Michelle Gershon

2007-08 Outbound to Thailand

Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida

School: Douglas Anderson School of the Arts

Sponsor: Mandarin Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida

Host: Ubon Rotary Club
         District 3340, Thailand

Bio

Michelle's Bio

I may sound silly, but that's okay! After all, I hold silliness in the highest regard.

My name is Michelle (though I change my name often) and I hail from the land of lawn flamingos and voting catastrophes where I love to spend my days trying new things that I would never have thought to have tried before and simply being with those I love. My brother, Ben, and I make up games and make fun of each other (and our mum :)) all the time, I truly feel I can talk to him about anything. Be it on a huge canvas/stage or on the back of a test paper, I love to draw, paint, act and express myself through the arts. The outdoors intrigue me... Climbing trees and anything else that is there to climb, swimming and exploring, and simply lying on the grass beneath a blanket of stars all spark my fancy. Oh yes, and whenever possible I like to speak with a (albeit poor) British accent or to sing my words, or whisper. Sometimes all three.

I am a flutter in time, time doesn't hold me to one place for even as I write this I am changing and becoming something else. My perspectives grow as I learn more, and as the world creates itself around me, I too create myself. Soon, thanks to my Mother, my Brother, Rotary, and all my family and friends who have supported me, I will be in Thailand, the land of the free, becoming myself, fluttering through time in ways I never even imagined.

Michelle's District Conference Speech

Ah-gat-dee-na! That means "Oh, what a beautiful day," in Thai. And it is indeed a beautiful day because I am here and alive and I have the opportunity to speak to you fine people. And the reason I stand before you speaking Thai you may ask? Because I am going to be an exchange student; I'm now the "before" in a global social experiment. (Einstein Voice) Take one subject...er... student, equip them with a little language and a stylish blazer and throw them into another country and 'poof' one year later you have a changed student. (End Einstein voice) All right, so, it isn't that easy, there's a lot of hard work that goes into preparing the students, both on the part of Rotary and the students themselves. And sometimes the full effects of the exchange are not obvious right away. But I think they're there just the same.

The Chaos Theory says that everything we do causes something else, which in turn causes something else which causes something else, which causes millions of other things to happen, more than we will perhaps ever know... Our collaborative efforts, all our random acts and words and ideas that have been spawned come together and react and affect each other to become something more. People ask me all the time why I want to be an exchange student, and I thought about it for a while, for a really long time and I couldn't really find an answer that could explain this incredulous feeling inside me when the idea of going on exchange pops up, and I don't think perhaps it is best explained in words, but felt beyond explanation. But for now I think I've found something that I can say: "If a butterfly flaps it's wings in Florida will it cause a disaster in Thailand?" What I mean by that is: How does what I do affect other people? How does what other people do affect me? And how do we figure in to the big picture that we will perhaps never be able to see? I want to become a person of the world, and I want the world to become a part of me, and I want to change, as scary as change is, I know I have to run into it full force. And leap into it.

It's funny, but before I've even left I've been affected already by the exchange program. I think I'm a pretty nice person, and I get along with people pretty well.... unless there's some underground conspiracy that is at this very moment plotting against me, but that's for another speech - come to the Sci-Fi convention next door if you want to hear about that.... anyway, I'm a nice person, but I've never made good, close friends very easily, the sort of people who I feel I can have a random conversation with about xylophones, but at the same time people with whom I feel I can share the deepest feelings that dwell within me. And, for the short time that I have known my fellow outbounds, I feel I have made some of the closest friends that I have ever had... I know, I know you can just see the sappy feelings spilling out of that statement, but it's true, and I think just through our ideas about what will come, our hopes, our expectations (the one's that we aren't supposed to have) and our fears, we have all become open to one another, and if I can become open to all these strangers, and have them become some of my closest friends in less than a couple of meetings, than what will come of spending a year with strangers?

Perhaps a butterfly flapping her wings in Florida will cause a disaster in Thailand and there's no choice in the matter, but perhaps that butterfly and all the other metaphorical butterflies that effect the world could see the big picture, and could alter the flap of their wings in such a way to change something, then perhaps that will change everything. Thank you.

August 31 Journal

As I begin to spill my thoughts onto this page, I find myself sitting on a balcony in Thailand with puppets drawn on my hands and a view of tropical trees dripping with dew in the morning sun. Why am I here? How did I get here? Perhaps I should start from the beginning? But then, of course, I would be faced with such a long journal to explain the existence of all that is; and quite frankly, though I do love a good debate, I'll save my thoughts on that for later so that everyone with differing views on creation and evolution doesn't attack me just yet, after all, I've only been here about.... a week? Maybe a little bit more... (Time seems non-existent....) and I'd like it to be a little longer before I am put into a hospital by an angry mob, save that for the second week...

I remember my last look at Florida being that of rain drops, still rain drops floating in the air as if they were in suspended animation high above the Florida sky, floating individually to be awakened in a year's time perhaps, maybe. Unlike the water droplets stuck in space, floating there without wake, time moves forward. Or at least my plane did, forward Southeast (on Northwest Airlines) chasing the sun, which gave the feeling of not moving at all, but just hanging, waiting, the only beings alive and moving, while the world around us lay silent. When I stepped off the plane in Tokyo (and subsequently nearly left my passport at the gift shop) and later in Bangkok, I felt as though I had not really left the country at all, but just taken a long drive down the road from my home. That's the strange thing about this exchange, everything is so different, yet that which is most important still remains the same. I expected there to be magical gnomes, or a purple sky or something overtly different, but no matter where I am in the world, it is just that, and it is for me to make of it what I see.

Once in Bangkok I looked through the mobs of people (and people dressed as bunny rabbits- to honor the King) to find my host family. We would be staying in Bangkok for 4 days until going to Ubon Ratchathani. On the way to Ba Sue's house (My host Aunt, whom we were staying with), I looked out in amazement at the wonder of the city as I took it all in. I oooh-ed and aww-ed at the billboards-in Thai, and the signs-in Thai and the street signs- in English... and Thai... and sometimes Chinese too.... I sniffed the air which smelled of something I cannot explain and I laughed with glee at the driver (my cousin Pee Kang) as he drove on a different side of the road than I am accustomed too. As I took it all in I tried (and failed miserably) to have a conversation in Thai. Of course there are no failures, just mistakes, which I told my host family I was okay with and even excited to make.

