khun - You

Nung-Su - Book

I dunno what else you want me to define, if anyhting, but if you want to know a thai word, ask, I’m pretty confidentin my ability to either know it or find out. Try me.

I was very homesick the other day. I eventually managed to fix it, but only after eating a Swensens ice cream (Big wine glass style seving thing, bottom filled with butterscoth, a big scoop of vanilla icecream, a big scoop of chocolate ice cream, choclate fudge drizzled on top, whipped cream on the chocolate fudge, chocolate sprinkles on the whipped cream, a cherry on the sprinkles, surrounded by bannana) a dairy queen sundae (yeuch) going to a festival, and seriously debating buying a whole buch of potted flowers. Then I went home. So here’s my shout out of the day. Miryam! For being the most awesomest sister in the world. And Ani DiFranco, for meeting all my music needs as of late.

My keyboard is vibrating…

Of pretty much nothing. Not much to report really, sorry. I’ve hung about home, watched buffy, ate Bamy Moo Dang, yum. It’s a type of Goyteow. I’ve taught, made enough for an icecream trip later today, the usual. Tommorow I go somewhere with my rotary head, but I don’t know where. I think it’s some sort of english camp.

Although I haven’t spoken to alice in over a month now (I’ve only even seen her once recently) I may not ever talk to her again. Henriette told me she’s switching cities or something, I dunno, goign to live with a family she knows or something. I haven’t bothered to check if she’s still here, but Henriette said she might have left on monday. Bye Alice.

I’ve started playing playstation again! Yay muchly! I went to this place called IGame a couple of days ago, and raced down the three peaks of SSX3 for a while. My goodness that felt good, and refreshing. I really missed blowing my time like that. It was pretty bad though, it’s right on the side of the dustiest road I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think the machines have been cleaned since they were bought. The next day I went back, but they were so dirty it just kept freezing. I worked for about ten minutes, then left, and the guys who run it charged me for a full hour. So I went to JGame across the street. The machines were clean. The Women who ran the place was nice and talked with me for a minute. The games ran perfectly. I like it there. I’m debating going back soon, or possibly trying out some of the other places, check out the couches and TVs. I think maybe I’ll go to TNet. Or maybe NGame. Possibly JJNet. Don’t ask there is no logic. It is just because. It is Thailand. But yeah, Ratchet and Clank pwns.

I’ve decided one of my favorite singers is a noodle. Her name is Palmy. Pronounce that about Bamy! (The exclamation mark means up tone). My favorite type of noodle is Bamy. No up tone. Hence, she is a noodle.

I want icecream. I think I’ll go get some. Paternal unit? Dad? Any word on the WebCT thing? Email me if it’s not possible, or if you get it. That would be great. Sorry. Thank you.

Oh, here’s a quick little thing. First listen to both the Loco Roco and Katamari Damacy soundtracks, they are awsomeness incarnate. I must get for my PSP! you can find the Katamari stuff here: http://lilfilipina.imeem.com/playlist/UQ-aisZp. Check it out. Some aren’t amazing I’ll admit, but I’m addicted to the pure sugaryness of it.

Also, I’m back on the MOO! I love the MOO, it’s so much fun. I joined the Canada Moo today, and have spent the morning studying every tutorial and help file I can find. I plan to get my programmers liscence next week, after I’ve finished fleshing out my house and occupants. Yay for the MOO. If anyone is sufficiently Geeky enough to check it out, really do, it’s a blast, and it’s social and educational. There are a couple of online schools even, based solely in MOOs.

Should I write some bvasic thai stuff here? It’s kinda fun, If you want random trivia and/or to confuse your friends. I figured out what they’re saying, literally when they say my name now. Y’know how Thai people only go by nicknames, and they’re all just random words like red, or apple (in thai). Well, my english name, Eee-Wan (kenobi), infact is bad. Very bad. I go almost solely by Dong now. Wan is sweet. Eee is basicly the equivalent of *female dog” actually pretty Much the exact equivalent. Given thai grammar you switch those around and in english get… you get the picture. My name is Dong. I am resorting to big nose. Wow. That’s kinda sad.

Leone! Of course you should come everybody should. And bring pizza!

Lots of love!

Evan.

Chok Dee

Sounds cool don’t it. Mim, you know latin, if Evan tries to make random latin sounding words does he succeed? And if he does, does he make a sound? Dun dun dun!

Some of hte keys on this keyboard have little shortcut pictures, like he play/pause symbol, eject, internet, etc. But I swear one of them has a pizza on. Really, right between the eject and internet buttons for that matter, there is a pizza key. My desire to both push that button and drool are slowly rising. Mmmmm. Pizza.

