I HATE YOU CHRISTOPHER PARSONS

We are working in the library. Its been two weeks now. We are all going a little bit nuts. If you add in grading the final "listening assessment" then we have totally lost our minds.
Im wearing my brand new Dior (yeah right) sunglasses. Chris said to me, "I like your sunglasses...

THEY MATCH YOUR ACNE!"

Teacher Christopher can go kick rocks. And he can take his creepy lap top, which whispers the time on a half hourly basis, with him.
Although he had a point, it did give me something to write about in my blog.

Mo Turns Teen

I dont remember 13 years old being very fun.
My little sister turned 13 and has now acquired an I-POD (so it appears I am officially the last one on earth who cares about having one of these...its like the cellphone thing all over again)
I went to her MySpace site, which I have tagged over in the column to your right. At first, her butchering of the English language really put me off. Until I began realizing that all of her friends were writing using the same style. Its like this amazing subset of English where "azn" truly doesnt mean "asian" to them. My linguistics professor always told me that the signifier is assigned arbitrarily. Otherwise, why would this small, furry, domestic animal be "cat" to one person and "gato" or "neko" or "mao" to another? This group of tweenagers in Seattle have a lexicon that works for them and is still recognizable enough to be considered a derivative of English. Fascinating.
The one thing I cant forgive is the misuse of the word "your" right off that bat. I doubt she had her tongue very far into her cheek when she wrote that one.
Today, I saw a small glimpse of what Mo will be when she is older. She is by far the most confusing of the 3 of us sisters, although the least complex. Very interesting.

Happy birthday "Sista".

Spring Break Plans

I am getting increasingly excited about my upcoming trip to Cambodia. In less than two weeks I will touch down in Phoem Phen. I really have no idea what to even expect.
The itinerary, as of right now, is to fly into the capital. In the capital we will explore the history of the Khmer Rouge including visiting the Silver Pagoda (apparently there is a life size image of Buddha made of solid gold and encrusted with diamonds), Tuol Sleng Prison, and the National Museum. From there its up to Siam Reap and Angkor Wat. The 3-day pass for Angkor is $40. It took me 2 days of continuous exploring to see half the historical park at Sukhothai so Im gonna go ahead and say that 3 days is just barely adequete for a kingdom the size of Angkor.
I have no clue how we are going to get from Phoem Phen to Siam Reap. There is a boat, an airplane, or a bus. So plenty of options exist at least. Im also not sure where we are going to stay or in what order we are going to tackle these cities. The plan is to let MrA go through the guide book (photocopied pages from LP: Southeast Asia on a Shoestring) and make some decisions from there.

Prabhasson Football

I went to a Prabhassorn soccer game Saturday afternoon. They have a reputation for being one of the best teams in Chonburi (with the expection of a 12-0 ass kicking they received two weeks ago in Bangkok) and since most of the players have said the total of 3 words to me all semester, I was curious to see if life had truly bestowed them with any other talents.

Soccer is a little bit different here. Its played on a short field with smaller goals. Not quite as small as LaX goals, but comparable. The field, as you can see, is dry and dusty. This lead to several eyewashings for poor Pong, our goalie. It makes sense that the kids wouldnt be playing on a full length field, considering how hot it gets in the afternoon. I think every kid would suffer from heat stroke if they were expected to run the length of a field in the blazing afternoon sun. The short field makes it so that the goalies can throw the ball to eachother, but it also means that the kids have impeccible ball control. They have a finesse with their ball handling that my sister's soccer team (a team of the same age) lacks. Their sense of direction and location is quite refined considering how young they are. Its a different style of soccer and I found it much more exciting to watch than just seeing people kick the ball as hard as they can until someone gets a breakaway.

Of course, our team won. Turns out that my students are amazing. I like to think that I had something to do with that...
After the game is all over they go and wai the opposing teams coach. This is the team from Chonburi, the losers if you will, showing some respect to Aajaan.


I can safely say that no kid was excited to see me at the game, at least not outwardly. Aajaan and I spent the time from 830 until 910 shuttling around Chonburi, picking up kids that were late for one reason or another. They would get into the backseat of the car and be listing off excuses or apologies. I would turn around and say "GOOD MORNING STUDENT!" They would start with disbelief. Then their eyes grew wide in fear and they were immediately silent. Aajaan would be like "Say good morning to the English teacher!" wait a moment and then shrug before driving again. Im sure every one of them was cursing me for bringing the pressure of spoken English to an otherwise blissful Saturday morning.

