thai it, they said, its tasty...

April 1

That last post felt really long and not that funny so I'm gonna make an effort to tell you more fun and funny things. For instance today I spent about 20 minutes trying to explain the difference between 'look' at 'see' and when my coworker when asked for the fifth time if it was just that when you see something it's closer I finally just said 'sure', which actually just causes more problems.

Almost all of my coworkers know about as much english as I know thai but one of the best things that they keep confusing is chicken and kitchen. 'Do you like rice and kitchen?' I never realized until now how similar those sounds were. 

In my wrong nayok's office she has on her white board: Peach Corps Schedule make. Screw this I'm joining the Peach Corps.

I had a battle with a beetle in the shower. I only realized he was in there after I had taken off all my clothes so first I tried to get him down the drain. I succeeded and gained a false sense of relief and doused my head with water only to open my eyes to see him crawling up out of the drain.This was a minor setback and I poured another bowl of water on him and he went down. again feeling secure I started to wash my face so I closed my eyes and poured a bowl of water on my face only to open them to see this little guy flying around the bathroom now. I started to try to throw bowls of water on him and then realize how absurd that was. obviously he was impervious to water. so I tried to usher him to a corner and keep an eye on him until I was done. Of course every time I closed my eyes I was sure he was flying around the room about to attack. but don't worry guys, I made it out alive today. but check in tomorrow because I just realized I locked him in the bathroom so the adventure will begin again tomorrow.

Today I had my first tessabaan english class which was 10 people in the tessabaan including the wrong nayok (I keep forgetting to correct this auto correct because I'm trying to write rong nayok not wrong nayok, but the computer autocorrects and I'm gonna keep it because I think its funny and more importantly  I'm really lazy) and the nayok. So it was an interesting class. Because they are more respected people they sat at the front of the class. They are also probably the more well educated and therefore have better english skills overall so they generally dominate everything within the class. So it's gonna be interesting. Anyway the highlight of the class was the end when my nayok said 'okay, everybody crap for rosie' and he started clapping. I pulled him aside afterwards and told him that I didn't think he meant crap and try to correct his mistake by telling him what crap means. he proceeded up to the board to clarify and wrote 

crab = *draws a crab* 

clap = ****(writes thai for clap) 

crap = mii(thai word for poop) = defecate

It's still on the board. Its things like this that never occurred to me would be a problem. Crab, Clap and Crap

So yeah today my Nayok crapped for me at the end of class.

April 2

So I arrived at work and had about 30 minutes to myself and studied thai and then the children came. That was the end of productivity.

At one point after lunch I looked up from my iPod and thought there were a bunch of little knats everywhere and I nonchalantly returned to my work. This is funny and crazy for two reasons. One it doesn't occur to me to do anything about it accept go directly back to work and two I still don't know what they are but they aren't knats unless there are just chilling all over my desk.

My nayok somehow brought up Lady Gaga today but couldn't remember her name so he described her as the one with the white gloves and the shoulders. Obviously first guess was MJ. I'm kinda amazed that I got it, but I totally did.

The adventure continues in the shower. Tonight I went in looking for the beetle thing and instead found a frog desperately trying to jump up and out of the room that is my shower. I debated helping it out but again I was already naked so I decided he would just hang in the shower jumping around with me. over all it was a pretty good experience for me.

April 3

Today I'm starting to get annoyed. Today I went to the animai(mini hospital in the neighborhood, mostly a doctors office but the doctor only comes once a week). And for some reason my wrong nayok decided that the best day for me to go and hang out there was the day that the doctor was there. 

Initially I agreed…then I got there. 

It was a total madhouse. She introduced me to group of 10 people waiting outside the building and gave her whole schpeal(?) on who I am and what I do and then told me to introduce myself(despite the fact that she knows she's just said everything that I would say to them). Then while I'm trying to introduce myself in thai she's whispering to me what she thinks I should be saying in thai. Its getting really annoying and I'm not really sure what to do about it. Also I haven't gone anywhere alone. I think today I'm gonna go on a bike ride and maybe tomorrow I will try to go to wherever I'm supposed to go on my own. I think thats gonna be a shit show when it happens but I'm gonna have to do it sooner or later.

Sorry I'm hitting the first wall. I feel like I can't really communicate and I'm always tired and I'm always trying to learn more but everything lacks the structure that I need to learn. I'm gonna try to figure out how to teach myself thai in a way that will allow me to practice what I learn. okay. done complaining.

Also today when I met the doctor at the animai and I introduced myself as a volunteer with the Peace Corps. He said are you with USAID or Unicef. I tried to explain that I wasn't with either that peace corps volunteered with schools and health and youth and general development and was with the government but wasn't USAID or Unicef. I'm pretty sure he didn't understand anything I said but he did nod nicely and smile.

I thought I liked kids. I don't. There is one particular one that I really don't like and she bugs me all day every day and she is super annoying and always wants me to teach her english or tell me how to say things in thai. I think the worst is when she says things really slowly and enunciates each syllable individually in thai both because then I really have no idea what she's saying and because it makes me look like an idiot. I really can't wait for bit term to be over so she goes back to school. Also, I do like kids. All the other ones in the office are awesome.

Also thats a weird thing. In thailand when schools out and you don't have a babysitter(okay thats a lie, no one has a babysitter, if a child is not with its mom they are with a different family member and because of how common this is it is sometimes unclear who is the actual parent). okay anyway yeah if you don't have anyone else to take care of your kid you just bring them to work. Its not a thing. You don't apologize for it. Honestly, at least in my office, you don't even necessarily know where your kid is at any given time. You just bring them in and set them lose. Its crazy. 

But all of that was frustration from this morning. 

This afternoon i decided I needed some alone time aka a bike ride because thats the only alone time I get. So I decided to kii-len or ride fun. It totally changed my day. I decided I would ride to the market but that was only 2 kilometers so I turned off into a residential area and just started biking around. I passed a school that I will work with when school starts again and went past a bunch of thais who looked at me with interested, disapproving or skeptical eyes. That is until I smiled and said, sa-wa-dii-ka, then they would smile and kinda laugh at me and say sa-wa-di ka back. It was super cute. On my way I saw an older man on a bicycle, he was a bit distracted so he didn't see me until we were passing each other and then he yelled out a very excited HELLO! and swerved his bike. I got a good chuckle from that.

I also met my first teenagers!!! I feel like it was sooo successful. Mostly it was awkward and everyone was giggling but I think thats a start. I met them at the school and they were playing bon or futbon or soccer. They were a group of boys all between 11 and 15 (perfect target age group!!!) and they all spoke at least a little bit of english. This is gonna be awesome!!!  awkwardly awesome![thats also gonna be my new tagline]

So then I think my favorite part of the day was when I was biking back from watching the kids play bon and that same old man saw me. We were on opposite side of a 4 lane highway with cars speeding past in between us at about a car every second and he again gets super excited and says HELLO, HOW ***YOU  ***I ****. So yeah I have no idea what he said, but I want to meet that man. like actually for real. He just seems like happiness bottled up. I will sit with him and do whatever he wants just to hang out with him.

So then I get home and I feel really positive and ambitious so I decide that despite the fact that I don't really know how to take apart my bike and clean the chain I can probably figure it out and do it by myself(keep in mind its not like I have the internet, which would not make this a challenge). So after I try a couple different ways of nearly breaking my bike to take my bike chain off I decide to say eff it and clean it a little bit and put it back together and then I'll call my friend The Internet tomorrow and figure out how to do it for real. So I go to put everything back together and I've kept every screw and every pin and I put everything back together and I feel so proud of myself because, despite the fact that I didn't actually get things completely off, the chain looked way cleaner and was greased so I called it a win. Then I realized the bike chain wasn't actually catching. So for about an hour and a half I had the entire family standing around watching me try to figure out whats wrong and giving me the useful feedback of NO NO when I would try reattaching something in a different way. I finally gave up and had Geut(yeah, I know, I can't decide on the spelling) call the tessabaan bike mechanic and he came and fixed in it about 2 minutes. So lesson learned. Always take pictures if you are gonna try to take something apart and put it back together without knowing what the hell you are doing. At least thats the lesson I took from it.

April 4 

So first of all I just looked at the date and I realized I've been here almost THREE months. Thats a crazy long time and also a crazy short time. So much has happened and yet I feel like I'm only been gone for like a month max. I feel like if I came back to portland right now it would just be same old same old and no offense to anyone there(you know I love you all) but I'm so happy I'm here and waking up every day and going to work at this crazy place called a tessabaan and speaking mostly thai every day and actually understanding most of what's going on around(okay that might be an overstatement but a lot of whats going on around me).

On that note today was another day of mostly nothing until everything happened. Well mostly. So I got to work and there was a crapton of people with their dogs and cats in the tessabaan parking lot and a bunch of tables set up. It turns out that once or twice a year the tessabaan has a bunch of vets come and spay and neuter any dogs or cats that are brought. Srsly I'm really starting to wonder why I'm here. Half the time I think they are doing it better than america. anyway I took a bunch of pictures of what look like dead cats but they are really just given a paralytic and put in the line to get cut open(I think they also got a numbing agent but I'm not sure). Anyway then there were all these tables just out in the parking lot and they had like 10 vets just doing assembly line spaying and neutering. It was awesome and surreal.

So that was like the first half hour of work. Then I sat at my computer and played Facebook and studied the thai alphabet. I'm actually getting kinda good, I can recognize most of the consonants now. I know that sounds like nothing but there are 48 of them and they're all curly with bubbles and so obviously they all look the same. And then I played on my computer a lot and pretended I was studying whenever people came by. 

Then at lunch I mistakenly took Gets curry which was with chicken feet instead of the one she got for me which had muu (pork, i don't know if I've mentioned how awesome that is that pork in thai is moo, but it is awesome). It was super spicy but really good(I'm totally getting this spicy thing). And when I came back in I had a great amazing lovely package that was from my real mom. I was downstairs so I opened it in from of everyone and it has very melted misshapen chocolate bunnies and a chocolate bar and a bunch of easter eggs with jellybeans in them and my favorite toffee stuff from that place in massachusetts that I went that one time. Oh and I almost forgot the SLINKY. It was totally awesome. After offering some to everyone and everyone refusing(still unclear if its the politeness factor or that they really didn't want any of it, but I think its the latter). I was trying to explain them easter in the religious sense and one of them finally understood and said, 'oooh wankai!' which means egg day. And I rolled my eyes and was like uhh yeah, I guess. But then she said 'but why does your mom give you this? I thought this was for 5 year olds. Egg day.' I have to laugh and say yes it is in fact mostly for 5 year olds but I also love easter and I am still a child and so I love all these toys and candy. They laugh and laugh and laugh at me.  

