I'm earning money!

Last week I...

...had a strange, free tuk-tuk ride to a bunch of handicraft shops where you can see how things are made and then are shuffled into a big showroom where you're supposed to buy stuff. I got to see how silks, laqurewear, fancy jewelry with gems and huge, fancy umbrellas are made. My driver guy said he needed to take people for a project for his class in college, so he didn't charge me anything (and bought me water and offered ice cream too) but I had to fill out how I felt about all the little places. I'm sure he got commission for the places he took me, but I think it worked out fine and he dropped me off at the mall which was the only thing I had been planning on for the day.

...visited Wat U-Mong, this really cool jungle temple. It was raining so I didn't explore too much but now I know how to get there so I can go back. There are a ton of wats all over Chiang Mai (I live within a 5 minute walk of at least 10), but this one is a real forest meditation temple. I'm excited to get back and run around more. Or, I mean, mindfully walk around while reflecting life.

... sang Thai pop karaoke at the mall, in a little not-so-soundproof plastic booth surrounded by other not-so-soundproof plastic booths with middle and high school kids singing Thai love songs. About $0.25 gets you two songs, plus sometimes a bonus one if you get a high score. I have no idea how the thing comes up with a score. It's totally unrelated to accuracy, maybe it's volume. I don't know. I found my favorite Thai ska band. They're called Skalaxy and they have a great song called "What ska is?" If they had gone to AUA, the song would have been called "What is ska?" or "What ska is" but hey, I'm just happy Thailand has a popular ska band!

... visited Lamphun, an "ancient city", but didn't have a good guide book, and the tourism office was closed. On a Saturday. But found a temple and talked to some novices. Their English wasn't nearly as good as the Laos novices. I did learn that they like hip-hop and rap music. Also wandered around a food market and saw lots of crazy food being sold by people sitting on the ground. Pictures coming soon.

... finally saw some good coup stuff! Well, not that good. But I finally saw some soldiers and a couple trucks and hummers. I still haven't' seen a tank, but Jeff saw one by the American Consulate. I went the next day but it was gone. Most of the soldiers are just hanging out under a pop-up tent, half of them sleeping, some eating, some talking to girls. During the Sunday market a helicopter flew overheard with the door open and you could see the soldiers with their guns. So that was weird, but still didn't feel scary.

... felt the effects of the coup. All of the TV stations are back EXCEPT my station that shows all the good TV shows! And they just started showing Ed and 7th Heaven! And I'm missing it all! Ugh. I don't think it's on purpose. My guess is someone just forgot to switch something back and now I have to suffer.

... watched Mean Girls dubbed in Thai. Most Western TV is just subtitled and only cartoons are dubbed, so this caught me off guard. It really made me want to watch it in English though.

... had a two day seminar at AUA where I met most of my fellow teachers. It was interesting. Since I was new people didn't expect too much from me and I was exempt from a lot of the embarrassing things.

And today...

... I started teaching! I teach two level 2 (out of 12) classes at 6:10 - 7:15 and 7:20 - 8:25. The classes are very different. The earlier class is split evenly between boys and girls and they seem very bright, excited and really well behaved. The later class is 12 boys and 5 girls. They seem to laugh whenever I say anything, constantly talk in Thai and they like to hit each other. Hmm.... it should be interesting. They're all very outgoing and they like speaking English so I just have to make sure to keep it interesting. Today I put the class into teams so they could earn (meaningless) points and when talking in Thai affected their score they seemed to care. So that's good to know. At the end of class one student stayed after to tell me that he really wanted to win. I said he would have another chance tomorrow. He said he was... (forgot the word, ran to the board, drew a face with a frown and tears, I said, "sad?" and he said "yes! sad!")... sad that he didn't win.

We played "get to know you" games today. After they did a mini-interview with one of their classmates, I did a game where I drew a picture of myself and then put 6 random answers on the board and they had to figure out the questions. I put New York, elephants, 36, Steve and Charlie, 310, June 4th (Where are you from? What is your favorite animal? What is your shoe size? What are your pet's names? How much baht do you have in your wallet right now? When is your birthday?) After hearing a bunch of guesses I drew pictures of turtles, an arrow to my foot, and a couple of rectangles with smiley faces and they eventually got it.

I had a good time. I think they did too. The names are really going to be tough. No joke - Dit, Bit, Pit, Mit, Nit, Nat, Nut, Not, Noi, Nui, Noy, Naw, New, Ew, Pang, Ping. Their real names are usually 10 syllables so their nicknames are usually just one.

