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Lets see… Peter Pan performed as a ballet on Friday, followed by some (NOT DEAD!!) ska at Saxophone…

Lazy saturday. Laundry, line, poker night.

Yeserday I finished The Return of the King and I hereby defy every one of you who questioned the validity of my thoughts and opinions related to the LOTR trillogy on a basis of the fact that I had not read the books. Having now read the books, I can say with great certainty that, although my understanding of the plot’s intricacies has been enhanced, my understanding of the themes and characters has not changed in the least.

Certainly I must admit that I’m very glad to have read the the books, but I’ll leave that matter here.

In other news, there’s not much other news. There’s still the unresolved question of how exactly (and when, exactly) I’m going to get back to the ‘states. But I’m not overly concerned by that.

There’s more flooding expected this week. The response of the locals is completely nonchallant. “Oh. Flooding. Sure, we’ve got some sandbags.”

And that’s about it. I’ll post when something interesting happens. Right about now, it’s time for some ice cream. =)

And the rains just keep coming. It’s really quite amazing to me. The river is some 6 or 7 feet higher than it was a week ago. No joke.

This is the row of fortune-teller booths that I walk through every morning on my way to campus. I never really thought much of it until, well, it struck me: these people make a good living by telling fortunes. That seems exceedingly strange to me. Obviously, I’m in a foreign culture.

I post this now because, as I walked through the above row on my way to the ferry tonight, it was through three inches of standing water. I can only fear for how much more it’ll rise during the night.

For my part, I really enjoy the rain. But for the part of the city of Bangkok, I hope things clear up for a few days. For the record, my two-dollar-and-some-change umbrella is proving to be one of the best purchases of my life.

All I can say is… I’m glad I live on the 6th floor. =)

Can’t you see that it’s just raining?
There ain’t no need to go outside.

but baby…

Rain falls, rain fall, cars stall.
Trees topple. Basements fill. Full.
Traffic’s stuck and people hurry, hide,
Duck, dodge. An army of umbrellas.
And they say: Has it stopped yet?
When will it stop? Will it stop?

But the sky! Closer. Full. Soft. Grey–
that beautiful, the-world-is-right grey.
Blanketing rain, softening rain,
Not soggy– soft. Quieting the world it fills.
And how can you not smile?
How can they hurry, hide?

You hardly even notice
When I try to show you this
Song is meant to keep ya
From doing what your supposed to

now…

Lazy Wednesday. Class is cancelled–
Her basement is flooding. Until Friday…
Another class still, but how I can I go?
With the rain’s keeping me
from what I’m supposed to?
Pretend like it’s the weekend,

now…

Open the door. Listen to the rain.
Savor my coffee, learn some new chords.
Pass the afternoon away…
While it rains, still it rains, and winds blow,
Spirits soar, the rain plays, and my chords flow.

Can’t you see that it’s just raining?
There ain’t no need to go outside.
Mmm Mmmm. Can’t you see?
Rain all day
And I don’t mind.

We got everything we need right here
And everything we need is enough.
Just so easy
When the whole world fits inside of your arms.

Thanks, Jack.

There are two parts to this. The following post about my weekend, and an announcement that follows many of you may not be too surprised to at.

I need a new toothbrush.

This weekend I went with my friend Amp and several other members of the Thammasat Speaker’s Union to Amp’s weekend house in Kanchanaburi province. We stayed in a boat-turned-guesthouse that Amp’s father bought a few years back when it was retired.

(From left to right: Amp (nearest head), Poy (left-most head), Sonya, Vicky, Billy, Pat and Ofoon. Not pictured: Steve (American), Prau, and yours truly.)

We slept late on Saturday, and then drove to the nearby Erawan National Park. We hiked in few kilometers and saw five tiers of a waterfall.