So then I go back up to my desk and once again kinda pretend to study but dork around on the internet and  then get invited to help setup a futbon tournament. I'm totally down because I have nothing better to do and it will be fun. On my way to the school I realize this is the school I went to yesterday with the kids playing soccer and this is a tournament put on by the tessabaan for teenagers(Theres a little part of me at this point that is super frustrated because no one told me about this until an hour before it started despite the fact that 1) I could've helped and 2) this is exactly what falls under my job description). anyway it was super fun and I didn't really meet anyone because I was with the tessabaan aka the vips and the teenagers just politely wei and go off with their friends. I've gotta get in on the ground level with these kids and me sitting next to the mayor isn't really gonna do that.

so then I came home to a house full of dudes I've never met. oh i lied first I broke my bike again and then I walked it home to a house full of strange dudes. It turns out they were my brother and his friends and they were making frog salad so obviously I joined them and asked if I could help. I learned how to deal with the frogs- I would say de-bone but that would be an overstatement. It was basically taking out two or three of the biggest bones and breaking up the rest of it into bite size pieces. also three out of the four frogs were pregnant(honestly I'm gagging writing this right now). So anyway we did that(guts  frog eggs, bones, tendons, skin, innards and all). and then they (deep breath for rosie it would be a shame to throw up on my computer just in an effort to tell you what I ate) mixed it all together and added chili's, lime, naam bplaa(fish sauce), sugar, salt, unripe papaya, garlic stems, and I think thats it. I have to admit it wasn't terrible but the fried frog was way better.

All this said, today my stomach is not happy with me. who knows if it was the extra spicy chicken feet curry or the frog eggs but I ate dinner about an hour ago and I've already gone to the bathroom twice and I'm not sure I feel safe quite yet. 

on that note I'm out.

April 6

So yeah. 

The frog. 

It wasn't good. 

I didn't feel safe all night and all the next day and to be honest not sure if I do now(2 nights later). I keep telling Get(I'm sticking with this spelling now….I think) that I think its was the frog, but she's pretty sure it was because I ate spicy food. Either way between the throwing up and the pooping water so I'm gonna lay off both for a bit. So besides that I've been sleeping a lot. In part because it was the only way I wasn't doing the two other aforementioned things. 

Today I felt a bit better so I went to a monk ordination. Now everyone always says things like weddings and monk ordinations are soooo much fun and there's this huge party and everyone's dancing and drinking and having a high old time. For some reasons I never make it to those monk ordinations or wedding. Or I leave before that part. Now don't get me wrong this was beautiful and there was some very silly dancing done by myself and all the old ladies and there were two newly ordained monks after about an hour of chanting. so that was cool. but one time I wanna go to the other kind. Also after I thought it was done  we went to the meeting hall for what I thought was lunch(given it was ten and they fed us breakfast at 7:30). But no we had more chanting, now I think buddhist chants are gorgeous and I would actually love to sit and meditate to these monks saying pretty much anything but this is not what we do. What actually happens is everyone sits around with their hand in the lotus position(similar to a prayer position but the palms aren't touching) and the monks start to chant and everyone else has hushed conversations over the monks chants and about every 2 minutes or so you wei and then every so often theres a pause and you get to put your hands down and theres kinda this collective sigh and (I presume) a silent hope that that was the last one because clearly no one is listening anyway and then it comes up again and everyone raises their hands and continues or comes up with a new topic to whisper to their neighbor. 

Anyway, the monk ordination was loverly and then we left. so no party. oh well. maybe next time. 

******

Also thailand in stuck in the 90s. I know its supposed to be portland and all but seriously. Every day I see teenagers in weirdly fitting levi jeans and thin flannels with either braces or weird edgy bob haircuts. Every time I just sit there and wonder if they think it looks good. I think the hardest part is then realizing that they probably look better than I do with my hair somewhere in between a mullet and Mrs Brady and my pants that I thought were professional until Get asked me if I was gonna change out of my sleeping pants before we left the house(srsly, they're j.crew?!?) and my white polo that would fit a box better than me. And meanwhile the ones that I do think dress super cute are wearing things that number 1 even if I could fit in them would never ever work on my body(mostly because I'm tall) and number two if anyone every saw me wearing some of these outfits I'm pretty sure I'd never hear the end of it. Just to give you an idea there's a lot of lace printed shorts with blouses(yeah blouses, just saying the word kinda makes me feel weird) and heels. But theses girls are so cute in them. One day I'll try…maybe.

Tonight I watched The Lion King with my nephew and within 5 minutes it was a family affair. They were super into it and it was in english so they could kinda understand some of it but would ask questions about what was happening and how to say different animals. Also apparently I'm forgetting english at a fairly rapid pace. Today I forgot two things. Okay well I forgot what kinda of animal the warthog was and to be fair I don't know how to say warthog so I ended up just telling them he was a pig. but also what they hell is his little friend. what animal is that? I was thinking it was a meerkat but that seems wrong. But the one that really struck me of how bad my english is getting is that I forgot the english word for omelette so I described it to Get in thai and she told me the english word. Thats insanity. Get doesn't even know that many english words. oh also we have spinach. The way that they explained it to me to saying, nii tam popeye glad or this makes popeye strong(its the little things I swear). Its thai spinach so its not the same but I'm pretty sure its the vegetable that I loved in suphan buri. they make it different here. They make everything different here and I have to admit I'm really missing the food in Suphan Buri. I love my site and everything but since the frog I've basically had a total of one meal because nothing is super delicious and I'm wary enough at everything that I'm worried I might throw up. Like today for dinner there was rice and octopus fried with fish sauce, spinach with something else, some fatty pork with pineapple, some sweet hot peppers, some super spicy crab salad. Okay when I say it all out like that I sound really spoiled and bratty because that all sounds awesome, but its different when your here. Mostly because only like 10% of the meat is actually meat. With the larger animals its at least half fat and theres usually some bone in there too. With the smaller animals like fish and crab its a lot of bone or shell or whatever. Needless to say Aurelia's whole eating the tail of the shrimp thing is not even a thought anymore.

April 7

Today I realized that i get called a boy at least once a day. Everyone thinks Im my host sisters new boyfriend

I had a fever the other day and I got the shivers and one of my first thoughts was actually, I should probably enjoy this, ya know, being cold and all. 

Today I had nothing to do so I read an entire book, did my laundry and went on a 20 kilometer bike ride in the heat of the day(I think I did it to spite myself).

Also I think every night is now movie night. tonight even meh and paw watched too and they're like 70. 

Literally almost just had a heart attack because my hard drive didn't show up on my computer when I plugged it in. My mind started racing about what I was gonna do and what was gonna happen and how I was gonna upload pictures tomorrow like I was half heartedly planning to and what if I couldn't get a new cord and what if they didn't have this cord and I should probably buy two just in case. I haven't been at site more than a month and I'm already pretty desperately attached to my hard drive. 

April 8 

Ants are everywhere. I keep finding them on me when I haven't been around food or outside for over half an hour. They are just crawling on me. Sometimes I imagine them but its only because so often they are actually there. 

The kitchens here are so small that I feel like no matter what I have when I get back to america it will feel like an industrial size kitchen. That said, our floor is often our kitchen counter/cutting board so that comes with the territory.

Also I've never felt so fat and skinny at the same time. I'm fairly fit these days what with it being 10000 degrees and riding my bike at least a couple miles ever day and not eating much because nothing seems super delicious(I'm working on that). But then I do go to get clothes and literally everything is too small. Its such a wierd thing. its not like I actually feel fat but I there are normal size people here (even some of the thai's are large) and I just don't know where they find clothes.

skin heads and negros-

just a note to tell you guys that anyone bald is called a skin head and any black person is called a negro here. They had no idea either was offensive until I tried to explain. I tried to explain things a little bit to my nayok and he then said oh they are hitler about the skinheads. At this I was 1) impressed he knew what I was talking about 2) impressed he knew who hitler was and 3) left it at that because that was probably the best I was gonna do.

April 9

I've been slacking on my TODAY I LEARNED so I'm gonna try to pick that back up again too.

Today I learned:

-the reality of the fishbowl. I went on a 40 minute bike ride and didn't go half a kilometer without knowing someone and happening to be at their house, moms house, market or field(farm).

-A man from my tessabaan got really excited to show me all the cement he made look like wood in the new park they are building(annie this is where you are going to walk wyatt when you come). It looked pretty awesome. I'm super impressed with the brush strokes mimicking the knots. it was awesome. 

-The other day when I went on a bike ride I really confused this yaai because I didn't really know where I was going so I went until I was nervous I was gonna get lost(which happened to be right after her store) and then just turned around and went back the same way. It turns out I was about a kilometer from my house if I had just kept going and she knew where I lived despite my having never met her.

-Sometimes you think you're in a big city full of a bunch of people who don't have the time of day for anyone else but then you smile at them and suddenly you're in a village again.

So early in my experience in thailand I had this dessert that seems to be the most popular dessert in thailand, probably because is so easy to make. It is the good old fashioned icee. The first time I had one it was back in suphan buri and I was lunching with a couple of my fellow PCVs and a local paw-aw or principal. He had already served us lunch and a student brought up a tray of different colored icees. I was excited as it was hot and it was ice. Who cared how sweet or fake or whatever it was cold. So I grabbed a green one and dug in. Now first bite was pretty much what I expected. Basically over sugared cold water with some ice and concentrated syrup. Then I realized there were things in it, hiding at the bottom. So adventurer that I am I went in and investigated. I found some unidentifiable fruit or gelatinous thing. I  figured hey well at least I'm getting some fruit…maybe. It was only when I continued for a third bite that I was pushed over the edge there on my plastic soup spoon full of green liquid and ice and a black piece of gelatin was also a soggy piece of bread. I slowly put down my spoon and left it to melt. I still don't get it. I don't think I'll ever get it. just like the ice cream sandwich here. it's not like I actually want a sandwich with ice cream in it. anyway. yeah. so fast forward three months later and I still don't get it and I still know its weird and its still not my favorite dessert of kanom but I do eat one almost every day bread and all. So thats some progress I've made.

