December something

Hi!

So since the last update....

Thanksgiving at Craig and Caroline's! Really fun. It was AUA teachers and then friends and stuff. I brought Max (Thai friend, taught me how to ride a motorbike, helped me buy a bike, who brought his friend Aaron), Lee (from Michigan, manages a shop that paints miniature toy soldiers or something like that), and Mike (from Louisiana, met on couchsurfing.com, living in Chiang Mai for a couple of months doing Muay Thai training). Awesome Thanksgiving food, plus Thai food, tried to play football but they had just watered the lawn, so it was pretty messy. And I ended up getting sick. But oh well.

I bought a motorbike. I went with Max to a motorbike market where people bring their bikes and sell them. It's kind of sketch, but it seems to be how it's done. So it's a second hand bike. I have all the papers for it. There seems to be insurance on it somehow. I've been told having a NY license is good enough. But it sounds like foreigners don't usually get stopped unless they aren't wearing a helmet. And I always wear my helmet, so no problem there. So the bike is interesting. Three times I've started it and then it's stopped. Countless other times it's started fine, but the three times were pretty frustrating. The first time I was with Max and he just did something and then it started ok. The second time I left it on the side of the road (right near AUA) and ran into my friend who did the same thing and then it worked. We brought it to a shop, but by then it was working so everyone looked at each other and didn't know what they were supposed to do with a bike that worked so I just took it back. Last night after work though it wouldn't turn on. For real. And so this morning I had a legitimate reason to take it to the shop. I ran into my friend Prajak who of course had a friend who worked at a shop so we went there, asked what was wrong, walked down to another shop, bought some $1.25 thing, walked back to the first shop, gave it to them, they replaces something, installed a new something and now it seems to work fine. A teacher at AUA is neighbor's with a guy that runs a real Honda shop and she said she and her Thai husband would take me to go there and have them do anything that should be done, done. But, even with it's little quirks, the bike it awesome. I live in a whole new Chiang Mai. I really like it. It's made a lot of things a lot easier.

The King's Birthday! (Also Father's Day). We had off from AUA for three days (the regular Sunday and Monday, and then Tuesday!) so I spent the first two days looking for a new place to live. No luck. Everywhere is full. But the third day I decided to do something good and cool and fun. I went to the park. I realized later that I went to the park on December 5th last year too. For the first time ever. One year. Woah! Anyway, I went up with my friend Ae who is from Phuket but in Chiang Mai while she's working at the Royal Flora Expo. She's the English announcer for the main entrance! "Welcome to Royal Flora Expo 2006. If you have tickets already, please proceed to...." She's a friend of Pang, who is a Thai guy who worked at ENP last year, but then finished his internship, traveled around Europe for a while, went back home to Phuket, and then came up to Chiang Mai to work at the Flora Expo. So Pang had to work, but Ae had heard so much about it from Pang, Jeff and me that she decided to come up with me. We took the motorbike.

The park was nice. It was strange just being there for a day, but it also made me really happy that I live in Chiang Mai, that I could go up just for a day. Ae really liked it and the day trip is free for Thai people, so she's said she's going to try to get a bunch of people to go when they finish at the Flora Expo. When we were up there I talked to a couple of kids from India and I was asking about language and stuff and they speak English. Period. I guess I always assumed the Indian accent was because English was their second language, but they both said English was their first language, and that they only know a little bit of Hindi but couldn't think of any time when they would use it. So the Indian accent is because they were taught English by people with the same accent. That totally blew my mind. Sorry if I sound really naive. I really didn't know.

The park visit was a little bittersweet. The same morning that Ae and I went up there, Jeff went home for two months. Tear tear. Chiang Mai just isn't the same without him. But I'm hanging in there. He had a bit of a falling out with the people at the apartment building where he had been living, so he'll be looking for a place when he gets back. We may look for a place together.

So my newest living situation - Renata's house! Renata is a friend of Adrienne, who I knew from The Cat Empire/MySpace stuff who was teaching at AUA when I got here. She was only there for one term and now just went back to Australia (she's from Michigan, but was living in Australia, hence the TCE connection). So anyway, she met Renata in Starbucks and when Renata's roommate left, she moved in. And now she's gone, and I'll move in. But only for a bit cause her boyfriend's coming in February.