(Tier one)

We stopped to swim in the naturally formed pool under the fifth, which was quite refreshing, little fish aside. Owing to how clear the water was, we were able to see fish swimming in most of the waterfall pools on the way up– ranging from no longer than an inch to fourteen plus inches. On entering the pool, however, I was most disconcerted when I was actively attacked by fish no longer than three inches. Every time I stopped moving, one of the little suckers would come up bite my feet or hands! I can’t say that it hurt, but imagine the sensation of being nibbled on in the nebulous, sometimes murky water of a Thai waterfall pool! Fortunately, once I moved into the deep water and eventually under the falls I gained some respite (which, of course, makes no sense– how does a fish have the audacity to bite something literally a THOUSAND TIMES its size but not the courage to swim in 5′ deep water?!). Once I managed to get away from the biting fish, the water was cool, clean and very enjoyable. While we were swimming it began to rain, and by the time we came out, it was just as wet to stand near the pool as in it. But even that was pleasant– a slow, heavy monsoon rain, coming from clean clouds through clean air… not at all like Bangkok’s acid rain.

Sunday we slept late again, and then drove to the town of Kanchanaburi and had lunch at a floating restaurant (built on pontoons over the river).

(The fish, needless to say, was fresh.)

Although we had a lot of good food on the trip, this was the highlight:

It was a veritable feast! Spicy Papaya Salad, Tom Yum Goong, Sweet and Sour vegetables, fried fish, steamed fish, several other chicken dishes, some sort of spinach salad and so much more… Mmm.

On our way back to Bangkok, we stopped at Prapathom Chedi, which supposedly is Thailand’s oldest.

All together, the trip was great– most of all because of the people I was with: intelligent, well-informed, funny, and fun-loving… And, as always, it’s wonderful to be away from Bangkok. I love clean air, trees and solitude, all of which were available in a-plenty this weekend. Saturday morning’s half-hour before everyone else awoke spent reading The Return of the King out on the boat’s prow with the rain softly pattering all around was, for me, an absolute manifestation of tranquility and contentment.

Yeah. It was a good weekend.

This morning was spent at the “United Nations Youth Forum on Millennium Development Goals & 2005 World Summit” which I found both encouraging and enabling. Read more at http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/.

There’s always this interesting temporal gap between when I write an entry and when I post it, due to the cost of internet access and the fact that I don’t have it in my room. In this case, I no longer need a toothbrush because, between the start of this post and its conclusion, I have purchased a toothbrush. So there ya go. =)

I will be returning to Montana State for the spring semester. I am returning early for the single reason that the quality and availability of education for a native English speaker at Thammasat is severely limited. Talking to one of my British professors, he put it quite plainly: “if [I] stay here for a full year, [I] will be behind when I go home.” There are two reasons for this. First, the course offerings are limited. Within my faculty, there are only two 400 level course offerings (one of which I’m enrolled in) and a handful of 300 level courses, of which only two or three may transfer to Montana State as history credit rather than elective credit. Frankly, I’m unable to find eighteen transferable credits of classes for this semester, and judging by the course-listing for the spring semester, I anticipate that I will be even more taxed to take at least fifteen credits. I should have been more cautious of this when I made my choice to stay for a year rather than a semester, but at the time I was thinking in terms of culture and not education. In terms of a cultural education, I can’t saw how much more rich or full my Thai experience would be for staying ten months rather than five, but in terms of academic education, there’s no question that I will be greatly advantaged to return home in January.

Secondly, my courses are being taught in English (by American and British professors) to almost exclusively non-native English speakers. Most of the Thai students are conversant in English, but far from fluent. As a result, most of the lectures are superficial and repetitive, so as to give the non-native speakers a fighting chance at comprehension. The scope and depth of material covered is not nearly the equal of similar courses at Montana State. As my American History professor commented to me, “this must feel like high-school for you.” Unfortunately, with the notable exception of my Thai language course, he couldn’t have said it better.

As a sophomore (with few high-school transfer credits and a recently switched major) I don’t feel that I’m at leisure to take a full year away from academic rigor, regardless of the concurrent cultural education. Many of the other international students here are seniors who have already completed all their university requirements or need only a few credits to transfer. If that were my position, I would be much less concerned about transfer credits and my academic education here. As it stands, however, I fear that two semesters here may set me back from my goals for the foreseeable future, rather than advancing me towards them.

As a positive side note, depending on when my professors give their finals, I may be finished with Fall Semester by December 1st, rather than December 15th, as my ISEP materials stated. This will give me an unanticipated additional two weeks travel and enjoy Thailand and surrounding areas, in lieu of the traveling I would have done during Spring Semester.

