The Stories Sher Shares

New BLOG!!

2009-08-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

I have started a new blog! I might blog at sharingsher from time to time as well, but check out the new one called: America Through an Immigrant's Eyes to hear about Dom and I as we are on our new adventure in America!

immigranteyes.wordpress.com

:)

Cinderella

2009-06-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

Stir-fried chicken with broccoli, a random Thai veggie that resembles a wee cabbage, mixed in a firey flavorful Thai red pepper sauce with dark purple rice on the side. Oh my!

And for dessert crispy guava with a warm coconut sugar and spice sauce that reminds me of the taste of caramel dipped apples from a county fair.

And he wouldn't let me help at all! He always wisely chooses all the fresh produce and chicken from the Thai market down the street, and then lets me rest on the bed reading my book while he cooks away in our little red plug-in hot pot on our tiny balcony.

I never knew how fun it would be to be married to someone whose love language is serving. It makes me feel like Cinderella who never dreamed she would one day be a princess.

But the thing is, I love to cook and invent dishes that bring joy to the eater's taste buds. Yet, since we dont have a kitchen, and only a hot pot, and it's easier for my hubby to do the market shopping, I haven't had the chance to shower my husband with food love. But at least I have had the chance to receive his showering.

The day is coming though, perhaps only five weeks away, when we will return to Waxhaw and stay with my parents for awhile at their house where there is a kitchen with an actual stove and oven, and a grocery store nearby with American products that aren't grossly over-priced!

As for now though, I will enjoy being Cinderella with my Prince.

Airport People

2009-06-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

Magical places of arrival, in-between, and departure, airports, how I love them.

From Sherri's Perspective, there are three major groups of passengers at airports. The first are the in-betweeners. They are the sitting ones who typically look bored out of their minds, or if they don't look bored out of their minds, they are sleeping in awkward, back and neck cricking positions on hard plastic chairs. There are some who are productive: they are engrossed in books, networking on Blackberries, or chatting on their phones. Others are eating with languid faces. But most of them have the same expression of blah at where they are and either dreaming of their destination, or where they came from.

Then there are the arrivalers split into two groups. The first group are those who are so stoked to be at their destination. You see them scampering, dancing, smiling, crying, as they collide with loved ones, or a loved home they have missed, or a loved place they have never been to but finally have arrived at.

Then the others are those who have arrived, but it doesn't even phase them. The same vapid, empty expression remains on their faces. They drudge through the winding halls, get their bags and leave with no fanfare. Maybe they dont want to be at their destination, they don't have a home to look forward to, they were forced to come, and dream to be one of the frolicking ones who is thrilled to be exactly where they are.

Lastly, there are the departurers. There are also two groups of these people. The first group are hugging, and crying, but more in the melancholy way than the merry way. They don't want to leave their place of love and comfort, and dread what lies before them. They want to stay where they are, but know that it can't be, thus the crying.

The other group might be hugging and crying, but behind their tears and tight hugs, there is a twinkle in their eyes. They know they are leaving behind loved ones and comfort, but they are going somewhere new, on an adventure. They know saying good-bye is the price to pay for their adventure, but it's worth it, thus the twinkle.

So if my life was an airport right now, and me a passenger, I think Im the in-betweener. Im in the waiting, at my seemingly eternal lay-over. I feel done with my adventure, and now am eager for the next one, but it seems so faraway still. Will I ever arrive? Will my plane ever take-off? Im sure things that have happened the last few months have pushed me from excited arrivaler to a bored in-betweener, but whatever it was, that's where I am.

But soon I will be a departurer. I will be crying, and hugging Thailand tight, but, yes, there will be a large twinkle in my eye.

And then...hopefully I can bring some joy to the departurers and in-betweeners, when I finally become a frolicking, dancing, crying, hugging arrivaler at the airport. Come for the show if ya want!

Mangroves, Mud, Monkeys

2009-06-10T03:10:00.001-07:00

"Bring a swim suit." Typical Thai fashion, given a few facts, and you are left to fill in the details. Of course we assumed we were going to the beach, so I brought my white and pink two piece, with my matching white and pink sarong to wear as a cover-up over my suit.

All 14 of us, our two American friends, and the rest newly met Thai friends, piled into a 14 passenger party van. Well, if it was night, instead of at 7:30a.m., I would have pictured it as a party van. There were huge round speakers in the roof, and fluorescent lights ran up and down the interior like a disco. But instead of dancing, we half-slept on each other and chatted as the shock-less van bounced the two hours to our unknown destination.

"Oh, you might get muddy." That was a side note our Thai friend told us as we got out of the van to the traditional Thai-style resort next to what looked like a lake.

Clad in orange as a construction cone, and bright green as 80's running shorts life vests, we split up into two long Native American-style wooden canoe boats with motors, and a hand-made flat plastic red roof covering us.

Thus began the adventure, not at the beach, but in a mangrove forest. We rode through the water neighborhood of the fishermen surrounding the forest, gazing at fences which were sticks stuck in the mud, with only about a foot of the stick poking out of the water to gently remind the other fishermen where their "land" began and ended. The river houses, instead of having two cars sitting in their driveway had two or three boats which looked similar to ours stacked up under their houses.

We jetted through the muddy, gray water to pull up next to a fisherman at work. His 4-year old son sat in the middle of the boat with him, separating shrimp, still squirming around in their net, that had been dumped in front of him. He barely glanced at us, keeping his eyes on his work, picking out the good shrimp with nimble fingers that will touch more fish and sea creatures in his lifetime than the keys on a computer or the buttons on a cell phone.

After waving farewell to pro-fisher boy, we were steered into an inlet and stopped. Of course, we weren't told why we were stopping, Stone-Faced Captain just stopped. We looked at the island next to us and reared back. Monkeys were swinging and mangroves were swaying before us.

"Aww, cute monkeys!" we thought as they played on the trees. But then they started to come down and run across the island to us. One brave soul flung himself off the island and grabbed the edge of the boat like we were his hoped for rescuers, causing me to scream and leap back, rocking the boat. But then the bananas came from Captain which made them scatter as they attacked each other over the small yellow treasures.

We squeezed a little further down the inlet, where we stopped again. Captain, without at word, got out of the boat, stepped onto the island, and suddenly was knee deep in mud. We giggled at how shocking it was to see him so deep in mud, but then he got a plank of wood to put from the boat to the island so we could join him too. Oh boy...

With much snickering, slipping, sucking, and sludging, we stomped through the mud, and were passed mangrove saplings. We weren't told what to do, but were pantomimed to take off the material that covered the roots, jam it into the mud and squish more mud over it until it was firmly in the "ground". After about 10 minutes of tree planting to prevent erosion in the future, we were back in the boat.

As we pondered how deep the water was, we saw that slowly the water was disappearing. Before us was a desert expanse of the mud. Then as we wondered how we would get through the mud in the boat, the boat in front of us flew away through the sludge, spraying an arc of mud behind it. Woohoo!

But instead of making an arc of beautiful mud behind us, we pulled ahead, sputtered, and left nothing. We had stalled.

Thankfully Calm Captain had a cell phone, called the other driver and asked him to stop. We had fun blowing our emergency whistles on our life vests, much to the annoyance of Captain, but much to our delight.

Eventually, instead of having the boat come to us, we went to it. I was first to hop onto a wooden plank surf board which I was pushed on as I waved farewell like Miss America to my friends. Captain pushed me over the mud so smoothly I felt like a snowboarder sliding on snow to the other boat.

After everyone made it, a little more muddy and wet than before, but full of adrenaline from the adventure, we laughed our way to the river house stilted high above the waters where we would eat lunch. We climbed up the smooth and silken wooden rungs of the ladder to our feast.

Sitting on the wooden floor, we ate: fresh shrimp, huge prawns, bass in sweet and sour sauce, squid, Thai omelette, oysters, clams, hummingbird flower, tom yum soup, rice, coconut and sticky rice, and sweet satisfying Thai grapefruit. How delightful.

Then it was time for extreme mud boarding through clam infested mud. But we soon discovered that the smooth ride over the mud, isn't as smooth without an experienced mud boarder pushing you along. We got stuck. Some of our legs disappeared with only our chests sticking out. Some of us just sat in the middle of the mud in awkward positions, trying to stay on our board somehow, laughing and shrieking until we were saved.

Eventually, Im not quite sure how, we all got over to the waters where we used netting to scrub our legs and and arms and hands and feet free from as much goo as we could. Then the boats carried us back to land-- our stomachs now full, our skin now clothed in mud, our legs and arms now covered in scratches from sharp clam shells, our minds full of memories, and my white and pink swim-wear now brown.

Mangroves, mud, and monkeys. When I woke up on Monday morning I never dreamed that's what my day would be made of.

How I love you random Thailand and how I will miss you in busy, scheduled America.

Oasis in the Desert

2009-06-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

My desert began a two weeks ago when i was hurt by a dear friend and experienced pain I had never been through before. But I have come to discover from it, that in a desert of confusion, pain, and longing, true friends are the oases that bring refreshment, perseverance and hope.

One oasis was when I couldn't stop crying at Gloria Jeans coffee-shop and after a frantic txt to my husband, the words he replied with calmed me like a mother's gentle embrace soothes a child's violent tears.

Then a friend arrived, just seeing her smiling eyes, peaceful presence, and flowery, flowy skirt helped me feel like life wasn't over. I poured out my anguish to her and what restored me to my old positive self for the time being, was more than anything her listening ear that made me feel that she was in this with me: I wasn't alone.

Or when i went to lunch in the middle of the work-day and I just had to cry and my friend held my shoulders as I walked through the maze of food vendors unaware of what caused my pain, only seeing the effects of it drip down my reddened face.

Then a relaxing dessert place where on cozy couches my friends counseled me as we ate a chocolate lave cake, every bite scooped into my mouth with the golden spoon awakened my sleeping serotonin. As I sipped my lychee mint drink, I was even able to laugh at how crazy life can be.

Emails, and chats with friends from home full of love and lines from years long ago, reminded me that I have friendships built on solid foundations, awaiting for me when I return back to the States.

Talking with my parents over skype, thinking about memories of home, and hearing their sweet voices and words of loving advice, I couldn't handle how blessed I am, even in the midst of my hurt.

I hope I can be the ice-cold refreshing water for someone wandering in the hot, bleak emptiness of the pain of life, since now I know how sweet to the soul it is.

Warning

2009-05-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

Last night some of my friends and I, all American ex-pats living in Thailand, were discussing over greasy Thai food, how we are losing our English.

Everyday we speak to Thais who yearn with all their hearts to know English, yet since they don't get much practice, most still linger at elementary levels. So in order to get our points across we simplify.

We now analyze in our heads the words we are about to say before we say them to make sure the vocabulary isn't too difficult. We never say idioms anymore. We talk in a slower, clearer tone of voice without thinking twice about it.

One girl told a story how she and an American friend were walking by a fish and tackle store. She peered in the large glass display window and said to her friend, "Look! Fishing sticks!"

"You mean, fishing "poles"?"

One of my friends from home told me that when she talked to me on the phone last, it sounded like I ended my sentences in a weird-anime-character-like-way. I thought, "Oh boy, my English is becoming Thinglish!" since Thais, when they attempt to speak English, stretch out the end of their sentences.

For example, if I ever told my motorcycle man to take me to "Asoke Tower", he would stare at me blankly. But if I said, "Asoke Toweeerrrrr" he would take me there without hesitation.

Even when I email I will write an idiom, delete it, but then remember that my friend is fluent in English! And then pack the email with all the idioms my fingers have been holding inside for the past months.

So this is just a warning for when I come home. If I have trouble using advanced vocabulary, pronouncing words correctly, and understanding slang, it's only the Thailand effect. I will be ok soon, please be patient.

Kitung Na

2009-05-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

Thailand. Maybe my feelings for it are like those a parent might have for her rebellious teen. It can get on my nerves, annoy me, make me yell and scream at times, but then deep down, I still love it dearly.

I hope I won't ever forget my days of

daily eating Thai food-for only $1-that is so spicy and flavorful it makes my taste-buds do the the salsa with every bite.

swimming outside my husband's old gym on hot December nights in dark water magically glowing from the gym lights and gazing at the stars peeking out under the palm trees dancing in the breeze.

never driving but always riding: the skytrain, subway, rickety buses, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, taxis, bikes, and of course walking to get around the city.

eating dinner with my hubby Thai-style on the floor in our tiny studio while watching Prison Break episodes we downloaded on his laptop.

sipping cheap iced drinks from sweaty, smiling street vendors-- cappuccinos, chayen, coco, lemon tea...ahhh...

escaping Bangkok for the weekend and remembering that emerald oceans, white sands, cotton-candy blue waterfalls, friendly monkeys, ancient ruins, and refreshing mountain air really do exist in Thailand.

meeting and befriending treasures from all over the world--Swedes, Californians, Canadians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, Singaporeans, Chinese, British, Trinidadians, Irish, Russians, Zimbabweans, and Malaysians.

falling in love with my husband

my Thai sisters helping me pick out my perfect wedding dress.

walking to work everyday while repeating the speech in Thai I memorized to say at the reception to my hubby

looking out at the shining Grand Palace on the other side of the river during our wedding ceremony and marveling at how unpredictable life is.

teaching hard-working Asian kiddos who can all pronounce my new last name, Phengchard, correctly.

I think this list could become endless, so I will stop now and write more as the days pass and I become more and more nostalgic. I hope when those Thailand missing pains come in America, I can look at this and smile.

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. ~J.M. Barrie, Courage, 1922

Rainy Day Dream

2009-05-15T01:04:00.001-07:00

Thunder is rumbling, and rain is plit-plattering outside. Just seeing the darkening clouds, and the sky dumping itself out, makes me instinctively want to curl up into a ball next to a warm fireplace on a soft, leather couch under a fuzzy blanket and sip steamy hot chocolate with gooey marshmallows while reading a page-turner.

Hmm..but there are no fireplaces in Thailand. The closest I have come to comfort is splish-splashing through the rain puddles to buy the cheapest coffee drink from Gloria Jeans, a white chocolate mocha, and sip it while I type in my fluorescent bright, sort of muggy office room while dreaming of my hot chocolate fireplace fantasy described above.

2 and a half months till America...

"Our" East meets "Me" West

2009-05-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

"They are busy at work, so it's ok if we borrow their car. They don't need it now, so they won't mind." Dom told me while we were in visiting his hometown car-less.

"Are you SURE?"

"Yeah, no big deal!" Dom said, while his eyes said, "Why in the world would this be a big deal?"

So we walked down a few streets over from his grandma's small house to his old high school friend's internet cafe to pick up the car. The store was full of Thai kiddos engrossed in screens covered with millions of blinking chat conversations, fighting or dancing computer games, or hi-five pages full of comments written in Thai.

While the wife of Dom's friend gave someone a password for a computer, balanced her 3-year-old son on her hip as he ate a piece of guava dipped in spicy sugar, she searched the desk piled up with business-type papers looking for the car keys. Eventually she found them, passed them to us with a smile, and then left us to our own devices as she unlocked the cashbox to give someone change for a 1000 baht. "What a woman! " I thought.

For the day we drove around to the ancient ruins, had special hot, sweet and spicy chicken soup for lunch, got groceries at the Big C, brought them back to Grandma's and then took the car back later that night. Dom gave the keys back to his friend, they chatted for a few minutes and we left.

I had this feeling of awe and wonder for most of the day, pondering at this huge difference between our cultures. I was thinking how weird it would be for me to randomly ask my friend I hadn't seen in ages to borrow their car and use it for the whole day, without them thinking twice about it-- as if instead of asking to use their car I was asking to use their bathroom. If I was able to borrow their car, I would feel paranoid and guilty all day, like I had stolen their precious treasure.

When I told Dom this, he thought that was odd that people don't freely share their possessions in America. He had noticed with his American roommate, if Dom asked to borrow his motorbike, he would make a huff-and-puffy big deal about it, let him borrow it, but eventually asked him not to because it was "his" motorbike.

Even though it's not stated, many Thais have an "our" mentality instead of "me". I love this mindset especially when it comes to the way they eat because I love to try new foods. In America, I will even ask people if they want to try my food, hoping they will say yes, so they will ask if I want taste theirs.

But many times in America, most people don't want to try my food because they already have their own and hardly ever ask if I want to taste their dish.

Thailand is a different story. When Thais have big meals together, they order what seems like a Thanksgiving feast number of dishes and sprawl them out at the center of the table. Forks and spoons go flying to this or that dish. We dont even pass dishes in Thailand, we just stretch arms. Many times when Im just eating with Dominic at a restaurant we will order two dishes and share both together. I can't wait to bring this tradition to America: one fountain drink between the two of us and free refills, bring it on!

It may not be very apparent to many Americans that we have this me-focus, but the rest of the world definitely defines us by it. One of my cute-as-can-be Thai co-workers has recently started dating an American guy. She anxiously questions me frequently about the differences between how people date in America compared to Thailand. One thing which is holding her back is she says, "American guys are so selfish. I don't know if I can handle that."

Of course I told her not to generalize, and tried to convince her to test this guy out before she compared him to the stereotype, but it hurt my feelings to think that our culture is known all over the world as selfish.

Thai culture isn't perfect either. The easy-going attitude about everything has led to a lot of political and economic turmoil. As I always say, every culture has good and bad in it, no culture is perfect. But Im glad that I live here, and have learned about this good part of Thai culture. I hope that I can apply it when we move to America. Yet, if I mess up, at least Dom will be there to remind me through his way of living life that truly--what's mine is yours.

Meditations on Mother Theresa

2009-05-08T22:48:00.001-07:00

A petite, stooped over wrinkly like a pit bull, but as cute as a puppy, old lady wearing tattered nun clothing.

Im sure that is all i would have thought about her if I had passed by her on the street or seen her on a bus, but wow, Mother Theresa was so much more than a wee, pit bull puppy looking woman.

This week I have been re-reading the book, One Heart Full of Love, which is a series of Mother Theresa's speeches she gave all around the world at different functions and awards ceremonies.

It is so delightful because I can hear her sweet, gentle voice coming through as I read them and it reminds me of my loving grandmother's voice. Her speeches repeat the same stories and themes over and over, and aren't laced with flowery language and are free from theological arguments. Instead they portray, nothing more and nothing less, than a simple, authentic faith.

One of my favorite quotes was when she was going to be awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Divinity from Cambridge and she felt unqualified, "You know full well that I have not studied theology. I just simply try always to live it out."

Reading this book has inspired me, but not in ways that I at first thought I would be. When I think of all the work Mother Theresa and her Missionaries of Charity have done all over the world--starting orphanages and houses for the dying, caring for lepers, finding parents for orphans, feeding the hungry, loving the sick, being a friend to the friendless--the list goes on--I thought I would want to forsake my ordinary life and move to the slums and take a vow of poverty.

But the one thing that she spoke on more than helping those who are have physical poverty was helping those who have poverty of the soul, the hardest poverty to cure, which is loneliness. This poverty is what she said we need to focus on curing, and it starts with loving those in our family who are typically neglected by society.

Mother Theresa said how she went to a top of the line nursing home which had beautiful rooms, caring nursing staff, and wonderful healthcare, but as she walked the hallways and peered in the rooms she saw that every person who lived there kept looking out their doors, with sad, yet eager expressions. She was told that everyone is always waiting, for a daughter, son, grandchild to visit, but hardly anyone ever does.

My sweet grandmother's health is slowly deteriorating, which breaks my heart, but I feel at peace because I know she doesn't have poverty of the soul during this hard time. My mom and dad have decided to move her into their home so they can be her care-takers and support her.

My mom will have dinner with her and share about the crazy kids in her kindergarten class that she teaches, while my grandmother faithfully asks about every child by name.

My dad is my go-between on skype when she wants to chat with me while Im at work. He will type out her thoughts to me word for word so I feel like she is speaking to me.

My parents, and Mother Theresa, have set me an example that I hope I can follow after. I can't wait to go home and be near my grandma, to be able to sit and listen to her stories and share mine with her, to make her breakfast and coffee, and to just smile at her and be smiled at.

So even though I do feel at times that I just want to move to a remote orphanage and love on kids all day, I know that first I must love on my husband, my parents, my grandma, my friends and co-workers. Because maybe it is my job to help cure poverty that runs deeper and and wider than any food or pills or money can relieve.

Fortune Tellers

2009-05-04T01:37:00.000-07:00

He was in his late 30s, had long, black hair that was pulled back in a pony tail. He wore a plain white T-shirt, and jeans. Except for his longer hair, his appearance wouldn't have been very memorable. But I recalled that the last time I was at this same mid-range Thai restaurant I had seen him too, and everyone who came into the restaurant greeted him like they were old friends. I thought perhaps he was the friendly owner of the place and left it at that.

But this time Dominic's mom pointed him out and said that he was a fortune teller; her clue was his special fortune cards with intricate pictures of his customer's fate he laid out on the table. Im always caught off guard at how common fortune telling is in Thailand, or in Asia for that matter.

A chubby, gypsy woman wearing excessive gaudy jewelry, a turban, and a rainbow colored mumu is usually what comes to my mind when I think of a fortune teller. She has a mystical smile and an eager glint in her eye, mesmerized by her crystal ball she rubs over and over in a candle-lit room. But the perfectly normal Thai man I saw at the nicer Thai restaurant destroyed all my fortune teller preconceived notions.

I also used to imagine people who went to fortune tellers as artsy people intrigued by magical things or normal people who go but never let it out. But here, the women customers who sat at his table wore fashionable funky dresses, and the men polo shirts and black dress pants. Typical mid-upper class Thai people who weren't ashamed to have everyone at this restaurant see their yearning to peer into their unknowns.

Some of my friends, and some of the high schoolers I teach, have mentioned to me that they have gone to see fortune tellers. They don't make a big deal of it. The way they describe it I suppose it's like us reading our horoscopes. Some people believe it is true, others believe some of it and discard the rest.

I wonder why we as humans desire to know the future so much? Why can't we just be surprised at whatever happens next?

I know right now I would love to know when we will finally get the letter telling us when Dominic's interview date for his green card is, or what job Dom or I will do in America starting in August, or what we will do in two years.

I like to make predictions and try to figure out what will happen through thinking so much my brain hurts because it makes me feel like Im more in control of my life. Yet, whenever I think I know what is going to happen next, Im always surprised by how the road Im riding on will dangle off in a direction I never fathomed existed.

Im tired of trying to be my own lousy fortune teller. How I want to be a horse with blinders on. I want to take life step by step, give up my control, and let my Rider lead the way.

Little Eye Lessons

2009-04-29T23:25:00.000-07:00

My right eye had become the new target for a laser beam war. Every time I tried to look at a brightly lit skyscraper or fluorescent sign on the road I felt like the light shot through my eye, making it throb with pain. I covered my eye with my hand, and tried to bury my face in my lap.

Im sure my taxi driver was rather confused about what was going on with the foreign woman in his back seat that appeared to be crying perhaps, or about to throw up. Yet, he didn't say a word, but calmly did his job, navigating through the endless Bangkok traffic and dropping me off at my apartment.

The eternal taxi ride with my attacked and beaten eye was the climax of my inflammation of the cornea experience. For two days I thought my flaming eye was just pink eye, which is something I had never had before. I thought, "Little kids get this all the time, if they can handle this, so can I."

But as my eye got redder, more swollen, and more sensitive, even after buying antibiotic eyedrops, I knew I had to do it...go to the doctor.

Of course in Bangkok, not may people just go to the doctor when they are sick, instead they go to the hospital, which always sounds so intense to me. Thankfully, medical bills are not too bad in Thailand compared to the States, so at least that was one less thing to worry about.

The first eye doctor I saw looked at my eye through a hanging microscope contraption and told me that my cornea was infected, if it wasn't treated properly it could turn into blindness, and now I must wait for the cornea specialist eye doctor to look at it.

Dear me, I was freaked out a bit as we waited. Silly Thai soap operas were blaring on the TV above me, while Dom looked at Thai newspapers and I longed for a huge stack of waiting room magazines to distract me from the thoughts of wondering how hard it is to learn how to read braille.

The next doctor reminded me of Christina from Grey's Anatomy who gets so excited when a patient comes in with an interesting case. She gawked at whatever was on my eye, and said, "Ooo, ahhh...you have inflammation of the cornea!!"