I think I want to go to a PS2 cafe (They may have a new name but due to my lack of original thoughts I’m resorting to this one) and try out some of the games I lugged along just in case, could be fun, especially if they have broadband.

My newbie arrives on the 21st. His name is Alex, I think. Due to my habit of planning out conversations beforehand, which coincidentally consistently goes horribly wrong due to other humans being involved, I have three possible things to say to welcome him to thailand. A) Hello! Welcome to Thailand! B) Hi, My name’s Evan, I’ll be your oldie. C) Let me be the first to inform you that rather than participating as an exchange student, you get to play the sacrificial virgin in our next worshipping of Bah-ram-yoo, the three headed goat god of syphilis. I was bored, and I actually rather want to try C, I just worry it might give him the wrong message.

50+ thai women who dance to Kala ( punk rock thai band) are friggin awsome. There are these two women I spent New Years with, I had never met before, but I spent two delightful days chatting, hanging and eating with. One was possibly my rotary chair’s sister, the other her friend, an English teacher who was “Not married, but have three sons!” which turned out to be her three dogs. She loves dogs. I love people who love dogs. Yay dog lovers, as well as lovers of all other furry animals. That was a fun new years. I wanted to end it with “Ha! See! Sahm! Sorng! Nueng! Sawadee Bee Mai!!!” But instead it ended with “Gee Kala’s great. Bugger, there go the fireworks. Happy New year!” Yeah, I kinda missed it by several seconds. Oops. Oh well, I had fun anyways. Then I came back to Sarakham and switched host families.

So my new host family, what to tell? Should I only talk about the ones I know I’m ‘related’ to? Well to start, my host father. I’ve seen him twice. Spoken to him once. He doesn’t know my name. I think he knows I’m living there, but it’s hard to tell. My host mother I’ve spoken to a few times  and I see fairly often late at night, or once around seven in the morning. I think she might be a vampire, given the lack of apearances during daylight hours. Or possibly that could be the effects coming on of watching an entire season of buffy since I got here. My host sister (cousin?) is delightful, pregnant, and speaks a bit of english. She’s the one I primarily hang out/watch buffy with. If I stare at the words December 2001 long enough eventually it says crOOber!! I love zoning at computer screens. Anywho, I actually went to my host sisters (cousins?) wedding some time ago. I ate pigs ear. It was disgusting. Thankfuly this was not representative of their eating habits. Which brings me to my host brother (cousin?) who’s nice, speaks little english and very funny. Whenever her comes home her terrorizes the dogs (we have to miniature ones) then runs around the home as the fat shaggy one dashes after him around tables over schairs, people, etc. It’s very funny. Did I mention I love dogs? And Chuchu Bear. Yesterday he came home with a curtain pole an spent quite a bit of time chasing the dogs around it (Mop-dogs are soo cue when they hide behind fans) as My host sister (cousin?), and nameless possibly related inhabitant B sang kareoke. NPRI B is just that, no idea what his name is, or why he sleeps at our house. He goes to university, and I’m fairly certain he isn’t a host brother or cousin for that matter. He’s entertaining, kinda odd, and loves kareoke. Save profile: NPRI B. Actually probably everybody could be classified as a NPRI as I actually don’t know anybodies name. Minor Detail. Fort Minor. The Chalets. Locoroco soundtrack. Katamari soundtrack!! Fort Minor is played here every so often.  I have yet to discover why. Ther was also a little girl staying at the house when I first arrived. She has since disapeared. She shall henceforth be known as NPRI A. For the last few nights I’ve gone out with my host sister (cousin?) and her husband, as well as NPRI B and had Goyteaow (I have no idea how to spell that. Pronounce it Goi-tee-ow) or more specificaly, Bamy Nam Moo Dang (There is no way I can create phonetics for that within the confines of the english language. There are some sounds the tounges of man are not meant to wont of). There really are some hard too wrap youhead around sounds in this language. It’s kinda frunstrating. I have serious trouble with the falling tone sometimes, particularly on one sylable words, like, unfortunately, my name. That and the Ng sound. It’s just like in Sing except is has nothing before it and stuff after instead. Try casually saying Ngai without putting a vowel before at all, and not sounding like your tring to exricate an industrail sized frog from your throat. It’s not easy to use right. At least in a normal paced conversation. Hello! Hello! Olleh! Ello! Olle! Ole! Enchilada! Taco! Bell! Nostradame! Hey Nostradamus! Praying to the porcelain god! Thailand! Oldies! Nano! Tounge clicking! Harmonica! Elephant! Soccer! Football! Goooooooaaaaal! I’m going to stop now, but that was probably the quickest typing that I’ve done in a while. You now have glimpsed a five second snipet of Evan’s mind. Yes all of those are connected, yes it all makes sense. Yes it’s still happening, I’m just not typing it out right now.