Live & Let Die

Oh my god I have bronchitis! How hienous is that? Yesterday I got home from school and I couldnt even take a nap I was so feverish and uncomfortable. I finally, after two weeks of just trying to wait it out, went to the doctor. Of course he examined me - listened to my heart and my complaints, etc.

My bill came back over 1,600 baht! What the 'ef? The nurses are telling me that its so cheap compared to America. But that only works when Im an American living in America making an American salary. Sorry, but when Im an American living Thailand and making a Thai salary 1,600 baht to treat a cold is much too expensive.

What could possibly have caused such a monetary riot? The medication of course! I grow increasingly angry the more I think about the pharmasutical industry. It requires a sort of blind faith in the medical practitioner; he knows what is best for me. So he prescribes me the only thing that could possibly restore my health. But whats to say that hes not just giving me some lame placebos?
So this doctor had written a prescription without running it by me (that part I understand, since I dont speak Thai) and dude gave me all the medications under the sun. I had a bag of little yellow pills for a runny nose, purple pills for my sinuses, foil packets for my cough, something else possibly a multivitamin, and finally (the real treasure) the antibiotics. I'm a regular ole run-of-the-mill amoxocillin kind of gal. But of course, since the medical industry is like everything else and centers around money rather than practical health care, he prescribed me the most expensive antibiotics possible! Hate!
After much drama I finally get the bill down to a more reasonable 650 baht. I leave satisfied and eagerly await this illness to subside. Being sick is lame. I deeply question the ethics in the pharmacy.



On a less interesting note I finished this scarf for Veronica. I wanted to post the picture since Im really proud of it. I think the pompons are the most wonderfully charmings accoutrament I have ever given an accessory. But I dont feel like writing about it right now since all I really want to do is go home and go back to bed.
Oh yes, and Monday is a holiday but I have no idea what Im going to.

Fitting Room

I was in the library today during one of my free periods. I was browsing through magazines. There was a 5th grade class watching a video for Thai dance class. Teacher Oi was reading magazines as well. I sat down at a table with her.
Somehow the conversation turned to bras or boob size or something of that nature. She says that I have small breasts and Im like "guess again, my breasts are way bigger than yours" (this woman is 98lbs at most). She says that I only ever wear sports bras, which is half true since I didnt bring any fancy bras to Thailand. I said that I would like to buy a nice bra but I dont know my bra size (metiric system - what a pain!) She looks at me and thinks.
Then reaches out and grabs one of my breasts. "I think maybe B."
Then she cups her own cleavage and says "yes...maybe B. (turns around) what size Matli?"
Matli: "something in thai"
She turns back to me and Im like there is no way that Im the same bra size as you! So I reach out and grab her boobs and then feel my own and they are clearly different. I think Im closer to a C.
Anyways, Matli and a couple other teacher join in this conversation and the insanity continues for probably 5 minutes. Here we are in the school library grabbing eachother and talking about bra sizes. It was rather hilarious.
But sadly, I am no closer to knowing my bra size.

Hatstravaganza!

I finished some hats - not all of which I posted here. But there are pictures in my photo album so no one feels left out.

The Colorblock hat is a pattern from Woman's Day magazine, which my mother clipped and sent to me last year. I promptly filed it under "Woman's Day clippings" and never looked at it again. I unearthed it because I was running out of ideas. Its knit across rather than top to bottom. The resulting tube is grafted together at the end (excuse me WDM, but a 24" tail really didnt cover all my post-tube-grafting needs) and one end is gathered to transform the tube into a hat. Amazing. A fun hem detail* and tassle surprise are added after the fact. You can clearly see that this hat is tremendously fun to wear.

*pick up 2 stitches in from hem, SC (super long style), Ch 3, repeat. Rock on, right?


The other hat is the "fuck you hat" hat. So named because that is what I was screaming throughout the entire process of crocheting the damned thing. The purpose of this hat was to use up some scrap yarn. So i used a pattern my host mom in Japan had given to me. Rather than take the time to read the pattern I just followed the chart. The result was THREE separate occasions of ripping the hat out and starting over. I had originally wanted to add a scalloped edge but after all that nonsense, when the time came for row 21 - I just SC around and let it be fine.

So now Im trying to work from a Thai (scarf) pattern, which is even sillier than working from a Japanese pattern since I only know about 4 of the words in the entire thing. Im pretty much just guessing on everything and following the chart. I dont know if I even like the result yet. I keep thinking it should be wider but Im really apprehensive about ripping out and starting over (what if its worse? then I did all that ripping for nothing!). Only time will tell.

PS Venus Softfur yarn. No so much soft.