I went on a bike ride today. I've gotta do it every day. Not for the exercise(bc everyone knows THATS not my thing) but every time I do it I come back with the biggest smile. People are so cute. Recently I've been once again frustrated with the fact that I'm in a bigger city and it feels as though its gonna be harder to meet people and I'm not gonna be the farang. It's been that way a little bit in that people stare at me but don't necessarily say hello like they did in Suphan but today I went out on my own for a bit and realized that number one my amphur is really small and two that I can't go more than half a kilometer without running into someone I know. Also, it's not like I didn't know this already but EVERYONE wants to feed me. its more a thai thing. Its not me. Today in a matter of 20 minutes I was offered dinner 4 times and they all knew that I had eaten some food already and I was headed home for dinner. 

Today I wore shorts over leggings down to my knees and a short sleeved tshirt and I was self conscious about bring too riske. Oh my how I've changed. I feel like by the time I'm allowed to go on vacation I'm gonna feel like bikinis are basically nudity.

April 10

There were all sorts of weird things that happened today.

First apparently my wrong nayok has taken it upon herself to change the structure of thai language and declare that there are in fact 5 tones but they are not what ever book that ever taught westerners say that they are(mid, high, low, rising and falling). Instead they are mid, higher, highest, lower, and lowest. The difference between higher and highest is a difficult one to figure out. I kept trying to figure out which of higher or highest was what I called high and which was what I called rising based on the words that she was using with each one. That lead to more confusion because I thought she was saying the higher version of maa when she was in fact saying the highest version of maa. Needless to say after 20 minutes of her trying to explain this to me she told me that I probably shouldn't learn it anyway because I should just learn the way the words are supposed to sound and then just say them like that. Of course! why didn't I think of that.

Also at the end of our lesson the power went out and then within 30 seconds it was the thunder and lightning and we got a huge awesome thunderstorm for about an hour(and no power for an hour). I immediately went downstairs (where the entire office was anyway) to check it out outside. I so badly wanted to run outside and play in the rain with the kids but I couldn't because thats not riap roy and also when I did go outside(under the cement awning) everyone started screaming and calling me in anyway. So I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have let me play in the actual rain.

The rain brought to light a couple things namely everything leaks. Everything. The doors to the front of the tessabaan had a puddle after like 5 minutes of rain. Almost every window had at least a little bit of a leak(including the one directly behind my chair/desk- so guess I'm just not sitting at my desk during the rainy season). So I guess the question would be how does that work? Also this thing with the power. It was off for like an hour and a half today. Not that I need power or anything but its kinda annoying to have it taken away from you when you're expecting to have it. Its just like cutting a kid a huge piece of cake and then only letting him have two bites and stealing it as he's putting the third in his mouth. Its just not very nice. Also, Trat's an amphur muang shouldn't they have this whole wind thing figured out. I don't know maybe thats just me. Also just in general you would think in this day and age with the internet and stuff that if someone builds power lines they should be able to stand up to the wind or rain, I mean besides if like a pole goes over or something like that. 

Also I had this mental image of me biking in that rain. The more I think about it the more I have no idea how I'm gonna get around. I already want to buy a moto and just go under the radar(don't worry mom and peace corps, I won't). Not that that would help with the rain i guess but still. I just imagine 3 months of that rain and biking and it actually seems kinda fun right now but I know that its gonna suck at 7 o'clock in the morning when I already don't want to go to work. 

Also today was full of those experiences of I thought I knew what was going on and then was blindsided by what I now think is going on which may or may not be what is actually going on.I guess thats most days but today I had a couple. For instance, yesterday I asked where Dhat and Miu were and Get said they went home. I was a little confused because I thought they lived here but I figured they were just visiting for bit term and then they were gonna go back and live with their dad during the school year. I did remember Miu saying she went to a private school and I haven't seen or heard of one around here so I decided(with my little information) that I had solved the mystery and got a little sad that the house wouldn't be a bustling but 

I also just realized after my second shower today that I shower more here than I do in america and there is no hot water and no faucet. I'm literally giving myself a bucket bath out of a trash can. The best part is I rather enjoy it. Not in the same way and oh I'm sore and tired and need a bath and lets put bubbles in and drink a glass of red wine in the bathtub kinda way(god damn it, even my own mind is betraying me with imaginary awesomeness that I want). But more of a well this is somehow still entertaining even though I do it at least twice a day. Actually to be honest there have been two days where I didn't shower, but for those of you that know me well thats amazing. I have been here exactly 3 months and there have been exactly two days(I'm not counting the 24 hours that I was on a plane) that I haven't taken a shower. I honestly think thats probably a record for me.

April 11

Today was old people day. I love old people. Especially Thai old people. They are so silly and lovely and touchy and adorable and like two feet tall. So yeah today we had old people appreciation and there was a lot of silly games like relays to eat a bunch of food and then eat this weird beetle nut things that all old thai people eat. or singing song with a call and response and between the deafness and the general slowness it would take about 20 times before people started to understand that they were supposed to respond when called but then they couldn't always remember whether they were supposed to clap their hands or stomp their feet. There was a lot of redo's. It was full of hilarious old ladies that were cracking up. Again we all danced and they loved me. I have decided that I know I'm supposed to work with the teenagers and stuff and I'm all lucky(or some people think so) because I'm in an amphur muang(aka city) so I can have friends  that may actually be a bit more liberal and be able to hang out and all, but after today all I want to do is have a gang of like 70 year olds to hang out with. They are crazy and awesome and because they are automatically respected because of their age they can be totally inappropriate and get away with it completely. And they abuse that privilege like no other. They're basically all my idols. 

Also another note. I haven't seen many canes here. I'm thinking its probably because there are the old people who walk and there are the old people who don't walk and theres not as much of a slow transition there as in america and I'm assuming its because of the terrain and the fact that most old people ride bikes as their transportation so if they don't walk they don't go anywhere. So anyway the few canes I have seen (about 10) are all PVC pipe. I think this is a perfect example of why these old people are awesome. I can remember my grandpas canes. I remember a couple different ones and I remember them being expensive and really nice wood and all this stuff, which don't get me wrong was totally beautiful, but was also incredibly expensive for a thing that was really just supposed to hold you up when you get wobbly. These guys are just practical with their blue PVC pipe cane. I kinda want to meet a badass granny and ask if I can paint her a cool cane or get a bunch of stickers and decorate it. maybe that's what I'll do when I grow up and get old. make myself a PVC pipe cane and make it badass. 

Oh also its song kran which is Thai New Year for the next three days(I think). So what that entails for me I'm still not too sure but I've heard it involves a lot of hawaiian shirts(which I did see today. Also just imagine a group of 100 people over the age of 60 that are all wearing the required bright floral hawaiian shirts--it's kinda impossible not to love it and don't worry there are lots of pictures), squirt guns, baby powder and basically a country wide water fight. So yeah, what I experienced today was a woman dabbing something that kinda smelled like astringent on my cheeks and forehead and then dabbing some other milky looking substance over it and then when that dries you have white powder marks on your cheeks and forehead all day. So yeah. Thats gonna be my weekend I guess. I'll let you know how it works out.

Also today I was thinking about all the people I know and trying to remember their names and it occurred to me that I know 3 Frogs, 1 Dog, 1 Salty(in addition to our cat that's named salty), 1 Sugar, and 1 New. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but thats pretty awesome.

Thaid to Trat! For better or worse!

But its totally for the better.

Hey all(all 5 of you)

Sorry its been so long. I've been a little busy here. Life's awesome as you will see but at the moment I don't have internet at home, I only have it at the office so I may be a little MIA for the next couple months until I get my own place. Also, on the plus side if you happen to be up in the middle of the night I will probably be online because I will be "working". Also I might actually get a phone number that you guys can call. so I'll keep you posted. and now here's the last two weeks of my life...

March 13

So I've been trying really hard to be able to go to my brothers wedding and I'm pretty sure I can go now. 

…

then I fell asleep.

March 14

Also very tired. It's 7:49 pm. Today we did a lot of debriefing and a little bit of reminiscing and feeling sentimental. Today is the last time that the YinD (once again for those who haven't been paying attention: Youth in Development) people met on our own so to close it out we wrote something nice about everyone on a sheet of paper that they then get to take with them to site for when they are having bad days. The gems of mine were:

Hilarious -- on purpose most of the time!  --->implication(in case you didn't get it) is that there a fair percentage of the time that this person is simply laughing at me and not with me

Self Confident like whoa

        I like this mostly because I can only read it in the voice of Joey from Blossom.

Also, I'm tired. Today was too hot. Every day is too hot, but today was extra too hot. I still am not sure I can think. I am sure I didn't drink enough water because there isn't enough water to drink and I don't like the taste of water so I don't drink it.  Anyway I got home and felt all warbley. It was less than awesome. I couldn't figure out what to do with myself because I wasn't actually sick I just didn't feel right. I decided to rinse my soaking wet face and then come to my room and sit in front a fan so I could have hot air blown on me and try to cool down. It helped a little. [I know this is probably not that interesting, but this is my day to day. It's dealing with problems like 'what do I do when everything is too hot?' 'blow hot air onto yourself because at least thats better than sitting in hot air when it's not moving']

Also today I had cream cheese. But sometimes (most of the time) the things are not quite what they seem here in thailand. So this cream cheese was more like butter cream. and not like the frosting. It was kinda like a thick spreadable butter that had a slight cheese flavor. Either way I ate a bunch of it. 

Excited for tomorrow our last day of class in Si Prachan and then for Saturday when I think I'm going to my brothers wedding and taking my final language test then sunday and meeting with Kevin and Paula (country director and assistant country director) and then packing and going away party on monday and tuesday.  CRAZY week. CRAZY life. Hope site is as awesome as this has been. 