Tomorrow is big. I have to...
1) open a bank account
2) prepare for my training session
3) start my Thai class!
4) plan and teach my Day 2 lesson!

Something like a real life is slowly coming together! And I'll earn my first Thai paycheck in 3 weeks!

What a week!

I've had quite an exciting week. A couple of highlights...

My first Thai karaoke experience! -
Karaoke in Thailand can mean anything from middle and high school kids singing Thai pop/love songs in a less-than-sound proof booth at a the mall to, well, um, dirty things. My experience was the first kind. I sang my little heart out to Palmy, Ice (didn't post a video, but it's a good one), tried to find Laolom and Am Fine but had some trouble (the entire book is all in Thai!) and took a chance on a song called "What Ska is?" by Skalaxy. I now have a favorite Thai ska band.

My first military coup experience! -
I already wrote about my first impressions. Here's some follow up. The 1991 coup wasn't non-violent. It was really violent. Ooops. Karaoke is spelled the way Danny said, not the way I had been spelling it. So since that entry I've also seen more military presence. Still not scary. Usually it's just a pop up tent with maybe a dozen or so soldiers.

I'm pretty sure a Thai military coup is the best military coup a girl could ask for.

So I'm under martial law. But if I didn't have CNN I probably wouldn't have known.

I'm fine. Chiang Mai is fine. Bangkok is fine. Thailand seems pretty much... fine.

Last night I was with some friends at a bar watching a Thai classic rock cover band. On my way out of the bar I pointed out that it looked like the kids in the tattoo shop were watching CNN. Seemed a bit odd. And then I saw the older Thai hippie guy who had been drumming. I went up to him to say, "Good job!" and he started pointing to the television and sounding really upset. Here's what I got out of my conversation with him -

"Soldiers everywhere!"
"Army say to Thaksin - GET OUT!"
"TV Army all same same!"

Wha??? I figured it was worth going home and checking it out.

So going home was kind of strange.

I turned on the TV and it was the same thing on all of the Thai channels. And guess what it was....

KAREOKE! Of course. It was "We love the King" song after "We love the King" song. There was even an English "We love the King" song. I tried to video it with my camera. Pretty low quality, but I'll post it. And the radio was in sync with the TV for a surround sound effect in my apartment. Occasionally there was a person in a suit with a "We love the King" yellow shirt saying stuff. In Thai. I didn't understand.

I checked out the internet and CNN and figured out what was going on. A coup. Sounds scary, but I can't imagine a better country to be in during a coup.

Here are some reasons why everything is fine -

1) People have been hating Thaksin for a while.
2) This is the 17th coup in 60 years. The last one was 15 years ago, and it was non-violent.
3) It's military led and the head of the military is cool with the King and all the soldiers are wearing "We love the King" yellow. (This morning Erica told she read that yellow was declared the offical "Anti-Thaksin" color which seems equivalent to a group in the U.S. declaring that on October 31st all of their supporters should dress their children up in costumes and send them around the neighborhood knocking on people door's asking for candy. Kind of cheap shot, but no one's really going to have a problem with it.)
4) There were tanks outside government houses in Bangkok but the whole "takeover" happened without a gunshot.
5) CNN was showing shots of people calmly taking pictures of the tanks on their camera phones while the soldiers were probably posing for the pictures.
6) I'm 400 miles from Bangkok, and even further from Hungary, where there is some seriously scary stuff going on.

So I went to sleep reflecting on my first coup experience. Calm and musical I would say.

My friend Stacey put it nicely, in response to my news of "nothing interesting to report here besides some "We love the King" kareoke."

"I never would have thought a military-led upheaval could go so smoothly."

Exactly.

When I woke up I checked cnn.com and read that all international news channels had been cut off in Thailand. Ah! Scary!! Then I turned on the TV and watched the same story on CNN.

Hmmm...

And I heard the exchange rate dropped drastically, which I actually got excited about, but it's not even back up to 40 baht to a dollar (which is the conversion I use in my head), so I'm not even impressed. And it's already on it's way back up.

And Thai TV, with all of my Thai pop channels, is back. Thank goodness.

They declared today a holiday so banks, schools and the stock exchange weren't opened. I had a training session at AUA scheduled and that went on as planned. The electricity went out at one point but the director said, "Oh, I can promise you this has nothing to with the coup - happens all the time." And sure enough, it was back on in 30 seconds.