Reaching out to the pizza button. . .

Tune in for the exciting conclusion!!

Darn people and their “Happy Christmases” they’ve got me saying it too now. New year hasn’t happened yet but if someone in fact says “Merry New Year!” other than me, I will bite them. I’ll possibly bite me if I do it too.Gosh, where to start? so much has happened. Okay, Jumping a couple of weeks back. My Christmas. I awoke one morning, came out of my room, had a shower, picked the ants out of my ovaltine after I made it and Khun-Mae passed me some pink slips, the true harbringers of happiness here, as they are letters from the post office stating that a package has arrived. I went out not long efter, grabbed lunch at Serm Thai, the mall, and grabbed my packages. Yay! I opened them as soon as I got home (there were ants on one and I thought it better to open) an had my own private christmas. I was so happy! I got a bunch of books, a t-shirt, some intact candy, some not, a snowman, it was awsome, sorry I won’t bother you with everything, but it was soo nice. It was a delightful time. Gosh it seems long ago though. The trip, which I left on the next day, seemed to be both over in a second, and to have started years ago, time is out of joint, O cursed spite, that I was ever born to set it right. Or at least try to explain it on this blog. But yeah, time’s pretty gibbled here. So saturday I took a bus to Khon Kaen. I stayed the night there with Jamis and Moritz, from Canda and Germany respectively.Everbody was tired but we still stayed up a bit and chatted, which was nice. This post is going to take a long time. I’m interspersing it with sending out long overdue emails (a long list) and reading hikaru no go, just because it’s awsome. Then next day we were off, on a 2000+ km trip. First we went to Korat. All the students in the Isan area gathered there, forty five of us, at this big rotary hotel. We gathered slowly, talked, ate, and left. That was the beginning of an all night bus trip across the country (up it too). I didn’t sleep, of course, though many people did, and the tour company provided free kanome (snacks, drinks). Yay! I talked, read, listened to music, bought a bunch of energy drinks, talked a lot faster, and got to the hotel about seven that morning. We had breakfast, feezed our little tushies off, adnd the breakfast was cold, which didn’t help. I drank lots of tea. Some people were shivering like mad. It was actually pretty cold, it being winter, 7 o clock in the morning, at one of the northern most points of thailand. I had a few advantages over others (Sugar full, not slept in the bus so I was still moving, and I’m warm blooded like Dad. We had a quick breakfast and headed to our rooms. We weren’t leaving till noon, so we had some spare time. I went to mine, let my roomate, JD from Quebec, in and lay down. Then I noticed the bloodstain on my pillow, so I flipped it over and slept. Up again at elevn, had a cold shower, not by choice, lt comeone else use my bathroom, had to wait for them and was consequently late to get on the bus. I felt bad to be late, but they needed to brush their teeth. We headed to these amazing caves. They were so cool! Past all these huge golden tempples lay this deep network of tunnels filled to spontainious combustion with stalagmites, stalactites and nooks and cranies. It was fun to perch, golem like  in these little cubbies in the wall, where two -ites had grown near and left a little entrance to a small room. Often, if you perched inside, just your head would poke through the entrance. I was creepy. I scared people. Danrned if it weren’t fun. But yeah, There were ancient Buddhas and stuff inside teh cave too, adn I did my share of praying, kinda fun really, even if I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’d really rather have my shoes on in this cold, dirty and slightly damp part of he cave thank you very much. but yeah, twas cool. We went back to the hotel. I went walking, through this resort and to the space beyond, filled with bright flowers all shades, and an especially brilliant and beautiful ping and purple tree thing. I picked and arranged a rather lovely bouquet if I do say so my self. I sat for a while on the remnants of an old bridge, torn down, or pulled apart by the rushing river.  I sat for a while and dipped my fingers in the water, just sitting and listening to the sound of the river and thinking. After a bit a small Thai family,a father a young girl maybe ten, and a youger boy gathered on the other side of the bridge. They waded into the river and gathered up nets that I hadn’t noticed before, strung between branches. The father stayed on the cement of the broken bridge and began to make a fire and in just a few minute had a fair happy blaze dancing away on the copious driftwood run up by the river. Then they took the fish from the nets, stuck them on a stick and roasted them.