Also I've made it to 8:15. I'm calling it a win. I think I'm ready for bed. [Thats only half a joke. I'm putting on a tv show and I bet I will be out by 8:45]

March 15

OMG soo tired. soo fun.

Arrived home today after another loverly day of heartfelt half goodbyes to find that there are all these people at my house because my host brother is getting married tomorrow. It took me about an hour to take a shower because I had to talk to people and everyone kept wanting me to eat or drink or talk. It was lovely. I felt so loved by so many people that I didn't know. Also it was a great excuse to not study mostly because it was probably better studying than I ever could've asked for considering that tomorrow I am going to speak with a random person that I've never met and they are going to assess my language skills to see whether or not I have the language proficiency to be a PCV.  Anyway, I'm really not worried in part because I practiced today and in part because I'm actually not worried. Also tomorrow I'm waking up at 4:30 so I can dress in traditional thai dress and drive to the wedding site and help my family set up and debatably have the wedding at then (around 12 hours later) at 3 I am gonna have this test where they assess my language skill. THEN I'm gonna go back to the wedding and party. Then I'm gonna come home and sleep and wake up and have a general evaluation in english. [I do know that I keep giving you my schedule, but honestly its a miracle that I've made it to anything in the last couple days and then next couple are only gonna get worse]. AHHHH!!! I love thailand! Love my family! love my ahjaans! Getting super sentimental! Don't wanna leave suphan buri!  

aww fuck! I forgot to get a present! Dammit!

too bad. bedtime.

March 16

It's 4:30 in the morning. Everything is awful. That's a lie. Being awake is awful.

But I'm still really excited about the wedding.

March 18

So first and foremost HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! Obviously this will be posted after but whatever I'm hoping to talk to you tomorrow on your version of march 18th.  Anyway the last couple days have been douzies. 

The wedding was awesome and fantastic and super interesting for a multitude of reasons including:

Upon arriving at 7am I saw a bunch of 20-40 year old dudes drinking whiskey- All I could think about for a couple of minutes was RF. That morphed into what if I had RF in thailand, what the eff would that look like. I feel like Thailand is so crazy on a daily basis that maybe it would just be super proper and everyone wearing suits and helmets and going to an office and being on time and not eating rice. So basically just thailand not being thailand which is decided wouldn't be awesome.

So there were a lot of interesting parts to the wedding but the there were a couple interested parts. So first monks chanted while the bride and groom and all the family were in the room, and then the bride and groom offered the monks food and while the monks were eating the bride and groom were on these little pedestal things and the couples (starting with the bride and grooms parent) went up and poured water over the grooms hands into a fake plant and then did the same thing over the brides hands. So this was interesting for a couple reasons. One they are both wearing what look like crowns made out of popcorn with a string tying them together and so they can't move much but its okay because they don't really have to. I assume this is some kind of holy water and we are blessing their new relationship (I think this in part because you have to do it in pairs and in part because I'm really good at making up reasons that I think are totally logical and are usually totally wrong). But I think the funniest thing about it is that about 100 people just watered a fake plant. Seriously the water was like spilling over by the end.

Also I'm pretty sure I didn't see them smile until this water part and that wasn't even at each other. It seemed to me that the ceremony part of thai weddings are for the parents and more for tradition because chuai and his wife really did not seem to be enjoying themselves. Also I kinda loved it because there was this woman that I kinda imagined being like an old fashioned nurse (ya know like juliet had, not her mom but the lady who raised her). Both Chuai and his bride(I can't for the life of me remember her name) had no idea what to do or when to do it. At one point she literally just pushed them into a wei so that they would wei at the appropriate time. It was pretty awesome. Also, I just want one of those all the time. To tell me when to do what and what I'm doing that is in appropriate. Mostly for thailand but now that I think about it I could use one all the time.

I think my other favorite thing(okay I know they are all my favorite things but oh well) was when we went outside and gathered in this field and there were all these mats on the ground and didn't really understand what was going on but someone told me I should go this way because it was time to dance. So I get over there and I'm taking some pictures and saying hello to the people I know. which by the way was like half the group. Actually sidetrack: it was an amazing event to end my time in Suphan Buri because I realized that over the course of two months I had been a part of such a wonderful community and I knew so many people. I casually talked to some of the people I knew and I hear loudly from across the field, "Rosie! Rosie! Maa tii nii! Maa tii nii!". My friend from the market was sitting in a song tau and waiting for the festivities to start(keep in mind I still have absolutely no idea what is about to happen). This lady is one of my favorites. She is such a love. I am actually going to go to the market on wednesday because I need a picture with her before I leave because I seriously think that besides my mom this woman is the woman I will miss the most.  

also another side note: when I got home today my family had gone to the market in Si Prachan and when I got home they said I was very popular there and apparently they had a circle of people all around them talking all about me to them. I think this is adorable because of so many things. One I really only know two or three ladies in the market and I still can't remember their names. And two my family does that all the time and I think its totally cute that they unexpectedly got the receiving end of it.

Okay back to the wedding. So were in a field by a house and theres this little thai band playing while we(meaning my mom and some of her friends) set up all these plates of food. There were about 100 or so total people and about 15 were setting stuff up and the rest were just sitting there watching and I had no idea what was going on. Every time I asked I was told that soon I will dance. I wasn't so excited about the dancing so I  would just leave it at that. It turns out that there is a parade led by this fantastic little band that I equated to a thai marching band. Following the marching band there are the 'dancers' which I'm pretty sure are just the people drunk enough or silly enough to dance their but off at 8:30 in the morning(this was were my favorite lady was and she was dead sober and fantastic). The rest of the people fall in behind and take one of the many many plates of food or kanoms. So then we present all these things to the household with Chuai, my brother/the groom leading the pack. And then theres some funny banter between my favorite lady and the brides nurse because my favorite lady is asking if Chuai can be let in to his wife's room now and her nurse says 'no she needs to be given more' so my favorite lady asks how much and meh gives her the money. This goes back and forth and every time the nurse raises the price my mom gives more money and then finally they are at about 3000 baht(around $100) and the nurse finally just says, 'but i don't want to'. It was cute and then there was a bit of wrestling between my favorite lady and the nurse and finally my favorite lady got the nurse out of the way so Chuai could get in. 

Okay thats it for tonight but today you/I learned:

-that thai people don't smile at weddings.(actually considering they are called the land of smiles a lot of times they don't smile and most of the time they don't smile for pictures)

oh poop I forgot the funny lesson I learned from the wedding. So when we presented everything to the brides house everyone in the party took their shoes off at the bottom of the stairs and went into the living room which is up some stairs. So when I came back down afterwards there were still about 50 pairs of shoes lying about haphazardly.  Not only did I not remember what shoes i wore that day but I had absolutely no idea where I had taken them off 15 minutes earlier. I sat there for about 5 minutes looking at all the different pairs of shoes and realizing that I didn't know anyone directly around me and I also didn't know the word for shoes so I was kinda SOL. It was okay though because some nice guys saw me looking around like an idiot and the ground and looking at everyones shoes and asked if I forgot. I was so excited because I had just learned that word a couple days earlier and didn't even think to use it but excitedly said yes yes I forgot I forgot. I don't know. I forgot. I don't know. He laughed at me and helped me mostly in pretending to look with me but only later did I realize that he had no idea what shoes he was looking for so he was really just moral support. Anyway yay. a good takeaway lesson. remember where you put your shoes or at least remember what shoes.

March 19 

Today one of the most qualified people of my training group decided not to swear in. Its unclear all the details at the moment and it may have been a forced early termination but it's a shame because she was a great trainee and I was looking forward to her being an amazing friend and resource. 

Also tomorrow is our going away party and its super hard for me to talk to my family because I keep just thinking about saying good bye and I'm gonna be super sad. I'm probably gonna start crying. I keep almost crying when I think about it. I'm gonna be a total mess tomorrow.

March 20

Two months ago(almost to the day) I was terrified to meet the family that I was supposed to live with.  The family that was supposed to feed me and teach me about thai culture and teach me how to actually do my laundry or wear my pasin or use a squat toilet or eat like a thai person(all of these were shown to us by our ahjaans in 10 minute skits that I didn't necessarily understand most of).  I was terrified. What if I didn't like them? What if they didn't like me? What if I said hello wrong or insulted them by accident. What if? What if? What if? I was so nervous despite the trust that I put in Chularat the home stay coordinator I couldn't imagine living with a family again, the thai part was just another obstacle.  Seriously, I love my real family but even after a week with them I'm ready to head back to my own place. After these two months, I genuinely feel as though I have a new family(in addition to my other families be it friend or blood). I almost cried at many points today. I will miss my Thai family more than words can express and I genuinely feel as though my meh will be one of my first phone calls when things are hard at site.  I love her dearly and she always has the ability to make me laugh. My nong saao Shhy is a gorgeous and strong 16 year old that is stubborn and wonderfully so. She is super smart and has helped me enormously with teaching me thai and the ways of thailand. And thankfully was never too worried about my loosing face to correct anything I was doing wrong(which was appreciated *almost* all the time). My yaai who was the source of so many laughs and her lack of inhibition(about her boobs or mine) and her loving yet demanding dragging me everywhere by my arm and showing me off to her friends.  My aunt is amazing too she is quite and caring and she makes sure I have everything I need. I found out tonight she was the one who requested me and I can't thank her enough for that.  Also my paw is another silent but caring type and just thinking about the few times that he would try to speak with me and break out with the few english words that he knew. Its really the little things that at the end of the day really mean so much.  I love my Thai family so much and I will miss them more that I think I will ever be able to describe(in english or thai). Also the random people that aren't my family, like molly's mom who helped us with everything along the way: IRBing, every get together we ever had, motoing us to school that first morning, introducing us to the pu yai baan and the nayok and the pa yaa baan staff, and even her angry face when we came home late and she was dissappointed in us. The kanom man who every morning would say sa wa dii krap to me and when I came back from site visit he said he was worried because he hadn't seen me in a couple days.  To the market guys right outside my street who also say sa wa dii ka to me every morning. To the snakes that died and I get to watch decompose on the road every day. To Paan the coffee lady at the dal at. To my favorite lady at the dal at who I still don't know her name(but now I DO have a picture of). To all of the other home stay families: specifically mamies' aunt for the daily morning conversation that I can understand about 5% of, Andy's dad who would be the scariest bad police man ever but I'm pretty sure he's a good police man or at least he would be for me, to sasha's mom for always being down to dance, for mammies' mom for just being the cutest, to bridge/jills mom (I don't know who's is who's) for always helping cook, oh and molly's dad for always checking my tires and generally just always being home even if meh or molly aren't and making om get me some naam yen and sitting and chatting with me.