For the last four months or so, I’ve been receiving an increasing amount of spam. Granted, my filter gets 99.9% of it for me, but I’ve been a little disconcerted just by the fact that the amount I receive seems to be going up instead of down, despite my efforts to the contrary. So tonight I had a brillient idea: why not google my email address and see if its posted somewhere on the ‘net that I missed. And, sure enough, google found a page on ibforums.org where my email address has been posted. Figures.

So anyhow. I edited the post and obfuscated my email address, and now I fully expect the amount of spam I receive to flowly trickle off over the next few months.

There’s really no point to this post, other than to celebrate Google for … helping me deal with frustrations in my personal life. =)

For the record, I then tried Yahoo and MSN, neither of which were any help.

I have twenty minutes until I need to leave to get to campus, and my cup-of-noodles is still too hot for me to eat, so I guess it’s time to put throw together an update of life. (edit: it took me all day to put this together, but it was STARTED before class this morning.)

On Sunday I went down to an island about 130km southwest if Bangkok called Ko Si Chang. It’s a smaller, less touristed island, and made for a wonderful two-day escape from Bangkok. It was great to be there. I haven’t spent much time on the ocean, but I think it’s beautiful. Although seeing an elusive and endangered white-squirrel in the wild was great, and seeing the temples and beach and such was interesting, the highlight was certainly the time spent down by the water, sitting on ragged rocks, thirty feet above waves breaking on the cliff-face below, and talking away the waning hours of daylight and then the passing lights of ships. Setting sun, ocean– grey infinity, breaking waves, quite, timeless conversation as the light fades and disappears altogether. It was great.

(A view of Ko Si Chang’s township)

(A view of the west side of the island. Our bungalow was one of the small buildings visible in the center of the photo.)

(One of Ko Si Chang’s huge motorcycle taxis (tuk-tuks), unique to this area of Thailand)

I went with Caitlin, another student who is studying at Thammasat. Ironically, she’s from Denver University, which is all of an hour and forty-five minutes from my house in Cheyenne. She’s of no romantic interest, but was fun to travel with, and a source of some valuable information. For example –Josh makes NO sense. It’s a 20-30 minute trip between campus and the apartment. He came back from class about five minutes ago, made himself a peanut-butter sandwich, ate it, and he just left again. To go back to class. There’s food stands all over campus. There’s a decent, cheap cafeteria. There’s a hundred good restaurants and noodle-stands within a five minute walk of campus. I don’t understand…– there’s a building next to my apartment, whose purpose I couldn’t fathom. I would see cars driving in and out, and I could see from walking by that there is a series of car-stalls with curtains in front of them. I assumed that it was some sort of parking garage, or a super-sized car-wash, or something to that effect. No. I found out from Caitlin that it’s a “carpark,” and it works like this: the driver comes in, and pays for a stall for, say, two hours, then drives to his/her stall with his/her special someone and– here’s where the curtain comes in– closes the curtain. And has two hours of privacy. Ha ha. Go do the math. =)

The sexual hypocrisy in Thailand is laughable. Nudity is banned not only on national television, but in national cinema as well. Sex (and the sex industry) is never mentioned in print or any formal situation. Monks are not– in any circumstances– allowed to be touched by women. If you’re a woman, and you want to hand something to a monk, your’re expected to set the object down so the monk can pick it up without the chance of touching a woman. On balance, the Thai people try to pretend that they don’t know what sex is, that it doesn’t exist, that certainly none of them have ever HAD sex (it’s strange being in my classes where the students are so skittish and gigly when the professor mentions sex, and knowing that no more than a handful of the students are virgins…). And yet, in spite of this, the sex industry in Thailand is considered to be the most prolific in South-East Asia, and probably all the world. So. You want to see some skin? Forget the national cinema. Go to one of the dozen “karaoke” joints you walk past on your way to the theatre. Go to one of Bangkok’s hundreds of go-go bars or massage parlors (there certainly are reputable, decent massage parlors as well, mind you). Sure, prostitution is illegal, but you need to understand something: if it isn’t profitable for the police to enforce a law, it’s not enforced. There’s a lot of things that are illegal here, but everyone does it just the same. Put the right amount of money in the right person’s hand, and they’ll overlook anything. So sex is everywhere except in public view.

God. I really didn’t want this to turn into a rant. Time to turn this around.