Yes, I had already been told this, so I waited paitently for her excitement to wear off so she could fill me in on what that precisely means. She said it had gotten infected from my contact lens which hadn't been cleaned properly so something had gotten in my eye.

She told me to rest for three days, not go to work or do much of anything, put eye drops in every hour, not put water directly on my face, and to keep my eye protected from anything coming in.

I spent most of the next few days laying on my bed, wearing sunglasses in my room when the lights were on, keeping my eyes closed so they wouldn't hurt, and the best part--being fed, eye dropped, hair washed, and looked out for by my wonderful Doctor Dominic.

Being the constant over-analyzer that I am, I always wonder when such not fun, odd experiences happen, what can I learn from this?

I rarely miss work, or get sick. It is amazing how one small particle of something in my little eye could rearrange my schedule for a few days. When my eye was out of order, I realized how vital it was to my life, and I just take it for granted. I could survive without it of course, but life just isn't as fun with one eye.

It makes me think of how many other things I take for granted on a larger scheme. What if one unexpected thing destroyed my family, husband, friends, faith? I could survive without my parents' sweet words of encouragement, my husband's embrace, my friends' caring concern, and my God's hope.

But how empty life would be...how painful...how boring...how meaningless..how empty.

It is silly to compare an eye infection to losing everything I hold dear, but I hope that I will constantly be reminded, through minute or massive ways, how blessed I am. I hope I won't take it for granted, but use my blessings to bless others.

So step one at trying to bless others. Contact wearers, please clean your lenses carefully to avoid inflammation of the cornea and all its lessons to be learned.

Holding On

2009-04-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

My roughened, sweat slippery hands gripped the wooden, smooth, chalk-stained bar as though my life depended on it. My legs were in a V-shape, stretched 90 degrees before me. They were shaking so much they were tremors before an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.

My teammates giggled at my legs antics while my coach said in a stern voice, "Hold them up, or drop down." I squinted my eyes closed, trying with all my might to break my old record of 1 minute 20 seconds. Finally my slick hands, and wiggly legs couldn't take it any longer. I let go and with a "poof", collapsed on the soft, thick, blue foam mat beneath me.

"Good job Sherri! 1 minute 23 seconds! Go get some water!"

I grinned sheepishly as my teammates gave me praises and high fives while I limped off to the water fountain oasis on the other side of the gym.

Hours upon hours spent doing pull-ups, sit-ups, crunches, splits, squats, running, stretching, back bends, jumps, turns, penny-pinchers, super-man and hollow holds--molding myself into a pretzel and yanking muscles I never knew existed.

I never really thought much about the importance of all our many strength-building exercises. For most of the 10 years I did gymnastics, I only saw it as the torture time of practice, just another part of our jam-packed three hours of work outs.

Today I was thinking back to gymnastics toning and the groaning and pain and soreness which were the only tangible results I saw of our strengthening. We would always try to barter with the coach to skip out on one or two exercises because "Wahh wahhh..we worked so hard today!" or hope that by working slower on our routines, "Oops! There is no time left for strengthening! Save it for next time!" Surprisingly, our ploys hardly ever succeeded.

But without those exercises, I never would have had the power in my arms, stomach, or back to successfully do a round-off back handspring, or be able to pull myself up in a kip on the bars, or spread my legs enough to do a split leap on the beam, or push my arms off the vault to do a front handspring. Instead, I would have always fallen on my face or butt because I wasn't strong enough--and never would have gotten better.

Im at a place in my life in which I don't feel like Im doing what fits my passions, or what I assume I was "created" to do. I don't see the point in it. I whine about the monotony of it, get frustrated, impatient, and just want to give up. But Im starting to see how perhaps at this moment my Coach is pushing me and training me so I will have my skills honed--prepared fully for whatever is next.

I don't know what is next, but for now, I will keep my eyes fixed on my Trainer and keep going while my hands are slipping, and my legs are becoming noodles, because if I keep hanging on, I will soon be able to collapse, and rest because I have gained what I need for the next task before me.

Mind Control

2009-04-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

We finished watching 7 Pounds yesterday and I felt like maybe my husband was going to die soon. My heart beat fast and my arms needed to hold him right away. So I did and said, "Don't die, ok?" He laughed at my dramatics, and I knew I was being silly, but it's amazing the power movies and books can have to control your thinking.

Yet, I love how I feel after I read a book in which the characters become my friends I come to know them so well or watch a movie/TV show that draws me in so much it makes me scream, jump, gasp, or cry; it's like I just woke up from a powerful dream. The remnants of the characters pains or joys still cling to me as the lights go up or the book is closed.

I can't shake Prison Break off me after watching an hour or two the night before. The next day as I'm walking around town I wonder, "What will Scoffield do now that he is in prison in Panama? Oh! I bet he will discover Sarah is dead and be mad at Lincoln..." I ponder sometimes why Im trying to figure it out so much, it's just a TV show, not even reality. But it feels as though the characters are acquaintances I know of, but don't really know, and I want to figure out their lives for them.

Or recently after I finished reading The Secret Life of Bees (a wonderful book by the way) I felt as though I was back in the South, my lips all day were savoring a ripened peach from an orchard in South Carolina. I wondered if the next Thai person would start speaking in a Southern accent and wanted to find August so I could become her apprentice and learn from her about bees and life.

How do stories do that? They stick onto us and, if we allow it, their themes can transform the way we view life. Oh the power words or pictures can have on a person to steal part of their subconscious away and control it for as long as the viewer allows. Writers are the hypnotists of their audiences.

I hope I can use my hypnotizing powers to help others escape the harsh world for a bit and to help plant seeds of hope in minds searching for it.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
-Lord Byron

Water Fights

2009-04-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

My brother frantically squirted icy cold water out of the green snake-like hose at me, while my cousins Michelle and Natalia snuck behind him with a heavy, plastic white bucket full of water. When I was shrieking just loud enough to distract him, the girls would attack, dumping the waterfall over his head. Of course he always got us back, but then we had even more reasons to invent newer, complex strategies. Summer water fights were the essence of wild and shockingly cold, yet refreshing childhood fun.

I never thought much about our precious water fights since then, but last week I was reminded of them on the streets of Bangkok where we took part in the annual Thai New Year water fight celebration, Songkran.

I felt like I was taken back in time, but instead of my cousins and I against my bro, it was everyone against each other, not in an evil, riotous way, but instead a playful, joyous way. Kao Sarn Road was covered with Thais of all ages, foreigners, water guns, water bottles, and clay. While Dominic and I walked down the street everyone sprayed us with cold, or warm water, or dumped it all over our heads. Some affectionately smeared clay over our cheeks while saying, "Happy New Year!"

My heart wanted to soak up every droplet of the Thai moment that I will miss next year. I love how in Thailand the city takes off three days of work to have a water fight together. I tried to picture Songkran in America, and for some reason I just don't think it would work. I imagine tough, drunk guys getting annoyed at other guys who got them wet, and eventually the water fight turning into a fist fight. Or even no one wanting to join in on the fun because they don't want to get themselves or the whole city messy, so only a few crazy teens play who are eventually stopped by the police.

But in Thailand during Songkran, the freedom to play and have fun that I had in my childhood was available for everyone to take and enjoy. I hope next year Dom and I can have our own mini-Songkran in Waxhaw, if you want to come and join in the merriment, just let me know and don't forget to bring your own squirt gun.

A Thursday Collage

2009-04-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

Sweet, succulent, smooth, slippery like an eel orangey-yellow mango.

The first words I said to the first three co-workers I saw in response to their, "How are you?"s was "Hot," wipe sweat, "Hot," pull sticky shirt away from body and fan myself, "Hot."

Eating dark and light purple, thick grains of moist rice with my veggies and omelette feels as wholesome as eating wheat bread chock-full of oat and nuts.

Wide-eyed, blonde haired European kiddos on the Sky Train with their backs facing the riders, knees on the yellow with black speckles seats, peering out the windows in awe at the stern skyscrapers, long-forgotten gratified buildings, haphazard construction sites for new condos, and forlorn concrete lots.

I pondered today about how the red shirts are protesting the government for the people and in December the yellow shirts were protesting the government for the people too. I wondered if I should write a blog about it, but decided it's too complex to get into for a Thursday afternoon.

Smiling about the delicious Italian gelatto I ate last night with my friends, one Korean, one Thai, and one Vietnamese-American, in a Thai shop in which there was a cut-out bear display with Japanese gummy bears. What a mingling of cultures.

Still dreaming of the six scoops of gelatto: chocolate brownie, ferro rocher, kiwi apple, yogurt berry, cappuccino, strawberry. Decorated with waffle crisps, strawberry and chocolate syrups, apple slices and cashew nuts.

The gelatto made me hunger for Italy. I long to be sipping a perfect cappuccino at a dainty cafe on the streets of Florence while a cute old man with a beret plays his accordion in the square.

But focus...savor the mango, heat, rice, wonder, politics, and cosmopolitan life that make up the unique collage of my Thai days.

Tar Heel Girl

2009-04-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

I must confess. I don't know how a bracket works, the process of how a team gets into the Final Four, or which players are supposed to be the best this year. But the one thing I do know is that my alma-mater, UNC-Chapel Hill, is in the Final Four and going to the Championship game.

While going to UNC I didn't care much about the stats of the games, or how it all worked, but what I loved was the passion. I loved to go to games and see a sea of Carolina blue and white jumping to the same beat; to hear one side of the Dean Dome chanting "Tar" and the other side yelling back "Heels"; to put my arms around fellow random fans like they were my family while we sang our school anthem at the end of every game.

And even after graduating, the feeling of unity lives on. When I looked on Facebook during the semi-final game, every UNC person I knew had written on their status' slogans like "Go Heels", "U-N-C", or "We love Roy's Boys!". Even though I live in a different continent now, I felt so connected to them in spirit as I put up my own status to show my Tar Heel love.

I love the underlying connection I feel with all Tar Heels-- like we are all part of a secret club and the password to get in is "Boo Duke". Just one way I'm reminded of how fun it is to be part of something bigger than myself.

I'm a Tar Heel born, I'm a Tar Heel bred.
And when I die, I'm a Tar Heel dead.
So it's rah-rah, Car'lina-'lina!
Rah-rah, Car'lina-'lina!
Rah-rah, Car'lina-Rah, rah, rah!

Homesick

2009-04-02T03:10:00.000-07:00

Oh how I miss going to Cracker Barrel with the fam. While waiting, wandering around the country store with my mom, picking out random trinkets for whoever has the next birthday. Sitting down at a homey table and ordering thick, warm slices of French toast with freshly-made blueberry syrup spread on top and with a light dusting of powdered sugar.

How I miss waking up to the smell of my mom's waffles pulling me to the kitchen. Fighting with my brother over who gets the Peter Pan peanut butter and honey first, probably losing, and then spreading it on top, and gobbling them up.

Oh Dad, how I miss sipping a morning latte with you out of my favorite funky black and white mug we got on our trip to Spain and chatting over your not too thin and not too thick banana crepes.

How I miss going with the fam in the morning to a southern mom and pop diner. Eating a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. The buttery biscuit falling apart in my mouth, the crispy bacon melting into the cheddar cheese and the egg holding it all together perfectly.

Oh how I miss making blueberry pancakes for my smiling grandma. When just enough bubbles have risen to the top, trying to expertly flip them over in her cast-iron frying pan. Sitting next to her, savoring and listening avidly to stories of days long ago

How I miss after a morning run with with my mom, getting a glass bowl from my parent's cupboard and pouring in just enough crunchy granola with raisins. Then decorating it with thick and creamy, strawberry cheesecake Yoplait yogurt. And topping it with bananas and blueberries before mixing it in a frenzy and scarfing down the delectable masterpiece.

Oh how I want to be part of those breakfasts the bring us all together again. But how blessed I am to have something precious to miss.

A/C Gym Dreams

2009-03-31T21:40:00.000-07:00

I opened the door and entered a pre-heated oven. In a few minutes, I felt like I was an over-baked chicken, which had been cooked so long that all the juice and flavor had evaporated out. I didn't have any energy left to do anything, much less run hardcore for 30 minutes on the treadmill and do toning exercises on the weights.

Oh ye who work out in perfect temperature controlled gyms don't know how lucky you have it.

I used to be a lucky one. I had a shiny golden card which allowed me to go for free whenever I wanted to California Wow, one of the gyms in Bangkok. I had gotten a deal for a free membership through a friend and savored it. Unlike some of my friends who discuss working out as torture they must endure weekly in order to feel better about themselves, Im one of those weird people who actually enjoy the thrill, the sweat, the challenge, and the joy I feel after a good workout.

I reveled in walking into the refreshing air of my old gym, getting my card swiped, skipping past the many autographed profile photos of famous people I had never heard of who love my gym. Then right before the escalators meeting the huge poster of a woman's face who has a pixie-haircut, a perfect smile, and eyes that wink at whoever walks by like she is saying, "Welcome back friend."

I used to go in the mornings before work, or on my days off at times when it was the least busy. The gym became my adult version of a playground where I could play on any of the hundreds of treadmills, ellipticals, and other cardio machines; bend, lift, turn and twist on the wide array of machines in the weight area, and stretch my worn body in the section full of mirrors and mats.

Or of course there were the free classes I could go to at any hour of the day, but all taught in Thai with only a few English numbers or phrases tossed in. Yet, if I observed closely, I usually caught on fine.

But then it happened: my glorious, beautiful free year membership ended; my golden card became void and added to the pile of the useless cards I still kept in my wallet for nostalgic reasons.

And we moved, to a new apartment complex which had a gym--one of the main reasons we chose to move there. Of course, in Thailand, at a mid-range apartment, the gyms aren't much. They told us it didn't have A/C, but to my tough husband, it wasn't a big deal, we could handle it. I wanted to be tough too, and agreed, yeah, it wouldn't be that big a deal. This was during the somewhat cooler season, when the temperature is around 85 degrees.

The first week I was rather miserable, I missed the variety, familiarity, and cold air of my old gym. The machines in our new one are all made in the 80s and somehow have lasted until now. Long gone are hundreds of cardio machines, now I can chose between only two treadmills and two bikes. And our air conditioning substitute is five low-powered, lint-covered overhead fans spread throughout the whole room.

I got used to it though, and it was nice having the freedom to go whenever I wanted, be able to work out easily with my hubby, and for him to meet new guy friends through it.

But then it happened: the crazy hot season rolled in. I think the temperature must average at around 95-100, but even if it is around 90 or so it still feels like 100 because the air doesn't move at all; it just sits there like the heat has scared all the cool breezes and winds away from Thailand forever.

So thats why this week I have been running as fast as a 100 year-old turtle, sweating through my shirts in minutes like I'm a large 53-year-old man and sucking water out of my bottle like Im a 3-month old starving infant.

At least next year when I go to an air-conditioned gym, or run outside in the morning in 70-degree weather, I will work out with thankfulness cuz of how lucky I am--and if you got that now, be grateful and please say a lil prayer for me every time you work out, that I will survive being baked in my Thai gym oven.

Drama Queens

2009-03-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

Chicken quesadillas. Guacamole. Cilantro. Mango salsa. Fun conversation with a fun friend.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Last night I got to meet up with a Thai friend whom I hadn't seen in awhile and eat over-priced (but quite delicious considering the fact we live quite east of the border) Mexican food--one of my long lost friends I miss immensely.

I enjoyed the food like crazy, and my stomach was so excited to eat cheese again it didn't know what to do with itself.

But I love how when women get together for lunch, coffee, or dinner, the food or drinks are always just a sidenote, something nice to gather around while we pour out our hearts to each other.

I listened to my friend's stories that were bubbling with new loves and lost loves and the many other crazy things going on in her life. I introduced her to the word "drama" and she was so delighted to start calling herself a "drama queen".

We decided that when women get together and share their stories it is like watching a movie of each other's lives. The food is just the popcorn you eat while you are engrossed in the story, empathizing with the actress starring before you.

How fun it is to be a woman--to have a lead role, to share your stories with an avid audience, and to always have a good story to watch and listen to.

Hope you get some popcorn and enjoy a movie today. :)

Gold

2009-03-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

I wish I was 75 years old. I wish I had a head full of wisdom and white hair. I wish I had grandkids who came to visit. I wish I had a beautiful kitchen where I could make them cheesy omelettes and banana pancakes. I wish I was retired in New Zealand and lived on the side of a hill overlooking a Hobbiton-like town.

I wish I could say Dominic and I have been married 52 years and are more in love than we ever were before.

How I envy those older couples who hold hands quietly as they walk down deserted beaches together. It seems they have developed ESP over time, so there is no more need for words.

They have battled the winds, rains, and tsunamis of life together and made it through. These storms have somehow transformed them from scraggly saplings into solid oaks, and they now stand, without quivering, through the worst gales of life.

They have their battle scars, but time, forgiveness, and love mixed together have healed whatever pain they ever brought to one another. They have beaten the odds and stuck together till the end.

But it took so much to get there. So many misunderstandings, so many tears, so much figuring out each other to not keep hurting each other.

It took so much forgiveness, so much acceptance of imperfection, so much unconditional love.

I wish I could skip all the hurricanes and just poof, become that solid oak.

But then how would I gain the gold I seek everyday: wisdom? How would I be able to help those who are struggling understand that it will be ok?

I admire those who have made it through and are still standing strong. You are my inspiration.

I envy the wisdom you have already gained through your tests of life. Please don't be afraid to share some with those of us who are hungering for some too.

Cotton-Candy Blue Moments

2009-03-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

Cotton-candy blue waters chilled my sticky like glue, hot like an overheated car body. Little shouts of "Ah, cold, wow," escaped from my lips, but really--I couldn't have been more delighted.

Future Muay Thai boxers (aka skinny Thai boys with arm muscles slowly coming into bloom) practiced sparing with each other on the limestone rocks surrounding the pools. The other kids on summer vacation were screaming, laughing, and pushing each other in the nature-made water-park. The tough ones would swarm like bees around a smaller victim until they were able to yank him to the tiered waterfall's sliding rock and shove him down as he screamed with fear/delight.

The dirty, messy hike, over rocks in the river, up unsteady steps made of rickety planks of wood, on walking bridges dangling precariously on ropes above the waterfalls' river had led us to our final destination: the top of the seven-tiered waterfall.

Each of the first of Erawan's waterfalls levels were so tempting; I just wanted to stop there and not go on. They were like the snacks I always want to eat before dinner because I'm so hungry. We watched the mix of European backpackers and Thai families frolicking in the emerald green or sky blue waters with little fishies nibbling their toes. The explorers would hide behind the mighty curtain of the falls or clamber up as high as they could go on the slippery rocks. I loved watching so many cultures mix together and come out with the same product: refreshment.

I'm glad we decided to not swim until we made it to the top. It made the experience taste better than it would have if we had stopped early. I loved to watch my hard-worked sweat and dirt be swept away in the clean, pure water's flow. I loved sharing in it with my husband as we held each other and laughed and took pictures in the waters, trying to somehow make the fleeting like a shadow moment last.

I wanted to keep this forever with me. I wanted to hold onto it and be able to replay it over and over until I had it memorized like my favorite movies. Why do precious times like this have to slip away so quickly?

I always feel somewhat bittersweet feelings whenever Im having a perfect day because I know soon it will disappear. I will be back to normal life, and it will become only something we tell others we did the other weekend, and it was great.

But I guess that is rather pessimistic of me. I hope I can enjoy every moment more and squeeze all the savory and sweetness out of it and then know that when that delicious time passes another one is just around the bend.

Women's Work

2009-03-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

My mundane work week was over. I was reveling in the fact that now I was sitting in a comforting chair, sipping a heart-warming mocha, with my sweet, handsome husband of 2 months sitting next to me. Warm, gushy feelings were filling up my insides so quickly I thought I might burst and flood super-sweetness over everything if I didn't let some of it out soon.

So the vessel I chose to pour my abundant delight with the world into was my mother-n-law who was sitting in front of me innocently nibbling on blueberry cheesecake.

"Dominic has been so sweet to me! He makes me dinner since I work late, and he helps with laundry and cleaning too! He really cares for me so well!". No, I wasn't just trying to be a-suck-up-to-mother-n-law-to-get-her-on-my-good-side-wife. I just wanted her to feel encouraged about how wonderful her son was. What mom doesn't want to hear stuff like that?

Dom blushed, as much as his caramel-toned skin will allow him to, and translated my words to my mother-n-law. She sort of half-smiled and chuckled and then said something in Thai.

I grinned as she spoke, trying to put the puzzle pieces of the sing-song language together. But alas, since the smile-nod-hug language is the only one I have become fluent in since living in Thailand, after much effort, I still had no clue what she said. I assumed it must have been something like, "Im so glad he cares for you well! Im so proud of him!"

Dom nodded as she spoke. Then sat back in his chair, starting to look at the magazine in his lap again. I tugged on his arm, "So what did she say??"

"She asked how much do you pay me for doing the housework."

What! I was astonished. Here I am trying to laud her son, and all she thinks is that I'm commenting about how lazy a wife I can be because my husband does the work that I should be doing.

I shouldn't have been surprised though. I remember when Dom and I were first dating and I had asked him what he spent his Saturday doing and he said he had been doing "women's work" all day. What??

In Thai "women's work" is the phrase for cleaning, laundry, etc., all things women apparently do. I told him that in English we say "house work" and please can we stick to that set of terms from now on.

I don't hold it against my mother-n-law, or against Thai society because some of them are still having their minds pried open to the idea that a woman doesn't always have to be the only one who stays at home and does all the dirty work.

For example, right now Im the one who provides the income as I have a full-time job as a SAT writing, and book club teacher, while Dom is working full-time on his masters thesis in Telecomm Engineering. Im thankful that Dom doesn't mind sharing the dirty work and working together as one.

Hmm..but it would be rather nice if his mom didn't think I was a lazy, American girl who pays her husband to do things for her. But Im eager to be part of conducting opening mind experiments on her over these many years before us.

Modern-Day Angels

2009-03-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

After a discussion with my hubby this morning I felt like I was failing, and not a good enough wife. It was just about something silly, and he had no intentions of making me feel that way, but for me and my fragile self-worth, silly things easily turn into serious things.

On my walk to work this morning the weight of my invented expectations were still pulling me down. I felt as though I was going to sink into the broken sidewalk. The heat, stress about my upcoming work day, and the thought replaying over and over again that Im not whom I want to be, made me feel so low that I had become a slug, slowly pulling myself along, leaving slime and gunk to everyone in my wake.

I had been praying that I would somehow be encouraged, that I would be refreshed and that joy would come to me in the midst of my silly storm.

I stopped at a street-side drink vendor I have always wandered by but hadn't tried out yet. I ordered a Thai-style iced cappuccino, for only 30 baht ($1 ish). While the barista worked quickly and expertly, I tried to smile at her, to try to leave her out of my gloomy world. She smiled back as she handed me the tall, perspiring, pink plastic cup with a simple flower and the word "blooming" imprinted on it.

I took my first sip of the iced capp as I walked away. The sweetened condensed milk, espresso and foam mixed together in my mouth and all the sudden it was like someone had waved a magic wand over me and said, "It will be ok, feel joy," because that is what I felt, inexpressible joy.

A cooler breeze started to tussle my hair, the fruit the street vendors were selling looked brighter and fresher than usual. Thoughts were running through my head of how blessed I am to get to walk on a Bangkok sidewalk to go to work, that I have a husband full of grace, family and friends from home to miss, and family and friends here to love on. I also remembered that Im a human, who needs to forgive myself and remember Im totally accepted by and acceptable to God no matter what I have done, so shouldn't I give myself the same forgiveness He gives me?

It was like the iced cappucino had made a wrong turn and went up into my mind to refresh it, before going down to my stomach.

Or I can pretend that it was an angel sent to remind me of what joy there is in this world, not only in my relationships, but also in the simple pleasures given to me that bring delight to my soul--like coffee. Because after my soul-refreshing cappuccino came more modern-day angels...a sweet message from my hubby, encouraging emails from friends, and amazing lasagna from the Thai market.

I wonder if joy is always around us, but it is our choice to see it and claim it as our own or to keep slugging by it.