Suphan buri is a great place and I'm really gonna miss it. I do not doubt I will be back and I hope I will be back many time in the next two years.

March 27

A thing I learned today:

NARP - Non Athletic Regular Person - so no ones ever told me about this saying and maybe it's because I'm one of them and you thought I would find this term insulting but I do not in fact find that. I LOVE it and I want to self identify at one and I think that will make all the jocks or whatever who want to call me a NARP hate me(except that they totally love me with their inside heart).  anyway that was something I learned in the last couple days and thought everyone should know it.

So its been a while. I know I haven't called or written and I'm really not trying to make you think I don't like you its just that I've found someone else. Its not you its it, it's this thing called Peace Corp and its got a lot going on. There was the whole emotional thing of saying goodbye to this family who fed me and clothed me and called me and still calls me and all that and then there was this whole hoopla about swearing or something and there was this really cool lady who didn't make it which sucked (this is for real actually, one of the volunteers ended up being kicked out because she didn't want to go to her site because she felt unsafe and she wouldn't resign) but then there was also this other really cool lady who did come who is a total badass ambassador lady and I know this might be bad or something but she kinda looks like me and I think I want to kidnap her and take her job because its awesome and I kinda look like her and she's a badass and maybe one day someone would believe me when I say Im her.

So then we had this other thing that was a conference telling our supervisors who we were and what we were about and make a two year plan.  This sounds awesome. It wasn't. It was nothing like awesome. I mean okay there were parts of it that were awesome but most of those were moments when I realized I didn't have to be there anymore.  Okay for real serious though. I did get to spend some time with my Nayok who is a very busy man and I will probably not get to spend much time with at the office so it was great to build a relationship with him so that he at least knows who I am and has an eye out for me. Which actually leads me to a good story about today. He walked into the office and everyone kinda quieted down even though he wasn't even in the room we were in and the doors to the room we were in were shut. So then one of the women says, that's the big boss. Psst, Rosie thats the big boss. Someone explained that I knew who he was. About 5 minutes later we all walked into the lobby area where he was and we all said hello and he grabs my arm and pulls me over and tells me that I should come to his meeting this evening to which I respond that I would love to but I think I already have plans but I think he will be coming to the event at the school after the community meeting and we can see each other then. All of the women were a little taken aback and only then did I realize that I just refused and invitation by the nayok. Oh well. He still likes me because he went onto say if I have any problems, any problems or worries come to him first because he knows me and he'll take care of it.  I already feel so loved. anyway that was a minor detour into current time

So after the pretty useless supervisor conference we had an even more useless counterpart conference at which a different person at the tessabaan came to suphanburi and we 'learned' about teaching finance. There were a couple issues. First, it was a pilot program so a lot and I mean A LOT of the kinks weren't worked out. Second, everything took hours because everything that anyone said had to be translated from thai to english and then most of the time back again and there were many sub questions or open ended questions. IT WAS TERRIBLE. Also, from the little thai that I do know I'm pretty sure nothing was translated well so it's not even like we got the ideas that they were saying. 

Then there was the other goodbye which was harder but also easier because it was rushed and awkward because our counterparts were there and everything. OOPS sorry forgot about something there was Chaturon's birthday bear that we decided to get. Chaturon is YinDs awesome training head and something else because he's a permanent Peace Corps employee but basically he's been our saviour for all of training. He's always been up and happy and giggling in the corner even when he lost his voice for 4 days. He's always been able to give honest feedback and take it and works through a lot of our frustrations and tries to make the best of it anyway and reminds us to do the same. anyway his birthday was two days after we all left each other and he kept joking that he would be so sad and lonely because he wouldn't have all the staff and trainees around for his birthday so we got him a huge bear and we all signed it and it was super cute and I have a bunch of awkward photos of him trying to give the final information of the conference while trying to hold a microphone and a giant stuffed bear in one arm and a clip board in the other. He's a trooper!

So yeah the other goodbye was weird mostly because I was about to get in a car with my counterpart and drive for 7 hours and 10 minutes before I got in that car I found out that most of my home stay family was also in that car and that we would all be driving back together. As relieved as I was to not have to talk to Satit for 7 hours, I now had to think of what I was going to think of to talk about with everyone in my family for 7 hours, this felt like far more of an important impression. So yeah. I slept. I literally slept for 4.5 of the 7 hours and then we got home and I showered and went to sleep for 9 hours. I am starting to think something might be wrong with me but then I realize that I don't really sleep and I do a lot of things and I forget to drink water and its balls hot and when you do those things you feel like somethings wrong with you. (as I'm currently staying up late even though I have to wake up early). 

anyway I'm bored of those things now. the ride was fine. I got to my house. My room is a large room with nothing in it that looks out onto our cement fish pond and our debatably fighting chickens. My mattress consists of a queen mattress size piece of firm styrofoam with a sheet over it. I'm honestly more concerned about where the hell I can get that much styrofoam and what else they use it for than I am that my mattress is harder and hotter than my tile floor. I have a lovely 5 year old host brother/nephew and I'm pretty sure his name is dust but not quite sure. There are a lot of people in the family and I'm still unsure who all is who but I'll give it a shit

Dararat(I always forget her chuu-len or nickname) -sister-but I think she runs the house works as financial officer at tessabaan

Meh - mom, don't know her name yet and she's about 60 so in cultural standards and in actual standards she's a yaai

Paw - don't know his name either

yaai - she is in a wheelchair and she wasn't when I came last time but I haven't had time to asks why, she also doesn't talk much, she mostly stares into space

Gop - sister, 30, works at the tessabaan about 20 kilos away

Miu - sister, 12

sister, 17, forgot her name

Dust - 5, cousin

cousin around 9, had an awesome dance performance tonight

pii saao - older sister - I only know her as the mom of dust and the other cousin.

pii chaai - older brother - I met him very quickly at the dance performance.

Okay it's time to go to bed but the highlight of the dance performance was walking in and having someone(who I didn't recognize) immediately say oh rosie come here come here you want food (in thai). I've been here a day. It was lovely. Also I thought I was going to a recital but I think it was a graduation ceremony or a celebration for the people who are continuing education(after 8th grade). So Satit, my counterpart, is a piano teacher so a couple of his kids played first. They all played the same song but each time it was a 'medley' with a different song. and by medley I mean in the middle of that song they played one of three other songs: the saints go marching in, fur elise or my personal favorite mary had a little lamb. Also all of the children were dressed and made up like 80s whores and pimps. It was hilarious. Like stage makeup like whoa. Dararat did my cousins makeup for an hour. I don't think if I added up all the time I put on makeup it could ever add up to an hour. Also then after his students performed he had one of his students play 'backup' for him while he played violin. Thailand is so crazy. Then some kids performed some dances and then the teachers got up on stage and performed the most mai riap roy thing I've seen since I've been in thailand(which isn't saying much, but still). They were all in short skirts and tank tops or skin tight dresses and dancing all seductively and pretending to flash (or actually doing with short on underneath) the audience and pretending to drink. It was weird. It made me wonder about how liberal my site was because it was funny but I didn't even see yaais shaking their heads or anything and these are teachers. Anyway at some point there were also fireworks which were set off about 10 feet from our table with absolutely no warning directly next to power lines. And I thought we were stupid at Renn Fayre. Also i just realized it but I think thailand is just renn fayre.

Also when I talked to my friends at their sites one is scheduled to talk to channel 7 news (a national news channel) about what he's doing at his site(which he doesn't know yet) and went to a cow auction and another one found out today that his co teacher is leaving for a month on vacation so he has no work to do for the next month and due to peace corps rules he can't leave so he's gonna learn thai and try to figure out what else to do. Oh yeah and one was asked the normal do you have a fan? No. do you like thai girls? yes, but not like that. Do you like playboy? Do you want to go get some whores later? [that is apparently the natural progression of the questioning]

Oh yeah I have some cool goals within my two year plan too. My favorite is that I'm supposed to decrease the drug addicts by 50%. I wanted to make the terrible joke of well I can do my best and then when we do evaluations there could just be a well timed accident that happens to involve some of them. but instead I went to diplomatic route and said I didn't really feel comfortable with that expectation to which he responded well then what do you think you can do. I suggested something like changing the goal to be something about educating about drugs as opposed to stopping a problem that already exists(I'm pretty sure that didn't get translated well, but oh well). We went back and forth a little and at the end he basically said, well it doesn't matter. I didn't really expect you to make that goal, but peace corps said I had to make a goal so I came up with a number. And here I thought it was because they had so much faith in me.

oh also today was awkward as eff. first I sat at my desk for a good half hour with nothing to do because I had nothing to do and none of my supervisor were there and I didn't want to 'bother' anyone while they were 'working'. It turns out that at the office most people are bothering and working. I can name probable 5 things that I saw happen today, which is not to say things were getting done but most of what I saw was gossip and chitchat. Its amazing to me mostly because people seem so happy and laid back and things are at least kinda getting done because event keep happening and the municipality keeps running. Also I got checked my email today in the middle of the day in the middle of the office room and got a sentimental email and started to tear up a bit and it was funny because I think that was the first time all day that everyone immediately tried to ignore me or pretend they didn't see me. That made me laugh and so it was all better.

March 28

Today I agreed to be taught piano or help teach piano I'm not quite sure. I agreed to have my sister teach me how to do traditional thai dance(a full dance not just the fingers like the other one I already know).

I also listened to Sk8er Boi. This is what Peace Corps has done to me. Actually I've only been at site for two days so most likely it has nothing to do with Peace Corps. Anyway, this is great. 