I have to yet to meet a Thai who doesn't totally dig the King, trust the military, and either dislike Thaksin or just not care about politics. So while a coup may have been a bit drastic, it really seems everything will be fine as long as Thaksin doesn't come back and try something stupid. And it sounds like even if he were dumb enough to try something he wouldn't be successful. Let's recap: his opponents are... the city of Bangkok (more specifically the urban middle class, intellectuals and pro-democracy activists, so Chiang Mai too) and the military. His supporters are... poor rural farmers. I really don't think he would get too far.

In other news...

The orientation I had today at AUA was really cool. AUA has a ton of really fun supplemental resources to go along with very well put together books they use. And each 30 hour course only goes through 4 units of the textbook so teachers can get creative with how they're teaching and the students really get to practice and understand what they're learning. I'm really excited. I'm glad I'm at AUA.

I made my first iMovie with some of the video clips from Cambodia.



It's a first draft. I have more dance party clips on a CD and I'm going to try to add those to it. And then maybe one from the elephants! Enjoy!

Yours safely,
Beth

Cool Stuff From Other Places

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERICA! Good luck to Maisie on her first swim lesson!

Pictures
Caroline's pictures (My PEPY roommate!) from our trip. Note: I look slightly evil in a couple of them, but I'm not an evil person. One I was yawning (not yelling), one I was trying to look sexy (not angry and disgusted) and the other ones I can't explain.
Beau's pictures from our trip to Argentina (mixed with some very nice Madison pictures).
Gregg's pictures from our week at the Elephant Park and Koh Pha Ngan. (You have to either have a Snapfish account or register for one.)


Blogs
A friend from Madison who was deployed to Iraq for 5 weeks this past summer.
My sister Steph is living in a small Indian village, near the Nepal border.
My friend Maija is living on a sailboat with her boyfriend.

Chiang Mai
Elephant Nature Park has a new, organized, informative, attractive website! YAY!!!

After going to the gym with Joy, I (stupidly) decided to also go to a yoga class at Chiang Mai Yoga Sala. I was inflexible, weak, in pain and drenched in sweat the entire time, but I ended up buying a 6 class pass anyway. I was actually on my way to a different yoga place, but couldn't find it, ran into this place, saw they also had a class starting at 5 and ran in there instead. But the first place's class was a 1.5 hour Beginner class, and this place's class was a 2 hour Vinyasa class (it doesn't matter what Vinyasa is, it just matters that it's not "Beginner"). Ow. There were 7 people. I was the only one who hadn't been there before. Five foreigners, 2 Thais that I think worked there. Two people who this was their second day and the other two have been going for a while that sometimes also go to the 6:30 - 8:30 super intense class. My Vinyasa class was just intense, not super intense. Ow.

Chiang Mai weather

Map of the Old City neighborhood of Chiang Mai

Here's my adorable little neighborhood, surrounded by a moat. The brown parts are pieces of the wall that still exist. I live on the sidestreet on the southside of Wat Lamchang, right off of Raipakinai Rd (northeast quadrant of the map). You can also see AUA and the billion temples I'm surrounded by.


This is how my neighborhood fits into the rest of the city

I'm fat, The Cat Empire in Chiang Mai, Thai TV

I met up with Joy (travel agent turned friend from last time) and we went to the bar her friend Sherrie works. Sherrie saw me and said, "Oh, I know you from before! Yeah? Last time you smaller, right? This time you bigger? Yeah?" And then waited for an answer. Then she brought me over to a wall of pictures and showed me a photo from Joy's birthday party from January. Cool! "Yeah, you bigger now." Thanks Sherrie. It's not rude, it's just Thai.

Later, a DJ a reggae bar played "Hello, Hello". I absolutely freaked out. It was a version I had never heard before. I ran over to the DJ and started asking him a billion in English, really fast. I forgot I was in Thailand. He just smiled and shook his head because he had no idea what I was saying. Then I tried speaking slower and he just kept smiling and shaking his head. Oh well.

This morning I watched TV and found an international channel that shows The Office, Arrested Development and Sons & Daughters! Nice! And also such hits as Desperate Housewives, Rockstar Supernova, One Tree Hill, Kevin Hill, Boston Legal, 3rd Watch, JAG, and Two and A Half Men, which they advertise as "America's Most Watched Comedy". That can't be true, can it?

I forgot the best/strangest one!

Jonas and Christy!

She's from Holland, moved to Thailand when she was 6.
He's from Sweden, moved to Thailand when he was 9.

I think they both had solo albums and now just teamed up for a joint album.

Weird!