And oh boy, did I ever makes mistakes! Let's see, I didn't use the toilet correctly, I moved something with my foot (luckily no elders were around to see that little catastrophe), I put the fork in my mouth (this I rectified quickly and apologized), I was attacked by a subway turn-style because I did not move quickly enough... and many, many other faux pas, but that's okay, it's good to make mistakes and laugh at myself, what fun would it be if I did everything correctly? I think my extreme blunders in language and in manner gave my host family confidence to make English mistakes and not worry, because their English is worlds better than my Thai. And so, my first week was filled with half Thai and half English conversations that only those involved in could understand. I was getting used to listening to Thai and figuring out what was being said. This is an especially easy task in a Thai market, when while browsing past pigs heads, strawberry smoothies and underwear all under huge umbrellas with tons of people and aromas and sounds someone points and shouts "farrang" (what? who me?) and everyone (those who do not shy away) ask, not me, but the people I am with "Where does she come from?" and "Can she speak Thai?"... Though the questions are not addressed to me, I take great pleasure in understanding these questions and answering them in my mind. Ameriga. Nit Noy.

For most of my time in Bangkok, I spent time with my host family's extended family in their home or at the nearby, aforementioned market. But, on the last day before Kwang left for Florida and before my host Mom, Dad, and I left for Ubon, we did what I had been longing to do-- EXPLORE BANGKOK!! Bangkok is the strangest combination of Urban and Rural. Large farm houses and rice fields blowing in the wind share the same city block with sky scrapers. There are subways and there are rickshaws, tuk tuks, taxi cabs, dogs, people of all sorts, even monks roaming the streets. There was a man on a motorcycle carrying a fully open ladder (which my host mum assures me is very common) and I often see elephants trotting down the road. All these opposing forces coming together and living in (relative) harmony in this... this.. Wonderland that is Thailand, that is Bangkok. It's a treasure trove of culture.

After being attacked by the subway, riding the sky train, a car ride, a taxi cab ride and a short hop on a van we arrived at a huge Buddhist Wat (temple)/ palace that was beautiful and adorned with gold and gleamed with gem stones. We removed our shoes and went inside. We took pictures. We saw statues that were that were monumental and had been around for centuries. But despite all the beauty around me, I found the cornucopia of people around me infinitely more fascinating. People from Thailand, people from England, Germany, Spain, Japan... The many voices of the world came together like a box of exchange student O's (fortified with calcium, so I hear), but they were not exchange students, just anyone who wished to get up early and walk amongst the crowds and run across the street narrowly avoiding parallel... 10 seconds for 50+ people to get across the street before the vehicles start moving and your time starts now...

I miss Bangkok.

My Bangkok home had many, many people. And I became very close with all of them in a very short period of time, as hard as being stuck in suspended animation is, moving through time at lightening speed is even more difficult, because before you know it, it's over.

I'll miss Bangkok and all the experiences and adventures I've had (and all the people I've met there), but I look forward to those I will surely have in Ubon, hold dear those I've had already had.

Today, I am on the balcony of another exchange student's home. She said to me, this other exchange student, that she is happy that she has the whole year here, because she doesn't have to sight see or do anything special, just live life. And I agree with her on one thing, we should just live life, but life, no one's life is ever ordinary, no matter where you are or what you do. I laughed, because to me, we don't have a WHOLE year here, we ONLY have a year here. We only have one year here, we only have one life, for certain, to live.

Yesterday I climbed to the roof of a four story building (my host mum and dad's university) with my legs dangling free over the side. There was I, looking over Thailand and what my year would hold, scared to death, excited palms sweaty, camera at the ready (as seems to be the case with me now) but nothing could capture how I truly felt, how I truly feel.

My Thai name is "Nam Phone" it means "Rain" or more accurately "Rain Drop" and though my name might indicate differently, I am not a rain drop suspended in time, it's all moving quickly, I've done so much already, too much to write it all and yet I have so many metaphorical mountains to climb and when I reach the summit, hands sweaty, scared to death, I will release a breath, because there my legs will be, hanging free.

October 8 Journal

"Lost and Found"

Songtell. The strange little contraption that was born a truck, but wished upon a star with all its might to be a bus and was magically transformed into something even better. Everyday to and from school I ride this gloriously mutilated machine. And when I say ride, I quite literally mean ride. You see, the songtell has places to sit and stand on the inside, and they have little windows to view the world as it goes by, which is fairly pleasant, but I much prefer to stand on the outside. To stand on the outside you have to hold on for dear life to metal structural poles- that or you always have option of falling off, if you'd like. I however, like to hold on and it's amazing, because when I do this, every morning and every evening, I become a parachute. The best way to ride a songtell is not to simply hold on to the poles, but to grip two of them in your hands, rest your feet at angles on the edge of the standing platform and let the wind and surrounding atmosphere fill your sense as you race down the road. It's fairly like water skiing on asphalt. Bending with the curves, smiling at the staring crowds, dancing in the blowing wind. In this way, I am able to not only have quite a fun ride, but to become a part of the city that has passed and the city that is rushing towards me. It's quite a sight to behold, no; it's quite a thing to become. Girls are expected to sit and be comfortable, but I think I would much rather live like this and become the scenery of the songtell, than to simply sit or stand inside and watch it all go by.

Alright, so, yes, the songtell is quite wonderful, but as with all good things, the ride ends (my hands usually fairly sore at this point from holding on for dear life, and all) and it's time to get off and enter the circus that is my school, Nari Nukun. Before I first entered school here, I didn't realize that I was a stripped gorilla wearing a tea cozy on my head singing "Oh, My Darling Clementine", all four of the Beatles, Harry Potter, a Ms. Universe judge, and an assortment of other oddities, but in those first few weeks, that is what I became. Everywhere I went people cheered for me or giggled and ran away from me, they told me how beautiful I am and how good I am at Thai and they all wanted to know if I thought they were beautiful and they never seemed to have a negative thing to say to me. At first, I just smiled and waved to people or tried to strike up conversations in Thai, but then I realized how much I felt as though I were trapped in a glass box marked "For display only", because I didn't feel good having people telling me what they thought I wanted to hear, and afraid that I would get upset if they weren't complimenting me every moment; that is when I decided to take action.

I decided to take a huge cultural risk (not knowing how it would turn out) and I just pretended to whack my "class buddy" (who helped me out in those first days) over the head and I jokingly called him a Buffalo and then told everyone that I'm not pretty and my Thai isn't really as great as people say and that I'm actually quite silly. I stood on my desk, I poked my friends in the back (and pretended it wasn't I who poked them), I shared my lunch with my friends, I danced in the rain, I went up to every group of people I could find and I spoke to them, older kids, younger kids, kids in the band, kids playing volleyball, kids taking a sword fighting class, I was nosey and curious and I asked to join in where I was not invited, I did everything that made me happy and that I wanted to do, and very quickly my friends came to the realization that it's okay to joke around with me, it's okay to tell me to back off or to correct my Thai, it's all okay. I can live as I want to and they can live as they want to, without fear of offending the other. We can disagree and still respect each other, and in this way, I became much closer with my friends and with the school....