So today was another free day at work which basically means I can't leave work but I have nothing to do. It's interesting. So this morning, in an attempt to let everyone else do the work that they have I sat at my desk and studied the limited thai resources that I have and after about an hour of doing that I went onto Facebook and talked to some people and then kept it open and kept studying. About and hour and a half in one of my coworkers came in and told me to come into the other room. I assumed this was for work so I grabbed a notebook and followed her. I went into the other room and there were a bunch of coworkers 'working' they were sitting around chatting about whatever. One was openly playing bejeweled, one was texting on her phone, one was talking on the phone and I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she was working but then there were two others sitting at other peoples desks. I don't know where those people were. Inherent in my explanation is judgement but I'm not trying to be judgement I just am really curious as to how things get done.  Things do happen and the activities that I've been to seem organized and well planned but I don't know when that happens. I am honestly curious to see if this will ever feel like work. I'm starting to think this is really just a networking gig and it basically is. I'm networking and party planning but it just so happens that the partys that I'm planning are for the youth of thailand and we're gonna talk about how to be good adults at the partys. The weirdest thing though is I know that my target group is 14-25 or something like that but of all the people I've met those are the hardest to win over. Its weird but I don't want to think to hard on it because I think its gonna figure itself out and I'm bored talking about it.

Today I got asked if I had a boyfriend 3 times. I also learned that my coworkers make 45,000 Baht per year which is about $1500. On that note I'm still (I mean I have only been here for two days) really confused on where the money comes from in my family. I'm pretty sure meh and paw don't work they just farm and we do have a lot of eggplants or ma- kuua actually we have a bunch of different kinds, I think we sell those. Then we also have saparot(pineapple) and fak-tawng(pumpkin). Anyways back to money both my sisters work at tessabaans so they both pull in 45000 B per year so a total of 90000 B but that still doesn't really seem like enough for a family of 6. 

Its weird how much I feel like I've adopted thai culture in weird ways. Like today I had to tell was probably asked by everyone in my tessabaan if I though they were suai or law(pretty or handsome). I answer to everyone that I think they are either pretty or handsome because I'm not gonna be the one not to say it but in thai culture its weird. Everyone points out everyones flaws but only with appearance. For instance, if you are terrible at your job you may never get fired or reprimanded or even given constructive criticism but if you have a pimple on your face at least 7 people will point it out before you get to your desk in the morning. I have some mosquito bite scabs on my arms that can't seem to heal(it doesn't help that I keep itching them) but I don't think a single person that I've met has not asked about them.  

some texts from the last couple days:

I've been thainapped by a tranny. We're talking about blow jobs now.

Almost hit a wild monkey on my bike ride home 

Haha that sounds like fun. I'm terrified of trying to fart. Lunch was rough.

Upgrade of awkward news. His brother died. I'm renting his house.

I'm glad I kept my expectations low bc now everything seems much better than I remember

Are you watching the soaps on channel 3?!?!?!?!?!

I hate everything right now…besides the warm beer I'm drinking in my room by myself

I just had a hysterical conversation about how I want to be tan and how Naynay(a black person) isn't just really tan.

March 29

So I'm really falling into this kinda of schedule. Today was awesome and it kinda felt like I got some stuff done. In the morning I hung out and ate everything and everyone was getting kanoms so I literally ate everything. Then I came back to my desk for a minute and the nayok said he was gonna gather all my counterparts and call them into his office and we were gonna make my two year plan. That was an interesting meeting and I'm pretty sure nothing got done except him saying that he will introduce me to everyone in the next couple months and the wrong nayok telling me not to worry because I will meet them all at this one event in the middle of april. I repeated my concern that that was great and all but I would like to meet them more individually also so that I can remember who they are and talk to them for a bit.  Also we went over all the things I was supposed to do and most of the time my wrong nayok and my nayok were disagreeing and then nothing actually got done. But I also once again voiced my interest in actually getting to know the youth that I want to work with because I am willing to do any project that they give me but my assignment is actually to work with 14- 25 year olds so I would like to do that at some point. I think a lot of that is gonna have to be on my own though. I'm excited to get my bicycle and bike around because I already feel very welcome in the community even if I haven't really been out of my tessabaan.

So then I had lunch with my nayok and wrong nayok and education officer. There is an interesting thing with money here. I literally haven't paid for a thing since I've gotten to site and I've offered many time but I'm still not sure when it is rude to insist on paying and when it's not. I can't figure out what to but as a kanom either because they always buy it before me. Anyway, today I ate all sorts of things. 

-banana taffy wrapped in coconut leave

-rice soaked in wine(I've had this before and it was terrible but it is the OTOP(One Tambon One Product) of Trat so I figured it had to be at least better here…it was terrible. Even if this were made with the best wine and the best rice I still think I wouldn't like it but its actually made with what tastes like the cheapest asian white wine you can find that has then been left out for about a month)

-really good coconut kanoms that are basically just jellied coconut milk and before anyone gets down on it I hated coconuts and coconut milk before I came here and I now LOVE it. I know the water is the new thing and all(and also it's not that new over here, the only time I see people drinking it is when I'm having one and they get one for themselves also)

-ice cream with black beans in it. also its not like our ice cream. its more icey. but yeah black beans. also they called them black peanuts and I had to ask multiple times because thais don't say final t's so it kept sounding like its black penis flavor. It was really hard not to laugh in their face and then once I did get it I asked a couple more times anyway because I was giggling inside 

Another thought. We have house moms they are actually called that meh baan. They are our cleaning ladies and coffee and tea gatherers. Also today when I went to a pre wedding party my host sister introduced a woman in english as the housekeeper and I was a little confused but smiled and wei'd politely and continued on. About 5 feet later she told me this woman was Satit, my counterparts, housekeeper again I smiled politely and said hello in thai. A bit later she asked one of her friends and realized her mistake, she meant to say wife. And then proceeded to ask me what the difference was. It literally made me laugh out loud and I didn't exactly feel like it was appropriate to say sex but from what I've seen in Thailand that his kinda the only difference. On that note, today I was talking with an older lady at the tessabaan and she asked me if I had a fan(bf again for those of you not paying attention) and I said no and she went with the standard next question, do you like thai men. I responded with my textbook answer yes but I don't want one as a boyfriend because I don't want a boyfriend when I don't have a boyfriend I have more fun. here's where I get blindsided. she said well what about the ____[some word I didn't understand] and every one starts laughing and she starts clapping her hands in this weird way. I have a weird feeling all of the sudden and I'm pretty sure I was suddenly talking about what I was gonna do without a boyfriend because I couldn't have sex. It was awkward and I pretended I didn't understand.

oh also I forgot to tell you about the badassness of my parents. So I got home yesterday and only my yaai was home and everyone else was at the market so I took my shower and started doing laundry. I saw this huge lizard[about 10 inch head to tail] on the ceiling and wall and we have a cat so the cat was guarding it so it couldn't get down. I inspected it a little bit and got pretty close but didn't touch it. When my meh got home Dust pointed it out to her and she grabbed a stick. I went over to get another good look at it before she shoeed it away and my sister told me to come back because she didn't want it to bite me. Apparently it's poisonous. Now that I think about it its probably not though because we talked about the snakes and lizards that we have to look out for and basically Dr Rit said there weren't many and mostly its the obvious snakes. Anyway, my meh proceeds to walk over there under it and crush its skull and feed it to the cat. It was the most blasé barbaric activity I've ever seen. Then today I came home and my paw was shooting a huge rubber band from across the room to kill about 1.5 in lizards on the ceiling for the cat to eat. He is a crazy good shot though. I'm pretty sure in the 3 minutes I was in the living room he hit all 5 of the ones he shot at. 

Also today I taught the kiddos that came to the tessabaan because it's bit term, or school break, and their moms can't leave them at home.[which also means monday a 14 month old is coming and her mom looks about 15 although I'm pretty sure she's about 30] Anyway it was super fun and we learned about all the colors and I asked them each what their favorite color was and then we played red light green light. Also, it's weird the things that you forget when you never use them like the word violet. when I pointed to a purple thing and asked the color he said there were two names and I said, No, this is purple. He said, What about violet?  It was actually an awesome moment because he showed me that I was wrong and he thought it was super funny.

Oh also this afternoon I cleaned trash off the highway(which every single person in the tessabaan from the mayor to the house mom does every friday at 3 pm---srsly, I'm not really sure why I'm here, they have this shit on lock). Also, I had to cancel my evening piano class with Satit and the 8 year olds who kick my butt because I had to go to a wedding pre-party at the other wrong nayok's house (whos name is cha-laam or shark and he's totally too cool for school).  From there I rushed to the budget meeting which went awesomely and we had a record number of people out of the 6 they've done so far. Today we had 130 people come. My favorite part is a tie between trying to explain to a 5 year old that sharks have two sets of teeth with only the word teeth and my hands all in my mouth only to have the wrong nayok tap on my shoulder and look up to introduce myself to the village chief. Nevermind that's my favorite, but the other awesome moment was seeing the man that made the effort to wear a white collared shirt to the budget meeting but couldn't seem to find one that didn't have a 5 x 5 square of it ripped out from around the bellybutton down to the waistband showing off half of his impressive beer belly.

OMG i nearly forgot(full disclosure: i did forget but I keep a list of things that I don't want to forget on my iPod so I found it there and it's worth it just for this) in my office i have a typewrite that WRITES IN THAI!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhh the possibilities. When I can write thai I just want to go in on saturday and sunday and craft all day with my nat geos and my thai typewriter and write you all really snarky things or really good one liners that you will never be able to understand!!! I'm soooo excited.

Oh also today I thought I was getting fat because I have a belly and then I realized I haven't pooped in three days and my immediate reaction was to text my friend Colin to tell him about it. 

God my life is so hard. I eat and laugh and gossip all day and then have to run off to wedding partys and meetings to meet all the VIPs. How will I ever survive this?