Awesome Thai Pop, Vol. 1

Thai songs are either...

about girls with bad boyfriends...
(Am Fine - Maa Rak Thammai Dton Nee. They do a lot these)


about guys who want girls...
(Golf and Mike - side project of G-JR I think, the English is fantastic!)


20 piece boybands that show their stomachs and try to sing in English...
(G-JR - Showtime, see also Super Junior - U)


and occasionally...awesome!
(Palmy - Tick tock. I love her. Half Thai/half Belgium I think. Unfortunately, as with any other song I've liked, the rest of the album is slow, boring love songs.)


(Same sad story for Laolom. I got excited after hearing this song, but then heard the rest of the album and it sucked.)


My actual favorite song is by a guy or a group or something called Sen Hui (album - Dum Jung) but I can't find his song on the internet. This was the first time I bought an album only to find out 11/12ths of it sucks.

More -

Buddha Bless. Thailand's reggae/hip hop group.


And last, some of my favorite other names of Thai rock bands -
* Armchair
* Big Ass
* Bodyslam
* Fly
* Modern Dog
* Silly Fools
* Blackhead
* Zeal
* Fahrenheit
* Stone Metal Fire (SMF)
* Clash
* Potato
* Pancake

In other news - I think I have a job at AUA. There's a long orientation process, but if I get through it all right I'll have a job. Not full time at first, but that's fine. My interview was yesterday with the director. He's originally from Hastings, and his 17 Thai/American son just moved to Peekskill to live with his aunt and be a junior at Walter Panus High School. The last time he was in America he was something like 5 years old. Anyway, he's been at AUA for 25 years and was really cool to talk to. It made me feel a lot better about the place and the job. The kids are motivated, there are a ton of resources and a lot of training for the teachers. Today I observed a class which was fun. The students were mostly high school girls. Tthey were really eager, tried hard and had a lot of fun. I'm feeling good about the whole thing. I am, however, back to the problem with clothing. The dress for women there is nice, but not business like, like the clothing I have. Kind of like Mom-type clothing. Maybe all moms, but specifically my Mom. The flowing skirts, post-hippie blouses, and brown or black sandals. Ok, nevermind, it's probably a pretty general look. Either way, I look way too serious with my business clothes. And the only other clothing I have is scruffy, backpacker clothing (fisherman's pants, t-shirts, flip flops). LUCKILY, Adrienne said she could go shopping with me on Monday. She's been so helpful! Thank you MySpace and The Cat Empire!

Have fun with the music. Volume 2 - coming soon.

Chiang Mai - week 1

Saturday - Khao San ridiculousness. Couldn't find the insect guy.
Sunday - Said goodbye to my parking lot guesthouse for the last time! Gregg went back to LA, I went to Chiang Mai. Went to the Sunday Market right outside my hotel. Stumbled upon Chiang Mai's breakdancing/BMX club. My new mission is to figure out how to be friends with them.
Monday - Went around looking for places to live. Tried to figure out what kind of job I want. Lots of different options. Two main ones right now - AUA (Language School) and an internship with the Visiting Schools program of the most prestigious International School in Chiang Mai. Wrote messages to people I knew from MySpace that are in Thailand.
Tuesday - Called AUA guy, arranged an interview for tomorrow at 10. Got a reply from a girl from America, who had been living in Australia (fan of The Cat Empire) who had messaged me when she was thinking about living in Chiang Mai. She's now living in Chiang Mai and is currently working at AUA. Had lunch with her. I learned more about the job.
1) Mostly rich high school kids who are in class for 12 hours a day. School, then Physics or Chinese or something, and then English. Education is really important in terms of spending time and money, but not important for the value of learning. They're happy to come to class and play on their cell phones and then openly cheat on an exam.
2) You teach three classes a day, Tues - Fri from 5 - 8:25 and then Saturday classes too. There is a week off between terms but there are usually meetings Thursday and Fridays and then the Saturday classes too, so you can't go too far.
3) There's a group of not that cool older guys with Thai girlfriends/wives who have been there a while and then usually some younger people who usually don't stay long. (She's been there since April and next term is going to be her last.)
4) AUA teachers can take the AUA Thai course for 500 baht, usually the price is 33,000 baht.
5) The director, who I'm meeting tomorrow, is a really nice, helpful guy, from NY, in his 50s. He reminders her of her dad. I thought that was nice. He also said that the contract is a contract but they don't sue if you leave, they understand other things come up, and you don't have to feel bad about it.