Oh, and with this new found closeness, my friends weren't afraid to ask me to help them with their English homework. I was very happy to help them, of course. What would it be? Adjectives? Vocabulary? Grammar? Oh no. It was "Oh, My Darling Clementine." (They must have seen me in my stripped gorilla days singing it.) The teacher assigned us the task of filling in the missing words from the song and then, in turn, singing it to the teacher for a grade. Now, apparently everyone in the school had this assignment, because wherever I went people were asking me to sing "Oh, My Darling Clementine" so that they could hear the tune and how the words are said... I'm fairly certain that this song will now haunt me forever, just as Clementine haunted the singer in the song...

In my wanderings and exploration around the school, I found a dance group practicing (and doing Karaoke!) and I asked if I could join in with them. I thought this group was just a small class of students who were learning dance moves and who happened to like to sing, I didn't realize that they were practicing for a competition that would be held in front of the entire school. I wasn't nervous about dancing in public, but when I learned that it was a contest, I knew that I could not dance with them, because though I love to dance, I have the rhythm of squashed bean in Bangkok, and I did not want to hurt their chances of winning. I was perfectly happy to just practice with them. But they insisted, and so, I agreed. We stayed after school for a week and practiced, and one day we made our costumes. We used old white plastic bags for the skirt (so that they flared out like a tutu) and then made little paper flowers out of old magazines. For the shirts we fixed the same flowers to tube tops and added long sparkly ribbon. Now, I told them, that I would wear whatever they wanted me to wear, however, I advised that it would be a huge lapse in judgment to put me in a tube top, so they let me wear a t-shirt instead, with two huge paper flowers on either side and long streams of ribbon all the way down. And the fun really began when they placed a pair of dealy-boppers on my head. Dealy-boppers are those headbands with two springs coming out of them and with something big and sparkly bouncing around on top.

On the big day of the competition they did my make-up. I don't like to wear make-up, but having done theatre, I've become used to it for such occasions, and yet they had a field day. The make-up was so thick, I thought I would need a power sander to remove it. At the end of it all I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that, apart from the make-up, this was about the silliness level that my everyday outfits usually reach anyway. I was satisfied and really just happy to be there. The dancing was fun, the bright lights, the cheering, the exhilaration of it all. It was a great day. We ended up winning and yet still, that doesn't seem important. I think, in the end, that I won something much better than a contest.

Almost everyday, Katoi (boys on the outside, but girls on the inside) ask me, usually in English, "Can I be sexy?" This surprised me because I thought that Thai culture was relatively conservative when it came to sexuality, but I soon found that they are in some ways, but in others they are quite open. Anyway, when they ask me this, I usually laugh and tell them, in Thai, "You can be whatever you want to be" or simply, "Yes, sure, why not?" So I became used to being asked this question, but then one day I was pulled inside the school shop by a group of female teachers and they asked me several questions, first the more common questions: "Where do you come from?" "Do you like Thailand?" "Who are your hosts?" "Can you eat Thai food?" etc... But then the questions started to get a little more uncomfortable: "Which of us teachers do you think is the most beautiful?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" And then, I'll never forget, one of the teachers got up, danced around and said "Do you think I'm sexy?" I was dumbfounded. I just stared for a moment, and then I couldn't help it, I just put my head into my arm and laughed and laughed, and laughed some more, I laughed so much that I literally fell onto the floor. I think it was then that it occurred to me that although the Thai language has the word "sexy," that it means something slightly different to Thai people than it does to me. This was later confirmed by my English teacher. It's funny to think that although the word literally means the same thing in both languages, it is viewed differently in both cultures. It's all about perspective.

I still have a teacher who calls me "Daughter-in-law," this seems to be a cultural thing as well, however I am usually reluctant to accept rides from this teacher (even though she is my neighbor), lest a shotgun wedding await me...

School is always an adventure, but one of my most exciting adventures came on one day after school.

I was riding the songtell for the first time by myself, having the time of my life, and yet, it suddenly occurred to me, that I had no idea where the songtell was or when my street would turn up. When we reached a shop that nipped my memory, I pressed the little buzzer that tells the driver to stop, paid my 5 baht (the special student price), and found myself... well... I knew that I was in the right city and country at least.... I was certain that if I walked about a mile or so in either direction from the stopping point that I would find my host's house. No such luck. To be honest, it was still light out, and though it was not on purpose, I was hoping to be lost at some point. I love being lost, there's something about not really knowing where you're going and having to explore new avenues, see new things, try things you wouldn't otherwise try, test your wits, doing all strange and unfamiliar things to find a familiar path, that is exciting to me. I was calm and was enjoying my journey around the city. I knew the street name, so eventually I knew I would have ask someone where the street was, and people would either shake their head or point in the direction that led me to where I began, but what most people did was take me around to all their neighbors and tell them that they had a lost farrang and that they needed to know where the street was... strangely no one seemed to know exactly, so I bid them adieu, and walked on. I was even offered a ride one time, but I wasn't so keen to take a ride in a car with a stranger if I could help it, so I tried to be polite as I declined. But then it started to get dark, one group of rowdy men tried to stop me and ask me questions and made a jump at me, so I ran to the other side of the road and knew that I would either need to find home or catch another songtell back to school to use the phone or to stay with a friend for the night.

It was then that I found a lady with two children who was helping to move a large wooden couch to her parent's home down the road. My instincts (or something within me, maybe it was just exhaustion) told me that this would be a good person to ask for help. She didn't know where it was. I was let down, however she told me that I could go with her to parent's home and maybe they would know. So, lost in a city at night, in a foreign land, with a different language, I stopped to move furniture. Alas, with a sigh and a sad shake of the head, she told me that her parents did not know where my street was, however she offered to take me on the back of her motorcycle to find it. At this point, I felt I at least knew this family a little bit, and knew that it would be better to take a ride with a stranger than to walk around at night in a foreign country with large groups of men threatening to jump me. And besides it was a motorcycle, and I had really want to ride one. (Don't worry, I didn't drive it, I just rode on the back.)

So this lovely person who agreed to help me on my quest for home, with her youngest son sitting in front of her, and me in the back, set off down the road. Her older son followed on his motorcycle behind us. We looked for a while, and then eventually we came to a whole group of motorcyclists (many people drive them here) who the lady knew, all who didn't know the road, but all of whom offered me a place to stay if I ever get lost and who agreed to accompany me on my trip. There I was, on the back of a motorcycle, in Thailand, with a whole motorcycle brigade whom I just met, leaving their homes to help me find mine. As we dashed down the roads, shifting past the cars, under the light of a million sparkling stars (more beautiful than all the dance costumes in the world), though I was lost, and should be sad or more concerned, I couldn't help but feel wonderfully content and happy. We eventually found my host's house, I said goodbye and thank you to all those people who had helped me, wishing there was more I could offer than my thanks. I smiled and opened the gate. My host mother hugged me and my host father joked that tomorrow I could try again. And I would, and though the next day I did not get lost, I knew that if I did, there would be would be a whole country of people there to help me find my way.