I must admit I wanted to start my own little fire out there too, and I tried to recruit some people l8t3r but it dissolved into late night wierdness much to fast. We (or at least I) stayed up until midnight, then I left to sleep, wanting to feel somewhat human when I got up early the next morning. The lessons of the night? Girls jeans are stretchy! Wierd, so that’s how people can get tight clothes that fit them with out having to buy sizes with decimal points! Plus girl shirt (Suitable manly of course) can be both stylish and comfey! The things you learn in Thailand. Don’t ask how I know these things. Ever.

The next day we did something else. I can’t remember what right now, but we went somewhere. And did something. Then cam back. It was probably fun. I might have talked to some people and/or listened to music. Darned if I know. We went home. I actually remember the afternoon, which is good. It semms the earlier parts of the trip are much more blury, not just because it was farther back, but because I was less social, towards the end I actually made some new connections and friends (Places to stay for travelling, country tour, here I come!) and that provided more points of reference for events. You know what typo I hate the most? When I is not capitalized, it just looks so slovenly. Grrr I do it by accident every so often and I have to fix it because it drives me crazy. I. i is a letter. I is a pronoun, get it right doofus! But I digress. Anywho. So that evening was a mediocre dinner, and afterwards I joined Heidi(CAN), Lance(AM)(Rarely has someone talked so fast and mumbled so much at the same time. I now call him sensei and practice mu slurring daily), Chris (AM)(I call him surfer dude for referance, he’s from california, and has never surfed in his life), Zoe (DIIK), Jade (SA), Nicole (SA), Ian (CAN)(One of the most interesting {there’s not other word for it} people I’ve ever met. A fascinating study), Satoshi (JAP)(Proffesional DJ), Sosuke (JAP)(Male model, yes, you heard me right), and possibly someone else. We hung about, chatted, inevitably sex came up (Did you count thenumber of adolescents? Of course it’s inevitable), and I wandered out for a while. The I met up with P’Kui (pronounce it Pee Gooey) and Lily, the one month short exchange student from SA. They’re nice, Kui in a kinda psycho way, but cool (the P is a sign of respect, not his name, I use it in formal speach), and Lily can be very nice. I must admit I sometimes found her hard to get along with, but I think thats more because of my objection to her lifestyle in thailand. She’s only here for a month (normally two, but she cut it down) and instead of going to her town in Isan, she stayed in bankok for two weeks before this with Kui, who speaks english. Sho she’s shopped, then she goes on a pampered tour with a bunch of foreigners, she knows no Thai, as whats the point for a month, and knows nothing of Thai culture from what I saw (or at least I saw nothing to the contrary). She’s not an exchange student. She’s a bloody tourist. A Farang/Fulong/Fulung however you want to spell it. And I don’t like Farang/Fulong/Fulungs. Grr. She’s a nice person, but that relationship with thailand really rubs me the wrong way.

We were joined by Jono and Sam! Yay! lit. cool people. Jono is this perpetually cheerful, delightful guy from south africa, I got him for secret santa, which was excellent, and very easy. Sam is this Cello playing, happy music lover from probably Canada. She got me for secret santa, and got me some really neat stuff, see below.  So we hung out, went and bought bracelts from some annoying little kids and I rejoined the first room, just in time to move to another room where they were setting up a dance. I went to bed.

From here on in things are going o get a little discombobulated, I have no idea what happened next, some I’m goignto give up on this over windy boring timeline stuff and try to get down to what happened. If you’ve endured this far, Kudos, if you haven’t you can start here again if you’d like.

So the cool bits. Firstly, friends. Some of the nicest people I’ve met are rotary students. Oddly enough, their also pretty consistently some of the most psycho. Maybe that’s about the same thing. Zoe, I labeled her earlier as DIIK, that’s just becasue Darned If I Know what country she’s from. She’s entertaining, wait, I remember, she’s from Alberta, Drumheller! But yeah, she’s cool, funny, has excellent taste in music (Decemberists any one? (Buddha Bless you Olivia(Buddha Bless is a good band, purely coincidentally(But I digress)))) but yeah, she’s just an all around cool person. Heidi, who’s energetic, entertaining, and darn can I not describe people, I’ll try to put up some pictures. Chris is asstonishingly intelligent, adn I love talking to him about everything from physics to books to poetry, which may seem close but have a lot of territory to cover. Ian is fascinating, a very active rotary exchange student in all social circles, and just… interesting. I dunno how else to say it. Erica is the best read person I’ve ever met, and that bridges everyhting to classics to philosophy to fantasy, sci fi, even manga. Awsomeness! Booktalk is the way to go. I probably forgetting some people here, but those are the first highlights that come to mind and they deserve it, so do a couple of other people, but my memory’s terrible. Of course the oldies should be mentioned here, I owe so much to them, and now they’re gone. Wow that makes me sad. Jade, one of the nicest people I’ve met, Nicole, Way too much energy for her own good, and really cool. Jono, I’ve told you how happy he is, it’s just so refreshing. And Nano, I didn’t know you well, but you sure were entertaining. Here’s a bit of a shout out. V! I miss you! V is awsome and cool, and the most laid back person I ever met, he suited thailand perfectly. I’ll miss him. My newbie arrives on the 21st, I’m so excited, I’m going to bangkok to meet him. Blow the travel warnings, that was just new years. I can’t wait to show him around. Plus my Thai has really improved, I think, over the past few weeks, and I’m feeling confident enough not to worry too much.