So that was helpful, but I'm not sure if what I learned made me want to teach there more or less than before. It's not like any other job would be better. There are other language centers but they're either terribly run or have even richer, snobbier kids. And there are so many teachers here that the anyone who applies for the actual school jobs have all done their time at one of the Language Centers first. And International Schools won't hire you unless you have the credentials you'd need in whatever their home country is.

I also checked out more info about the other job with the International School. It's 25 kms. away. The girl, Adrienne, said that from what she know about the school, it's a really good school and the teachers who work there eat, sleep and breathe the place. So it's kind of like it's own world. And the job wasn't excactly what I initially thought it was. The Visiting Schools program is like a tour guide for school groups. And they go to elephant parks and hill tribes and I think that stuff might make me feel too weird. They have some leadership and environmental stuff too but it's not like the job I got excited about in April, which was purely experiential environmental education on a boat on the river. Much cooler than bringing them to an elephant show and asking what they thought of it.

Enough about jobs.

I decided on a place to stay for a month today. I've been staying at my standard $17 a night hotel for the past two nights but tomorrow, after my interview, I'll be moving here. I was thinking about staying near the University, in an effort to pose as a uni kid, but Adrienne said she highly recommended taking the AUA Thai course and with that, plus lesson planning, plus classes, she was there from 10-8:30pm and it was nice living close to home in the beginning. I only have to pay month to month so I can always change my mind later.

Last thing - this is an email to Juria (from the PEPY trip) that I thought I'd share:

"It's so strange. I think I love it, but this never ending sweatfest is getting annoying. I've personally gotten over being upset by it, but I feel like the sight of sweat pouring down my face is offensive to the people I have to interact with. And it's never when I'm walking, it's only when I stop. I just got back from putting a deposit on an apartment for a month and the woman told me I looked like I had just come from jogging. No, just a slow walk, but I'm covered in sweat from it. And it's like 7pm. The sun's not even out anymore.

Oh well. Besides that, everything is awesome. I have an interview tomorrow with a well respected language school and just put a deposit on an apartment and now I just have to work on the making friends part. (So far I've been unintentionally really successful at making friends with tuk tuk drivers and random Thai men in their 30s and 40s sitting at cafe sidewalks drinking Sang Som and soda, but the younger ones are a bit more difficult.) So yeah - friends, and maybe the finding a job part if the interview tomorrow doesn't go well."

Last strange event. As I was walking over the internet cafe I was called over by this group of two Thai girls and a boy. People say "Hello hello" all the time and sometimes if I feel like it I'll talk, and usually it's just because they're friendly, maybe drunk, or just want to practice English. No big deal. I get to practice Thai, they get to practice English. It works out. This afternoon I spent 1/2 hour with my laundry lady today as she ironed my clothes. I tried to tell her she didn't have to but she insisted. Fine. Anyway, I go over to the group of kids (seeing as I'm trying to make friends with people my age) and they start talking to me but the girl wasn't smiling at all, very un-Thai. Especially to call someone over and then not smile. The boy is smiling though. Then I realize the other girl is sitting, tucked under her shirt, sniffing glue. Something was weird. So after like 2 minutes of talking with them she says, "You like him." I said, "huh?" "You like him. I know. You buy him tonight." Oh my god. "Um, no thanks. Bye." And she says, "He hungry. He have no money. You buy him tonight. You like him." I left and started played Tetris on my phone as I walked by other groups of kids, probably my age, possibly selling themselves.

Woah woah woah woah. So that was a first. Hopefully a last. I guess I knew there's a market for Western guys buying Thai girls, and Western men buying Thai guys, but Western women buying Thai guys? I think I'm just creeped out because these kids are relying so heavily on prostitution that they ask they've resorted to asking me.

Anyway, besides scary girl pimp, her glue sniffing friend and the gigalo, everything's been really cool. I had a conversation about Steve Irwin with an older Thai guy drinking whisky and soda on a cafe sidewalk. He just kept shaking his head, sipping his whisky, saying "Tam mai(Why)????? Mai kow jai(I don't understand)!!!!" He was really upset by it. Especially because they were the same age. He explained that 44 is way too young to die and you're not supposed to die until you're 80, or 90, or 100. Life's tough, man. He eventually got over it and we talked about food. I also made friends with a girl who works there. Her name's Ning, she's 23. She can't say Beth (the -th sound is hopeless here), so she asked me if I like Thai food. I said yes, she asked what Thai food I like, I said chicken with cashews, and so she told me my new Thai name would be med mamuang - the Thai word for cashew.