Used Toys

2009-03-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

She is beautiful. Her hair is so dark and shiny it is onyx. Her skin is the color of coffee with a little too much cream. Her eyes appear black at first, but then with a second glimpse they have flecks of dark brown swirled in. Her fake eyelashes curl up dramatically and her filled in eyebrows are gentle waxing moons. Her dark mauve lips pucker off her face.

Her long legs are on display in her tight, fake designer Seven jeans which must be size -1. Black, strappy heels lift her 2.5 inches off the ground. Her flat-chest is hidden beneath a billowing, sequin studded, silver shirt.

The words, you are beautiful, sexxxxy, hot, gorgeous, have rolled through her ears more than a million times it seems. These words have lost all meaning to her. They were like a toy that she had always wanted, but once she got it and played with it, she saw how temporary the pleasure lasted and now she wants nothing to do with it.

They know her body, inside and out. But do they know her?

Do they know what kind of movies she hates? Do they know her unforgettable embarrassing story that happened when she was 12? Do they know how to make her smile after she's had a long day? Do they know how much she wants to be known?

She is a delicious meal. They delight, enjoy, revel in, and then leave because their hunger has been satiated for the time being. But she feels like a leftover, previously adored, now sitting cold, alone in the fridge.

Bangkok is one of the most visited cities in the world. And as one of my friend's said,"I wonder why so many people come to Bangkok? The Grand Palace isn't that grand.." It is because of the booming sex industry which draws middle-aged, old, nerdy, sketchy, etc. men who haven't found enough pleasure at home, so now they search for it here along the streets flooded with their dreams come true.

I see pain on both sides and don't know how to help either. The women are attempting to escape from the pain of poverty, the men are attempting to escape the pain of feeling powerless and unloved.

But my heart mourns for the women. Their priceless beauty is turned into something hawked on the street. Their hearts that yearn for a man to save them and care for them are left hungry and starving everyday.

Everyday they become the toy that the boy doesn't want to play with anymore.

Digital Perm Death

2009-03-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

My usual curly mess of hair was transformed. It was now smoothed straight at the top, and then flowed into elegant, loose curls. I loved it and my new boyfriend adored it too.

The hairdresser had told my friend in Thai, which was then translated to me, that if I wanted my new look to last for about 6 months, I could get a digital perm. I wouldn't have to do anything but wash it, and it would fall into place perfectly everyday.

How could I say no?? The next week I went to the same hairdresser to get it done. The whole process took 3 hours and two of my friends hung out with me the whole time. First my hair was chemically straightened. Then the ends were curled in a machine that looked like the suckers dairy farmers put on cow udders.

I kept trying to stay hopeful that this rather tedious, strange process would bring about the desired result, so I stayed positive and looked at pictures in a Thai celebrity mag as cow udder suckers were stuck to my head and chemical smells burned up my nose.

Finally, it was over. So my hair didn't look quite as curled and elegant as the first day I came to the hairdresser, but I figured it might need some time to loosen up. The next day I washed my hair, excited to see what would happen. Out of my bathroom mirror peering at me was a girl with straight hair at the top, and frizzy, wavy-ness at the ends. Not quite what I expected or wanted to get from my $200.

I decided to go back, and try again because the hairdresser told me if it wasn't curled enough, she would fix it for me for free. I didn't realize this would mean doing the entire process again. I sat for another 3 hours, with even more hope under the udder-suckers than before.

But the next day, my hair looked exactly the same as the day before. And now, my fine, soft hair, felt like the hair on a long-forgotten Barbie doll. It was coarse and knotted and impossible to run my fingers through. It wasn't until six months later when I went back to America to a hairdresser that I would learn my hair had been completely and throughly fried to death.

The average strand of Asian hair is much thicker and coarser than a non-Asian's strand of hair, and probably 10 times thicker than my strands. So a typical Asian's hair can hold up to a digital perm's harsh treatments, but when my hair was permed not only once, but twice, all life was sucked out of it. After I learned all this it clicked in my head why the second time I went the hairdressers they were saying something about foreigners hair in quiet, confused tones.

So I had to live with this mistake and deal with the fact that I would never again see my once annoying, messy curls that in my mind I now remembered as precious ringlets which I was so silly to be discontent with.

But even horrible hair mistakes don't last forever. After a few months, I noticed that in the midst of my straight hair on top small curls were popping up like waves in a calm sea. This didn't really make me happy though because my hair wasn't any better, now it was just indecisive-- it couldn't make up its mind to be straight or curly. Random people I would meet would say, "Wow, you have an interesting hairstyle. How do you make your hair curly and straight?" Then i would have to go into the death of my hair story every time.

This morning, about one year later, as I was walking through the Metro Mall glancing at myself in the mirror-covered wall, I saw how my hair is almost all curly now. It still isn't completely back to normal. Maybe it won't ever be the same, but Im starting to like the new look.

It hit me how like my hair, I see all the ugly, messed-up parts of me and wonder if they will ever change--will I ever be the stronger, more loving and considerate woman I yearn to be? I think even though I don't see the transformation over night--like I hoped would happen to my screwed-up hair--it is happening, a little more everyday as I let go and let more grace come in to make beauty out of the ugly things in my life.

Locked Up

2009-03-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

I am a bird locked in a cage, peering out of the half-open blinds onto Bangkok, Sukhimvit 21 more precisely. I see a Minute Maid orange juice billboard, with curly-q Thai script printed on it. The vivid blue background and orange bottle seem to come from another world, a world that I don't exist in at the moment.

Cars, busses, pedestrians, street vendors, meander along the street or sidewalks, but they are not part of me either. The site outside the window to another world lures me, it taunts me to come, and how I want to give in and escape. But no. I can only fly around in the third floor of Asoke Tower, and can't leave until I am set free for the day at 7 p.m., only to return to my cage the next day at 11 a.m.

But when I am set free at 7 p.m., I fly down the steps like a jubilant school girl. I don't take the elevator because I can't handle being in another closed in space for one more moment. I breathe the dark, street-lighted air, still stuffy from humidity and pollution, but this doesn't bother me because it's air from the outside world. Everything that was jammed into my head during the day in my work world floats out for a moment while I walk down the city sidewalk and catch a motorcycle taxi to the Skytrain.

My soul, which was squished and stifled all day, is now regaining its strength. While the motorcycle taxi smoothly zooms around brightly colored taxis and dull-colored cars with the wind hugging me close, my spirit eats up the unrestrained freedom. I am alive again.

Are we suppose to live most of our lives caged up? I hope not. How I dream to one day have a job where I feel free. Where my soul is fully satisfied because I'm doing what I was created to do.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because that's what the world needs- people who have come alive."

-Walt Whitman

Restful Coffee Beans

2009-03-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

I love it when I get to help my students by writing a sample of the writing project I want them to work on. This term my 4th graders are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and their assignment was to write to Willy Wonka and share with him what new candy he should create in his factory.

Today I will read their assignments and post some of their ideas too. Here is mine:

Dear Mr. Willy Wonka,

You have many wonderful creations in your factory, but I think there is room for one more. I think you should make Restful Coffee Beans.

The world loves coffee so much, but people are so busy that they like to drink it on the go, but soon people may be so busy they won’t even have time for that.

Restful coffee beans will bring so much relaxation and refreshment to the person who eats one that she will be as peaceful as a boat in the middle of a calm sea.

Once she puts the swirled white and dark chocolate coated bean in her mouth, she feels like she enters into a dream and her stressful world floats away.

In the dream world, she will arrive at a coffee shop, maybe her favorite one. The barista is so friendly and kind she is a loving grandmother. She makes the dreamer a perfect cappuccino and guides her to a soft, leather cozy chair that hugs the dreamer in its gentle arms.

The dreamer first stares at the cappuccino. The white foam is delicately swirled into a heart shape. It is so perfectly designed it looks like a painting by a famous artist.

She then sniffs it. The strong coffee scent is a perfume. The scent is made just for her and is all the smells she loves: waffles, chocolate, clean bed sheets, and ocean breezes.

Last of all she tastes it. The foam and the hot liquid mix together in her mouth and the rich, smooth taste slides down her throat into her body like a gentle stream of water.

Her mind, body, and heart are all at rest, so now the dream must end. She wakes up exactly where she was when she ate the bean, but only one minute later. She feels so refreshed it is like she just got up from a lovely nap. Now she has strength to do anything!

Mr. Willy Wonka, people are so tired they need something to keep them going! This is the perfect way to bring rest to stressed-out society! Please make it!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Phengchard

...I wish that children's fiction were reality..oh what a happy place the world would be....

Savoring

2009-02-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

"Live like you are going to die tomorrow, learn like you will live forever." I randomly saw this sticker on the back of a funky car when I was in Dominic's hometown at his old college. The phrase jumped out to me like crazy, for one it was in English and not Thai, and it is something that I really have been pondering lately.

Since after we got married, it's hitting me a little more everyday how we aren't going to be living in Thailand forever. In August we will pack up our slew of suitcases, hop on a plane and jet back to our other home.

So I'm trying to live my life in Thailand more in a way so that I savor it: to taste and enjoy completely every moment. Usually, being the human that I am, I forget to delight in it and go through life too quick to notice anything around me or dwell on the future so much the present never truly exists. I have seen how this takes the joy out of life, and hope to God that He will free me from it.

Last night at a street side restaurant near Newsong (our church), I was eating glass noodles stir-fried with a rainbow of vegetables, and chicken, covered with a dark red, sweet, spicy sauce. The dish is called in Thai, suki heng gai, and is one of my new favorites this year. As I was slurping up a bite from my fork and spoon, I was really trying to soak up every part of the experience--the heat, which was giving me and my friends from our women's small group all shiny foreheads; the air, smelling of car exhaust fumes and fried food; the tastes, of my freshly-made iced Milo chocolate drink, and the spicy, sauce lingering on my tongue; the conversation, full of woes of the week, as well as laughter and encouragement; the women, sisters from Russia, Thailand, and America.

I will miss those moments in little Waxhaw. But whenever I think about missing here, I think about what I miss there, in my other home, that I don't get here. My family and old friends who I have history with, cheap Mexican food, even cooking food at home, coffeshops galore with amazing coffee at reasonable prices, and actually knowing what random strangers are saying to each other around me. I can't wait to get those special times again.

I hope I can savor all my moments, not only the huge ones, like getting married, but also the everyday ones--no matter where I am. Moments on earth disappear in the breeze, but I know I will learn forever.

Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath.

Psalm 39:5

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

1 Corinthians 4:18

Happy Thailand

2009-02-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

"Happyyyyy Thailand! Happyyyyy Thailand!"

Not the words I expected to hear the night before my wedding after crying from the stress of the many details that seemed so important that I needed to figure out for the next day.

But these words are two of the few English words that my new grandmother-n-law knows.

Those two words, which she probably learned from a commercial promoting tourism in Thailand, her vibrant eyes, and uplifting smile, were part of the remedy to cure my stressed-out-bride syndrome. As sweet Grandma kept repeating them, holding my hand in her worn and wrinkled fingers, and smiling as big as ever, I started to giggle and smile at her compassionate heart. Slowly the stress and sadness began to float away, to be replaced with "Happy Thailand."

I'm sure part of my heartache was that my American family wasn't there to hold me and wipe away my worries the night before the big day. I could tell that Grandma wanted to speak to me directly, in my language, to try to lift up my hurting heart. She couldn't speak profound, eloquent words, but her simple attempts, giving me the only positive words she knew to speak, were just what

I needed.

My grandma-n-law has taught me many things already. One of them being, that you never need the perfect words or actions to show love, or encourage someone. All you need to do is give out of a compassionate, loving heart what you have--whether you think it is a lot, or nothing at all--it is enough and just what they need.

Mystery Novel

2009-01-20T02:16:00.000-08:00

I love to read good mystery novels. There is something about the intrigue of trying to figure out what is going on and in the end how, if the mystery is by a good author, my predictions are never right and how the author's endings are always immensely better than my paltry ponderings.

I have decided my life is a mystery novel. Im always trying to predict what is going to happen next, but alas, Im never right. I want to flip forward a few chapters constantly to see if something good or bad lies ahead, but sadly, unlike a book, my pages only appear one at a time for me to live in.

When I was young I dreamed that maybe I would marry a cute, curly brown-haired, artsy hobbit-like guy. Wow, I was wrong. Dominic is definitely not a hobbit, but Im so delighted I'm a bad guesser.

I never dreamed I would fall in love with a Thai guy, since most of the time Im not attracted to them, but Dom is not a normal Thai guy. He is a Christian-not Buddhist. He loves to work out-unlike most Thai guys. He loves learning about new cultures and taking parts of them with him-like wearing Abercrombie and Fitch, and learning English. He is confident-not many Thai guys are brave enough to go for an American girl. He doesn't agree with many Thai politics that the majority sides with-he has his own views and sticks with them. I admire how he isn't afraid to be different from his society and stand out.

I never dreamed I would get married in Thailand! I always hoped I could have a destination wedding, but never thought it would be possible. We are so thankful to Dominic's mom, and friends who helped pay for our exotic Thai wedding. Even though my friends and family from America weren't there, God blessed me with friends and family in Bangkok so I didn't feel sad and lonely on my wedding day, but instead, so loved. I can't believe Im blessed enough to now go home in August and have another celebration with the American side.

I never dreamed I would go to Jakharta, and Bali, Indonesia, and Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia for our honeymoon. I always dreamed to go to an island for my honeymoon, but never thought it would be in Bali. Im so grateful to my parents who provided such a gift for us.

My wildest dreams haven't come true because never before did I even fathomed any of this ever happening. Just like a grand mystery novel, Im eager to see what the next page of Sherri Phengchard's Mysterious Life will look like. I guess I should stop guessing and trying to flip ahead the pages that seem to be super-glued together and just enjoy the ride.

--Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2--

Countdown

2009-01-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

Im sitting at work, about to go teach my second to last day of SAT boot camp while counting down to what is ahead...

2 days until we become THE Phengchards.

3 days until our honeymoon in Bali, and Malaysia--a gift thanks to my AMAZING parents.

7 months and 2 weeks until our wedding in Waxhaw, NC.

Wow!

Step by step :)

Comfort and Joy

2008-12-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

I rummaged through my purse, searching for my book, The Poisionwood Bible, which has recently engrossed me during my typically dull 20-25 minute-long Skytrain rides. But sadly it wasn't in my bag, it was still sitting on the table in my room at home.

So I eased myself into a corner by the sliding door of the Skytrain car, resigning myself to play my game of listening intently to those around me and trying to decipher what they are saying in Thai to each other.

As I attempted to tune my ears into one conversation next to me, I quickly lost concentration because all the sudden, my ears picked up a faint melody further down the car that was so foreign to Thailand that I thought foreigners must be making it. It was an accapella group singing Christmas carols!

I couldn't see the group at first since there were people scattered throughout the car blocking my view, but I could hear their clear voices singing in unison and my heart leapt at the chorus. I almost got goose-bumps I was so excited.

After awhile more and more people got off the Skytrain car and I was able to see who was actually singing. It turned out to be a group of about 8-10 people, all Thais! I was astonished! I have seen many Christmas decorations, such as Christmas trees and big Santas all over Bangkok--mainly to promote consumerism rather than Christ's birth-- but to hear an accapella Thai group singing Christmas carols in English and sound so professional made me feel at home, like I was back at UNC campus listening to the Christmas concert of Psalm 100.

I think on the Skytrain tonight, listening to this professional group sing on the Skytrain just to give joy to us bored travelers, was one of my best Christmas moments of the season. I won't attempt to compare the accapella group to Jesus, cuz that is rather corny, but the word humble popped into my head when I thought about the group later on.

Lately, I have been hit with the thought of how the word humble and God and Jesus and Christmas all go hand in hand. God put Himself into the form of a crying, needy baby and came down from glorious heaven to messed-up earth. He was born in a stinky barn and then he was placed in a box out of which slobbering animals usually eat. How bizarre. What kind of God gives up the right to be God and rule over all and go into the form of a lowly baby to be born in such a place? I love how I worship such a mysterious, humble God who is so opposite the ways of the world.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

The Show

2008-12-16T21:38:00.000-08:00

I was wearing a cotton, red and white flowered sun-dress. To me it was one of those dresses you can dress up or down, whichever you prefer. I chose to dress it down since I leave all my high heel shoes at work because I don't like to clomp around Bangkok in heels, tripping on the uneven sidewalk as my feet are so squished they are about to die from suffocation.

So I wore my black reef flip-flops with my casual sundress, no big. Dominic and I were on our way to meet his mom at her work, to pass out some wedding invitations. But as we were walking to the skytrain, Dominic made a small comment about my shoes, wondering why I hadn't worn high heels with a dress. I told him my reasonings, and he said it's ok, don't worry about it.

We arrived where Dominic's mom works, a government savings bank. When she first saw me, his young-looking, bubbly, 50-something-year-old mom, was smiling broadly at me as usual. In Thai, she immediately said that I looked beautiful, but was wondering why I hadn't worn nicer shoes.

Dominic explained to her how all my heels were at work. She simply forced a grin and nodded, hurriedly leading us up a flight of stairs to the vice president of the bank's office.

When I am meeting someone who is in a higher position in a company or in the world than I am, I try to show them the same respect I would my family or friends. I have come to realize that person is just a human like me whom I respect no more or less than anyone else in the world.

But showing more respect for those who are older, above you in a company, status, or in charge in Thai, and most Asian cultures, is a HUGE deal. It is important to not only show respect, but also show that you have it all together, so you will earn the person in charge's respect.

I knew this Thai concept, but it was drilled into my head all morning. The VP we waited so patiently for, met us for about two minutes. During those two minutes, Dominic's mom, I suppose in order to earn his respect and attendance at our wedding, elaborated on how amazing the wedding was going to be. We would have appetizers, and it would be at the Royal Thai Naval Institute.

After the our short meeting with VP, we moved on to the next important people offices, then to the less important people, and then to other sort-of important people, riding up and down the elevators Dominic used to play on when he was a kid.

During all her speeches to each person, again she elaborated on about the wedding details. Then she also added that the reason we were having the wedding on a random day, Tuesday, January 6th, was that Dominic and I would be in America before, so that was the best day for us to do it. This isn't true, but I guess it helps her not to lose respect or face if people are like, what weirdos have a wedding on a Tuesday?

What tickled me the most was her excuse about my shoes. She brushed away everyone's eyes that seemed to look at my flip-flopped feet, by telling the starer that my feet were injured or in pain, so I had to wear flip-flops instead of heels. Also not true, but yet again, the excuse protects her from losing face and being looked down for having a future-daughter-in-law who doesn't know how to dress politely.

Dominic was telling me how it annoys him how Thai culture can sometimes just be a big show. No one was really that excited to be going to a wedding for their boss' son that they didn't even know, how could they be?

But they smiled graciously, pretending it was something they had been looking forward to all year, for the sake of showing respect to their boss and earning their boss's respect.

We weren't too thrilled to be pulled around like a new toy a kid wants to show off to their friends, and to have everyone giggle at me when I bow like a Thai person, and exclaim how handsome Dominic is...but in order to show respect to Dominic's mom, we did it.

This is all part of Thai culture. Either I can run away from it crying that things aren't like this in America, or I can accept it, smile along, and learn from it. I was on the brink of the former response, but eventually chose the latter. And American culture has its own special quirks too that I'm sure many foreigners want to run away from. As I have said before and learned, no culture is perfect, right, or wrong. Nope..all of them are just different :)

Behind the Scenes

2008-12-06T00:46:00.000-08:00

My hair was an afro. I had never in my life seen all of my hair sticking straight up on my head like a pulled out cotton ball. "Oh dear me," I thought, "these are suppose to be our special Thai-style wedding pictures that will help us remember where and how our relationship first began, and I'm going to look like an 80's punk rock star?"

I knew deep down that my hair wouldn't be left like that, and that Ja would fight for me and tell the stylist to fix it if it did look horrendous, but I was still a little freaked out. Thankfully, the sweet, Thai lady played with my hair and face so expertly that I felt like I was a blank canvas, being worked on by an artist. She seemed to know what she was doing, although I was clueless.

After making my afro, she pinned a curved blob of fake black hair around the middle of the back of my head. I was about to tell her that hair color really didn't match my golden brown, until she concealed it by pulling my teased hair delicately over it. From punk Sherri, I had gone to half-Thai princess Sherri. Not too bad.

I loved how the hair matched the look so well, but wasn't too thrilled about how my face was oozing with white powder, pink blush, dark eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, and shiny mauve-tinted lip gloss. I think Dominic had trouble peering through it to see the real me he is going to marry. But the stylist calmed us a bit by telling us excessive make-up helps with the pictures...

Finally when my hair and make-up were complete, I got to don my old-fashioned Thai wedding clothes. I chose a red-themed outfit out of one of the many books I flipped through at the studio's front desk. I felt like I was getting ready for a Halloween party as I had the red, stain fabric wrapped around the top part of me. Then she held out the skirt. It was so huge it could have covered a king-size bed. I stepped in it, and she pulled it away, and folded it in like one of those fans I used to make in elementary school with colored crepe paper. Then she loaded fake gold rings all over my fingers and laid a gold breast plate thing on my shoulders. I was decked out and ready.

All that Dominic had to do was get his face powdered a little, slip on a funny skirt which was tied up to look like baggy pants, a white royal Thai shirt, elf shoes and of course-- gold rings. "Girls take so long!" he commented.

It felt so out of place standing in front of a fake set of an ancient day Thai living room and looking out onto a busy shopping mall. The photo studio we went to was in MBK, one of the most popular malls for tourists in Bangkok. I felt like we were on display for all the shoppers to gaze at as they walked by.

The kind photographer was a perfectionist, which I believe is an important trait for a photographer to have. He would make us move our heads and stop, and move it slightly the other way, and then fix it for us if we didn't do it right. He would speak in Thai to me sometimes accidently and then be flustered and try to say his directions in English, but I eventually caught on without the translation.

He had us hold so many random things, like not only did Dominic get to hold a sword, but I did too! Apparently long ago, there was a Thai woman warrior who went to war in place of her husband or something. I even got to hold what looked like an ancient feather duster, a golden urn, and a wooden, stringed Thai instrument. After holding objects, poses, and each other for about an hour, we were finished and got to chose our prints off the computer.

We picked up the pictures last week and were delighted at how they turned out. My make-up looks a lot better than we thought it would, but of course, since Thailand is a very image-conscience society, all the pictures were photo-shopped--even taking away freckles, and to my dismay, Dominic's cute scruffy goatee. What was left were two glowing, perfect-skinned Thai people. Heehee!

Im so grateful to Ja and for blessing us with such a wedding gift. I will forever look at the huge, golden-framed picture of us, and remember how God brought us together and how our relationship first began in the land of Thailand.

What a great start to our adventure.

The Little Things

2008-11-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

I love how living abroad makes me feel more grateful for the little things I would take for granted in America. For instance, I think it would have been pretty lame in America if on Thanksgiving instead of eating a slice of freshly-baked, chocolate pecan pie with one scoop of vanilla bean ice cream slowly melting and making a gentle river around the pie moat, I was instead given a slightly stale, pecan cinnamon roll and told to eat it and pretend it was pecan pie.

But this Thursday, I anxiously awaited going to Au Bon Pain before work to eat my pecan cinnamon roll complete with a cappuccino. It was the closest I would get to pecan pie, so I savored every bite. For one brief moment, I imagined with closed eyes that I was at my parent's house crunching the caramelized pecans with my family chattering around me instead of at an over-priced American sandwich/bakery shop with random tourists I didn't know around me.

When I was halfway through my imitation pecan pie, pondering when I should call home later to see how my family's Thanksgiving was, my phone began to ring and showed the phrase, "Unknown Number".

It was my parents, ringing me on my Thanksgiving! I felt so loved and grateful to have parents who know to call at the right time. It made me feel like I had one foot in Bangkok and one in Waxhaw.

After work, I even got to have a Thanksgiving potluck dinner at a pool hall with Newsong (my church) friends. I was so delighted to eat sliced sandwich turkey meat, mashed potatoes, and canned corn. We even had a pumpkin pie which was actually good! And of course we had to have some Thai flavor, so Dominic made a Thai dish, chicken with basil, to make our Thanksgiving truly Thai-American.