March 30

Today I slept late (til 8:30) and then was off to a wedding. I spend all of the morning there and hung out and ate breakfast and then ate kanoms and talked to people until lunch. Also I met my future boyfriend. Okay I didn't really meet him and he will probably never be my boyfriend but I saw this guy from across the wedding that was in the wedding party and he had on black skinny jeans and a kinda skeezy but mostly awesome mustache, a little faux hawk, a white collared shirt, a pink tie and black hightop converse and he was just chilling smoking a cigarette. I pretty much creamed my pants immediately. Also, I do realize that if I saw a person dressed like that in portland I'd probably think he was a bit of a douche unless I already knew him and then I'd just make fun of him for trying so hard. Anyway I think it was more the realization that I'm in a city big enough that there are probably people that I would actually get along with in *real* *real* life(Portland used to be *real* life but has been upgraded to *real* *real* life because *real* life is now when I get to hang out with people I can actually speak to aka other PCVs). So anyway, we (Guet and I -note:there is no right way to spell that name. I've tried all the options and this is where I landed but I promise you you are saying it wrong in your head) decided not to eat there and went to Gop's(this one's a hard G-it also means frog) house because she has been sick for the last two days so she didn't come into the tessabaan. WE hung out there are talked about boyfriends and why I don't want one(I don't want to date who they want to set me up with and this is an easier answer) and why I used to have one but don't anymore(that was complicated) and why she doesn't have one(she says its cause she's not pretty). Then we got some food and took it to the tessabaan because its the only place with internet and we watched tv and ate somtam with bpoo and blab ga dtak(papaya som tam with crab and anchovies), somtam mamuang with bpoo(mango som tam with crab) and yam muu(pork salad). It was delicious and I'm realizing that I can eat spicy food. Also weird interjection about spicy food. Thais have a really interesting definition of whats spicy and whats not because its all relative. For instance, if something is less spicy than normal, they will tell me it's not spicy even if it still have like 8 peppers in it. The same goes the other way if something doesn't usually have peppers and they put one in they will say its spicy when it actually just tastes a little peppery. Either way I am now able to eat somtam with about 4 peppers up from 1, that said there's this girl in my office that eats it with like 11-but everyone agrees she's just crazy. 

So after lunch I fell asleep in my tessabaan lobby listening to thai pop song on their version on mtv and at one point heard a random commercial that had Spice Girls in the background and it almost made me was to open my eyes but it didn't so I took an hour nap. Then we had to get home because it was around 4. Still don't really understand why but thats what Guet said to me. So I came home and tried to get some things done and came into my room to fill out some paper work for peace corps and then was asked if I wanted to bpai tiao(or take a trip) to the dal at(market) with the rest of the family. I said sure because I'm not really saying no these days and its working out really well for me so far. So we drove to the downtown area and stopped outside a store and my younger sister ran in while the rest of us waited in the car and then she came back and then suddenly we were at the Trat FC game against Krabi. A professional soccer game. It was awesome. I've never been to a timbers game but if its like this I'm total down. The entire stand was in the red and white Trat FC shirts, scarfs, headbands, polos. Everything. It was fricken awesome. I have no idea how expensive it is but I want to go to all the games and also I want to be best friends with all the dudes.

So then we came home and I had a lovely dinner with everyone in the family (which hasn't happened yet). After dinner I taught Nong Duht (like a four year old saying dirt but with a lazy mouth) and Guet how to play wack-a-mole(THANKS AGAIN SHERMANS!!!) and taught Nong Duht the colors with the game. It was super fun and he got super into it once he understood how to play. The first time I was about to run out of cards he pointed out that I didn't have any more and then said don't worry, it's okay, I'll give you some. It was super cute and I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand the winning aspect of the game but oh well thats only a problem when you want to stop.

March 30 

Today I woke up late went to help Gurt on the 'farm' which is actually just a mankoot orchard(I don't know if thats the wording but I'm gonna use it) with a little house that I was offered to live in after her house(which is very tempting minus all the bite I have from the big red ants). So then instead of working on the farm I ended up just visiting with the neighbors and eating mango and bananas. at about 11 I announced that I should head back home to study thai and about an hour later we did. At home i ate lunch and was immediately asked if I wanted to take a trip to the market, I politely declined (against my better judgement) and said I was gonna stay and study thai. Within about 5 minutes I was asleep and I took an hour and a half nap. When I woke up I puttered around the house for about 5 minutes and then was asked by my meh if I wanted to take a trip to my aunt and uncles house. I said sure because I obviously wasn't gonna study thai and I went over there and we arrived to a large pile of eggplants that had come out of the bed of a truck that was still unloading. Everyone was sitting down with a bag packing them full of these eggplants so I joined right in. By the end of half an hour or so I was pretty good at packing the bags I would only be about one or two eggplants off of 5 kilos. Once I got it prefect and I cheered for myself inside but basically everyone else got it right every time. Anyway, yeah then Gurt and I were invited to go to the beach so we came back to the house and Gop, Gurt, Durt, and I pilled into Kiao's truck(a friend of Gurt). We drove for about 30 minutes and had a lovely afternoon/evening at the beach. The beach here is weird though. Or maybe it just was today. it was like 95 degrees or so today and even the wind at the beach was hot. also it was more hot and humid at the beach than it was at home and with all that I figured it'll be okay I'll play in the water and it will all be worth it. I put my feet in the water and I swear it was probably 75 degree. It was weird. Also we even got to see the beginning of the sunset before we saw the rain coming from the south. 

A couple things: 

I'm pretty sure Gurt has a boyfriend but besides her family and all the girls at the tessabaan all her friends are dudes. This goes against everything I feel like I've been taught. I'm not saying its not awesome, I'm just not sure if she's the exception or the rule so I'm not sure what I should do. There are all theses things like that here in Trat. For instance, not a single person has cared where anyones feet are. I mean I know there a general head foot concept in thailand but here your feet can point anywhere and people cross their legs all the time, even to the point that they are pointing their feet at someone. Also everyone wears pants and pretty short shorts. I know I'm supposed to be all riap roy and stuff but I can't figure out what that means here because I don't want to be matronly if I don't have to be. 

Also I'm pretty sure I can do whatever I want here and I know that they said that in Suphan Buri but its weird because they are so used to foreigners that I think they don't care or really think about it when they wear shorts or tank tops. I keep trying to get a read on it because I havent seen anyone from the tessabaan wearing tank tops but also every time we go outside for an extended period of time they all wear hats and long sleeves because they don't want to be dark so I really don't know

Some days I just feel really lucky to have all my friends. Like anyone who knows me knows friends and family and the most important thing to me.  If I don't have friends, I don't have me. In the last couple days between funny and awesome texts just to check in or emails from friends back home telling me about their latest escapades or just people checking in from home to see how site is. I just wanted to say to everyone that I love you and I miss you and you're the best and I wouldn't be here without you.

the ebb and flow of the thaid

March 7

I'm still recovering from the weekend and the hotel and everything but I feel like all this debriefing has allowed me to focus on all the terrible things about my site.  I know that it won't be terrible and it might be good to set myself up to think that it will. I mean that worked out for training, but it's also super nerve racking. I'm getting myself all worked up about the fact that I'm in a city and it's gonna be hard to meet people and blah blah blah

so yeah, not much to report except that I'm kinda freakin out.  Hopefully I'll calm myself down and have some fun or lighthearted things to report soon.

March 8

Today was everything I needed. It was a pretty frustrating day at training again because we are planning a service learning project in order to give back to this amazing community that has hosted us for the last couple months and we are given a day and a half and no resources to do so and we are supposed to include the community and educate them in some way to benefit them. Also we have no budget and we have no ideas and they've just given us this training on how your volunteer projects really need to come from the community, and you need to facilitate relationships and build solid relationships and understand the community before you will understand what they want as opposed to what you might think they want, and then they basically force us to do exactly what they tell us not to do.  ANYWAY, enough venting because I got out early because we had already finished our planning for our idea of cleaning up a library that no one uses. So we go to the local restaurant/hangout that we often do after school for a bit to decompress and we start talking to the woman who runs the place like we do every day.  She does the usual greetings and we do the same and it seems just like a normal day and we start to complain about the day and vent our frustrations(which seems like more ever since we've gotten back from site, but that may just be me). And then the woman comes us and starts to show us pictures of some americans. She told us before that when she was younger Peace Corps held a training here, about 30 years back.  So here are a bunch of pictures of these volunteers. Here are pictures of twenty somethings from 30 years ago that she knew for a month or two and she has been keeping their pictures and knows their names and where they went for service and everything.  She was sitting there telling us about when she was 20 and meeting these people and keeping this pictures of John or Zach or whatever her name was.  She could remember so many of the names and here I am forgetting them 4 hours later.  It was so inspiring I almost started crying. I am literally tearing up as we speak.  I know that this whole deal is pretty idealist and everything and I know the cynic in me thinks that nothings going to come of it. But then I think about 30 years ago and wondering whether that girl would've thought that 30 years from then this woman would be showing current trainees the picture of her standing exactly where we were.  Or thinking of where this 50 year old Zach is and if he remembers this woman or how he would feel if he knew she had his picture still or even what he thinks about his peace corps service.  It's really easy to dismiss a lot in the day to day and today reminded me that it will be frustrating and it will be difficult, but sucking it up for a moment and taking a picture with someone might mean that they get to proudly show that picture to someone 30 years later and explain how back then you had to walk everywhere as opposed to ride bikes.  

It changed the spin on this whole community service thing too because as much as it is about community service, I'm realizing that I want to make it more about the little things. I want it to be about the fact that today during break I didn't stress about my frustrating language class. Instead I sat with my host mom's friends in the market and chatted with them because I hadn't really talked to them since I got back from Trat and they wanted to know everything. They are lovely. They regularly call me from across the market to come over to them so that they can ask me if I've eaten yet and tell me that today I don't look pretty(it's a 50/50 shot if I look pretty on any given day, it helps if I'm wearing a skirt).  Its hilarious though. It's hard not to laugh when they say, 'you're not pretty today, but it's okay you're skinny. Do you want some food?' It's just so simple and hilarious.  I think I'm getting a little bittersweet again too.  Today I got all sappy with the volunteer pictures and then when I got home I wanted to take photos and I'm not sure if I've suddenly become completely inept at working a camera but it kinda feels that way. It feels like one out of every 200 photos comes out the way I want it to. I'm still working on figuring out how to work it as a manual camera, because I haven't really done that in FOREVER and so today my yaai was the victim of my trials.  I took probably 30 pictures of her and one is kinda okay. After that I wanted to get one of my whole family and my dad is not always home so I asked if he would be home on sunday so I could take pictures of the family and he said yes but my mom suggested we do it now.  About 50 pictures later I have an amazing series of me, nong shhy and nong chuai trying to push the self timer and quickly run to sit with the family before the shutter goes off.  So many iterations of it that I'm pretty sure I have to make an entire album because they show the family dynamic like no other.  