Now to sleep so I'm ready for my interview and big move tomorrow.

Oh yeah - any suggestions as far as employment suggestions, let me know.

Chiang Mai, Elephant Park, Koh Pha Ngan - Take 2!

I'll add to this later, so check back if you're interested, but very quickly (I know, I know, I always say that), here's the rundown of the past week.

Thursday - Phnom Penh --> Bangkok, got in late at night.
Friday - Bangkok - met up with Katy from PEPY group, hung out with her all day, had dinner with a woman she knew who has been working in Phnom Penh for the last 4 years, talked about working in Cambodia. Very interesting.
Saturday - met Gregg at BKK airport, flew to Chiang Mai, did Chiang Mai stuff.
Sunday - Tuesday - went up to Elephant Nature Park, had an amazing time. Lots of changes from last time I was there. The underweight one week old baby with a messed up leg and really unhealthy mother unable to produce her own milk is now a playful 8 month old boy with a happy, healthy mother producing her own milk. Seeing the actual difference ENP has on these elephants really made me appreciate its existence and realize how important it is for these elephants. There are 30 elephants right now, mostly the same ones as last time except for a couple that were on lease that were taken back and an elderly elephant (around 90!) who unfortunately passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was really nice to be able to go back and start at a point beyond "Oh my god, I'm surrounded by elephants!" I paid more attention to the individual elephants and tried to learn their family groups and everything. And the mahouts remembered me! I figured Mongkun and Kopi would, but the other ones did too! That was really cool too. I also helped in the kitchen this time. I cut up tomatoes and some other vegetable I didn't recognize. It was a lot more trying to be helpful and less taking pictures. Saying goodbye this time was the easiest yet. I live here! I'll be back soon!
Wednesday - Chiang Mai --> Bangkok (via Sukkothai, weirdest stopover ever) --> Samui, then a boat to Koh Pha Ngan. We ate dinner while watching Wedding Crashers and then chilled on the beach, meeting some Frenchies and Israelis.

Thursday - Saturday - There's only so much of Haad Rin a sane human being can take, so on Thursday we went to Haad Salad where Lisa (dutch girl from TEFL course) was staying. It was kind of like Mae Haad, but I didn't work at a bar, so not exactly the same. We didn't have time to make it up to Mae Haad, but it just gives me a reason to go back again later. No problem!

Saturday - Samui --> Bangkok --> Discovery Lodge - back here for a night. I just picked up my TEFL certificate. I got an A! YAY!!! I'm really happy. I would have been fine with whatever I got, and I heard from someone that Steve (grader guy) has only given one A in the past 7 years, which I can't imagine is true, but either way, I decided in my head I was probably going to get a B, so getting an A feels damn good.

Speaking of jobs, TEFL, blah blah blah, before I left for Cambodia I emailed the recruiter guy at AUA Chiang Mai to ask if they would be hiring because the website hadn't been updated yet. He said he didn't think so, but I should check back when I got back from Cambodia. I didn't because I decided not to freak out and try to plan the rest of my life while at the Elephant Park or islands, but then he emailed me. Oi. He asked if I was still interested. This totally threw me off. So while Gregg was drinking on the beach at 10am, I worked on my resume and then sent it off to him.

I don't know what to do. I like kids. I like teaching kids. I like not being in cities. But I feel like to find a place that is perfect is going to take forever, and if it's a real school then they only hire at certain times and they only have certain breaks and all that stuff. And as of right now I don't actually have any real experience teaching English, so I should probably just take what I can.

So we'll see what happens. I emailed my resume and said I would call when I got back to Bangkok when my phone had service. But today I called and it rang four times and made the fax machine noise! Ahh!! I emailed him and said I tried calling, it didn't seem to go through right, and he can try calling me if he doesn't hear from me.

Their next term starts the 18th and from what I've picked up, there's a 4 day orientation on the last week of the previous term, which would mean either Monday (4th) or Tuesday (5th), so I don't know how all of this could work out, but it's Thailand and stuff that seems like it shouldn't be able to work out very often does.

So we'll see what happens! But I think this means I'll only stay one night here and then head back to Chiang Mai so if we do talk on the phone, he says cool, then I can be there already. And Bangkok sucks anyway. It's like a billion degrees here right now and I'm living in a parking lot again.

Peace out friends and family! I'll post the pictures I have soon. But they're all pretty similar to the ones from last time, so don't get too excited.

Tonight's Gregg's last night in Thailand so we're going to go to Khao San and find some grasshoppers and tarantulas for him to eat.