I felt so blessed to be surrounded my Newsong family on Thanksgiving, to have a family to be with. I miss my American family and friends, but I also was thinking how blessed I am to have people to miss on Thanksgiving. Not everyone in the world has that.

Not on the Menu

2008-11-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

So it wasn't one of the drinks printed in bold, black font on the menu hanging up over the drink-concocting area. But in my Sherri-mind, it didn't matter. I have had it before at another coffee-shop, this shop had the ingredients, so no big deal. Hoping that they will give in to my wish, I made my request to the two brown aproned, bored baristas at Sabrosa Cafe, a Thai coffeeshop I always meander by on my walk to work.

"Mocha Strawberry." Their sullen-faces, now morphed into bewildered sullen-faces.

Ok, so maybe I had the wrong Thinglish inflection when I asked for it and didn't stretch out strawberrrrry enough.

"Mocha," Bored baristas nodded.

"Strawberrrrrrry." The confused look arose again.

I pointed at the menu which proudly proclaims "Strawberry Latte" and then under it "Mocha Latte".

"We don't have Strawberry Mocha on the menu. Only Strawberry Latte or Mocha Latte." She said this to me like I was asking her for steak and potatoes instead of just a coffee drink.

The mirage that I was in an artsy coffeeshop in America dissipated. I was hit with the realization that I am in Thailand, where in most places, if it isn't on the menu, it doesn't exist. These baristas seemed computer programmed to only make drinks on the menu and nothing else, or the world will combust.

I repeated the saying in my head that I learned from a past cross-cultural training course: it's not right or wrong, it's just different. With a longing sigh for the ways of American coffee-shops, I gave in and got a strawberry latte.

I watched one barista with a tight frown on her face, pick up the strawberry syrup and squeeze it into the the bottom of a small, glass measuring cup. Then she oozed on top of it the same amount of sweetened condensed milk and stirred. Her hand brushed the chocolate syrup container as she put the strawberry syrup back in its proper place right next to it, against the back of the counter.

Just to let you know, at Sherri's Coffee-shop (name still to be determined), if you come up with an innovative drink, you will receive the drink for free and perhaps if it is good enough, I will even name it after you.

"Fall" in the Land of Eternal Summer

2008-10-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

October 20, 2006

I stomped, swished, and crunched through the fall collage of brown, red and orange covering the red brick pathway leading away from Franklin Street. My dark gray jacket with its light pink embroidered design was cute, but sadly cute doesn't cut it when it comes up against a chilly fall air.

I didn't mind the whispers of winter too much though as I slipped through the leaves. It was a nice change of pace from the blazing summer and fall means that I have reason to drink more hot beverages because my little body that gets cold easily must stay warm somehow.

My mouth tingled as I thought of the mint, hot chocolate that the hip, dread-locked barista would soon make for me at the Daily Grind--just one of the delightful simple pleasures that an American autumn brings along.

October 20, 2008

AHHHHHHHHHHHH! I didn't want to scream, but it was happening all the same. It was like someone had pried open my mouth and was pulling high-piercing sounds out of it without my permission. My head felt like it was a balloon on the verge of being popped, waiting for the shiny needle to make its entrance.

But then, right before the messy explosion of my head, we jerked to a stop and Boomerang was over. We groggily picked up our bags from the other side of the ride and made woozy comments about how intense, and what a thrill the ride was.

To give our bodies a break, we decided to meander to the water park. We eased into the lazy river, the machine-made current gently pushing us past Thai boys wearing speedos, and Thai girls wearing flowery one-pieces. One kid asked Dominic if he was a tour guide since he was surrounded by three of the few only Westerners in a sea of Asians.

Going to a water park at the end of October?? When I was wandering around Siam Park it hit me how bizarre it was to put my American fall mindset into Thailand. In America I only went to water parks in the midst of summer break, June or July. It was always swarming with people, and you had to wait for hours sweating in the sweltering sun just to go down a 28-second long water slide. But in the Land of Eternal Summer, water parks are always open, so Dominic and Ja thought the whole concept of waiting in line forever for a water ride was unfathomable.

It is strange to be in a land where fall constitutes days when rain gushes down so hard that on the way to the way to the gym, Dominic had to pull the motorbike to the side of the road, which was slowly disappearing under the flood. We sat for about 20 minutes, sympathizing wordlessly with the other riders under a dilapidated bus stop. Motorbikes were lined up along the street in front of us like it was a new parking lot.

Because the only weather change during Thailand's fall is more rain, of course stores in the malls we were browsing last week would be selling jackets with fur trimmed hoods, woolly gloves, and a rainbow of scarves. It makes sense to market cold weather wear in a country where a refreshing day is when it is 88 degrees instead of 95.

Well, that is if the buyer is an upper-class Thai business person. Dominic told me many workers in the skyscraper towers of Bangkok enjoy turning on the A/C to the max in their office and putting on coats and sweaters. It is apparently the cool thing to do to show off your money. :)

I can't wait to be in America for fall next year and wear a jacket and really need it. Even more I can't wait to experience American autumn for the first time all over again with Dominic. Raking piles of leaves and jumping in them, wearing cosy coats, and of course, sipping rich, hot chocolate with marshmallows.

There are always things to look forward to...

Malleable Blobs

2008-10-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

I was sick of Bangkok. Don't get me wrong, Bangkok has its special joys: savory, spicy street food on every corner, towering shopping malls just a BTS stop away, and strange people to observe everywhere you look. But the hot weather- stuffy air-pollution-and-sweat-infested- people- and-pollution-and- traffic-and-dirty-broken-sidewalks-and pollution can get rather old after awhile. That is why I was delighted when Dominic answered my plea for asylum from Bangkok.

Dominic lives about 30 minutes outside main Bangkok in a suburb called Pakret. Just a motorbike ride away from his apartment is a pier by the river where one can hop a 2-minute ferry ride across to the Mun village pottery makers community, Ko Kret.

I must say the definition of Ko Kret is quaint. That pretty much sums up the winding maze of paved bicycle/motorbike/pedestrian paths that wind through the island full of tropical fruit trees, stilted wooden river houses, and even a blossoming, peaceful flower garden where Dominic and I toured on two rented, rattly bicycles.

The peaceful pottery community was warm to us--not whining at us to buy or look at their pottery like most touristy vendors do in Bangkok. The smiling workers ushered us into their "factory" with a wave of their clay-smeared tan hands.

Three potters were hard at work in the center of an open-air building bulging with recently formed pots waiting to go in the kiln. I could have stood there for hours, gawking at the mesmerizing masterpieces being formed right before my very eyes.

I was most impressed by one man. He had one huge, clay water container-whose height looked to be almost as tall as the man's sitting down- molded already on a plank of wood next to him. But I was still a bit worried for the sad, blob of square, gray, ooshiness sitting before his potter's wheel. How could that goo ever become that pot?

But I need not to have been worried. The potter placed the overly moist Play-Dough on the wheel and with a slight grin behind his dark eyes he set to work. He smushed it down and pulled it up as the wheel spinned rhythmically to a rhythm only he was the master of. He pulled and pulled and swirled his hands around it gently and sweetly like a father caressing the cheek of his child. He patted and pushed a little here and a little there.

I had no clue what was going on of course. It seemed like he was playing some sort of game that I was too slow to catch onto the rules of. So alas, I didn't figure out how he did it, but in the end a huge, water clay pot was before him, being placed next to his other pot.

But the pot wasn't done yet. Dominic and I rode around to the other parts of the island to see the rest of the pottery process. We saw the etchers making minute marks in the softened clay, then the kilners pulling red-brown pots out of the fire and putting gray ones in. Then we bought cute little clay trinkets at many of the pottery shops along the paths.

But in the midst of all this I kept thinking of the mysterious little potter man. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the clay could care less about "helping out the potter". It just did its job by being a malleable blob. Because only by doing its job could it become what it was meant to be.

How I long more malleable and blob-like.

-Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.-

Isaiah 64:8

Far-Sighted

2008-10-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. Saturday, and 8:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. Sunday are my work hours at Elite Prep. My forty hours are spent preparing lesson plans for my SAT Writing Class, 3rd/4th grade Book Club and 9/10thgrade Book Club. I teach 3-hour length classes. I give out vocabulary quizzes and reading quizzes. I lead discussions on the books. I do “fun” activities about reading and writing and grammar. I go over SAT test questions and how to write a good essay for the SAT. I grade and edit SAT essays.

But in the midst of my teaching and planning, my efforts also lead to constructing a nursery for marine life, building a preschool, harvesting a fish farm, researching how to genetically modify fish, and mining pearls.

A purpose of Sustainable Development Research Foundation is to find ways to provide for the needs of communities all over Thailand. I love how while I’m teaching at the profit center of Elite Prep where some of the smartest, most well-off kids of Thailand come for tutoring, I am connected to developing other communities in need around Thailand.

The past year I have known in my mind the mission behind SDRF, and thought it nice and wonderful, but it didn’t really move from my mind to impact my heart until my recent visit to one of the many sites in Thailand that SDRF works at, the remote, Got Yow Yai island in the south of Thailand.

An hour and 15 minutes flight from Bangkok to Phuket, a 30-minute speed boat ride to a port at what looked at first like Gilligan’s Island, and an hour truck drive from there, it was the farthest outside of a city I have been in Thailand. While traveling on the winding roads I felt like I was in Waxhaw on some forgotten country road, but instead of the scenery of cotton fields and cow pastures, I saw rubber tree forests and water buffalo fields.

The first stop was the construction site of the nursery for fish, which will keep some of the fish SDRF is harvesting once the fish start to mature. After the tsunami, SDRF entered the community and saw that the fisherman were fishing, but not getting much profit from their work. They were lacking knowledge of how to run fishing as a real business. I love how SDRF asked what the islanders needed help with and came up with the entrepreneurial idea of trying to start a farm to genetically modify fish, which hopefully will make the fishermen more profit.

Epiphanies were popping in my brain at this first site about how I’m part of this concrete block foundation. By attempting to build up the students I teach at Elite, I’m helping the workers here as they build up the lives of those in the community.

I learned on our trip that Elite isn’t the only one assisting the work in this community. A church came from California to help SDRF construct the wooden walking bridge from the mainland to the dock, where fishermen tote cages from the ocean. I was in awe of how hard the team must have worked, calculating when the high and low-tides were so it could work at the best conditions and then laid down the complicated maze of pipes in the ocean that connect to the nursery. Each little plank and pipe was so significant and necessary, just as much as the hands that fit each one together.

After another short drive through more forests of palm trees and cliffs over the emerald ocean, we came to the only pre-school on the island, a home away from home to more than 100 children.

But since it was Ramadan on our visit, and many people in the south of Thailand are Muslim, the students were not there. But there were workers constructing the rest of the pre-school. The friendly, welcoming school was built partly by another church in CA that partnered with SDRF after the island community told SDRF another one of its needs—a preschool. The islanders were not left out of the project, but are doing their part by finishing up the school after SDRF helped start it up.

The next stop was the Marine Research Institute, MRI. I loved riding the motorboat out to the fish farm in the middle of the ocean where a fisherman guided us as we walked on wobbly planks that surrounded wire-mesh cages floating in the water. The fisherman reminded me of a worker at Sea World when he coaxed the variety of fish to the surface by holding out a small bait just above the water.

Watching these plump fish flopping around, I felt awe to be part of such a mission. I had never dreamed in my life I would in any way shape or form be linked to genetically modifying groupers to weigh 72 pounds, or be a member of one of the first companies to experiment on how to harvest lobster, or be part of the patient process of mining pearls, but I am.

On the way home back to Bangkok I was thinking about how blessed I am, but also how if anyone thinks about it, how blessed we all are. We live in a world where we are all connected, so by doing our jobs the best we can, essentially we are helping others far beyond our near-sighted eyes can see.

I just hope everyday working at Asoke Tower at Elite Prep I can put on my far-sighted lenses, so my vision will always stay clear.

Third Culture

2008-09-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

I have now entered into a new culture that I will be in the rest of my life. I officially became a member of this third culture on August 16th when on the banks of the Cape Hatteras beach, I squeaked out a "Yes!" to Dominic's question of, "Will you marry me?"

Im not going to be in Thai culture, nor I will just be in American culture anymore. I will be in Thaimerican culture. Or in Amerithai culture. Or what I prefer, Sherri Phengchard.

I got to explore more of my third culture when I was enjoying my breath of fresh air while home for 3 weeks. I know that my third culture will always have spice, in many senses of the word.

Twist. Twist. Twist. Shake. Shake. Shake. These sounds of my family's black pepper grinder were the constant soundtrack to our family dinners while I was in Waxhaw. No matter what we ate, whether it was a roast beef sandwich, omelette, pizza, or pancakes, Dominic needed some sort of extra flavor to go on it. His Thai tongue yearned for it. Yet it seemed no matter how much pepper he ground on his food, it was never enough. So the rest of my life, I will always be looking out for Dominic that there are ample spice supplies wherever we go, or perhaps it will mean buying a pepper mill to throw in my purse, just in case.

When I first got to my house in Waxhaw on August 2, my feet had this strange desire they had never experienced in America before. They wanted me to take off my shoes right at the door before I took a step further. So I obeyed. Then I scampered through my old house, peeking at my old room and seeing what improvements my parents had done to the house the year I was gone.

But what my eyes couldn't get over was the shoes factor. My parents were still wearing their shoes, in the house. They hadn't left them at the door. My house seemed normal, not too different from before, but seeing my parents wear shoes in the house, which they had done my whole life, was something my mind couldn't digest. Taking off my shoes when I get inside a door, is a small Thai spice I get to add to my life forever.

I saw my visit to America as the way a person who has trouble seeing views the world after laser eye surgery. I had seen all of it before a million times, but now, through Dominic's myriad of questions about everything I never thought twice about (mailboxes at the end of the driveway? how are houses built? you can refill your drinks at a drink station as many times as you want? police drivers drive around at night patrolling? how nice of them!), America looks brand new.

I have come to realize that not many people are like me, or Im not like many other people. All over the city streets of Bangkok I see white foreign men with beautiful Thai ladies at their sides, but seeing white women with handsome Thai men at their sides is like seeing a ladybug in my office in the middle of December--an unexpected but refreshing change of scenery. I don't mind being part of the minority though. Im slowly discovering the art of being who God made me to be and not comparing myself to others. It is really quite freeing, once I get the hang of it.

Dominic's Thai culture, his past, his personality, has already taught me so much. I love how we sharpen each other, like iron sharpens iron: softening the harsh edges, and toughening the weak spots. Im eager to be shaped into more of the woman God wants me to be.

I feel so blessed to spend the rest of my life with Dominic.

Actually, I think I'm the most blessed girl in the world. :)

OISHI

2008-06-06T01:26:00.000-07:00

I am a foodie. This means I have a particular interest in food, at least that is what the dictionary says a foodie is. When I went to Japan to visit my dear friend Mari, whom I met when she studied abroad at UNC, I spent most of my time laughing, catching up, and savoring food. I think during my entire five days there I ate more than I had in the past month. It is a good thing my vacations are short because I think if I spent any more time in countries I might become the size of a beluga whale.

I hope you enjoy my tastebud tour of Japan.

Udon Noodles:

Mari’s mom is one of the greatest cooks in all of Japan. That is what I think at least. She asked me what Japanese dishes I enjoyed and cooked me my favorites every night for dinner.. and she even made Udon noodles for lunch the first day I got there.

Refreshing. These noodles were almost as rejuvenating to my soul as the 50 degree Tokyo air that I could suck down into my lungs as opposed to the 100 degree polluted stuffy Bangkok air I can barely get down my nose.

The noodles are long like spaghetti noodles, but thicker. They swim in a soup with scrambled egg and dried seaweed chips sprinkled on top. I used my thick plastic chopsticks to pick up the noodles and messily slurp, not only one, but TWO bowls! On the side we had some broccoli tempura, sort of like broccoli dipped in a batter and then fried, with some citrus soy sauce. It was the perfect welcome to Mari’s heartwarming home meal.

Japanese Crepes:

I have many happy crepe memories. My dad makes amazing banana crepes, and my friend Christie’s dad always made us fresh fruit crepes whenever I slept over at her house. On a perfect May day in Paris, my dad and I had crepes at an outdoor café while sipping cafe au laits. In Sydney, at Pancake on the Rocks, I had an unforgettable creation called Chocolate Jewels which was crepes made out of chocolate along with chocolate pancakes. In Thailand we go to Crepes and Co. which has a nutella crepe that makes drool drip down my face almost as much as the chocolate that oozes out of it when I stab my fork in it.

And then there is Japan. One day Mari and I went shopping in Harijuku, where I felt like I was in an anime cartoon as I watched hordes of teenagers walking around dressed up in doll clothes and gothic attire. It was here that Mari wanted me to experience the Japanese crepe.

My mouth watered as I looked at the menu with appealing pictures of each choice. Chocolate, banana, brownie, fruit, cream, ice cream, custard…any of these could be rolled up in a crepe and put in a pink paper wrap. I chose raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries with a base of thick, sweet custard.

Mari giggled at me as I ate my crepe, indulging in each custard and crepe covered berry as we squeezed in the midst of the crazy people of Harijuku. Yet another happy crepe memory to add to my list.

Soba

Mari and I had hiked a peaceful trail through the woods of Kamakura, a small town a little outside Tokyo, exploring the shrines and temples on the hill. The trail had stretched on longer than we thought, so by the time we made it back to the center of town we were famished.

Every single restaurant in this little town sold soba. But every restaurant on the tourist-infested avenue was selling it at exorbitant prices, or so Mari said. It felt like we were in a desert dying of hunger. We could see a mirage of soba in the distance, taunting us, but every time we thought we touched it, it scurried away like an elusive elf. Finally after I was going to suggest we give up and eat some more crepes for lunch, Mari found a reasonable place hidden away at the end of the street.

Im not sure if it was because I was so hungry or because it really was, but soba, a cozy warm noodle soup, is amazing. First I mixed some toppings, like sesame seeds, in the broth. Then I picked the buckwheat noodles out with my chopsticks and loaded them on my ladle along with soba kernels, and special tofu and slurped it all together. After scooping every last drop of the soup and smiling contentedly with Mari I decided soba is the best water in any desert.

Okonomiyaki

After watching a traditional Japanese-style play called Kabuki, in which the stars have been trained from an early age to be performers, it was our turn to put on our own show. Not a Kabuki play of course, since only men perform all the roles in Kabuki, and we weren’t wearing excessive amounts of make-up..but instead we had our own Japanese cooking show.

Each table in the artsy small restaurant we went to for lunch had its very own stove-top to cook okonomiyaki, a Japanese style pancake. These pancakes aren’t a maple syrupy sweet breakfast food, but rather a savory lunch-time delight.

First we fried our pork, which was pretty much a large strip of bacon. Then we covered the bacon with a circle of thick batter loaded with our choice of diced cabbage and other veggies. It sizzled for awhile before we used two large metal spatulas to pick it up on each side and flip over the massive pancake which was the size of a small pizza. Then we slathered a sweet dark sauce over our masterpieces with a little brush.

The best part of the show of course was indulging in the piping hot pancake pizza and chatting with Mari about life...ah, I love the rewards that come with food.

Gyoza

As I said, every night Mari’s mom was so kind to cook us oishi (delicious in Japanese) Japanese dinners. We had chicken katsu, one of my favs, which is breaded chicken that is dipped in hot mustard and the same sweet dark sauce that goes on the Japanese pancake. And we even cooked food on the kitchen table one night in a hot pot full of broth with veggies and pork.

But on my last day Mari and I got to help out Mari’s mom with dinner by making gyozas, a Japanese-style ravioli. First I took a small round sheet of dough that her mom bought at the grocery store and placed it in my hand. Then I wet the edge with water so it would seal when I closed it. After that I added little scoops of a pork veggie mixture to the center of each one. I folded up each side and made creases at the top to make sure the meat stayed in.

Then her mom cooked them in a pan on the stove to brown the dough a little and then added some water and covered them to let them steam. Once they were done, we dipped our squishy half-moon creations in a citrus soy sauce mixture and plopped one after another into our hungry mouths.

Of course mine we easy to pick out because they had big bulges of pork and the creases weren’t centered and squished oddly, but I discovered that gyozas taste amazing whether they are perfectly shaped or deformed.

Krispy Kreme

“Oh! I remember you love Krispy Kreme! What is your favorite doughnut from Krispy Kreme?” I thought it was sort of random of Mari to ask me that when she was visiting me in Bangkok the week before I went to Tokyo. But I decided to not think much of it and told her I LOVED original glazed and chocolate.

A few days before I went to Japan one of my friends from work told me excitedly, "They have Krispy Kreme there! Do you think you could bring me back some?" I asked Mari if they really had it there and she said, "No, I’m not sure where your friend heard that. Sorry.." I was disappointed, and thought maybe Mari was confused but decided to brush it off.

The last day in Japan after our filling dinner of gyozas Mari said that we needed dessert. I was pretty full, but of course I do have a second stomach for dessert, so I was excited to see what it was.

When I saw the beautiful white cardboard box in her hands with the red cursive lettering and green outline I was so delighted I think I screamed.

When I bit into the steaming, sweet, melt-in-my-mouth-taste-of-heaven, my eyes were closed and I couldn't stop making exclamations like, wow, so good, yumm...even in the midst of my bite. Mari and her family were in shock at how ecstatic I was. They were like, I thought you would be excited..but not this excited!

So technically Mari did lie to me..but it was all to surprise me with my long-lost food friend from home I never expected to find in Japan. Her sweet thoughtfulness was what made the doughnut taste 10 times better than any I have ever had.

Next Stops

This weekend Im going to Laos to visit one of my friends, Libby, who I did my CELTA course with back in August. Im so excited to taste her good ol' home cooking and discover what Laos cuisine is like!

Then my next venture is Waxhaw! After teaching an intensive six-week SAT boot camp I will fly home on August 2 and be around until August 23 when I fly back to Bangkok for one more year of teaching.

I can't wait to eat my mom's chiliaquiles and eat my dad's banana pancakes :)

...I couldn't upload more pics yet because my connection is slow..but if you want see more go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229701&l=2beb0&id=2701334
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229702&l=c026c&id=2701334

Waxhaw and Sukhothai

2008-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Bangkok. New York. London. Paris. Rome. These big city names stand-alone and don’t need any extra titles dangling behind to give more oomph.

I’m driving down two lane Providence Road forever when I finally come upon the brown metal sign with white lettering, “Welcome to Waxhaw, Home of the Waxhaw Indians.”

Once I cross the railroad tracks and make a right at the one stoplight in town onto Main Street I come upon another sign, “Waxhaw, the birthplace of the 7th president of the United States, Andrew Jackson.” Ironically he was also a forceful proponent of Indian removal. But surprisingly that isn’t mentioned on the sign.

Waxhaw wants to make sure visitors know why they should visit and do this by explaining itself on signs. But most Waxhaw citizens are proud to not be from one of those big-name cities. They enjoy keeping their community cozy and kicking out anything that may interfere with the friendly small-town feel.

Maybe that is why there still isn’t a Wal-Mart in Waxhaw, even though I’m sure the dreaded day is on its way. I can picture the approaching endless debates at town meetings, write-ups all over the Waxhaw Gazette, and newscasters broadcasting interviews of irate citizens on Channel 9, “More traffic, more taxes, less small businesses! NO!”

It seems that every week on the out-skirts of Waxhaw new housing developments pop-up with new shopping centers next-door, slowly inching their way to the heart of the town. But until the cow pasture next to the post office is turned into a parking deck, I’m convinced Waxhaw is still a small-town.

Sukhothai used to be the old capital of Thailand. When I was going to visit my boyfriend Dominic’s hometown, that is the line I told my friends from home who had never heard of it, yet again, adding a title to make a small-town worthy of a visit.

The town reminded me so much of my own Waxhaw. Dominic and I popped around on his friend’s red Honda motorbike to an internet café, 7-11, drink stalls, and restaurants to visit where Dominic’s old friends worked. We even stopped by the video game store where he worked as a teenager. Everyone asked him how his grandma was and what was new. And they all discussed “The Big C.”