I went to Korat and saw many gardens.

I jumped into a pool with all my clothes on.

I ate Dark Blue Sticky Rice.

I went to get ice cream with friends.

I climbed a rock.

I ruined my shoes.

I joked about a breakfast cereal called "Milo" and what it could mean, when they say "More Milo taste," Soylent Green came to mind...

I wasn't invited to a Rotary pizza party held for exchange students.

I got a letter from a friend.

I went to a national park that sits right near the border of Cambodia. There, we walked through the forest. Now, I thought this would be a fairly touristy walk... paths all laid out. We had a tour guide and a camera man, and I thought perhaps, maybe, we'd have a little bit of a walk uphill, but not much....

Well, it's not first time I've been wrong. This was not a tourist walk, I was happy to find that this was a true walk through nature. We climbed through thick branches, over and under fallen tree trunks. We even walked over a dam, at one point. We climbed up hills and swam against rapid waters. I love this sort of thing, and though I was tired, I think I wouldn't let myself realize this until I was ready to stop. I lost my shoe in the rapids and a friend helped me go and get it. We reached a halfway point, the true tourist spot that you could have driven to, it was filled with little waterfalls to play in. There was a spot where us kids went to slide down a mossy rock... It wasn't really quite a slide, but you were pushed and the algae was slippery, so you had no choice but to move with the water pushing you. I would come back here the next day, when there were no tourists, and I followed the river as far as I could go. I felt like an adventurer, exploring the depths of the river and the surrounding forest all alone, and even though everything was so wild and exciting, I felt at peace. But with the group, after our little stop, we went on through the wild to the main attraction - a huge waterfall. After we were tired, we were already soaking wet, and had eaten very little and just walked about 10 km through thick forest, you would think at this point we would want to rest, but no, we decided to run, screaming and singing, into the water at the bottom of the waterfall.

It felt like a magical place that I could go to always. It became a strange part of me.

I went to a Wat, and I saw people dancing around in nondescript ways, swirling, punching air, swaying, rolling on the floor. It all seemed a whirlwind, it didn't seem to make sense. So, of course, I asked to join in. I learned that it was a meditation room, but not meditating by sitting still and clearing the mind, a meditation room where anything you wanted to do was okay. You could do anything, except hurt other people, and not have to fear what people would think. The point was to just let go of all inhibitions, and in that way you could be truly free. I loved the idea of this room, it was open and you could see the forest all around and everything and everyone could look in on you, but it wouldn't matter, because you would just be concentrating on climbing up the structural supports and sitting, feeling as though you were flying to the ceiling... that's how I felt, I loved to climb up the beams and stay up there, trusting myself, unafraid that I would fall and then jumped down and rolled on the floor and danced, and did whatever else I did, I just did what I felt. I just did what made me feel good and what made me happy, and that, was my only concern. And I felt truly free. I dubbed this place "The It's Okay Room."

One night, at a party, I escaped to be on my own and sit under the full moon and stars, and I just sat and thought. I thought, about songtells, and of forests, and waterfalls, of pizza parties, and Katois. I thought about many things and reflected about what I had done, the random events of my life, how it is all just a patchwork quilt of events, but my quilt, no other one the same. And I thought, It's okay to be random. And it's okay to be lost, it's okay to cry, it's okay to play in waterfalls, and to ask questions, it's okay to make a fool of yourself, it's all okay.

And you don't need an "It's Okay Room," for it all to be okay. You can see it in a waterfall, you can taste in pizza or hear in the joke of a friend. You can feel it in the wind of the songtell. It's all around us, even now. Wherever you are in the world. Just listen....

Rabbits in the airport	A Bangkok market	On you're mark, get set, GO!	Cuddly, isn't he?	The Monk and I
On top of the world...	... with my feet dangling free.	Wonderland MAGIC	Sa-bi-dee mai?	Ubon at night
After a rain dance	Attack of the giant elephants	This is the end, my only friend, the end...	Wat dragon guardians?	Bangkok
He's alive! I felt like Lucille Ball trying to make the Beefeaters laugh...	I solemnly swear that I am up to no good	Fancy a ride in a tuk tuk?	Rural roads and stopovers	Havin' swingin' time
Climbing rocks in Korat	Spontaneous swim	Host mum with flowers	Disney World - Eat your heart out	I wish, I wish, for a fish dish wish (wishing fountain)
Giant green monk who is turning gold (and I helped)	Thai Superhero? Toilet Man to the rescue!	Soowai mai?	Dam.	Sunset
Swimming against the current	Thailand: where lost socks go	Falling in a waterfall	Super Park Guide Man and his sidekick, Waterfall Lass (but where is Toilet Man?)	National Park
Far away view of a waterfall	"Take nothing but memories and leave nothing but footprints."	Dragon Fruit	From the back of a songtell	Peuan ben ba mahk mahk!!
Friends standing still: it's a miracle	The calm after the storm	Tung See Mueng at Dusk	It's haunted, but oh so delicious	Ice cream tastes better when eaten with friends
Power Rangers	Just guess what was going on...	The lights of the city	Even Thai dancers need to go to the market sometimes	Me and my tree

November 22 Journal

"Castle Away"

In my room here there is a digital clock that lights up when you touch it. The longer you touch it, the longer it stays lit and the more colors it changes. It's quite a sight to see. At night I like to turn off all the lights and watch it glow its many colors. Red to Green to Blue to Purple illuminating everything. Though opaque when left alone, when touched, it dances with life there in the darkness of my room. My full attention is drawn to the clock, in that moment everything is clear, the clock transcends time. And soon I don't always know when (though I know it will happen) the colors fade and that one bright light in the room becomes less and less, and suddenly, it is gone and there is nothing.

During bit term (a short holiday break from school), I volunteered at an Animal hospital called “Warin sat ta wa pa.” I saw many wonderful and strange and terrible things, I saw surgeries (which were interesting) and a mother dog who was about to give birth to her puppies, dogs hit by cars, rabbits who seemed to multiply every time I turned my head, miraculous recoveries, dogs and cats staying in the animal hotel while their owners were away on a trip. I love animals and didn’t even mind having to clean up their kee (I’ll let you use your imagination to discover what “kee” is…), and though I’m a top notch kee cleaner, I think my main duties involved just being there for the animals. What hurt me the most I think was not seeing blood and guts (for we all have those) or the excretion of kee (again, something we all do). What retched at my heart was seeing an animal sick and dying, alone in a cage. When something is dying, it’s like seeing the most beautiful light in the world, dancing in front of your eyes, you cannot stop looking, it’s all that’s there, it’s like all the life from the dying being is escaping from time itself and all the while fading until it’s gone and you find yourself alone in darkness.