So anyway, maybe more sappy and heartfelt than usual, but I'm really starting to miss this place and I'm gonna do my best to live it up as much as possible before I'm off to Trat and to a new adventure.

okay I also have my usual light heartedness too.  

Today I learned:

-thailand has sizzler, and I bet it's still terrible.

-in the corner grocery if you by two boxes of gum(with 20 packs of 5 sticks each) then you get a free coke - ya know, in case you wanted 200 sticks of gum and a coke

-I realized I have eaten coagulated chicken blood 4 times this week without even thinking about it.

-apparently I've been eating frog a lot too- today I walked into the kitchen when my mom was making dinner and I eeked at a frog and she responded, 'last night you said they were delicious'

- in my house little white cotton like things keep falling on me. I'm pretty sure they are not alive but I wouldn't bet much on it at this point.

-when someone exposes themselves to a peace corps volunteer, we get a police escort to school and there are police around about every km just in case

- also side note: we're pretty sure he got caught this morning because one of the victims saw him and pointed him out to the police

Another kinda serious note:

Don't ever tell me to come home.  I will have rough days.  It will be tough. I will complain. I will want to talk to you. I need you to be my supports and encourage me and give me the tough love and remind me of all the reasons that I want to me here. If you cant do that please tell me because I will talk to you on good days not bad.  I want to be here and I will need your help to stay here. Thanks in advance. 

March 9

I just realized that I'm at that 3 month point that I've never really made it past. I recently have been thinking about how much I miss portland and everything there is to miss about it. Seriously, I can't tell you how many lists I've made. And yes, I know that's not productive but sometimes its the only thing you can do.  Especially if you don't have a typewriter and some nat goe's and loud music. Or a dance party. or a bottle of whiskey and cheesecake. BUT anyway, as much as I can't necessarily train my brain to not want to be in portland right now what I can do is appreciate the awesome things that are here and look forward to having the adventure that will turn into the rest of my life.  This is the point where I'm thinking about all those things that people said to make sure I wouldn't leave.  The hard thing is I'm not sure if this will be the first of many or just the one.  Okay that's a lie. I know it's gonna be the first of many but I hate that I'm doubting it this early in the game.  I think it's only now that I've really realized how much I miss people. Every time I listen to a song, I think of someone or something or sometime that isn't here.  It's funny because I'm not missing people in the way I thought I would. I kinda felt like I would be totally unable to contact people, and I kinda thought that would make it easier because total isolation, as hard as it is, is completely out of your control. This isolation is weird because it's a lot of being online at the wrong time. Or getting all excited because someone is online and then they immediately go offline.  Obviously it wasn't about you, but you wanted to talk to someone, anyone that was someone from before.  That;s the other aspect. It's not like I don't have friends here. It's not like I don't have people to vent to at the end of the day. It's just that I want the old ones. I want the old life. I hate change. I love all the things that come with it, but I hate it. 

Also I miss tattoos and facial hair and rain and kale and new seasons.  I literally had a dream that I was in new seasons the other night. It was awesome. I woke up and was disappointed because I woke up. I know that's sad right? I don't care, I was pretty disappointed. I was dreaming about cherry tomatoes and diet coke and my favorite cheese and it was amazing.  I was trying to think about what my go to will be here when I'm sad and down and I don't have it yet, but I feel like I should find it soon because I need it.

Also, all of this is in my head. My life is still fantastic. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my life. I am not sure anything in my life has changed except for the fact that I am in a slightly different mindset. But there are moments when it all comes back. For instance, today we had our community service project that I was all frustrated about yesterday because we only had a day to plan it and whatnot. WE arrived at the school at 7:50 am so we had an hour or so to prepare before the activity started at 9. Twenty kids were playing soccer on the field at at 8 they went up at sat in the library, while it took all of us until 8:15 to realize they were there and that we should probably just start the activity early.  We held a little english class teaching them all the things in the library and cleaning relating verbs. Then we took shifts and one group did arts and crafts to make english language signs for everything in the library and the other one cleaned the library and then we switched.  It was fantastic! The kids loved it and their signs were AMAZING! In the most Thai way.  I think my favorite was a dinosaur(which by the way in thai is said Dai-noo-sao) breathing fire that turned into a heart that was bigger than everything else on the sign and the heart had a double sided arrow through it(loved that because I watched the kid realize that he forgot he already put the arrow on one side). Also the sign was for a bookshelf. 

Also when I got home I saw my yaai(who has been pretty sick lately and so I;ve been super attentive to her) and she is in her shower outfit but grabs me and sits me on the porch and grabs a bag of apricots and brings them over to me. She gave me a couple apricots yesterday but they war kinda sour and she said she likes them but she can't eat them now because she doesn't have her teeth so she gave them to me. So today she went even further and we have two different apricot trees apparently and one makes sweet apricots and one makes sour apricots and yaai said that no one eats the sweet ones so she picked me a bunch of them. I talked to my aunt later and she says thats not true and in fact when she got home she went to take one of these apricots and yaai slapped her hand away and said, NO those are for rosie. 

Love my yaai. ----> also new shirt idea.

I feel weird.

I just found Rumours again and I got a great mental image of me dancing around in my future home in Trat dancing to this when the music is on full blast. IT WILL BE AWESOME/

March 10

Okay, I feel normal again today. YAY!! I know whoever you are reading this was really really worried you can stop stressing. And I only realized now that none of you are worried because none of you have read anything about this week yet(at least as I'm writing, obviously you will have by the time you get here).   Okay ANYWAY. Today some awesome things happened.

1) Today I finished my first book in Thailand. For some reason (read: because I've been insanely busy and tired so I can't read more than two pages at a time without falling asleep) it has taking me two and a half months to read The Gone-Away World. The weirdest thing is I think it was an awesome book but I have absolutely no idea what the hell happened at any stage of the book. Either way, I'm super excited in part because now I can stop carrying it around wishing that I had time or energy to read it.

2) Today I talked to people from home and that was really nice to vent and simultaneously realize how awesome my life here is. Its hard to complain to your friend sitting in a dark house in america when you are sitting in your hammock by the river and its 90 degrees out and your thai mom comes up and brings you a bowl of sticky rice and fresh cut mango from the tree. 

3) This is my last weekend with my family because next weekend we have meetings so my family so they wanted to bpai tiao(go on a trip/outing) so we went to Samchuk the 100 year market. I wasn't really sure why but as soon as we got there it was pretty obvious that it was simply to buy me all the things.  They kept asking what I wanted and I really thought that I was just coming along for the ride.  So two shirts, a pair of pants and a traditional thai skirt later I have a new wardrobe.

4) In the last couple days I've been thinking about all my fix-its back home. Those things that are special occasion things or bad day things that I can do or get for myself and every things better for a little while.  My go-tos are steak, ceasar salad, cheesecake, reeses pieces, diet coke, law and order, pizza, crafting, having a dance party, going on a hike with punky or hanging out with an old friend. In the last couple days it was painfully obvious that none of those were available to me now.  So I have been on the search for some new ones here…and today, today I found one.  Guys, don't worry.  I'll be fine. Thailand has Nutella.

5) Okay. I saved the best for last. During PST we have only had half of our stuff because we put the other half in storage with PC so today the drivers dropped off our first bag, This was kinda like christmas. I had no recollection of what was in this bag but I new it would be a lot of the fun, random, totally useless, totally awesome stuff that I decided to bring.  This was all true. Both fanny packs. An interesting assortment of pictures more that four of which have no faces in them. A vial of glitter. Three bottle caps with rock, paper and scissors. LOTS of socks that I will probably never wear. So anyway, my mom came into my room and say the ziplock bag of tampons that I have and asked what they were. I took a deep breath and decided how exactly I wanted to go about this.  I had this moment of realization that this is that moment that every parent will face and it's the bird and the bees talk or something along those lines. But here I am a 27 yr old about to explain to a 42 year old thai woman what a tampon is because she's never seen one before.  I have none of the vocabulary and even less desire to attempt to act it out but that's my only option. So I stand up and go for it. Now the actual actions were hilarious and awkward and there was a lot of clarification which I also didn't understand so I'm not exactly sure that she knows what it is. I will refrain from explaining exactly what I did because its getting in to the meta communication problem. Now I'm pretty sure I've just explained this using only the works 'when', 'start' and 'stop' and acting things out. I think she understands but she keeps looking at it and seems very confused. I keep miming putting in a tampon and finally she seems to get it. So we leave it at that and she tells me I have to get ready because we are going to the market.  I change into shorts that are appropriate to leave the house in and walk outside and my mom is talking to the entire family and unconciously just swinging the tampon around in her hand by the string. It was hilarious and awkward but no one else had any idea.

The best part occurred to me a while later. I realized that if I had to give the 'where do babies come from' talk right now I basically would've done the exact same thing with some other prop acting as the penis. So I may have just taught my mom that tampons get you pregnant and that would totally explain her confused look when she looked at the tampon all puzzled and turned to me and asked, 'how?'

March 12

So it's tuesday of our final week of PST, well kinda. it's out final full week at home stays and it's getting crazy.  It's crunch time and we have all our final tests and interviews and whatnot and my host brother is getting married on Saturday and I may or may not be able to go.  I am gonna try my best because it would be a total shame to miss it, but I'm pretty sure that because of bureaucracy I am going to.  Anyway, point is shit is crazy and I may or may not update for the next two weeks.  So thats the bad news.  The GOOD news is that it's gonna be a crazy couple weeks and then I'm gonna be at site, which will be crazy and awesome and also I will have a crapload of time on my hands so I can fill you in on all the things that happened in these crazy couple weeks.  So just an fyi, I'm not dead. Well, I'm probably not dead and I'm probably having a crazy awesome silly time. And also probably pulling out all my hair in the mean time.  So. yeah. don't worry.  (cause I know you were worried.) I'll be back in a flash. Honestly, I'm not even sure I'll be gone I just have a sneaking suspicion that things are about to get overwhelming and I'm not gonna feel like sitting around in the evening writing stories to future people(aka friends/family who are reading this in the future).