The Big C is not a bad word that you shorten by saying The Big C, but it’s a shopping center chain, reminiscent of a Wal-Mart Super center. It has everything you need, and is open even until 11 p.m., so you can get things whenever you want. Wow!

But like there will be in Waxhaw, there was debate about the rise of the bright green sign with red letters spouting Big C on the edge of town. The quaint stores even displayed posters in Thai spouting, “No to the Big C!” But unlike Waxhaw, it came.

The first weekend I went to Sukhothai everyone was discussing the Big C being built. The next month when I went, it had opened. During that visit, everything was Big C. I saw pictures at Dominic’s teacher’s house of the never before seen traffic on the road the day it opened. There wasn’t one person we met who didn’t mention it somehow in the conversation. We also went to it three times in two days.

While wandering the aisles I felt I was in an American superstore again, minus the rice cookers everywhere, the meat sitting unpackaged ready to be picked through and peering at packages of coagulated chicken blood which always looks to me like chocolate mousse. And of course near the checkout we ran into Dominic’s old friends he hadn’t seen since college. I was struck with Waxhawness like crazy.

I know that the small businesses in Sukhothai are stressed out, but I can’t say that it wasn’t nice to sit at Swenson’s (an “American” ice-cream parlor) and eat chocolate ice cream and buy Tupperware and bug spray without having to go to a million different random stores.

But Sukhothai doesn’t just have a Big C. I think as long as the ancient ruins still rise on the horizon and visitors come from afar to visit and leave telling everyone how they just went to Sukhothai,Thailand’s old capital, it will still be a small town.

And that makes me happy. Almost as much as Waxhaw home of the Waxhaw Indians AND the 7th president of the United States makes me happy.

TARGET

2008-04-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

target: a person, object, or place selected as the aim of an attack. an objective or result toward which efforts are directed .

It started out so innocently. Nan and Alice, two of my friends from work, and I wanted to go dancing Saturday night at RCA, a popular dance spot. I called them and set up plans to meet them there, and I hailed a bright pink taxi to take me to the strip for 60 baht.

As we neared the brightly lit road, the taxi man kept trying to tell me something in Thai about where he should drop me off. Im working on honing my Thai skills, but they still aren't up to the level of understanding a fast-talking taxi man. So I did my usual smile and nod to whatever he said, pretending like I understood, and was dropped off at a random area of RCA that I hadn't wandered before.

I was not alone though. My sparkly, silver shoes had barely touched the broken pavement when I was taken up into a sea of people. When I write sea, I really do mean a sea. I felt as though I was stuck in a rip tide of the ocean and couldn't swim away no matter how feebly my little arms tried to fight against the powerful waves. I was stuck. Eventually I gave up trying to tread against the tide, and allowed myself to float with the people waves.

Not only was I stuck in a swell that felt as mighty as a stormy sea, but also as I was pulled along I felt as though I was drowning in not just any ocean, but an wintry ice-cold ocean. This is because as I was dragged along, around every two seconds I would get buckets of cold water doused on me, or piercing cold jet streams shot at me. Then in the midst of the water attacks, once the assailants saw my white face, and they would evilly smirk and merrily shriek, "Farang!" and smear white plasterish stuff all over my face. I was helpless, alone, plasterfaced and soaked.

The reason for the water war was not to torture Sherri, but because the second week of April was Songkran, the Thai new year. My typical American celebration of the New Year looks quite different: drinking sparkling grape juice and playing random games to pass the time until midnight when we watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV. The Thai celebration lasts for a few days, and everyone has off of work and are free to have water fights all day and night long. The water symbolizes a way Buddhists bless each other. But the main target of attack are foreigners, hence why everyone rejoiced when they saw my white face in an area where mostly Thais hang out.

So after 45 minutes of drowning in the Thai sea of celebration, frantically calling Nan and Alice on my wet cellphone while the crowd and music are blasting around me, I finally found them. I hugged them, so happy to not be alone, and then it was time for vengeance. We bought some water guns and I saw why Songkran is so fun after squirting and laughing with everyone.

I love how the whole city celebrates and has fun together. My favorite part was riding the sky train at night and seeing hordes of dripping people with disheveled hair and white plaster smeared all over them, holding an array of brightly colored water guns, shivering in the train's A/C, but radiating merriment. It beats grape juice and a silver ball dropping any day..:)

Good to know if you are ever in Thailand during Songkran: Be prepared to get soaked no matter where you are or what you are doing. Going to work, or going to dance, you will get wet, so dress appropriately, and always have a water gun in hand.

Stray Monkeys

2008-03-25T03:53:00.000-07:00

Soi dogs always prowl the side roads (sois) of Bangkok, and now I know a few that live near my apartment. There is one who wears a black cage over his mouth, and he reminds me of Hannibal Lecter. At first he freaked me out, but now I just give him a glare if he looks fiesty and keep meandering by. The other one wanders the main busy street at night. He is a beautiful Dalmatian, with some extra colors added to his black and white spots, perhaps by his bored owners who work at one of the food stalls.

Of course dogs aren't the only creatures that wander the streets..there are also skinny cats, plump rats, ginormous cockroaches, and of course elephants. They always freak me out a bit. I will be looking down, focusing so hard on not tripping on the uneven sidewalk, then I will glance up to find a huge elephant standing before me tagging behind his owner..which then of course leads to me clumsily tripping..

And on Monday when I visited Lopburi I found yet another member to add to the menagerie of soi life..monkeys! After a two-hour van ride from Bangkok, my boyfriend Dominic and I stepped out the van to find monkeys begging for food right on the street while others skittered along the electric wires above us. I kept wondering if they were going to poop on us. Heehee..The ones on the sidewalk were like goats, chowing down on anything and everything that happened to be littering the pavement. One even stole Dominic's water bottle and was chomping on the cap, trying to twist it off with his broken yellow teeth. I tried to get near him, but he leapt at me, shooting bullets at me with his fierce eyes, so I decided to leave and give him a little personal space with his water bottle.

The most monkey-infested area we visited was at Prang Sam Yot, which is the ruins of an old Buddhist temple. Lopburi was the old capital of Thailand, even before it was Thailand, over 700 years ago. So there are many old ruins around that have been rebuilt from the olden days.

A cute, pudgy Thai lady was our tour guide to help protect us from the evil, vicious monkeys, and guide us to the cute, tame ones we could pet and feed. For 20 baht I bought two bags of sunflower seeds to feed the small, grey gangly inhabitants of the temple grounds.

The first time I tried to feed one his little fingers grabbed hastily at the seeds in my hand, making me flip out and run away. Heehee...but as we kept touring I calmed down a bit..until the lady let me hold a wooden stick and swing three monkeys on it. It was good fun until a monkey jumped on my back, and gripped onto my purse strap. I screamed and they all fell off the stick, and of course we all started cracking up.

But what freaked me out the most was when I was getting my picture taken next to one, and he decided my sweaty, pulled back hair needed some help. He put his little hands in my hair, and started to pull on my ponytail. I screamed and fled, laughing hard once again.

There was such a wide variety, some had bulging stomachs, others, were skinny and slow, some were fast and springy, but the ones that were the most bizarre were the babies. They looked like E.T. to me, huge ears that enveloped their faces and little bony bodies covered with translucent gray skin. Wow, I think they could be in a new scary animal for some horror flick.

It is fun to see monkeys spice up the street life of Thailand mainly because Buddhists traditionally don't believe in killing animals, hence the soi dogs, and cats..and perhaps cockroaches, and rats too? Whatever the reason, I'm just glad I got to play with some monkeys for a day.

inexplicable

2008-02-26T01:35:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that these people were kicked out of their countries. I can’t believe how messed up all their governments are. I can’t believe all the lies the news media feeds us from what is really going on in their homelands. I can’t believe that many of them can NEVER return to their homes, to the places they grew up and became who they are. I can’t believe that most people in the West don’t know and don’t really ever think about them.

I can’t believe how blessed I am to have grown up in America. I can’t believe that if I had grown up in many other countries I would not have the freedoms I have today as a woman in society. I can’t believe it.

To try to help my brain figure it all out, I have to talk it out. Alice and I will talk and talk as we walk out the faded pale blue metal doors with the UNCHR insignia stamped on them.

We walk down the small soi while few kids from the refugee center kick a homemade ball around us. We talk about how astonished we are at the stories we just heard.

We get in the hot-pink taxi and go to the subway pondering what we can do, wondering how they can live like that.

We hop on the subway and zip below the city feeling remorse for them, and guilt sometimes at how much we take for granted.

We climb the steps to the skytrain and slowly we realize that we can’t mull on it forever and now we need to go to a café and maybe type some emails and prep some of our lessons for the week ahead.

Many times I just have all these feelings and wonder what actions I can do to accompany them and solve all the problems of the world that I am hit in the face with every Tuesday afternoon.

Waiting. Waiting for the U.N to make its decision. Waiting for the war to end. Waiting for my husband to get a passport. Waiting for immigration to remember us. Waiting for the police to discover us or to flee before they can. Waiting.

Many people throw this word in the air to describe how they waited 20 minutes in gnawing hunger for their meal until the incompetent waitress brought it. Or they waited at the bus stop in the blustering cold before it finally skidded to a stop before them. Or they waited for the guy or girl they liked to call for hours until he or she remembered their existence.

“Waiting” is an occurrence that comes and goes and soon becomes something someone whines about to her friends over lunch. Yet, for a refugee, this word is used to describe their entire existence. They have entered a waiting room and have been there so long they have just become a part of the decor.

The refugee waiting room that I peek through the window of every week takes place as the Bangkok Refugee Center. Since October, on most Tuesdays, Alice and I spend an hour and a half playing games, pronouncing words in American English, smiling and trying to love kids from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, Congo, and any other conflict torn country.

Alice and I never feel like we do much. We always feel totally unprepared every week and wonder if we really are doing anything to help these kids learn how to pronounce English properly. Are we just wasting their time by being there?

But then I was reminded, how can you waste a refugees time? That is the one thing they have to spare.

When I ask the refugees I meet if they miss their home country, everyone has said yes. A place where their lives were at stake, where the government destroyed their homes, where they lost their family and friends everyday, they miss that place. They want to return home.

When I ask if they like Thailand, the most common reply is no. They don’t like the food, the weather, how expensive everything is. But this is a place where they are free from persecution, from death, from tyranny. But they don’t like it. They want to return home.

When I ask where they are going next their eyes get a little brighter. Maybe Norway, I have a sister who lives there now. Or maybe Canada because Cantonese is the third most common spoken language. Or California. I have an uncle who works at McDonald’s, and he really enjoys it.

But if you had the chance would you rather go home? Yes.

A man from the Congo told me how at home they have perfect weather, not too hot or cold, which is ideal for exploring the huge forests and open areas he misses. Everyone has free electricity and water. I still don’t understand how that works but it is something to do with the government giving electricity and water away to other countries. There are diamonds everywhere. One morning you could find one, take it to someone and get $10,000. He had so many opportunities. He kept repeating, so many opportunities. He misses his family and friends who are still there. Will you ever go back? I hope so, but I don’t know. Where will you go next? I don’t know. I don’t know. I miss home.

To never be able to go home again to your favorite places. To see your favorite people. I don’t really miss America most of the time. But to envision never ever returning again. To never see anyone from my past life. I can’t imagine it.

I’m sure if the refugees came here on their own they would love this place. It is not the place that they don’t like, but it is their situation. Forced to flee a place they never wanted to leave to go somewhere they care nothing about. What a different perspective from people who travel here from all over the world just to see Bangkok. The refugees could care less about the Grand Palace, about having their first taste of real pad thai, about riding an elephant. They want to be home eating their food around their families table even while war rages outside their window. It is amazing how being forced to be somewhere and being there out of your own volition changes your perspective on the place. Wow.

This week after teaching we had lunch with a man from Iran. He told us how he became a Christian in Thailand, but when he was in Iran he hated Islam. He hated how it enforced so many rules on society. You can’t sit in that chair because a woman sat there, you cant wear white socks because that is Westernized fashion, you cant roll up your sleeve and show your skin. You can’t…He was sick of it and of this God that forced people to follow so many rules.

He said many people are like him in Iran, many people dislike the government and the religion, but they can’t do anything about it because if they do they get killed. He said people in Iran love Americans. If I went there they would treat me better than most Iranians get treated. He said when 9/11 happened many people held candlelight vigils and then the army came in and arrested them. He said he news media from Iran tries to show how all Iranians hate Americans but it is all propaganda. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it.

I have been going to the refugee center for the past months and always want to write something about it, but my words never seem to be enough and I can never get out my ideas of what I really feel and what I really want to say. So I have decided to just write and say something, which is better than saying nothing at all.

So I hope this helps someone understand a little more of what I will never understand.

NO BIG DEAL

2008-01-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

Normalcy. Wow. I discovered recently that I’m reaching that state after living in Bangkok for six months. Six months..no way.

The street vendors with an array of food, drinks and fruits used to captivate me. I was like a child in a candy store for the first time. Wanting to try everything, and not knowing where to start, overflowing with curiosity.

Now when I walk past the vendors, the smells of basil, peanut oil, and spices that make my eyes water are like the smell of pajamas I have slept in a few days---familiar and cozy, not startling. Now when I see the different carts I wonder why there isn’t more. Why is it I can only find the coconut ice cream man when I don’t want it, and he is elusive when I do want it?

After experiencing, tasting and searching, I now have favorites… like basil and pork over rice. I adore how it’s spicy flavor stays long after the last bite has passed through my flaming lips. Or green mango dipped in sugar and spice. The fresh taste mixed with the dip gives it zing. Or chayen, iced Chinese tea with sweetened condensed milk, which its dark orange liquid has left its mark many a time on my shirts.

An elephant ambling down the street as I'm eating dinner at an open-air restaurant makes me smile, but not want to frantically whip out my camera to get a picture of the mysterious beast. The gentle but strong creature is now like a cute dog walking with its owner on the street. I think how nice, maybe I can pet it. Then I do and move on.

When I see people bowing randomly on the street because they have passed a Buddhist god of some sort I acknowledge it as much as someone would when they see passer-by wave at a friend. The remnants of Starbucks drinks, sodas, and street food mixed with smoking incense in front of the idols are just another part of the scenery.

Zipping my Skytrain pass over the sensor is so part of my routine that I get it out even when I go on the subway…even though I can’t use it there. Then I casually sit in the bright yellow seats and stare at the tourists flipping maps around, pointing at the signs on the trains, wondering where to get off. But I have now timed my exit perfectly. I know that exactly two seconds after the train stops I can stand and smoothly walk out precisely when the doors open.

Seeing beautiful Thai women with old, geeky farang men everywhere is a sight that used to shock me, but now I just feel anger about the injustice. Now it is hard for me not to assume that every older white man I see is just in this land of freedom to find the companionship and love in a poor Thai women that he couldn’t find back home.

It is no big deal to get a 1,000 baht bill and then immediately search for a 7/11 to buy something like water for 8 baht so I can get change. I know that all the street vendors taxis, and motorcycles would moan and groan and show me they cant give me any change if I were to give them such a large bill.

I am used to sweating, sweating, sweating when I step outside even though it is January. Yet, I still always forget to bring a jacket when I go to cafés and am constantly shivering and then hit with the shock of hotness once I amble outside.

Discovering a bathroom with not only toilet paper, but soap AND paper towels is now like winning the lottery and is new gossip I tell my friends. “No way, we need to go to that restaurant/café more often!”

I forget how KFC in America has biscuits and mac and cheese. Now I get spicy chicken Thai-style on rice, and maybe even the fried sushi roll. Ahh, but once I remember about the biscuits, my mouth does water a bit. =)

I have reached the state of being able to ride side-saddle on a motorcycle taxi while gripping the handle behind the seat and holding my burdensome laptop bag with my other hand, as the wind makes my skirt fly a bit. Squeezing between the cars, buses and taxis while performing my balancing act is not an intense scene from an action movie any longer. The taxi is now my chariot ride to work.

Yes, I did step out of my comfort zone to come here, but now this place is becoming my comfort zone. It is hard because I have never been in a country long enough for this to happen, so I wonder as I become comfortable, what else I will learn in these next months I am here.

Ahh, but one thing that still isn’t normal for me is the Thai language. I feel I have gone backwards instead of forwards at times and wonder if I will ever figure out the puzzle of this sing-song tonal language that no matter how I say a word it never is right. Maybe I should get a tutor. I’m looking into that. I can’t wait until it becomes normal for me to carry on a conversation in Thai and not think twice about it.

Wow, I can’t imagine. But then I couldn’t imagine ever feeling comfortable riding on a motorcycle wearing a skirt…so there is always hope! =)

Preparing Paradise

2008-01-17T08:56:00.000-08:00

---i enjoyed getting to know some of the students more and becoming more adjusted to teaching SAT writing after a long 9 days of teaching an intense SAT boot camp..but my soul and body were yearning for a break by the last sunday when we entered into our 4 day holiday...the longest break i have had yet. i have been dreaming to go to ko phi phi ever since i got here. to see the idyllic beach where "the beach" was filmed, snorkel in emerald waters while playing with florescent fish, and of course lay out on the white-washed soft sand by the cool lapping waters..and i got to do it all...and here is a lil excerpt of my time----

Empty as a baseball stadium after the big game ended. The fans are gone, but their remnants are left: ends of hot dogs on the ground, nacho cheese dripping off chairs, and toilet paper decorating the bath-rooms. The workers are the only ones speckled around the seats, cleaning up the mess and preparing for the next big game.

This was Ko Phi Phi, Thailand at 7 a.m. I had arisen early, long before my friends, and was eager to go for a run on the white slip-through-your-toes soft sand, and gaze at the tall, bush covered forest green limestone cliffs gaping over the emerald waters. Ahh, paradise.

I left our wee bungalow and walked across the sandy, brick pathway to the shoreline as the humidity already began to suck the sweat out of me and leave a mark on my turquoise sleeveless shirt.

Stepping on the beach, I realized it wasn’t quite as picturesque as the day before when we had arrived. The sand didn’t look as sparkling amidst the plastic Pepsi bottles, random broken flip-flops, and every few meters an occasional Chang (Thai beer) dark brown glass bottle. And I was the only farang (foreigner) as far as I could see.

Last night I had forgotten for a few hours that tall, stocky people with pale skin and strong accents aren’t the main populace of Thailand. The hordes of farangs from Europe and America in Ko Phi Phi who populate every seaside restaurant, and sunbathe topless on every beach, had brainwashed me into thinking that these creatures are the true natives of Thailand.

But as I dashed down the beach with the sea-breeze grasping my frizzy morning hair, I remembered, “Oh yeah, Thais are the natives of this island, not farangs.”

I was hit with this fact as I ran by the long tail boat taxis. The taxis seemed enchanted and as if they were bobbing in the air because the water was so translucent. The boats were anchored to the shore through long ropes stretched across the sand. Six or seven taxi men were regaling stories in Thai while sitting in a circle around the boats. They were probably discussing how silly farangs are when I dashed by, yet another one to add to their list.

One of them pointed at me, and started to shout something in Thai, which led to everyone else chuckling. I was trying to run even faster to escape their points and stares, pretending I was sprinting the last lap in a 100 meter, when I didn’t see one of the ropes tautly stretched across the sand. I stumbled over it, skidding my knee across the terrain, falling on my face.

Laughter erupted from the Thai men as my cheeks began to look like most every other white person’s face on the island after a day in the sun. I immediately got up without even brushing off my sand smeared legs and ran even faster, now stumbling and leaping over black rocks that stuck out of the ocean, the laugher spurring me on.

No one really wakes up before 9 a.m. in Ko Phi Phi unless they are Thai. And no one ever runs on the beach unless they are a Thai person running away from an Adaman sea monster. And considering those don’t really exist I guess no one runs here and I’m the biggest freak ever. These thoughts were tumbling through my mind as I reached the end of the rocks, around the bend and out of sight from the hecklers. This is when I decided to walk. I was tired of the stares.

But as I walked I discovered I wasn’t the only farang awake on the island and the others were the most amusing stars of the Ko Phi Phi show at 7 a.m.

I meandered past an Italian couple sitting at a table, which would have a perfect spot for a beautiful view of the water and stars at sunset, which is most likely when they had begun sitting there. A night of drinks by the waters edge had transformed their starry eyes into bloodshot red orbs, and their smooth, sweet Italian was now rolling together into indecipherable murmurs.

Later on, I found another couple sprawled on the beach, speaking in English with a thick British accent. The woman was begging the man to tell her “the story.” He said, “That isn’t something one says to a lady at the sunrise of Ko Phi Phi!” She prodded and poked him, much to his delight, pleading for it anyways.

But other than the few drunken farangs, every morning of my stay, I felt like a white, young girl and Thais were the only ones who inhabited Ko Phi Phi.

As I strolled through the quaint alleys in the beach town the only traffic was a few bicycles rattling down the path. Most of the locals I came across would give me a smile that “Thailand--The Land of Smiles” is famous for, and say, “Good Morning! How are you?”

I’m used to the Thais who inhabit Bangkok, who are like the people in most other big cities in the world, they are friendly only when they have to be and tough most other times.

But on this island because of their welcoming greetings, I felt like I was back in the southern America where everyone says, “How y’all doing?” to anyone passing by within a foot’s radius. I guess southern hospitality corresponds not only to America but southern Thailand as well.

Most of the friendly Thais were eating a breakfast of rice soup, chicken and rice, or noodles at rusted tables sitting on faded plastic chairs. They were getting the croissants and jam, and English beans and eggs ready for the rest of the island’s inhabitants. The shopkeepers were listening to Thai radio stations as they put out sarongs, sunscreen, and postcards on their stall fronts. Men from one shop were chatting with their shop neighbors, smiling as the sun pierced their eyes, making the sandy street glow.

The rest of their day is intense for the Thais in which they serve the every whim and wish of the tourist. But at least they have the mornings to themselves, to remind them who they are and to cling to it.

And it turns out I wasn’t the only conscious farang on Ko Phi Phi in the early morning. One day I did find a beach on the other side of the island where freaks like me were running. Of course I joined them because I can’t forget who I am either. And maybe one day those Thai taxi men will try running on the beach and see how refreshing it is. But at least they will know not to trip on the ropes. I’m glad I could give them some tips.

Paparazzi Session Number 2

2007-12-17T07:22:00.000-08:00

The smell of incense, fried food and exhaust greeted me as I turned the corner of Soi 5 Ratchatiwi. I tried to squish swiftly through the typical melee of street vendors, cheap clothes sellers, and commuters on the broken-up sidewalk. At one point, a businessman dashed by me like a sprinter to catch the faded orange bus before it pulled away from the curb. Then a lady boy wearing bright red lipstick and a short skirt swooshed by, getting on the bus right after the businessman. Oh Thailand.

This morning I didn’t get as many of the usual stares when I walk through the street life to the park. I expect the stares, I mean I do sort of stand out. A white girl wearing shorts, tank top and running shoes, while everyone else is dressed for work or school… and of course most are mainly Thai. But today I seemed to blend in a little more, or so I felt. I thought, “Ahh, maybe I’m slowly looking more Thai without even knowing it…”

After about 5 minutes I made it to my refuge, the idyllic park on Soi Ragnam. It feels like a Central Park, manicured peace nestled in the midst of a chaotic crazed city. I breathed a sigh of relief as I started off my first lap around the walking path that circles the small pond, playground area, and picnic tables. Today the fountains were still and silent, but once I was lucky enough to get to watch them do a choreographed dance to inspiring classical music. It was so random it made my day.

I have created a little game for myself as I run at the park. I like to gaze at the people looking bored on the benches that border the walking path and figure out what they are doing and why they are there. I saw one man looking entranced with his cell phone, I assumed he was waiting for his girlfriend to call and she was taking forever. Then I came across an older, slightly overweight man running the opposite direction, wearing a sweat stained grey tank top, punching the air rapidly. I assumed he was an old Thai boxer, still trying his moves, which now aren’t quite up to par.

The next group was three university students sitting on a bench. I could tell they were in university because they were all wearing the traditional university uniforms. The two girls had shorter black skirts, brown belts with a funky clasp, and a white shirt with large silver buttons with the special emblem of the university. The guy had on black pants with the same style shirt. Each one also had a huge camera, which looked like one someone in the paparazzi totes around. I guessed that maybe their professor had asked them to take pics of the flowers arrangements or something. I agreed that the new potted poinsettias mixed with the vibrant green grass was a good contrast for photos..maybe I should have told them..but I sprinted by without another thought.