My first day there, there was a puppy with a very dangerous virus. She was hooked up to an IV to give her medicine and fluids. It was my first impulse to take the puppy out of her cage and just hold her. So I did. The vets thought it strange the way I held the puppy close to me (something that I think they still find strange), but regardless of what they thought or think, I realized that my most important job was to make sure that the animals always had hope, maybe that would make all the difference that they’ll soon go home, maybe if they play for a little while or have someone hold them or walk them around or sing to them or let them know they’re loved. To be free of their cages, if only for a little while. I think that’s what everyone wants, I’m not proficient in dog, but somehow even though I don’t know the language I could understand that.

And even now, after bit term, I still go back there as often as I can.

Everyday I went to Warin sat ta wa pa, but I did other things too. I would simply walk around the city or take a random songtell to the middle of nowhere and find my way back, I went into random shops and made friends with strangers. One day I found myself in an internet café when I received a telephone call from another exchange student who asked me to sing the national anthem of the United States, so I therefore found myself signing the star spangled banner in Thailand in the middle of a crowded internet café (I’m a bit of a ham, so it didn’t bother me…I rather enjoyed it, actually). I rode with my friend from Warin sat ta wa pa on her motorcycle and I helped another to sell drinks at a race track, I played with her niece and nephew in the dark under the moon, running around and playing with the balloons, pretending we were mythical beings. I went to an Endorphin (a Thai band) concert. I had many adventures during bit term, and towards the end of it all, a visiting Rotarian meant three days of waking up early and random (action-packed) tours around the city.

Day 1- After introductions and all that, we packed up 2 Rotarians, 4 exchange students, a host mum, a driver, and a Rotex member into a van and we were off! On this day we went to Teung see Meung, which is a park I love to go to, and showed the Rotarian around. We looked at the various trees and such, and oh yea, the giant golden candle in the middle. We then went to eat pizza and I was criticized by the visiting Rotarian for being a vegetarian in Thailand, I explained that I think that one can adapt without having to give up something important to them or changing their beliefs. I think adapting is not about conforming to others or asking them to conform to you, but working together to create understanding. Anyway, he called the head of Rotary here a pansy for letting me stay a vegetarian and therein begins what I like to think of as a little silent, passive feud between them. The Cold War II, it was a war that had no actual fighting; just the feeling that something was…erm… on the edge of blowing up? Maybe they both took it as a joke, I’m not really sure, but I like to imagine the secret war going on between them. It’s all about perspective. Well, as the feud rumbled on, we went to feed birds on Moon River. Though moon has a lovely meaning in English, in Thai it means garbage, so we went to garbage river and to a little floating raft with pigeons who would flock to us, because we had the power of bread, it’s their oil, you know. It fuels them so that they can live another day. So we controlled the oil of the birds and they came to us and we chased them away and they came again because they needed that oil, that fuel, or at least they wanted it very badly.

Day 2- I looked for more signs of the feud, I think it mostly existed inside my head, but what exists inside our heads is just as real to us as that chair over there, and because we make the world what it is, does not that which exists in our heads make up the world?

Or maybe chairs just don’t exist too, it’s really up to you. I’m in a really rambling mood tonight, so I’m just letting my thoughts free of their cage, letting them spill out of my head and onto the page.

On day two of our journey we went to Pa Tem, which is a large cliff that overlooks Laos, separated by two rivers. Pa Tem is not only cliff, but a home to ancient rock formations and ancient cave paintings. We climbed the ancient rock formations and I saw a huge rock and told the Rotex (Ian?) that I was going to go climb it. So I climbed up a steep rock face using every nook and cranny and branch to hoist myself up, I jumped over large crevices in the rock and found my reward in a cliff over looking the forest …. And then my group was calling to me and I was trying to figure out the best way to get down before they left me, when Diana from Taiwan told me that there was a path if I just went farther to my right… So I climbed up the steep rock when there was little path leading up to the top all along… oh well… climbing was much more fun. When I got down, I was chastised by the Rotex member for climbing; he told me he thought I wasn’t being serious. It’s a fair assertion. We then went to the largest cliff over looking Laos and took the customary 20 million photographs. I hung my feet over the edge and was scolded. It was truly breathtaking, the view, I can understand why people take so many pictures. I felt like I was on the edge of the world. When our photo lusts were fulfilled we went to look at the underside of the cliff, which had ancient cave paintings. It makes one wonder what will be left of you in a few thousand years. Maybe we’ll just be bird fuel, maybe we’ll be something more, but I think that isn’t so important as what we do now, while we’re still alive.

Day 3- This day was the last day in our epic journey. We went to a school and gave food and blankets to the kids there. Mostly we were there as dolls, figure heads for Rotary. We gave someone a bag of food, an ice cream cone or a blanket, and then we smiled and went on to the next person. I’m not really content to do that, so I broke free from the group and went to go talk to the kids, because I’m a kid and they’re kids and I speak Thai fairly well and they’re learning English, so I thought it a shame to just stand there and hand them things, when we have all these linguistic powers at our disposal. So I sat with them while they ate, they were really kind; they offered me some of their food. They were shy at first, but by the end they were reciting to me all the parts of the body and various animals in English, they were quite good. They taught me a few Thai/ Lao (here people speak Thai and Lao, the language of Laos) words too.

We went to a zoo called “Tiger Zoo,” and it lived up to its name. It had tigers. Many animals actually. All in small, cramped cages. Cages that were grossly too small for the animals that inhabited them. I wish there were a law against this. The birds didn’t have room to fly, a monkey was on a leash and was therefore kept within a very small radius of said leash. A bear was all alone and did little but pace back and forth, back and forth. I wanted to set them free from their cages. At this point, I would like to say “so I did” and have it be as such, but I didn’t. That’s mostly because of Michelle’s Law of Freedom, which says this: every animal has a right to be free, but Hungry Tiger + Delicious Meaty tourists = Maybe there’s a better way to go about setting things fee.

We went to the house of the Rotary Mum at the end of the day trips, her son is in America now. She lives in the countryside, near the rice fields that dimple Thailand’s smile. We were told we could all live there for a few months if we want to, I really hope so. I would love that.

That night was a going away party for the visiting Rotarian. We rode to the party in the back of a pick-up-truck. Like cowboys, all Americans are cowboys. Except me, though I’m not American because I’m short and have brown hair, I’m Bulgarian. America’s so diverse that it didn’t occur to me that people might think that "true" Americans look a certain way. I think of the United States as not having a dominant race or religion or anything, but a mixing pot of all different races and cultures and religions. I have to explain often WHY I’m American. So I’ve decided that I have no nationality, I’m a person of the world, now that’s difficult to explain, but fairly worth it, I think. I'm just me, I have no boundaries to hold me in.

