Foolhardy Optimism

New drink of choice: Coke & RedBull. The RedBull here in Thailand (the original, before some brilliant Austrian tourist came to Thailand and said “gee, this would be really good, if it was carbonated” and then introduced it to the West with carbonation and flying competitions…) isn’t carbonated, and consequently it tastes a lot like… syrup, really. In the middle of an all night paper-writing session, however, I tripped upon a stroke of genius: mix the nasty flat RedBull (which I had purchased in anticipation of a crazy all night paper-writing session) with Coke. The result has proved quite palatable, tasting rather like American RedBull with a hint of Coke. And best of all, my concoction costs just under $0.50USD, making it a little easier to swallow than a $2.29 8oz can of American RedBull. Mmm.

Foolhardy optimism. Everything is for the best, eh Pangloss? I dunno. Maybe “foolhardy optimism” is just a clever euphemism I’ve coined for myself to replace the more truthful terms of “outright foolish,” “irresponsible,” and “unprepared.” Or maybe it’s just a result of an honest misunderstanding. I can’t say. (Where’s Freud when you need him? I’m sure he’d know.) Regardless, my stay in Thailand has been extended by a few days as I wait for my Indian visa application to go through. I think I misunderstood the kindly (which is to say perfectly rude, but I guess everyone that works at an embassy is rude) Indian gentleman at the embassy when I called a month or so back. I thought he said “don’t worry about getting it now. Just come down a few days before you leave for India and bring two passport photos.” At least that’s what I gathered from the conversation. But I don’t trust myself, really– especially as of late, I’ve been too willing and eager to project the answer I want to hear on to ambiguous phrases of broken English. Sometimes it becomes a necessity– especially when a person’s English is sufficiently broken that the only way try to understand said person is to guess as to what s/he might be trying to say, and then compare the words s/he actually using to what your guess. Guess and check. Usually it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe this is a case of the latter. Regardless, rather than a single-day turn-around process, it takes five business days to get a visa from the embassy. To my credit, I did try to get this taken care of a full week ago, but the informative gentleman at the embassy must have simply assumed that I knew to show up between the normal business hours of 9:00 and noon. Well, I didn’t. When I showed up, the only person around to answer my questions was a few sheets of paper posted outside of the embassy, which tipped me off as to the hours, but not my five-day-predicament. I tried again last Friday, but once again didn’t make it on time– this time not because I didn’t know when I needed to be there, but rather because 1) I didn’t wake up on time (imagine that..) and 2) I got stuck in Bangkok traffic (heh– yeah, that was a little strange. After 40 minutes in a taxi– what should have been a 30 minute ride– it was nearly noon and we were weren’t nearly to the embassy, so I asked the taxi-driver to take me back home. Although rather confused, he was rather amused. I really didn’t want that last sentence to rhyme, but I can’t think of a better way of expressing it, and it’s really not worth it. Look at that: topic hi-jack!). Back outside of the parentheses, I finally made it to the embassy this morning. After lots of waiting (this is an embassy, after all I submitted my application and I asked the kindly woman who took it if I should return between 3:00 and 4:30 this afternoon to pick up my visa– the stated “visa collection time,” according to the paper taped to the wall. She mumbled something incomprehensible about 3:00, and then very kindly yelled “NEXT” and hit her “next-person” bell. So I came back at 3:00, gave my slip of paper to the gentleman behind the glass, who pointed to something on the piece of paper and said “no, no. Wrong day. Come back tomorrow between 12:00 and 1:00. NEXT!” Anyhow. The end result of this ridiculously long paragraph is that it usually takes five business days for the processing of a visa. Anyhow. I suspect it’ll all work out in the end. Josh isn’t leaving until the 18th, so I’ll have a place to stay, and it looks like I’ll be able to shuffle my flights such that I’ll arrive in India only three days later than planned, with a shorter stay in Singapore. Eesh.

I’m learning, anyway. =)

But going back a while… exactly a week ago was the celebration of the king’ birthday. Surprisingly, as opposed as I am to the concept of a monarchy, the king has grown on me. The rest of the royal family aside, the king seems to genuinely care for Thailand and the welfare of its people. He is intelligent and seemingly articulate, and his list of humanitarian programs and activities is genuinely impressive. The rest of the royal family, from what I can tell, and from talking to some other Thais, are pretty worthless: incalculably rich and typically selfish, living the high-life off the sweat of Thai people and the bounty of Thailand’s inconceivably high import tariffs. But the king: he seems like a good guy. I can understand, in part, why the Thais love him. Of course, it’s probably pretty easy to be a good guy in his situation: he doesn’t have any official political power, can’t be voted out of office, has unanimous and enthusiastic support for everything he does, has have no business interests whatsoever, and is fabulously wealthy. So what else is there to do, besides be a good guy?

Anyhow. About his birthday: the whole of Bangkok was decorated with lights (like Christmas, almost– I never seen so many clear lights, dangling down like creepers from trees, criss-crossing above the streets, outlining Chairman-Mao sized pictures in the middle of every major road… Here’s a really blurry picture (tripod? I don’t need no stinkin’ tripod!):

There was a parade and a huge selection of festivities, in addition to a series of fireworks displays (both before and after his actual birthday). I happened to be directly below the fireworks display on Monday (the celebration day proper), which was just fantastic:

Being directly below the explosions, I and everything around me was completely covered in a rain of charred bits from the brilliant explosions of color above. This is a picture of a sheet that was on the ground behind me. The black things are the same things that I was washing out of my hair, later on that night:

I finished my last final and handed in my last paper (which you can download here if you’re interested in a rather dry analysis of Paul Cezanne’s influence on the Cubist movement– heh. Didn’t think so. =P) on Thursday. It’s a strange feeling: knowing that I’m done with school until next September. That’s nine months. It’s kinda exciting, actually.

There’s a dog walking around in my internet cafe right now. I’m not surprised, though. The front doors are propped open, and dogs generally wander where they like without much interference. The doors to the classrooms were usually shut (because the individual rooms, not the buildings, are air-conditioned), so it only happened once that a dog wandered into class– but they certainly wandered around campus enough. Sometimes a dog decides that it wants to cross the river. I’ve never seen a dog try to swim the river, but I have seen a dog or two take the ferry across. Like monks, they get free passage on boats and ferries. No joke. =)

This weekend was spent hanging out with people I’m going to miss when I leave Bangkok and spending time in the city. I took a few photos, which you can find here, including pictures of the new monster shopping center that just opened, and pictures from the aquarium inside:
www.eateggs.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=1184

That’s about it, for now. If there’s anything I’m forgetting, let me know.