It was hot already, even though it was only 9:30 a.m. I thought I would be able to miss the heat, but it felt like it was 85 degrees edging its way to 90. The sweltering weather took away some of the pleasure of my run, and led me to beginning to become nice and sweaty, looking a little like the old punching man I had seen earlier. But I didn’t think much about it because it wasn’t like anyone else cared.

I was a few strides away from the photo peeps on my third lap, and noticed that this time instead of staring at their cameras, they were all looking at me with expectant faces. Oh boy.

Suddenly the girl with long dark hair with brown highlights smiles and stands up and waves me over. My good pace came to a stand still after she gave her request,” Can we take your picture?”

Of course I was looking so radiant with sweat slipping down my reddened face. My straggly hair was falling out of my loose ponytail. My shirt was splotched with sweat marks all over, looking like I had been attacked randomly with a hose. My black shorts had ridden up and looked more scandalous than they really were.

Why wouldn’t I want them to take a pic of me?

So there they stood, all three of them, cameras ready. I was told to stand closer to the edge, nearer to some nice bush. I wondered if maybe I should have been in a running position or something, just to spice things up, but no, I stood there awkwardly and smiled as best I could. Then they all grinned and nodded, allowing me to continue my run.

I’m thrilled that the whole photo class at their university gets to analyze and stare at those pics of me, that’s awesome.

And on my next lap around the track they were gone. I suppose my assumption was wrong. Maybe their real task was to go find the sweatiest foreign girl in the park, take a pic, and then once you do that you can return.

I’m glad I helped them out.

LIVING IN A MANSION

2007-12-07T00:34:00.000-08:00

yes, the time has come to leave the days of having maids come in every day to make my bed, give me fresh towels and wash the dishes. now im on my own and must fend for myself...yet again. and I LOVE IT.

i knew since i arrived that i could only stay at good ol' Evergreen Place Service Apartments from the beginning of august-the beginning of december, so i have always been on the look out, wondering where i would wander to next.

my dear friend mariha, who is an apartment finder extraordinaire, helped me discover my new home, KT Mansion. it is about 2 sky strain stops further away from my work, which is really only like 10 minutes more of a commute--not bad at all. two of my friends live down one of the sois right next to mine, and another lives the next skytrain stop over. so it is nice to have my friends as neighbors. and it is cheaper! it is about a little over a $100 cheaper to live here! so it is nice to have some more money to save...or travel with..

it was an adventure living in Evergreen with international students who wanted to make the most of their few months in bangkok. i loved the girls i lived with, they were all chill and we never had any fights or anything. they were sweet to me, but it is nice to not be woken up by them coming home late and seeing random boys on our couch when i walked out in the morning on my way to work. ahh...but i will miss those wacky days a wee bit.

my goal for my new place was to make it homey, a place i wanted to come home to because i discovered living in a hotel isnt exactly ever homey. so to aid the homey factor, i put up all my posters of pictures of my lovely friends, a colorful collage one of my friends made for me, and picture frames...pretty much the room screams sherri once you amble in.

the colors and one of my favorite parts, the bedspread, also add to the sherri-ness. there isnt much variety of cheap bedspreads in bangkok, but i actually found an original one. it is green and blue with flowers and fairies on it. i always wanted to be a fairy, so it makes me happy whenever i look at it. the ruffle around the edge goes a little too far, but other than that it's all good.

my room consists of a small neon green table with two modernistic chairs. i have a black wooden armorie, which matches my TV stand, and vanity desk. my bathroom is old school thai style. the shower is a removable head above the toilet. so there is no shower curtain. so when it is time to shower the whole bathroom becomes a shower room. so it is sort of like i have a walk in shower. hehee..

the only odd part is i dont have a window. no, surprisingly that doesnt mean i live in cave. there is a window in the random storage room where the a/c sits and makes tons of rattling noises. and frosted windows in my bathroom that let in light. but i dont really mind the non-window. the sun always wakes me up anyways, so i thought it would be sort of nice to not have a window for light to stream in at 6am. but oddly, i still wake up automatically at 630-645 everyday, even though my room is totally dark. i have only slept past 645 three times these past 4 months of living in bangkok. what is up with me? i think i might have eternal jet lag or something.

oh, but there is one more odd part. i live right next to Dunsit Commerical College, which means the shortcut through the college closes at 930pm every night. so the other night i walked with my friend home, and then went toward my place, i arrived at the gate a little before 930 to discover it was already locked. i felt like someone during the holocaust who missed curfew and was stuck oustide the ghetto until morning. im not even sure if ever they really did that, but that is what it felt like.

but luckily there is more than one way to get home. but it took an extra 15 minutes of walking fast down a random soi, instead of 2 minutes through the nice safe campus. oh wells! i will learn my lesson...maybe.

so we shall see what adventures lie ahead of me in KT Mansion. woohoo!

KANCHANABURI FLURRY

2007-11-28T08:23:00.000-08:00

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE

I was excited because two weekends go Alice and I had made plans to go to Kanchanaburi, which is about 3 hours north of Bangkok. I had wanted to go ever since my roomies told me about the waterfalls you hike to and go swimming in, and my co-worker related stories to me about how she pet tigers at the tiger temple. So cool! I have decided that traveling is the way I relax, and I needed some of that…

But then Alice couldn’t go because she had a hard week and just wanted to chill in Bangkok. It was understandable, but I was disappointed because I had been looking forward to the trip so much and talking about it all week.

Then one of my friends was like, Sherri, don’t let people stop you from your adventures. Just go on your own! So I was like, yeah, why don’t I!

So even though some people thought I was baa (crazy in Thai), after work on Sunday I packed my small backpack and side bag and then stood on the street to get a taxi to take me and myself to the Southern bus terminal.

After a long, traffic-ful ride, we arrived and I was shoved onto a bus headed for Kanchanaburi. I was the only farang on the bus the entire three-hour trip, which meant I received the usual stares and assumptions that I’m just another tourist. Oh well…

Once we got to Kanchanaburi, the terminal was rather empty, except for this one annoying man who kept telling me that he could take me where I needed to go. I tried to ignore him, and found a taxi man who said he would charge me 80 baht to go to the guesthouse.

The annoying man had tagged along, and said he could do the trip for 40 baht in his bicycle taxi. I got him down to 30 baht, and went with him. He wasn’t so annoying after all..

We rode along through the quiet streets to Apple’s Guesthouse, the one that my Lonely Planet guidebook had raved about. But when we pulled up to the friendly premises, they were dark. The bike-man told me they were full because there were soooo many tourists around, and said he could take me to somewhere else. I didn’t really believe him, but the other place he gave me the flier (he so conveniently had in his back pocket) was a guesthouse I had also read about, Blue Star, and the price for one room was cheaper.

Once we arrived, the owner was so genuine and kind, I thought, why not stay here, plus the room he showed me was so cool… on the outside..

JANE BUT NO TARZAN

It was like a tree-house in a jungle. The bottom floor had the small sketchy bathroom with geckos running amok on the non-flushable toilet. The bedroom was reached by climbing steep steps. It had a nice little porch with a wooden cozy bench and leg rest. So welcoming.

The inside was more like a room a 12 years old stays in when roughing it at summer camp. All it had was a double bed, with no sheets, just a threadbare blanket folded at the end. Then next to the bed was a stool with a small mirror over it. That was it. The screened windows had curtains that looked like they had shrunk over the years and barely covered the windows.

One of the most intriguing parts of the room was the lock on the door, it was just one of those you slide over to keep the door in place, like you find on a bathroom door. Wow, and my number one concern had been finding a room where I felt safe…and the adventure begins.

I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A DATE

I chatted with the nice owner and once I said one thing in Thai he got so excited. I didn’t really chat of course, just said a few words which showed him I was trying to learn his tricky language. One thing I said was that I was hungry. The vocab I know the most has to do with food because it is the most important part of life in Thailand.

The owner said since I was hungry, that his friend who had been staring at me during our convo, could show me to town where I could eat, since he was on his way home. I thought oh, he will walk me to the road and be on his way. That’s cool.

But of course that didn’t really happen. It turns out he was going to take me on his motorbike. He took me to what he called an original Thai place, pretty much a normal food stall on by the road. He ordered minced herb pork with just enough spiciness and an egg over rice. As usual, the food was delicious, which was pretty much our main topic of convo, since I have perfected the world delicious in Thai.

The whole time I would try to say something in English, and he would say, speak Thai. So we had this constant banter of confusion of Thaiglish the whole night. Wow, I was working my lacking Thai skills like mad.

I had mentioned earlier how I wanted to go to the night market. Yet again, I assumed he would drop me at the curb of the market and be on his way. Not so much.

He wandered around with me and seemed to know everyone who worked there. They all pointed at us, and he would say girlfriend. I would sort of chuckle and try to ignore the comment and wanted to escape everyone looking at us. So I browsed everything as quickly as possible while trying to look interested.

After a nice round of girlfriend comments, he asked me how old I was. I said 22. He said he was 33. So then he switched and started to say, “Sister!” This I nodded to and said, “Brother!” in Thai.

Ahh, much better. But still every once in awhile he would say “Girlfriend”? And I would say quickly “”Sister!”

So we left the shopping for another stop at a place where we listened to a live band for a little while. The band was delighted that I was taking pictures of them, and kept telling me each pic was 20 baht. Then the owner got them to play for me the only Thai song I know. Everyone was so nice! Ahh, but finally after many pleadings of “Nuay mak” (very tired) to my tour guide, I got to go back to my lovely tree-house.

Finally, the friendly Thai man left me once I started talking with my neighbors in the next tree house over from Germany. I think they were a couple, and the woman seemed tickled by my enthusiasm and would giggle at how I said things.

It turns out they were in the police force together, which they said is a lot less exciting than the police life in the States, from what they see on TV. Heehee..They were happy when I told them I had German ancestors and told me I needed to learn German. I told them the only word I know is my last name which means Angel. Oh well, that’s something!

Then I had a sleepless night in my camp room, and woke up feeling amazed I was safe and sound. But I thought about how even though I had a fairly non-existent lock on my door, at least I had German police next door to protect me. Who needs secure locks when you have them?

FALLING DOWN

Banana, pineapple and honey pancake. Wow. I was in such heavenly bliss during every bite-ful of my breakfast that morning at Blue Star’s restaurant. The warm slices of banana melted in my mouth with the tang of pineapple to give every bit some zing. The pancake was so thick because of the bananas and pineapples that some of the inside didn’t cook all the way through. Usually I wouldn’t like that, but this even added to the perfection because the gooey sections tasted like cake batter freshly licked from the bowl. Wow. I definitely told the owner, that breakfast was alroy mak (very delicious).

Then after my delightful morning of eating bliss, I made my way to the waterfall. I stood on the road at the designated spot to wait for the bus to come. Right when I was starting to lose hope that I was in the right place a man came to ask me what I was waiting for. He told me the bus was coming down the road and flagged it down for me. I love when you travel alone and little angels pop up to help you at just the right time..

After an hour and a half of bumpy bus ridin, we made it to the Erawan National Park. I started wandering on the muddy trail that would lead me to the first of the seven levels of waterfalls. The park was cooler because of all the trees and there was a constant soundtrack of water gurgling. I was the only one on the path for awhile. I felt like I was one of the fellowship from Lord of the Rings, making my way to Rivendell.

Eventually I came upon four Thai girls taking pictures in front of the first fall I came to. I asked them if they wanted me to take their picture and they merrily accepted my offer.

Then it was as if that one small favor had turned me into their best friend forever. They all wanted pictures with me. One of them took my camera and took pictures of me with them. Then they grabbed my hand and brought me along the trail with them. They were smiling and holding me and excitedly talking to me in English, asking me where I was from and what I do.

I felt so loved, it was so sweet! They were from Krabi, a town in the south of Thailand and were on holiday from their work as nurses. They were all wearing cute shirts, flip-flops and bright make-up. Their attire didn’t really fit the hiking environment, and made me giggle.

After a few levels I said farewell to them because they weren’t going to the top. We hugged and I was on my way.

It really felt like I was in a fantasy land. The water was green blue and see- through. The falls were so gentle, not roaring massive ones, but instead calming for the soul.

Once I made it to the top I went swimming! The pool was not cool and felt so nice on my muddy legs. It was like a magical cleansing pool. What a perfect reward for my efforts…

Once the rain that had been dripping through the leafy top began to drop harder, I remorsefully decided I should head back. So I made my way down the slick trail to where the bus had dropped me off.

TIGER TEMPLE

Thankfully there was a food area there because I was famished. I tried to order from the random man who I thought was the server because he was giving the cooks a lot of orders. He looked at me strangely, but then after I spoke in Thai and he gave the cook my order.

“You speak Thai!” He said excitedly. We spoke some more together and then he invited me to sit with him and his friend. Oops, so he wasn’t the waiter..

It turns out he was the leader of a tour group. They had just seen the waterfalls and were on their way to the Tiger Temple. He asked me if I was going to see the temple the next day. I told him I was leaving that afternoon, so I couldn’t go and was sad.

He was like, no, you have to go! He thought about it for a bit and told me that I could go with his tour group to the temple and then they were going back to Bangkok that night, so they could take me with them if I wanted. The price was about the same or a little cheaper than if I made my way back on my own, and it was much easier, so I was like sweet and agreed.

The driver and the tour guide were so excited I was joining them, and kept trying to talk in Thai to me the whole time. There was about 7 other tourists in the spacious, quiet van. It was delightful, a much more relaxed riding environment than the bouncy, noisy bus.

Wow, the tiger temple was crazy! This monk who wanted to start a wildlife sanctuary opened the tiger temple. The tigers are so calm that you can just walk around them and get your picture taken right next to them. They are so chill because they have been hand-raised by humans so they don’t fear people.

I had heard rumors that really the tigers are drugged, and until I went there I believed everyone. But I really don’t think that is the case. The reason is that a lot of the volunteers who work there are from North America and very much the hippie activist type. I highly doubt that type of people would work at a place that drugged tigers, so I’m pretty certain the cats are just relaxed.

Then I even got to see tiger cubs! They were so cute and a little more active and jumpy than the big cats. The handlers know them so well and would tell us to back off when we needed to. I even got to kiss one, as you can see…

It was such an awesome weekend.

Traveling isn’t about the places you go, but the people you meet.

Yay.

VIETNAM VENTURES

2007-11-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

FIRST IMPRESSIONS WITH AN ELF MAN

One of our first discoveries in Vietnam was that traffic is louder and crazier than that of Bangkok. Yes, it is possible. By our last day we yearned for the miles of cars, which sit silently on the streets, waiting to for their turn to go at the hour-long red lights.

In Hanoi, no one waits, and everyone honks. Honks. Honks. And honks. I felt like the city was made up of a million broken horns that would randomly go off for no reason. Then there were swarms of motorbikes everywhere. It felt like they were killer bees, waiting to attack innocent tourists on the streets if they step the wrong way.

After a honk-full, almost crashing into a million motorbikes drive in the taxi to the center of Hanoi, we soon discovered our driver didn’t really know where our hotel was. Hmm..neither did we.

Our problem was solved when a man who reminded me of a Vietnamese looking Christmas elf came up to our window. He told us to get out. I was freaked out at first. I thought this little man who was a few inches shorter than 5'3 me would take us to a sketchy place in Hanoi and do something evil to us. I wasn’t going to budge.

It turns out he was just the owner of Ocean Star II (the hostel where we had booked our stay) who had used his magical powers to find the taxi. And I really do think he has special powers.

Right away, our elf friend, who turned out to be a boisterous, lovable ball of energy, was eager to help us book a tour for Halong Bay the next day. The problem was he didn’t speak English well. For some reason the way he said sacts, instead of taxes was pretty much the funniest thing in the world to me at the time and I couldn’t stop laughing. This was probably due to lack of food and sleep. Thankfully, he seemed oblivious to my snickers or just thought I was a freak American with laughing issues.

To make matters worse, Vietnamese dong boggled our famished minds to no end. After what seemed like 30 minutes of explanation in broken English we understood that 16,000 dong equaled one American dollar. But trying to add up these huge sums of money that really equal hardly anything is rather exhausting for the brain. It led to even more laughter from me when he was trying to type everything in the calculator, and we kept looking at him with puzzled stares after his lengthy explanations.

Yet the next few days after rest and food, I became saner and the elf man took a liking to me for some reason. He started to call me his girlfriend. I wanted to say you are too short to be my boyfriend, but didn’t want to hurt him too bad. So he had fun telling people I was his girlfriend, giving me hugs, dancing with me, and kissing me on the cheek.

Now I can say I had a Vietnamese Christmas elf guy for a boyfriend. How delightful! He really made our stay a silly, fun time. So much so that the annoyance soon vanished away that our water didn’t work much, a cockroach ran over Ja one morning and our room was made for a one and a half person and not three.

BAY BABES

The next day we rode in a van for about 3-hours outside of Hanoi to Halong Bay. We passed by farming towns, and stared at men and women working in the rice paddies with the famous straw cone hats. At first I thought these hats were worn for the tourists’ sake, but they actually do wear them for a purpose.. to keep the sun off and to stay cool.

Our van was full of characters. Our tour guide, yet again was lacking in English skills, even though his occupation is an English tour guide for Halong Bay. We had four guys from Switzerland who right away I knew were going to make things fun.

I guessed they were in a hardcore band when I first saw them because of their skating shoes, tattoos, and punk hats. I had never heard punk people speak elegant French before, so that was a cool combo. They are on a tour of the world for 20 months, if their money lasts that is..I was so inspired by them and wish that one day I can take a few months off of life and do the same. Wow, we shall see…Anyone want to join?

When we got on our boat at the bay, it felt like we were on an ancient Asian vessel, prowling the waters. First we went to a fishing village. I was so in awe because people actually live on houseboats, in the village. They don’t live on the land at all. They go to school in a building in the middle of the water. So crazy! We were discussing how boring it would be to live there if you weren’t used to it. The most exciting thing would be to swim over to your neighbor and talk about the catch of the day. Whoa, thankfully I wasn’t born into the life of Halong Bay fishing village…more power to the people who were..

Then we went into some caves, which were part of the UNESCO world heritage site. They were full of stalagmites lit up by different colored lights, like fluorescent green, purple and blue. It felt like we were in a club turned into a cave.

Our tour guide kept pointing at different stalagmites saying, “This is a dragon, do you see the dragon?” And all ten of us would look at each other, trying to decipher what he said and would be like. “No….” And then the Swiss guys would start yelling “Dragon, dragon!” And we would all laugh and stare and still not see it.

Once he told us one of the funky rocky things was Romeo and Juliet in the duck. What? We all looked at each other. What is he saying? Duck? Duck? Hmmm dark? But still it didn’t make sense. At one point he said, “Am I confusing?” I thought of saying yes, but didn’t think it would help much, so I just smiled and said “No! You are fine.” Yet another delightful character to add to our mix.

BIG TV

We were going to spend the next day going around Hanoi and looking at the sites of the city. First of all we shopped and bought cutesy Vietnamese hat decorations. Then we went to some cool gardens and the first Vietnamese library, where the books are huge stone tablets that have Chinese characters engraved in them. Eventually we went to the Ho Chi Min museum. That was interesting because none of us were quite sure who he was, and the whole modernistic, funky museum was very supportive of him.

But eventually we were so exhausted after walking around the whole city for hours that we needed to relax. We decided to try to see a Vietnamese movie at the theater. We found the nice little man who had been taking us around the city in his little bicycle chariot where he drives in the back and we ride in the front.

It is perfect because you have an unblemished view of the city streets---the huge tall trees lining the roads amidst the tall, slender, elegant French-style architecture, the women carrying poles on their backs laden with fruit baskets at each end, and the Vietnamese on lunch breaks chowing down at street stalls.

So we told him, “We want to see a movie.”
“Oh! You want to go shopping?”
“No, we want to see a film.” (We begin pantomiming watching a film.)
“Oh! You want to get food?”
“No, we want to go to the theater.” (Pantomiming even more exuberantly now.)
“Oh! You want to go to hotel?”
“No, we want to go to the cinema.” (Giving up pantomiming)

This banter continued for a while, much to everyone’s frustration. Finally I said, “We want to see big TV!”
“Big TV! Oh yes! Big TV! I know! I take you!” He pantomimes a big TV.

We all giggled at the fact that it took him so long and were ecstatic to finally have broken the language barrier.

We got in two different bicycle chariots and after about 20 minutes we realized after passing the same spot we had been picked up, that our faithful driver didn’t know where he was going. Yet, after awhile, he finally stopped and said, “Big TV!”

Ahh, we looked over and saw a TV store selling Panasonic TVs, not just any TVs though, big ones.

NO, no! We tried to tell him that it wasn’t what we wanted. “But big TV!” he pointed. A man on the street tried to help us too, but he had never heard of the word movie theater either. Eventually we gave up on the movie option and decided to try to have him take us to somewhere close by on the map, we pointed at a theater where they put on plays and asked him to take us there.

He seemed to know where that was so we drove along for another 20 minutes until he pulled up to a bookstore. NO! A bookstore?! We started to tell him it was wrong, but finally decided to just get out.

We gave him 30,000 dong, the first agreed on price, but he was annoyed as well. “No! More money! I drove around and around!”
“But you didn’t take us where we wanted to go!” So we made a dash inside the bookstore, to hide-out from the disgruntled driver.

We never found our movie theater, but a sweet lady in the book store immediately knew what we were talking about when we asked. It was too faraway to go to, but oh well. We learned overall in Vietnam that even if people appear to speak English, looks can be quite deceiving.

SAIGON YUM

I know you must be astonished that I haven’t spoken about food yet. But I saved it for now because I wanted this blog entry to have a nice ending.

The night we arrived, my first sight of food stalls added to my laughing problem. Many people in Hanoi sit on little tiny chairs at the street vendor stalls. It looks like the adults have pulled up to the kid’s table at Thanksgiving. It was so cute to see the stools, and we couldn’t get over them. Look for pics online…

The first night we walked to the first food stall we saw and sat down on the wee chairs. For about a dollar each, we feasted on Vietnamese style BBQ. Each table had its’ own grill with a Bunsen burner like thing under it, where we put beef and cooked it ourselves. They also gave us green onions and tomatoes to add to the beef. With our chopsticks we pushed it around on the grill until it was just the right shade of well-done but not too burnt. Then we dipped it with a tomato in a rather Thai tasting spicy, flavorful sauce, and it was perfect! Or maybe it was also that we were starved, either way it was fun.

We also saw the French influence because they served us baguettes with the meal, so different from Thailand where bread is scarce at most food stalls. Then for breakfast at Ocean Star II we also had baguettes with eggs, as well as Vietnamese pho.

Alice was super excited about foo, a noodle soup with chicken and herbs, because she had it all the time at home in Calli. But she was disappointed because she said it tastes better in Callifornia. Heehee..I didn’t think it was too bad, but I enjoy Thai soups better cuz I think they have more flavor. Maybe I will just have to eat pho in California though before I decide Thai noodle soup is better..

Oh man! And the coffee! So good! I was eager to try Vietnamese-style coffee that I had heard about in the States. One morning after eating some dough bread for breakfast we went to a café, which even had the mini-chairs. The coffee was brought in a small clear glass with a spoon in it. I mixed the coffee with the sweetened condensed milk that was at the bottom of the glass. It had such a rich, strong taste. It was like eating a brownie minus the chocolate.

Later on we indulged at a fancy café where I got my own mini-press pot of coffee on top of my cup. Then I after letting the coffee seep for about 5 minutes I mixed it with the milk. Yet again it was amazing. Of course since caffeine and me are mortal enemies, I was up all night after my two coffees in one day. But hey, I’m only in Vietnam once, so I don’t regret it too much..

Our last food delight was when we treated ourselves to a nicer restaurant. We got a dish where they give you circular sheets of rice paper, which looks just like wax paper, and we put sticky green, and white noodles, basil, cucumbers, pork ribs, and a spicy sauce and rolled it up like a wrap. Wow, so cool! Ahh, as one of my co-workers says, the joys of being mortal, being able to indulge in delicious food.