My rants are making this journal long, but it will all come together in the end I think, there’s always a common thread, that’s me, I’m the thread, I sew all the random events of my life together by the sheer coincidence that they all happened to happen to me.

Because all this took place during the Jay (Vegetarian) Festival, there was plenty for me to eat at the party, there was actually a whole table of temporary vegetarians. (Fun Fact: Though my Thai phrasebook says otherwise, Jay is usually used to refer to a vegan, vegetarians have another longer word Mat-sat-weet-lot, but sometimes it’s just easier to say “Jay”). There was a Karaoke Bar, and I, being the aforementioned ham, ran up there to sing “Hero,” “Hotel California,” “My heart will go on,” and “Zombie” and a few of my other favorite Karaoke songs. I was later joined by the other exchange students, after much prodding and poking. We sang Bohemian Rhapsody. I thought the Rotarians and Rotex that joined us alike would enjoy the fun nature of the song and they wouldn’t pay attention to the words really. I was mistaken. I’m pretty sure they understood someone getting shot in the head. And they at least laughed at the Beelzebub part and they liked our air guitar, I think. But at the end, one of the Rotarians said “That song is really noisy.” Oh well, it was fun at least.

I think that’s the theme of these trips. “Oh well, it was fun at least.”

So bit term was over and I returned, once again, to Narinukun school. And it was almost Halloween. Way back in September, I promised my friends I would bring them Halloween. And that I did. That day I dressed as Harry Potter- with wings. I was pondering for a while what I would dress as. I was thinking dead school girl, but the ketchup on my uniform would be difficult to get out. I thought fairy maybe, or Harry Potter… A ghost? My imagination glided over the inklings and swam in all the ideas. I finally decided on the day of Halloween to be Harry Potter – with wings. You see, I happened to bring my wizard hat, Harry Potter glasses, fairy wings, Harry Potter shirt and lightning bolt shaped scar- you know, just in case. I bought two large bags of candy to give to my friends and brought the America swag that Rotary gave us exchange students to give to people in our various countries. I gave everyone candy and taught them American games and handed out American prizes. They have Halloween in Thailand, but it isn’t the same as in America, where people go trick or treating and such, it’s more just acknowledged that it’s a scary holiday where people dress up (usually not at school, but I asked permission beforehand).

Phujongnioy. I didn’t mention it before, but Phujongnioy is the name of the nature preserve with the waterfalls that I mentioned in my last journal. This time we stayed in a tent… well we set up the tent, we were going to sleep in it, but it rained, so we had to go inside. We played in the small rapid waterfalls and we took a bamboo raft down the river. I felt like Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. Though the best part of this trip came when I asked the driver of the songtell, after our long hike up the mountain, if I could ride on TOP of the songtell instead of IN the songtell, or outside the songtell. Some songtells have little luggage racks on top and sometimes someone will sit there to keep the luggage from falling off, though these are special songtells for long journeys. To my surprise the driver said yes, with a laugh, and so I climbed up to the top, followed by Diana, who also wanted to ride on top (we discussed this earlier, Diana and I speak Thai together, I really like that!) we were then followed by several young boys. It was really exciting to ride down the bumpy road at high speeds with our feet hanging off and singing to the wind, only words we ourselves could hear.

After we stopped at the bottom to gather our things, Diana and I were ready to climb to the top again for the two hour ride back to school… but we were stopped by a chaperone mother. We explained that we wanted to ride on top and she was outraged. She couldn’t believe we wanted to do that, she called it unsafe and told us to be good and go inside the bus. I explained to her that she shouldn’t worry, because we did it before and it’s just as safe as riding inside, but more fun. That just made matters worse. She was really upset that we had done it before. I pointed to the boys who were still sitting at the top and said, if they can do it, so can we. We’re older and just as capable, if it’s not dangerous for them, than why is it dangerous for us? Her response was “because you’re foreign, if something happens to you” and I said “their safety is just as important as ours” and she stood firm and said no, I asked why, I wanted to shout and to say that it’s not because we’re foreign, it’s because we’re girls, so you think we cannot do it, but the bus was about to leave without me. Maybe I should have just stayed and let the bus leave without me. I got on the bus, but I wasn't really there, I was lost in thought, not bound to Earth. It wasn't so much the not being allowed to ride on top that bothered me, it was the inequality. Every time someone treats me like a doll or treats a boy like they shouldn't cry or every time someone says "you aren't able" I want to shout and fight (and I'm a pacifist)... I just know I have to fight by showing that I am able, we're all able.

In India there was something called a “caste system” everyone was a part of a social level, you couldn’t transcend levels, you stayed in the one you were born into. And at the bottom were people called “the untouchables” these were the people that no one wanted to associate with.

Here in Thailand, there is not a caste system, and as far as I am aware, there never was. However it’s interesting to see how older or more “important” people are regarded with more respect and dignity. You don’t wai (the traditional Thai greeting) a waitress, but you do a teacher. I notice if someone considers themselves more important than someone else, they will push past them, they are actually irritated that that person happened to be standing where they wanted to be standing. How dare they! I don’t follow this, I let anyone go before me if they were first and I say “kor-toh-ka” (excuse me) if I’m in a hurry and make sure the person knows I mean not to be impolite. I wai everyone, I wai teachers and parents and waiters and waitresses and babies and dogs. America has a sort of caste system too, the rich are often given more privilege than the poor, people seen as “unpopular” are cast aside as unimportant.

These casts are the cages society places on us, but unlike the animals at the zoo, we can choose to do away with them.

I've decided to cast away the castes that bind me. The castes that keep my thoughts bound, I shouldn't think, I shouldn't feel that. I can't do that. These are the cages worst of all, the ones we place on ourselves! The tigers in the zoo would kill (literally) to be free of their cages and here we are building them around ourselves! We keep these castes alive by silently agreeing to take part in them. If we let our cages fade away, then we won't be left in darkness, but in light. We won't be left with nothing, we'll have the whole world before us, we'll have everything.

January 20 Journal

"The Story" - Part One

Hello all you out there in listening land and welcome to another one of my journal entries. I call it listening land, not only because that is the common lingo of a radio disk jockey, but because I think when reading anything, you have to do a fair amount of listening to get meaning out of anything. The world has turned like a doorknob, flipped like a pancake, changed like your Aunt Martha in the proverbial dressing room of life and so many other colorful ways of expressing the action of stepping back, looking at the world and saying- "Wow, would you look at that (imagine a question mark here, the keyboard seems not to want me to use mine- oh, Thai Internet cafes...)" The world is really quite different than I remember it being just a short while ago.