So the island was great. But strangely, as much as I enjoyed being there, and as much as I thought to myself while there “goodness, I could just stay here forever,” I find that I don’t have any desire to go back. And I don’t understand why not.

I miss Bozeman. A lot. Reading Ken’s blog posts makes me smile, and at the same time it makes me infinitely sad that I’m not there in Quad E hanging out with the people I grew to know and love last year. It makes me sad that I’m not hiking in the hills and playing informal games of Ultimate on the green grass in the courtyard. As Meekyung reminded me, home is where the heart is, and in that regard I haven’t been gone for five weeks, I’ve been gone for four months.

Walking down the street.

Just sleeping there…

Today was generally solid. I saw some temples this morning (including a 53m golden, reclining Buddha), went to a couple classes this afternoon, ate some wonderful ice cream this afternoon, and headed down to Siam Square tonight, with one destination in mind:

The Hard Rock Cafe, Bangkok.

(sorry about the terrible picture… one of these days, I swear, I’ll buy a tripod!)

And mmm. After eating a LOT of Thai food, I can’t tell you how good it was to sink my teeth into something. Almost all Thai food takes the form of various small pieces– chicken, vegetables, etc– stir-fried together. It’s tasty and all that, but there’s nothing like the sensation of actually using those pretty front teeth for something other than smiling for the random pictures that random Thai students have been taking of me (yeah… how about that). A bacon-cheeseburger. Cooked medium-rare. a thick, juicy beef patty, cooked to amazing pink perfection…

God, it was good.

Since we were in the area, we walked through the nearby shopping center, and ended up going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again.

On balance, it’s a fine movie. To be honest, I’ve never been that taken with the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a second viewing re-affirmed my original impression: like candy, there’s no point to the movie, other than simply being enjoyable. Maybe there’s something about the importance of family, somehow tied into that sappy, imaginary little ending where father and son exchange an awkward hug and suddenly birds are singing and Oompa Loompas are dancing and the world is suddenly free of violence and famine and civil wars and aids and separatist factions and stampedes and floods… Sorry cousin, doesn’t happen. If you eat too much candy, you just end up with a stomach-ache.

The filmmaking was typical of Tim Burton– outstanding art direction, the characters quirky but flat, hit and miss acting, hit and miss Elfman orchestration, and a generally well-crafted atmosphere.

But enough of that. I did see a couple of beautiful cars tonight, such as this Lotus:

Mmm. Yeah. That’s what I thought!

This is fun. After a month or so of being here, I speak about as much Thai as the average Thai speaks English. Which is to say that I hardly speak it at all– enough to know my numbers, ask and give me name, and proudly announce “phom phuut paa-sah thay nit-noy”– I speak a little Thai. This language itself amazes me for its simplicity. English is a language of rules and for every rule there’s at least ten exceptions, and even for native speakers its often difficult to speak proper, iodmatic English. I can only imagine what a monumental task it is for Thais. Why? Simply because Thai, like Thailand’s roadways, has very few rules. There is no future tense or past tense. You want to say that you will do something in the future, you add the word “will” before your verb. No conjugation. No sentense structure change. Just add the word. Same thing for past tense. You just add “already” to the end of your sentense. There are no plurals. The word for a country is the same word as for its language. The comparative simplicities abound. Of course, the tonal aspect is difficult for me, as a westerner, to grasp and pick up on– most difficult, I think is to force myself to remove emotion, or inflection rather, from my voice– important when dog, horse, and the verb “to come” are all the same word, only each with a different tone.

But really, I already know everything that I need to know how to say. Sure, I’m excited to keep learning more Thai, but we all laugh in the same language when a Thai convinces his friend to try my slackline, and he takes two shaky steps, and then tumbles off in a genuinely Chaplin-esque manner, and then gets up, barely able to stand for his laughing, and runs away. More quality Thai moments with my slackline. Thanks, Sagar. =)

Slowly but surely, I’m starting to find some outlets to be a part of my school community and my community as a whole, which does wonders to help set aside my feelings of displacement and listlessness.

As much as things speed up, though, they’re slowing down as I settle into the pace of life over here. Mid-terms, it’s hard to believe, are only a month away for me. This morning I’m headed off to go see another temple, then it’s too campus for a few hours, and then I’m free for the weekend!