But Renata is super cool and she's got a nephew so we can sit and get all gushy about missing our niephlings (someone told me that a word once, but I don't think it is) without having to bore other people! And she lives a bit out, but with the motorbike - no problem!

So! I again, will have a place to live for a little over a month while I look for a more permanent place. I decided I want a place that has a sink counter. Right now I have a plastic shelf about 6 inches above the sink and I can't wash my face and I've decided there are many things I've fine with living without, but not being able to wash my face easily is not one of them. So I want a sink counter. And I want a room where I can fully open the doors of the closet. Again, not a very demanding request. So yeah. TV, mini fridge, internet, air con, I'm fine without all of them. But sink with plastic thing above it and a room too small for the closet doors to fully open, no. I won't have it anymore.

Ok, last thing. The other night I met Lee and Mike at a bar called Sticky Rice Blues Bar where this Harley couple walked in. Generally, I'm not a fan of Harley people, but this couple was awesome. They had lived on a boat for ten years in different marinas and then came to Thailand, bought a bar called Pirate's Cove, bought a huge macaw parrot, and ran a bar in Thailand for a year. They said they had a blast, but they decided to sell it and are now moving on to something else. Robin and Kevin. Robin is from Texas and has the best accent ever. Kevin is from Washington. Robin's Kevin's third wife, but, as she put it "in the military, that kind of thing'll happen." Oh yeah, Kevin was in the Navy for a while. So anyway, they came to the bar, (I guess they're regulars there, which is funny cause they own their own bar, but it's Thailand, they're not so competitive around here) and started telling their bartender friend how they've just sold the bar, but they're having a big pig roast right before they go. And then invited the bartenders, their friends, Mike (who seems to hide his southern accent until he starts drinking with other southerners), Lee and me. So the next night we hit up their party and it's like this crazy group of people I've never seen before in Chiang Mai. They were all like bad asses. But jolly bad asses. It was cool. So many people come to Thailand and try hard to be Thai and buy the Thai clothing and really understand Thai culture, blah blah blah and I'm pretty sure these people don't give a shit about a Thai cooking course, or Buddhism or anything. They're just in Chiang Mai cause they like it. So they were fun.

Hmm... Ok, the last thing. It's December something, but I was sweating yesterday and as soon as I go outside I'll probably start sweating again. It's the last week of my second term. Four of my five classes have to/have had to take a test. They have tests every four levels and I tried to do a lot of review with them, but I've seen the test and it's a really lame test. The listening section is with really fast speaking British people, who I can barely understand, the questions for the reading section make sense but none of the answers do. Let me see if I can remember.

In the reading, "I went to the floating market and bought lots of different kinds of foods. There is one fruit called durian that's very smelly but taste delicious!"

So then the question is "What did Sue do at the floating market?" and the correct answer is "She ate fruit." How could you assume from either of those sentences that she ate fruit at the market? The answer could be "She called her mom" and it would make just as much sense. Well, sure she could have, but that's nothing you would get from reading the passage.

So this is what my kids have to deal with. Lame AUA test that every teacher complains about yet nothing will ever be done about. I sat and listened to the listening part and I wanted to cry. And then seeing their faces after the test, oh god, heartbreaking. Seriously. I requested not to teach Level 4 next term cause I can't handle the hope that these kids have in me to help them through the test that just makes no sense. Another teacher took the test while he was proctoring and said, "Yeah, I failed. I've failed the Level 12 test before, but this is the first time I've tried the Level 4. It's tough." Not in a challenging way, in a completely ambiguous way.

But yeah, my Saturday classes had their test last Saturday, my 6:10 class had their test yesterday and my 7:20 class has their test today. And then Friday will be the last day for the second weekday term, and then Saturday is the last day for the Saturday term. And then vacation!?!?!

I don't really have any big plans yet pre-Stephie coming. But once Steph gets here we're going to live the high life. Thai food, Thai massages, Elephant Nature Park, motorbike rides (we'll rent her a helmet), markets galore and chillin in the super cool living of Renata's place.

Ok! Off to AUA!
Here are pictures!