I think we'll have to take a short jaunt in my time machine WAY back to 2007 [remember that year (question mark)]..... close your eyes for effect.... why aren't you closing your eyes (question mark)... oh, yes, yes, I suppose reading with your eyes closed is something only the cat in the hat can do, and even he didn't recommend it. Okay, so use your imagination. Hey, look at that, you did it! We're back in 2007, in November, and it's a few days before my Birthday. Look, there I am! I'm the farrang sitting in class reading and wondering where everyone is... and who should burst through the door at that very moment, but most of my class carrying a birthday cake and singing "Happy Birthday." I have to admit, that this wasn't a complete surprise, because an English teacher asked me when my birthday was and what my favorite flavor of cake is, but I acted surprised, and I was very touched none-the-less. If we fast forward a little, we'll see all traces of the cake magically disappear and in its place a large pink picture frame with pictures of my friends and painted on the glass a poem in English about me, that I have to say, made me blush profusely. That whole day, I had a permanent smile on my face.... I can now say I understand why Thailand is the land of smiles... and it has nothing to do with military force, as I once thought.

Sport Day. Sport Day, is the Olympics of Thai schools. Everyone, depending on their class, is assigned a color (I'm red- se dang) and so we compete in various sporting events and root for the people who happen to have the same colour t-shirt as us. I decided to cheer for everyone. Having the same color t-shirt isn't incentive enough for me to want one person to win over another. But if we rewind a little bit (time machines can do that, you know) to one am in the morning, we will find me going to school to dawn traditional Thai dress. I was really excited to get the opportunity to wear a Thai traditional costume. Even at one in the morn, I was singing and running around... and then I was waiting for an hour to get my hair done, I was next in line, and they told me that I couldn't get my hair done until I got my make-up done. So I went to go wait in the line to have my make-up done. I was fairly tired of waiting at this point and I recall, erm, behaving in a manner befitting of Grumpy from Snow White and the seven dwarves. A nail went through my foot as I was walking to try on my costume. Well, it resembled a nail anyway. In reality, it was a table post. You see, in Thailand (as in many Asian countries) traditionally tables are low to the ground and people sit on the ground instead of chairs. So in this class room where we were preparing about 70 people to wear a costume for the parade later in the day, they removed the table tops, leaving the posts which were welded to the floor and would therefore be quite difficult to remove. So yes, I was impaled by one these little beauties. It hurt, but I was kind of in a bad mood already, so I just scowled and fell to the floor summoning all the manner and grace that I could muster (which wasn't much).

In the end the parade was really exciting. We piled into a van, very carefully, considering we were wearing head pieces larger than our actual heads and drove to a Wat. From the Wat, all the various colors would be represented as we paraded down the main street back to school. I love Geelasea (Sport Day), I loved dressing up in traditional Thai dress, despite all my whining, I look back at this and laugh at myself, I was pretty ridiculous, after all. Sport day is a culmination of all Fridays. On Fridays we wear our various sport day t-shirts and school looks as though a bag of skittles has exploded. It somehow brings us all together and the world seems much more interesting than when we are simply walking around in our everyday uniforms. When I get back to the United States, I think I'll remember the school as being the sight of a miraculous natural phenomenon, a flood of skittle-people coming together.

Since school finished early on this day, I went to see a Thai film with my friends. It was in Thai (of course) and had no sub-titles, so I had to listen really attentively to understand. Thai people don't react to films. They get emotionally involved in films. What I mean by this, is that they don't just laugh or cry, they scream or grab their friends or point, they make the film really more exciting to watch... I admit it made my concentration drop, but it certainly added to the experience of the film. In the end, I got really into it too, and I was crying (not exactly a novelty, I admit) but I understood the film so well that I was able to get into it, just like my friends, and cry unashamedly.

Before my big birthday trip, climbing up a mountain, was the moon festival. To celebrate, one floats a decorated piece of wood, with a candle in the center, in a body of water and makes a wish. But the really fun part are the flying trash bags. As I recall, we were driving to my host parent's University where we would be celebrating and I saw a most curious sight. At first I thought they must be a string of lights... but they were floating upwards and there were way too many to be aircrafts tragically set on fire, not to mention the fact that they weren't plummeting to the ground. They were a bit big to be stars (isn't it funny that we grow-up thinking stars are smaller than us, when really they are bigger than the entire Earth) and too stationary to be Meteorites falling to Earth. And then I saw it. Someone with a giant lantern illuminating the night sky by creating a rocket out of a trash bag. I stood in awe of this phenomenon, it was truly amazing. To me it looked as though little ghosts or stars were being born each moment. There was a beauty contest and a dance show, carnival games and food stands.... but I couldn't take my eyes off of the sky... that is... until one of the garbage bags got caught in a tree. I thought the tree was going to burn down and spread to the dancers beneath it, but everyone else just continued doing what they were doing. It's sort of a strange thing, to see someone facing impending doom and just continuing to dance. When I asked my host father if the tree was going to burn down, and if the people were going to get hurt, he just smiled and said "we'll see." Everyone seemed to have the attitude of "Mai Pen Rai" (Don't worry) in the extreme. In the end, the wind the loosened the garbage bag and it was free, and no one was hurt. Mai pen rai.

The day before my birthday I woke up early to travel to Phukradung (a mountain) in a van with about 9 exchange students. I love long car (or in this case -van) rides, because I'm able to sit and contemplate for long periods of time while getting a good glimpse of the world all around me. In traditional Thai style, we stopped to eat about 5 times (not to mention the breakfast I had before I came). When we reached the bottom of the mountain we met up with all the other Rotary exchange students from the Isan district of Thailand and had dinner. We shoved 6 kids into two twin beds (and the floor) and I took my last shower for the next 4 days.

My Birthday. On my birthday, I would be climbing a mountain. So I strapped on my fairy-wings and was ready for an adventure. Khun Prapart (the head honcho here) told us there was a record for us to break- to make it up the mountain in less than 2 hours 15 minutes (this being the exchange student record, I think the fastest by anyone is 55 minutes.) Now, as tempting an offer as that is, I decided that I didn't want to be in the group to race up the mountain, because climbing the mountain is the fun part, and think of all the wonderful things I'd miss if I concentrated solely on speed. Another exchange student named Monica, who felt the same way, decided to take it nice and slow up the mountain with me. We made sure to stop and explore everything interesting. We took the harder rockier paths instead of the smooth worn-in paths. We sang Disney songs and stopped to take pictures with interesting looking trees, plants and animals. I remember we found a secret clubhouse in the trees. As we were climbing we came upon a sign that said "Be careful elephants" so of course we went into the wooded areas where the elephants might be. We climbed a rock high above the path, and then wondered how we would get down (we decided sliding would be the most interesting.) When we reached each checkpoint, we would sit with our legs hanging off the cliff looking at the beautiful scenery below, chatting with the Thai people and eating ice cream. It was exhausting having so much fun... and then we started to realize that it was getting late, REALLY late. At the last checkpoint, there was a person coming down the mountain who told us that Prapart was looking for us. So we got our now-traditional ice cream...I dropped my ice cream as we were climbing, so we went back to get another, and then we found that every couple of minutes we were being bombarded by people sent by Prapart to make sure we weren't dead. It became so frequent that every person coming down that we saw we would immediately say "Yes, we know, Khun Prapart is looking for us, thank you."