Anywho, back to the main story. Some other cool places. The white temple. Most certainly my favorite temple as of yet. This huge intricate temple, thing of the things from movies set in buddhist countries, thit the high roof and the swirls and the pokey bits. Now make it all perfectly glaringly white. Now line the ridges with bits of mirror.  Huge beautiful, white and above all, shiney. I loved it. Throung in a bridge to the entrance over a pit representing hell with all sorts of twisted, gropping hands reaching up at you and it’s amazing. I loved that place.

A lot of temples. See to believe. ‘Nuff said.

I was the highest person in Thailand! Just for a few seconds, but we went to the highest mountain, froze our butts off, wandered about, made general annoyances of ourselves and drank hot beverages! Yay!
Another day we went and visited elephants, then rode them after watching a show. They played soccer (football darn it!), played darts (and totally pwnd the human played against) did acrobatics, played the harmonica, over fifty of them! There were more than a hundred elephants in the park (I think)! We rode for like half an hour, it was really fun, and I phoned Mim and Dad and said “I’m riding an elephant!” just for fun. There were elephant showers and good hot chocolate and entertaining people and it was fun. Bleargh.
We also went to the “Golden Triangle” which means the borders of Burma, Laos, and Thailand intersect and you can see them all. I’ve never seen three countries in one place before. It felt kinda squished, no wonder you get border wars. Speaking of borders, I almost illeagally emmigrated to Myanmar! We were staying in this really really northern city, and there was this big archway with a whack of soldiers, and the occaisional car or person drifting through. I chocked it up to a national monument and extra guards due to the state of Martial Law and the holiday (violence being a justifiable worry around now). However, I skirted around the ouside to rejoin the road on the other side, and found myself impeded by a fence (I’ve jumped fences a few times here, they’re always in inconvenient places), annoyed, I followed te fence to where it took a right angle turn to block my path, due to, as I found, a river. Then I noticed the Big sign just though the fence saying “WELCOME TO THE REPUBLIC OF MYANMAR” Hehe. The voilence really was bad over new years though. between six and nine (depending on what you read) bombs went off in Bangkok alone, with others all over the country, places like chiang mai and the larger southern cities. Plus there’s an average of about three deaths per day in the south (average over last two years) including quite a few ritual beheadings. Ain’t that sumtin.
We also visited a bunch of tribes, the coolest by far being the long neck women who tried to give us opium (y’know the ones with the gold rings around their necks to make them longer). There was this one woman, she was 32, and she’d added another ring every year since she was 5, except 16 and 17.  PLus the guy with a four foot bong was kinda funny. Darn those whiper snapper tribe elders, the music they listen to these days! ‘Course I can’t talk, I’m listening to german punk right now. Hehe.

Does anybody know a move called “Bandidas” some guy in front of me is watching it and there’s been adds everywhere for a while now. It has that Indian woman in it, I think. Meh.

I’m debating cutting it off here, to fill in the rest another time. One thing is certain, I won’t get to new year before i post, I have to go home soon, and I’d like to have this up. My computer at my new host family doesn’t have internet. Grrr. Okay one last gripe before I sign off. This has beem bothering me. I’m in Thailand. I’m expected to speak Thai. Unfortunately I’m also in Isan, so I’m expected to speak Isan. And I’m near Laos, so I’m expected to speak Lao. Unfortunately, I still don’t speak any Lao and my Isan is terrible. I used to think of it asjust a dialect and not a problem until I started actually learning some. For example in English: Is it delicious? in Thai: Aroi mai? In Isan: Sep boa? Samesame? I don’t think so. And Samesame is a thai word by the way, it’s just an adaptation of an english word, used so much that I consider it Thai.

Seldoot.

Evan