NEXT STEP

I hope I survive another week of intense work. If I keep thinking about elfs and big TVs and laughing..I think I can make it through.

Woohoo!

ON HOLIDAY...for a day

2007-10-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

DETOX

Hmm, I think this was one of my hardest weeks at work so far. I thought in Thailand I could escape the stress and pressure America puts on me, but I was not so elusive, because this week my enemy found me once again---no fair.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we started Jr. Elite this past week. I enjoy teaching the kids writing, doing silent reading, helping them with their homework and doing a book club on Charlotte’s Web, but it is for 3 hours on Wednesday and Friday. I used to spend that time planning and preparing for my other classes, the 9th and 10th grade book club and intense SAT writing. Yeah, so since I didn’t have as much time to plan and another class to plan for, I was freaking out.

Somehow after much journal writing at how stressed I was and going out with my friends and not thinking about the pressure, I made it through. Ahh, but the best detox from the stress I got was yesterday…

At work on Sunday, Ja, my director, was like, hey, what are you doing tomorrow? I wasn’t really planning on doing anything, except not thinking about work. She said, “Let’s go to the beach for the day, want to? I think we need it.” Wow, these words gave my body and soul such joy I was about to start break-dancing in the office.

The next day, Ja, Alice and I groggily jumped in a 15-passenger van at 7 a.m. to take us to Hua Hin, a beach about 2 hours and 40 minutes away from Bangkok. I munched on my just ripe enough, juicy, the perfect shade of yellow pineapple as we bumped along in the van which by some miracle was speeding along, evading most of Bangkok’s horrendous traffic.

Ahh, thankfully Ja has been to Hua Hin four times, so Alice and I didn’t have to go through our usual intense time of arriving somewhere, jumping off the bus and feeling completely lost. Our first hour typically consists of showing pictures from our guidebook to taxi drivers while using our Thainglish to ask them to take us there. What a blessing local friends are to directionally challenged people..

Of course we needed food to give us the necessary strength to lay on the beach all day, so that was our first stop. Ja told us Hua Hin is apparently well known for their pork satay, or moo-satay, in Thai. The roasted strips of pork on a stick are dipped in a thick smooth peanut sauce. The sauce goes perfectly with the pork, as most sauces do in what is my favorite culinary world.

Moo-satay was one of our appetizers included in our feast of chicken and rice, and prawn noodle soup we gobbled up at a typical street restaurant. These mom and pop-like diners are open-air, with concrete walls and floor. The Thai customers sit on the faded multi-colored plastic chairs pulled around metal rusted tables that always have a few containers of spicy seasonings to add to the already catch-your-mouth-on-fire-with-flavor dishes.

Our next mission was to find our spot in the smooth slip through your fingers sand piled up in front of the calm, lapping, not-to-warm-not-to-cool waters. First we had to navigate around the rows of beach chairs for rent, bypassing all the sellers of grilled corn, jewelry, bags, and juice. Horses were dotted all over the beach, standing still, guarded by their owners who pleaded you to take a ride down the beach for 50 baht. But eventually after getting through the melee, we rented a straw mat, and found a covert spot under the shade of a beachy tree.

I was with Alice, and Ja, who like many Asians will do anything, even put on whitening lotion, to get whiter. As a result they wanted to hide away from the sun. Of course, me being white, I wanted to get darker. Why are we never content with who we are? But I didn’t mind the shade. When I got tired of the shade, I laid out my towel in the sun. I tried to be extra careful to control my desire for the bright rays so I wouldn’t turn into a deliciously red lobster like I had at Pattaya.

For quite a few moments yesterday I felt as though I had sneaked into paradise or at least that I was on the border, getting a sneak peek. The ocean breeze danced over us as we lay under the tree, where we lost ourselves in books and chocolate ice cream cones.

After our intense relaxing on the sand, it was time for swimming lessons with Sherri in the water that was so still it was like a pool. Alice and Ja don’t know how to swim, so I tried to help them out a bit. I think they made progress; they were almost floating and even dog paddling. I was proud…but they weren’t quite as impressed with their new-found skills. Oh well…maybe I should learn how to teach swimming, that might be my next venture.

Of course we had to pee after awhile..but in Thailand the most silly form of exploitation happens when it comes to toilets. The places where it is a must to use the toilet, such as bus stops and beaches, you have to pay a few baht to use them. Even though these bathrooms are always the worst. It really makes no sense to me to pay to use toilets that are equivalent to the sanitary conditions of a greasy gas station combined with a Kenyan outhouse. But of course we had to succumb because we had to go, so we brought our 5 baht and began the trek.

An inviting resort caught our eye on our way…The southern plantation style buildings, with an expansive garden of trees carved into elephants, birds and giraffes, inspired me. There had to be toilets here—free, nice toilets. Alice and I walked with purpose past the guard, and decided to make it our goal to find a toilet. We uncovered our prize next to the refined patio, and casually strolled in. There was no one there, and there was even real hand soap and towels---two things which are a rare commodity in any toilet in Thailand. But after our second time of la te da walking in, the guard seemed to catch on. I think when we went back with Ja, she threw him off because she was the only non-farang on the premises. She decided if he tired to speak to her she would pretend like she didn’t know Thai. But right when he was about to say something to us we quickly walked out and scampered down the beach. Heehee..

But Ja wasn’t the only one getting caught for being Thai. When I asked in Thai to the Thai coconut seller how much the coconuts were, he said, “Wow, are you from Thailand?” Of course I’m sure it is easy to mistake me for being Thai. I mean my light brown/blondish hair, pale skin, and round eyes could fool anyone, but I was still surprised at his comment. I quickly assured him I was American, and he was like, oh, ok. Hmm..maybe my Thai is better than I thought…

Wow, then the perfect end to our perfect day. An soul satisfying meal overlooking the ocean. I didn’t know crab curry, chicken in coconut milk, and vegetables in oyster sauce all mingled and mixed with rice could make me feel so content.

We were sitting, scraping our plates as we watched the sun pinken the sky, discussing how life is meant to be enjoyed and not just breezed through. Im glad that God wants us to rejoice, to eat drink and be merry.

Now I go to work tomorrow. Hmm…can I handle it?

Vietnam in 6 days.. =)

all over the place

2007-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

INTENSE

this has been a crazy last two weeks...our new program started up this week and i feel rather overwhelmed and am wondering if i can really handle this whole teaching thing. but i love the 3rd and 4th graders im teaching. they are so eager to ask questions and be responsive to whatever i do. they are quite unlike some of my 9-11th graders who sit there looking too cool and not answering when i ask anything. but of course i like both classes, each one has its' own challenges and joys or whatever...

im going to post a new entry today or tomm, but i wanted to just give the link again to anyone who wants to see a few more pics...snake farm, and autthaya..fun stuff!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

will blog soon! =)

DISTURBERS OF THE PEACE

2007-10-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

DEFACING AYUTTHYA

ahh! my thai class ended last friday. i left good ol' krhu pussadee's classroom with bittersweet feelings. i was sad that i wont be learning new thai everyday, laughing at my khru's impersenations of all of us (she always made fun of how i laughed, yawned a lot and would say, "what??!" when i was confused) and hanging out with my korean and japanese classmates. but i was oh so happy to finally have days completely off to do whatever i want! no way!

so with my new found freedom, three of my closest bangkok friends and i decided to go on a small adventure to the old capital city, ayutthya, to see the ruins of wats (temples) and the old grand palace. we hopped a small minivan for 60 baht, equal to a few dollars, to drive us about a little over an hour north of bangkok.

we saw the ruins mainly as a large playground. we clambered up their steep steps to the top where people left goodies for the gods, like milk and doramen stuffed animals. we saw a towering golden buddha in one of the temples, and a buddha head wrapped up in the roots of an old tree. he was all over the place.

one of the last ruins we went to had many buddha statues in a line, all of them were so ancient that the heads had worn/fallen off. so of course, we thought of the brillant scheme, why dont we take pictures with our heads as buddha's head, since he doesnt have one. how fun that would be!

neal, mariha and i got in position just right so that only our heads were popping up over the stone statue. as alice was preparing to take the shot, i see a security guard man come running up to where we are. i smiled, thinking, oh, he is amused at what we are doing. he thinks it's funny and cute!

but as he got closer, he didnt look so delighted. actually he wasnt laughing, but yelling, "no! give me your camera! 200 baht, 200 baht!" we scattered. but he chased us, taking two of our cameras, pressing buttons frantically.

another guard runs up, digs behind the statues to pull up a rusty faded sign that has scrawled on it, "dont climb on ruins" and maybe something else was on there too about taking pictures.. and waves it in our faces. i wrenched my camera away, showing him we deleted the picture, yet he was still yelling, "200 baht!" we kept saying, "no, no!" and scurried away into a clearing. he followed us for a bit like a stray dog hungry for meat, but eventually he lost interest and decided we werent worth the effort and went back to his task of guarding the headless buddhas.

i was sufficently freaked out and kept thinking he was going to get us and send us to the police or something. we didnt want to go back and contemplated jumping the ruin wall and scaling the bushes on the other side to reach the road, but the barb wire fence didnt seem so inviting. instead we just speed walked to the exit and breathed a sigh/laugh of relief once we left.

lesson learned! dont pretend to be buddha. ever. one of our friends was aghast when we told them what we did. wow, it's like if you saw someone pretending to be jesus, stretching your arms on a cross and taking pictures merrily. oh man, when you put it that way it just sounds so bad. oopps..at least we can claim ignorance...

ELITE TIMES

teaching is hard! but rewarding. i have heard that so much, but now i finally truly believe the cliche.

my first few weeks of teaching book club didnt go so hot. the cell book i wrote about earlier that i said i was going to teach, was loved by my students almost as much as i loved it. which wasnt much at all. as a result two students dropped out of my class, one called the director and said she cried everyday the first week of book club after attempting to read the book cuz she didnt understand it. oh the guilt that burned in me! but we didnt chose the book, the main Elite in the states choses the books, and we just do them. so they kept saying it wasnt my fault, but still! i made a student cry my first week! ah!

then after another student dropped out, the education director told me we were going to drop hard cell book no one liked, and do short stories instead. what a relief! and the director had done them before so she already had a lot of lesson plans.

i thought it would be better but this week two more students dropped because they thought it was silly to do short stories and not a real book. oh my goodness! but they said they will come back fo the next book in three weeks. wow, so here goes the new teacher dropping enrollment like crazy.

then at our staff meeting the topic came up on how we dont have as many students registered for classes this month. which means low profits, which means not making budget, which means not being able to give as much money to the non-profit we support as we need to. the discussion led to how the teachers need to make our classes fun so that students want to stay because of loyalty to the teacher. so i was feeling a bit pressured, but i realize that its not really up to me. i know God will give me the strength i need and wisdom for fun ideas. i hope He does at least, cuz i need it bad.

but i really enjoy helping the SAT students, especially when they have questions after class or about their essays. it is sweet to try to help them and then seeing them do better. wow, i guess it is cool to see the whole process of teaching work, you tell them something, they apply it, they improve. what a cool concept when it actually all flows like it should.

FUN STUFF BLURBS:

-i went to the snake farm! we saw snakes get their venom sucked out, and i got to have a heavy smooth rubbery feeling python chill on my shoulders. fun times!

-today i went to the bangkok refugee center to help teach english. i went with alice, who is the other teacher at Elite, and a woman from my church. we went to three different classrooms to teach kiddos. we sang songs, and helped work on pronounciation of tricky sounds like "th", "l", and "r".

most of the refugees are from laos, china, sri lanka, nepal, and congo. i was so excited to see two of my former students i taught during my CELTA training there! i will hopefully be going back every tuesday i have free to teach for an hour or so. but it is so hard to be there, to think of the refugees and how they are stuck-- jobless and homeless, waiting for hope. yet, it is a joy to be there and have a chance to try to love on them and give them a taste of the hope they are waiting for.

-im going to vietnam!! im so excited. ja, the director of elilte, alice, and i are going nov. 4-6 fot the weekend. ja found a super cheap ticket on air asia one day and was like, want to go to vietnam? sure! so were going! im so excited to experience another place...its so sweet how close all these places are that you can just go to another country for the weekend. i feel so blessed..i cant wait!

mondays in bangkok

2007-10-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

SI LUAN (yellow in thai..im learning something!)

i was peering over the second level of the skytrain stop, gazing at the sun already high in the bluer than normal bangkok sky. i always like to look out over the street vendors starting up their sales with the regulars while i wait for the train to come. i feel like a spy, trying to capture every detail so i can report on it later. as usual, after around 5 minutes or so the train arrived..

i stepped over the gap, into the skytrain car. it was 730am, which means everyone in the entire city of bangkok is on the skytrain going to work or school. this is where my old mosh pit skills come in handy, squeezing into a mob of people and standing strong. i try to shift my body weight with the movement of the car, so i dont go crashing like dominos into the sea of yellow engulfing me.

yes, yellow. this is the king's color, and every monday most thais don some sort of yellow polo shirt to show their love and honor for the king. there are many variations, but most have a pink, golden, blue threaded emblem of the king on the left side in the design of what i think looks like a little palace turret. some polos have sky blue collars, others orange. on the sleeves of some, like mine, love the king is embroiderded, or long live the king. and most every thai person wears them, it's like the country is in uniform on monday.

once i got off the train at 8am on in one of the busiest skytrain stations. i started to walk toward my exit, but all the sudden the yellow sea around me was frozen in place. it was like i was in a play, and the other actors froze around me, and i was in the spotlight, the only one still moving. i realized quickly that i should stop too, and that i hadnt noticed the traditional thai music blasting in the station. this is what had triggered the stop in time. at 8am everyday and 6pm music is played to honor the king and pay respect to him by stopping what you are doing until the music stops. good to know.

i had just gotten cozy in my red chair, rocking it back and forth a little. the previews so far had lasted about 25 minutes, most of them promoting local thai films, many of them looked like cheezy teenage flicks, or weirded out excessively gory horror movies. then the lights got darker, ahh..the movie was finally starting. but no...everyone begins to stand around me. i of course follow suit, hoping to avoid being the stared at forienger who doesnt know what she is doing. the familiar, but different melody of traditional thai music drifts gently out of the surround sound. we all are staring at a presentation showing the benevolence and kindness of the king, in all aspects of life. after 2 minutes or so it ends and we sit. the film now has permission to officially begin.

his face is everywhere. emblazzoned on skyscrapers, his portrait is in restrooms, restaurants, even gas stations. he is always sitting there, watching us all in bangkok. yet after awhile you dont really notice his presence. he is just another part of daily life.

it is odd to hardly ever hear anyone talking bad about the king, like i hear people in the states talking bad about the president or anyone in power in the states. it was almost eerie at first for me to see people giving such honor to a person in power. my american self isnt used to such respect for authority. but i must say, he really is a good king. he cares for his people so much, and has been known to go to villages and hand out food to the people there. treating them like they are just as important as the political people he meets with everyday. because they are.

yeah, but it is still weird for me on mondays. i always forget what day it is, and then im gently reminded every morning as im squished in the yellow. it is still hard for me to understand, but i guess i dont really need to. i just need to make sure i stand still when im suppose to, stand up when i should, and never ever ever diss the king.

PRESSING ON

thanks for your care and prayers for me while im trying to grieve. it doesnt seem as real now as it did last week that my aunt is gone. i guess that is how things go. i wanted to be grieving with my fam for awhile, but i know i need to be here. even though it is hard. please continue to pray for my fam..that would be great. it's great to feel love even miles and oceans away from friends. such a blessing..

refining

2007-09-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

of course, life is hard at times...cuz that is life. we weren't created for an easy pain-free existence. we were created for more. that is what i have learned this past week after hearing on wednesday that my aunt beth, who was in the car accident a few weeks ago, passed away.

i cant really describe the weirdness of having someone die when you are so faraway. it is hard to say good-bye when in my mind she could still at home. im not there, how do i know she is really gone? it doesnt seem real. it was a painful few days of feeling so alone and like no one understood what was going on, but God has given me encouragement. after finally sharing with my friends here what happened, God has comforted me through them and through my amazing friends from home who have emailed me love and hugs, which is what i really needed right now.

i wasnt able to attend the funeral, but i wrote something that was read at the memorial service. i dont like being all open and gushy on my blog, but i think i will post what i wrote. i dont think it's that great because words seems so shalow when stuff like this happens. but i want to post it so everyone can read about my aunt, and why she meant so much to me and everyone she came in contact with. i want her example to live on forever.

MY AUNT BETH

About four weeks ago I was eating a lunch of spicy green curry at my Thai friend’s house. She was telling me about her aunt and how successful she was and how she admired her so much for working her way up the business ladder. This of course made me think of my Aunt Beth and how proud I am of her for different reasons. While my mouth tingled from my lunch, I began to boast to her about how amazing my Aunt Beth was.

I told her of my Aunt Beth’s typical day. She stood for her 8-hour shift as a cashier, scanning any garden supplies someone may need while blessing everyone who was lucky enough to go through her line that day. Driving away from Lowe’s, her fingers clutching the wheel were stained brown from the potting soil of the flowers that she found on sale to bring to my gardening mother. She zoomed home to switch cars to drive the handicap van to pick up my Aunt Rachel right when she finished working at the library. After walking in the door, she put a scrumptious dish in the oven right away, such as chicken a la king for dinner. Then she washed the stack of dishes that never seemed to disappear, while she picked up anything dropped on the floor during the day that my aunt or grandma couldn’t reach. If there was any time left before going to bed she might call up her dear friend since childhood who works in Pennsylvania to see how she is doing. Or maybe she could make cookies for her nieces to send them since they are all away at college. Or she might make a snack to bring to Sunday school the next day for church. Oh tomorrow is her day off! That means she would have time to pick up her friend who can no longer drive and take her out shopping and then get lunch.

She never stopped, but what is even more amazing is she never complained. I’m sure there were days when she got upset, when she didn’t want to go anymore, when she just wanted to quit, because Aunt Beth was human. But even if she felt like that, she still persevered. She might not have seen any reward for all her hard work day after day, never getting the praise she deserved. But that is not what she was living for, so maybe that is why you didn’t hear her complain much.

When I told my Thai friend about her she was in awe. But I hope she doesn’t see just that my Aunt Beth was so serving and giving, but I hope she sees that she didn’t do it for herself but because she lived for more than herself. She wasn’t living for the customers at the store, or her co-workers. She wasn’t living for her mother, her sisters, her brothers, or any other family. She wasn’t living for her friends. She was living for God. She wrote me a note when I went to New Zealand that she put in a present that said, “Open this when you feel lonely.” It says: “Sherri, I love you. I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Remember, God is always with you and He loves you very much. Aunt Beth.” That was her motivation for serving, not to try to win God’s love or the love of others, but to simply show others how God loves them very much.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen in eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

Teach the teacher..

2007-09-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

DAY ONE DONE!

i taught for the first time at elite prep on sunday! ahhh! i was freaking myself out for most of the week. i was thinking, wow, how am i going to do this? i know NOTHING about how to prep people for the SAT..except for the fact that i wore a superman t-shirt and listened to classical music the night before i took it my second time because that was suppose to help you get a better score. yeah...and my score only went up 10 points after such efforts. astonishing!

yet, the place that we get our material from to teach our classes is so awesome. they give us all the grammar lessons we teach, so our job is to prep like crazy so we can become pros when instructing the 11th and 12th graders...acting as if we know what we are doing. at least that is what i was doing.

so i taught two different sessions for an hour and a half..even though i thought i wouldnt be able to fit everything in, it went by super fast, and i did have time to do stuff i didnt think i would be able to do.

i thought i would have to be really mean so i could keep control in the class, but most of the kids are pretty quiet and didnt give me any trouble...yet..but if they do such things as speak in a language other than english there is recourse. they have to eat a harry potter jelly bean, one of the gross flavors like vomit and boggers. they have to tell you what it tastes like too cuz if they dont they might have just swallowed it. i told the kids, i love harry potter, so i would be eager to spread some harry potter fun if i hear any other languages. most of the kids just looked freaked out after i said that, but someone in the second class laughed. how nice of them.

now i get to prepare to teach book club on saturday. i hope i can come up with some good curriculum for this 3-hour book club class on lives of a cell. how do i make a book about how all the world is like a cell exciting? im sure i will find a way...at least i hope so. i dont want the kids to hate me right away for giving them a boring book. maybe later, but not immediately.

GETTING TAUGHT THAI

i started my thai class yesterday. its going to be mon-fri from 8am-noon. it's intense! there are about 12 students in the class, most of them are korean, two are japanese, one english dude, and then me and my korean american friend from work. my khru (that means teacher in thai-- its not her first name which is what i thought for the first hour of class) is so hilarious! she will make fun of us when we say things funny or weird, but in a good way that makes the class lighthearted and not stressful. so she has been having lots of fun with me.

i usually am unsure about how to pronounce the vowels and constonants, and the five different tonal sounds, so when it's my turn to speak i say my answer in a confused, unsure way. khru kept laughing at me, and told me she loved me. at least i bring her some amusement! my homework is to learn my thai numbers. we have to go around and say how many problems we got wrong after we do an exercise, and i was the only one who couldnt remember how to say the numbers in thai. so i kept asking my friend secretly..khru caught on..oh well, she said next week if we speak in another language than thai we have to pay her 15 baht to go toward her future trip to hong kong. at least it's better than a harry potter jelly bean.

to bed i go...leave some love. =)

shake it like a polaroid picture

2007-09-13T08:45:00.001-07:00

yes, these are little bunnies wearing outfits. this is at jj mart, a ginormous flea market where they sell everything from bunnies to jewelry to living room furniture to cute bags.

see a wee bit more pics, including pattaya...http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

Life does exist outside Bangkok!

2007-09-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

FLEEING THE CITY

i have been pondering, do people live outside of the bustling city of bangkok? is there really more to thailand?

i discovered on monday there is! yeah, it's pretty amazing. i had the day off and of course i wanted to travel somewhere. especially since next week i start my thai language course! im so excited because elite, the place where im working, want the new teachers to go so we can adjust better to thailand. i cant wait cuz maybe after the course i will know when thai people are talking about me, so i can say something smart to them! oh, and it will also be nice, so i can show them how i want to learn their language too..

but i will be taking the course mon-fri in the morning before work, which means i dont really have any days off completely for a month. so if i wanted to see something...i had to do it now!

of course it is hard to find people to travel on mondays and tuesdays since most people are working. but my friend mariha, who is from england, said she would love to go somewhere with me! she arrived in bangkok a week ago to try to find a teaching job. then we met randomly at my friend's hostel. she just got a job, and hadnt started yet, so i got a travel buddy for the day!

i wanted to go to the beach so badly just to chill out. so we took the bus to pattaya, the closest beach...it was suppose to be a two hour journey, but it turned into four hours since the man with a lazy eye who worked for the driver kept leaping off the bus every 5 km to get more people to come on or he would buy food or chat with someone. it reminded me of kenya bus transport, at least there werent any chickens on it.

but we left early, so we still had time to relax on the beach. but first we got mangos with sticky rice and coconut milk!! it is a famous thai dessert, but i hadnt really seen it at many places yet. but they had perfect yellow mangos everywhere on the streets. so we stopped and had some for lunch..instead of dessert, but when you are on holiday anything goes. it was such a great combination-- the sticky, slightly salty rice with the sweet, soft, juicy mango and the smooth coconut milk to top it off. wow, i was in heaven for a little while.

then we chilled out on the beach for like five hours. so pattaya is more on the myrtle beach type of town since it is rather touristy and the tourists like to leave their trash behind on the shore. but i didnt mind, it was a beach and it was warm and i had a book. it was perfect, just what i needed. the only annoying thing was as we sat in our rented beach chairs, vendors would wander up to us trying to sell ice cream, perfume, fake coach bags, and fried spring rolls. i would look at my book and try to ignore them, but they were like flies that buzz around and even when you flick them away they just keep coming back.

ahhh...then we reached the point where we thought our arms were about to burn off, so it was time to go home. it only took two hours to go home. wow, but im so burnt. i couldnt sleep last night because i felt like my body was on fire. ahh...and i even wore sunblock. but it wasnt a bad price to pay for my first venture outside the city of life.