The last part of the climb was the most physically demanding, but we continued to keep our spirits up and eventually we made it to the top. We were racing the sun. The victory was incredibly sweet, we reached the summit as the sun was climbing slowly down. And of course, as always, disregarding the guard rail, I hung my feet off the edge.

Now we only had the 3 km trek to camp. Along the way, on top of this mountain in Thailand, it seemed as though we were in an African Savanna (which sparked us to sing "The Lion King"). We stopped at one point to sign our names in the mud and to have a mud fight, we almost got some Thai people involved, almost. It was perfect really. It started out as a joke and then I fell in the mud and then from there it was all out war. In the trenches of Thailand, probably dehydrated a little bit, after climbing a mountain, we stopped to have a mud fight.

So, by the time we actually got to the campsite it was about.... very late, and we were relishing the idea that we were the holders of the wooden spoon award- the slowest to climb up the mountain at about 7 hours 30 minutes! At the top were Kwang (deer, the animal, not the exchange student) just walking around and interacting with people. I don't think I've ever been that close to wild deer. I slowly made my way close to one and gently patted the deer's nose. When we went to dinner, everyone was really excited that we weren't dead.

The next day we woke up at the break of dawn to go see the sun rise. We then spent our day walking 20km around the mountain. I don't like using the word "spent" in terms of time, because then time becomes like money, something disposable, something to get rid, something to whittle away. Something we work really hard for, just to get rid of it again. If time were as simple as money than we wouldn't spend time, but greedily hold onto it like an old miser holds money. I think of time as being more like a river than any sort of currency, you can try and try to hold onto it, but eventually it will just flow through your fingers and wash you away. So we tried to hold the day grasped in our hands firmly, but it just pulled us along as we walked the entire perimeter of the mountain. We stopped at the all the spectacular cliffs, we climbed over a majestic waterfall. The top of that mountain turned from African Savanna, to Thai waterfalls to Indian jungle to a grand desert oasis to an American plain lands before our very eyes. All on top of a mountain. And at night it was so cold that even the Canadians... who claimed to have slept outside in snow up to their elbows with only a sleeping bag in the dead of winter... huddled together with us and our paper-thin blankets for warmth. It was as though we were walking around the Earth. Anyway, somehow Monica, Diana, and I were separated from everyone again, so we found ourselves making the journey alone. We made nature-headdresses. All was well. And again, we became so far behind that the day was slowly building its cocoon to metamorphose into night. We were invited by Thai people to join in their pictures and we tried to get a motorcyclist (who, you know, just happened to be driving around on the top of a mountain) to give us a ride back to camp. But, alas, he was going to the other side of the mountain. Drat. So we had to ask directions and found a group of people who would show us the way, but after all that, the whole time we had a canopy of stars to guide us home.

The following day all the exchange students sat on a giant mat and played games brought to us from all over the world. The German girls really missed soccer, so they organized an Extreme Soccer Tournament- Exchange Student Style. Everyone played a part, we had half-time show, a referee, and even Prapart took part as spectator, the rule was, that if you hit Prapart in the head with the soccer ball, you get sent home, that made the game extra challenging. Anyway after a few hours of extreme competition, my team won! I was really excited, because I've not really played soccer much, but I enjoyed myself and eventually got into the zone, so to speak. I think I'll have offers to turn pro soon, soon you'll be eating cereal with my mug staring at you... that's kind of creepy, actually. So maybe I won't turn pro, but I did win a t-shirt and bragging rights. And no one got sent home.

The last day we spent walking down the mountain. Walking down a mountain is considerably easier than walking up, at least we thought. Falling down a mountain, was more how I would describe my experience. Falling up a mountain is definitely not the same as falling down a mountain. So we fell down a few times. It hurt, but it was a quick way to make it down and now I can say, I rolled down a mountain and lived to tell the tale.

And when I look back at everything, I still think "And to think it all happened on a mountain in Thailand."

In this journal I wanted to recount all the events that lead up to now, for how can you understand the present if you don't understand the past? This is the first half of a story, not a complete story however, for it will never be complete. Everyone reading this, everyone not reading this (I'd say a much larger percent of the population), everyone who ever lived and who ever will live is a part of the story. And though we might not understand all the changes and all the people around us and how they could possibly have anything to do with us, somehow they do. The past and present and future, change, the known is all dependent on what could be, on the unknown things that live in stories. An entire magic skittle school coming to life every Friday, a ghost made of a trash bag who lights up the sky, a fairy who lives on top of a mountain in Thailand.

February 29 Journal

Patchwork Quilt or "What is that you are sticking up your nose?"

Here you will see all the stray pieces of scrap memory that I've been collecting in the hat box at the back of my mind and will now attempt to bring them together into an intricate quilt for your amusement until my next journal, this is the break, the transition, the opening act... it's rough and rugged, but when it comes together I think it will give you an interesting picture of Thailand....

A teacher of mine here suggested to me once to write down all my experiences in Thailand and write a book about it... He said just write down anything strange or interesting.... So, though I've been keeping journals in print and on the Rotary website, I started a special list of strange things long, long ago... Anyone who knows me well, knows that strange things hold a special place in my heart... And I decided to share some of the more interesting items on my list: Enjoy!

1. Testing for ripeness. People will often squeeze your arm as they talk to you, not just one squeeze and that's it, they will take your arm and squeeze at various points as if they are testing a piece of fruit to see if it is ripe.... This unwittingly brings visions of Hansel and Gretel to my mind at times, but I think it's just a way to connect with another human being.

2. Spoons are the stars of the show in Thailand. While in the United States we cruelly ignore the spoon, banish her to only to be used for soups. In Thailand the spoon gets the respect it deserves... One eats with the fork to push food onto the spoon (and then propel the food to their mouths by use of their arm and hand muscles which is prompted by a signal from the brain- you can rest easily knowing that this part is, at least, the same.) Though if you're not used to eating everything with a spoon, this can give way to some difficulty at first...

3. Everything comes in plastic bags... everything... Sometimes if you buy a drink, they will actually pour the drink into a plastic bag (with tons of ice) and give you a straw to drink the liquid directly from the bag... This can be quite troublesome if you ever intend to put your drink down, but they ofte