WORKING GIRL

so i completed my first week of a full-time job...and i enjoyed it! no way!

wed-fri i worked 11-7, which is perfect for a morning person like me..i can just make the most of my time. so nice..

since my first week was mainly observing, wed-fri i piddled around the office, asking my director if she needed any help. i did random stuff like define 190 words for one of the books i will be teaching at a book club. but even stuff like that i enjoy cuz i love words.

so i guess i should give the basics of what i will be up to. wed-fri is when we prep for the weekend when we teach. on saturday im going to be teaching a book club in the afternoon for three hours to 9-10th graders. the book club is suppose to help prepare them for the SAT without them knowing it sort of thing because its fun.

i thought i was going to teach two book club classes on two different books, so i read both of them intensely this past week. then my director walks in today, sits down to tell me that one thing she has learned while living in bangkok is how to be flexible..so im not going to actually teach those two classes, but teach another one and teach on a different book.

i was down with that because this morning i had attained a state of "oh my goodness..how am i going to prepare to teach two different three hour classes on the same day?! ahhhh!" so after she told me the change in plans, i felt more peace. yet, it was too bad i read those other books and im not doing them. i really liked one of them. "the unwanted" by kien nguyen. it's quite a graphic memoir of the life of a vietnamese american boy and his escape from vietnam after the war. so good, it really makes you appreciate freedom.

now i get to read and do a book club on "lives of a cell", which is just about as exciting as the title sounds. but it's ok, it might appeal to some of the kids, and that is all that matters. i can make it fun! at least that is what i tell myself..

then on THIS sunday i get to teach two one and a half hour classes on SAT writing. i love writing, but explaining all the grammar rules and such is going to be tough. especially to these crazy smart kids. when i was observing this one class this one girl just kept asking why why why...and i was like, wow, im glad im not up there trying to answer. but then i remembered i will be there this week. wow, at least when im weak, God is strong. =)

ok, im tired and not really going to read over the blog before i post it so please excuse the grammar mistakes and if my thoughts dont connect well. im going running tomorrow with a girl i work with at the park with the weird lizard so i have to get my rest in case i have to defend myself. thanks for reading..it makes me happy!

i will post pics soon...

im CELTAFIED

2007-09-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

DIVINE VACUUM CLEANERS

so i taught my last observed class on tuesday. i was worried about it because i wanted to end on a good note. i wanted to feel like i came into the course knowing nothing about teaching at all, and now feel like i had learned a thing or two.

amazingly, my lesson went better than i thought it would, there were only a few mess ups…the reading i chose for the students was about buddhists monks in malaysia and how they couldn’t kill fire ants that were harming them during meditation because monks cant harm a living creature.

i wanted them to read the article to find out the method the monks used to try to get rid of the ants. it was with a vacuum cleaner. yet, i didn’t realize that in thailand, not many people use vacuum cleaners, since everyone usually uses brooms. so the students didn’t understand the question since I didn’t pre-teach vacuum cleaner…the things you learn when teaching in this land..

then one of my true/false questions was, if someone did kill the ants the monks would say it was the will of God. it was false, because the monks said it was the will of the universe, not God. yet, every student had it as true. this is because for most of them, since they are Buddhist, the universe and God are the same thing. yet, to me, they are totally different concepts. the students looked at me like i was a freak, when i tried to explain that it was false...go sherri, way to confuse innocent students yet again.

but it turns out, even though i had some lacking-in-awareness-of-the-culture-of-your-students-problems, i still got an above standard for my last lesson!! i was so excited and so relieved! i learned something!

WORTH IT?!

so all in all the course definitely was a GOOD thing, and i learned soooooo much through the intense, crazy four weeks. many of my classmates have been teachers for awhile, so the class radically changed a lot of the ways they look at teaching and helped them get rid of bad habits. yet, i now have this foundation of new methods of teaching, and not too many bad habits to get rid of yet...so it was even a plus, in some ways, to not have much experience. now i feel more confident to teach here in bangkok, and now i can go anywhere in the world and use my CELTA to teach...im glad i held out and struggled through. but soooooo glad it's over!!

i really loved my students!! our last day was sweet. we played review games, then we had pizza hut and dunkin donut holes. we had a huge picture taking fest, and the delightful pics can be found here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

im going to miss my students, but we all have emails. and it's sweet cuz i have already hung out with some of the students because yesterday they wanted to go to church with us. i learn so much from them, i feel so blessed!

HIGH LIGHT

after i finished my course i decided it was necessary to do something celebratory...which has included watching harry potter 5 at an i-max, getting good coffee, eating at an amazing salad buffet, pizza, and getting ice cream shakes.

but then yesterday i finished off my celebrations-of-surviving-celta-sessions by getting my hair cut and highlighted!

ahh! i was a lil freaked out, cuz i didnt know which hairdresser would know how to cut non-asian people's hair, and if they would speak English well enough to know what i wanted. but two of my classmates got their haircut at a place, and thought they did a good job. so i got a 50% off card from one of them, was given a name of who to ask for, and went for it!

i just walked in, said changa, and then he came right over to help me out. i told him i wanted layers but my hair to not be much shorter, and highlights. he comprehended what i was saying...at least i hoped by his clear english response that he did. then he directed me over to a row of computers sitting behind swivel chairs. he told me to sit while they highlighted my hair. so i got to email for an hour or so while my he and another worker spoke in thai the whole time while putting tinfoil all over my head. i wondered the whole time what they must have been saying about this weirdo american girl...

then for the next hour he cut my hair and kept up his convo with his other worker. he is definitely an artist, and even told me he sees cutting hair as art. which i think is what a good hairdresser should believe. anyways, i came out with an asian look to my golden brown locks. he straightened it, and i put that pic online, but i dont think its going to look straight again for a year because i didnt bring a straightner with me. i like curly better i have decided..anyways, im still trying to get used to the layers, but i think im going to like it.

my doorman was the first person to notice! he said, "oh, your hair is different color! i like!" this was after he said, "hello teacher"...

=)

so this week, on wednesday, i get to start my job! im excited! i hope that i can catch on to teaching at elite and how to get my head around the SAT and how to explain it to these super smart kids..im excited for the next adventure!

by the way..thanks for all your words of encouragement while i was doing the course! it really pulled me through. i love you all so.

oh another day in the life of sherri...

2007-08-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

SPILLAGE

so all i wanted to do was to break my 1000 baht bill. it is hard to get change for large bills at street vendors, so i was like, this is the perfect opporotunity for me to go to an american place, au bon pain, and get my favorite breakfast treat--muesli and yogurt.

i order it, and sit down with my delight and smile. ahh... i try to mix the layers of pink strawberry yogurt in with the layers of museli, so i can get the full effect in every bite. but then i suppose i got a little too excited because my spoon went in the air, and about one-fourth of the strawberry goo-ness flies out of the container to land on my black skirt.

i quickly glanced around to see if anyone noticed, thankfully all the thai businessmen were still focused on their newspapers and coffee. i used the two measley napkins i was given to try to wipe it up, then i tried to use my spoon, to scoop it off. yet i was still left with a prominent stain on the front of my lovely skirt.

so i went up to the counter and asked the server for a napkin. she pointed me over to the side counter. i looked and all i saw was a water pitcher. i got some water, to help the whole removing stain process--but still had no napkin. i asked her again, napkin? thinking maybe i didnt see the napkins. she nodded not understanding, and got the other lady. and i told her, napkin? she said, napkin!!

yes! i felt so excited that someone understood. she then took my cup of water out of my hand, put some ice in it, and handed it to me, smiling merrily. alas, napkin and ice must sound the same in thai or something. at least i helped her feel pleased with herself for thinking she understood me. i just had to sit down and laugh for a lil while after that...

then i got to ECC and was working away in the teacher room. as i reached over to get my page from the printer, i knocked over a water bottle, and it spilled on the floor. ahhhh! no way! and of course there are no readily available paper towels to clean it up.

so then i had to go and find one of the sweet thai office girls to tell her i spilled water. then she and i went to find the sweet thai cook lady, who wouldn't allow me to take the rag and clean it up, but went all the way to the room, and got down and cleaned up my mess.

wow, one of my classmates, after telling him my mornings happenings said my life sounds like a john cleese movie. hahaha..dont you wish you lived my life?? no, he said, not really.

nothing new

2007-08-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

YOU TEACH?

yeah, so the other morning i was walking out my apartment building, and as usual the friendly thai doorman was trying to make conversation with me. he said, "where are you going? to school?" i said, "yeah, im a teacher." he stared at me for a second, then he burst out laughing!!

i was miffed and frowned at him (probably with my hand on my hip) and said, "why is that so funny??" he said, "you're a teacher! you are so young! you should be a student!" thanks a lot buddy.

then the other day when i came home he opened the door and said, "hello teacher!" with a slight giggle.

i will show him!

ONE MORE WEEK!

one of my classmates, a fun irish man, was describing how CELTA had taken over his life this month, but...he said, "there are three things CELTA cant deny me, food, sleep and alcohol."

ha! well, CELTA has taken over my life too, to the extent that it has denied me anything worthy to blog about.

CHECK MY BLOG FRIDAY

i will let you know if i survived.

until then--pray...

Far far away

2007-08-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

WISH I WAS THERE

so i think when you travel to other countries something happens to time. it warps in such odd ways. i know i have only been here three weeks, but all that i have experienced in the last three weeks is enough to fill a few lifetimes it seems. well maybe not that much, maybe only one and a half, but you know what i mean.

a little over a week ago my dad emailed me to tell me my aunt beth was in a major car accident. my aunt beth is an amazing woman..she is the care-giver for my grandmother and my aunt rachel, she also has a full-time job. i have always been in awe of her faith in God, and how she is constantly serving and helping others. i have always wanted to be like her in that way.

so it turns out she drifted into the other lane when she was driving to work, and her car was hit. and then her car was hit again. she was stuck in it for 40 minutes. then she almost died as she was airlifted to the hospital.

she is still in a coma right now, and the doctors arent sure why. if i was there i would be at my grandmother's helping her and my aunt as much as i could, but obviously i cant be there. i dont like to think about it much because i feel so helpless and like i cant do anything. but i know im suppose to be here for some reason, even though im not sure why...so if you pray, please pray for my aunt and family. they need it, more than they need me to be there to help..

GO CELTA GO!

on a lighter note..

so my classmates have decided that i must have been a cheerleader in a former life. whenever i teach enthusiasm gushes out of me. the first week i would jump up and down and do a sort of dance whenever i would drill the student on different words, i didnt really notice this. then i would also swing my arms around to make them shout the words louder. one day we were doing a game, and it was one team against the other. i kept yelling, go team A!! whenever my team got a point. i guess most people dont get that into such things. heehee..now my classmates tease me all the time about my "like-you-can-do-it" spirit.

one of the things my tutor told me i needed to work on, which must come from my former cheerleading life i never knew existed, is grading my praise. he says it is lovely how im always praising the students. but apparently i tell the students GREAT JOB!! WOW!! at everything they do. the example he gave is once i was showing the students a picture of a car, and asked them what it was. they said, car. i was like YEAH!!! YOU GOT IT! WOW!

but these students are pretty smart, it isnt that hard for them to point out what a car is. so apparently if they had told me that the sentence i wrote on the board was in past perfect progressive, that would be the perfect time for such an elicitation of excitment. so i have tried to work on that..its hard though! i like to be excited about everything i suppose.

on monday i did a lesson, which i didnt think went that great. i was like, oh well, hopefully i will get to standard. you can either get not to standard, standard (which is what everyone usually gets) or above standard. it turns out my tutor thought my lesson was good! no way! i got an above standard on it! mainly cuz i just used all the ideas he told me to do. so that made me oh so glad...it also resulted in my other classmates high-fiving me, and then one of them even bought me my new favorite delight. an irish creme blizzard with kit kat from dairy queen! they are quite amazing, and just the right size. the large ones here are the size of the small ones in america. ahhh...it was an amazing day.

but then my other two lessons were at standard. but they both went better than i thought they would..i just hope i survive these next two weeks. im learning so much though! that is what i keep telling myself...

MOTHERS DAY PIGGY

my friend ja invited me to have dinner with her family on mother's day! which was the day after the queen's birthday this past sunday. we went to this amazing chinese restaurant. i had never been to such a place. they had this lazy susan sort of thing in the center and kept bringing plates and plates and plates of food. one plate consisted of a pig which still looked exactly like a pig. they were bringing it to the table and i was like, what is that? and then when they placed it down they were like, pig..and as they placed it on the table, i saw the lil snout, eyes and ears, and was like, yup, it sure is. so we picked off the pig skin and dipped it in some sauce. i actually didnt mind it! you can look at the pics of the friendly pig feast here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

MOTO BIKE BABE

this weekend i got to tour the new place where i will be working--elite prep. my director called to give me directions, and said i had to take the sky train, then the motorbike taxi. i was like what? no way! i have seen these motorbikes zipping around pedestrians, whizzing in and out of stopped traffic and squeezing between huge buses, and i would get to ride on one! i was excited, cuz it seemed so life-threatening.

once i got the right station, i found a man sitting on a motorbike wearing an orange vest and assumed that he might be a taxi man. i told him asoke tower, he nodded and i got on. i didnt know what to hold on to so i just touched his back the whole time. it was such a rush, i felt like i was in the chase scene of some action movie. then when i got to my stop he was smiling so big at me, i gave him some baht and smiled back, wondering why he seemed so pleased.

i told someone about my adventure, and it turns out you arent really suppose to hold on to the motor man, but the handle behind the seat...oopps! so i guess he thought i enjoyed the ride a lot..haha!

anyways! i love the people i met at my new work. they are all very welcoming. i will be working with thais and americans, most of them are in their 20's. then today i went to observe a class i will eventually be teaching-- SAT writing-- and wow, it is intense! the material is so in-depth, and there is so much to cover in an 1 hour and 30 minute class. the kids are super smart though, and seem to catch on quick. they ask hard questions, like about grammar rules and such.. so i will prepare my best, but i think i might be employing the, "im not sure of the answer, but i will get back to you" line a bunch. oh well! im eager to see what it will be like...

HELLO GOODBYE

my new roomie from germany was here. for a week, with her boyfriend from australia. he was searching for a place to stay while he is here until decemeber, and didnt find one until yesterday. so he was staying at our place the past few nights. yeah, interesting times! but my roomie is super sweet. she is 26 and just finished an internship in bangkok, and will now be studying at the university.

but last night i came home to an empty room and a note that said she moved to her boyfriend's place and will stay here sometimes but not often. but she will still pay for her part of the rent. ok with me! i have my own room now. how fun...

so i have to teach two lessons this week, one of them will be 55 minutes, and then one more next week. i also have two assignments due, and i will go to my new work twice this week to get trained. ahhh! i need some strength.. step by step. =)

1/4 of the way through! woo!

2007-08-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

DROPPING LIKE FLIES

it turns out the CELTA course really is a reality show. im not sure what station it's on, they are rather secretive about it.

one day we wander into class, and one of the 12 isn't there. he was a newbie like me, he had never taught before. we all ponder what could have happened, my tutor says he hopes he isnt lying under a car somewhere. this was said in his british accent, so it sounded even more dreadful. or could it be...the pressure was too intense? could he not handle it?

the day goes on..he was incessantly emailed..and called, still no reply. we all imagine him under the car, or someone else thinks he could have fallen in a man hole. hmm...

but then after much anticipation, and a day later, he responds. the course was too much for him, he just couldnt handle it. wow, who will be next...

then two days later one of the 11 comes in the morning, and then leaves early because he was ""sick". is he really? he left his locker key on his shelf, insinuating he won't be coming back. wow...will i be next? ahhhhhh

OH DEAR ME

ok, so i went to UNC, so i should be able to handle any intense hardcore schoolage after that pressure-filled land right? right..

that is what i keep trying to remind myself in my daily you-can-do-it-sherri pep talks. as well as this course is only four weeks of my life and there is another world that exists outside of CELTA, and i will somehow find that world again when august ends. at least i hope so.

i have taught three days so far, and each time i leave feeling like i ruined these innocent people. they seem so happy and merry when i teach them, some even say, you good teacher. yet, they dont know the truth. they dont hear what my tutor says after they walk out the door, and how they will forever never know the english language properly because of me. it's not the greatest feeling ever.

well, it's not really that bad of course. my tutor is quite encouraging, regardless of the fact that i did call him fat and old. plus, his criticism is needed to make us better teachers. (yeah yeah..) but we all get praise and then dished out, it isnt just me thankfully. and it could be so much worse.

so after this week of feeling like i didnt do that great, my tutor says, oh, and dont forget i was easy on you all this week. most of the lessons that passed this week would likely not pass if you had done them on week two. but dont worry, you will do great. yeah, thanks..

but it has been really fun to get to know the other people. we are all struggling together and hang out all the time. it is nice to have people to support you and let you know it's going to be ok. i just hope more people dont drop out.

CULTS MAKE YOU PRETTY

one of our assignments was we had to interview one of our students and assess them to learn about their English language background and how it affects them now, and then find out activities to help them.

so i chose to do this sweet Chinese lady. she doesnt speak English very well at all. it took me forever to get anything out of her. i forever was trying to get her to answer the question, why do you want to learn English. finally after twisting and turning it into another form she smiled so big and was so eager to tell me. "world people dont know falun gong, i must tell them. 80 nationalities know. i must tell them."

i had no idea what his falun gong thing was so i asked her to tell me about it, plus it would help me to see what her other speaking problems might be. she goes on to tell me, "falun gong will make you beautiful." i said, "oh so i need that to make me beautiful?" "Yes."

so it turns out, after asking my classmates, that falun gong is a cult in China. the woman in our class escaped from China because she was a member, but wasnt allowed to practice it. so now she is here, trying her best to learn English so she can get some world people to join. the next day she brought fliers for us all, and little paper roses with falun gong bookmarks tailing off the end of it.

but talk about blow to the self esteem, i have to join a cult to become beautiful. thats just great.

THAILAND WANTS TO KNOW IF IM ALIVE

so i had to get my medical permit for my work visa today. i was all concerned cuz i didnt know how to find the hospital, and yeah, lets not discuss again sherri's sense of direction problem. so i was standing on the street near the hospital with my map, looking quite helpless i assume, and a sweet british man comes over and says are you lost? he helped me find my way, and i didnt get lost. i was proud.

i was a little nervous about what the thais would do to me at the hospital. i mean, i dont speak thai, so they could really just take me and do what they want since i wouldnt understand. but once i told the nurse, "medical permit for work visa," i was directed past the hello kitty merchandise booth (in a hospital? only in asia..) to a physical exam room. the nurses were wearing all pastels--blue pants, purple coats, and pink and green shirts--i decided they looked like Easter bunnies. they weighed me, i waited. they took my blood pressure. i waited. they took me into the room with the doctor. she took my blood pressure again, and checked my heart beat. then she signed a paper, i paid 140 baht, which is like 5 dollars and was done. so i guess as long as you know someone has blood going through their veins and a heart beat, they can work in thailand. good to know.

ROOMIES?!

finally one of my roomies has arrived. i came home tonight and the power was already on. its weird, in thailand they are all about saving power, so you have to drop your keycard in this slot on the wall everytime you come in to turn on the power. it is really cool, cuz you are saving so much energy and also you never forget where your key is. those brillant thais.

so the key was already in when i got back. then i peeked in the other room and saw bags on the floor and a body under the covers sleeping.

wow, she just wandered out! she is from portland, oregon. so far she seems outgoing with a strong, open personality. i think she will be fun to live with. the other girls, one from germany and one from canada should be arriving tomorrow. im excited to meet them..i just hope we all get along and it is drama free ya know.

ok, so tomorrow i have to work on my assignment about my chinese cult friend, and finish my lesson plan for monday. so i suppose i should sleep now. sorry this entry isnt terribly exciting. CELTA has drained me of any creative-ness. thanks for reading, it makes me happy to know peeps care.. =)

SHERRI A TEACHER?!?!

2007-08-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

CELTA SURVIVOR SEASON PREMIERE

i had been wondering for awhile whether i should really do this whole CELTA course thing after i signed up for it. i have heard how INTENSE it is, how it takes over your life for four weeks, how you are so engulfed in learning how to teach english that you forget another world exists outside grammar and lexicon. yeah, pretty frightening. well the terror began yesterday, and im still alive at the moment to share. so that's a good sign!

THE CAST

yesterday it was so fun walking into the classroom for orientation cuz it was full of such a variety of people. i am am the youngest, then the next oldest is like 25 i think. the oldest is probably in their late 50s. there are five Americans, two Irish, two Londoners, a Trinidad and Tobagoian, a middle easterner, and an Argentine. they are all so fun and such funny, unique characters who make me smile. it makes me feel like im on a reality TV show. like all these quirky people are placed together to struggle for 4 weeks to see who will survive. it's so exciting!

the first person i met and bonded with right away was a lady who grew up in Georgia! she is in her 50s-ish, and such a sweet, outgoing lady. she was so excited to meet another southerner! she taught home economics for 30 years, then she and her husband decided to move to china and work for a non-profit there and now they live in laos. she has taught english in both places. it seems like out of our class of 12 people that half of them have had at least a few years of experience teaching english, or teaching, and wanted to take the course to brush up. im trying not to let that intimidate me though cuz the tutors keep saying how they won't compare us. they are just seeing how we improve as an individual. nice to know, but it is hard to remember..

SHERRI'S INSULT SESSION

but the first thing we did was we had to write our name backwards on a name tag with three numbers that related to us. then we had to go around the room and meet people and figure out their names and what the numbers signified. i went up to this one guy who had 44 on his tag. first i guessed it to be his age, but then right away, i thought ooops, he doesnt look 44 at all. he was like, NOOO! then i said, hmm..is it your waist size? not knowing that is a really large waist size...and he was like NO! wow, you just keep the compliments coming dont you? it turns out it was his shoe size in thai. i was so embarassed though, and my face turned bright red.

then later i discovered he is my tutor!! one of the two tutors who will be grading us to see if we do well enough to pass the course. yeah, so i will have to work extra hard now, to get over telling my teacher he is old and fat. go sherri!

HAPPY LEARNERS MAKE HAPPY TEACHERS

so the people we will be teaching are so great. they are from laos, china, thailand and sri lanka. some of them are refugees, others just don't have the money to pay for a normal course. after a morning of learning about teaching methods, we had to do our first 15 minute lesson!

the students were so eager to participate and want to learn, so that helped things. yet, i didnt feel that i did very well. i was so nervous at first, but then i gained more confidence as the minutes went on. apparently i did really well drilling them, so thats cool. but i didnt feel like the class time flowed very smoothly. hopefully i can improve on that tomorrow during my 35 mintue lesson im teaching..ahhhh! i never realized how hard it is to be a teacher. i now have a new respect for you all wise teachers...please send along some advice soon.

RANDOM!?

so two days ago im standing in this photo store to get a passport size photo for my work visa. as im waiting for it to print out, i see this south asian tourist sitting at a chair speaking french while waiting for whoever he was with to finish printing their photos. i sort of saw that he was eyeing me. i didnt think much about it as i was flipping through some post cards. then i see him get up, meander to the security guard who was standing near me, and give him his camera. THEN he comes right next to me, puts his arm around me and gets the security guard to take a picture. then he smlles at me, and sits down.

so this random south asian man is forever going to have a picture with me in a photo store in bangkok. i have NO idea why he wanted a pic with me. had he never seen a girl with curly brown hair before? i was bewildered and wanted to laugh sooo hard after it happened, but i had to keep waiting and pretend like that happens all the time. wow...so weird! i just keep asking, why would he do such a thing??

im off to bed so i can be fresh for my next lesson...stay tuned..email me about how you are..i miss hearing from the home land..jesengel@gmail.com

whirlwind of thailand

2007-08-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

few more of these pics...http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

UNC THAI TALK

soooo i am seeing the value of UNC more everyday-- it can give you friends all over the world. my awesome friend ja invited me to have dinner with her and the people she studied abroad at UNC with last semester. they were so welcoming and excited that im going to be here for year...i still cant believe that myself.

i had my first dinner in a nice thai restaurant called, good evening..heehee.. we ordered tons of different dishes and all picked off of them to mix with our rice, just like you do at a chinese place. i really like the thai omelet, shrimp in tamarind sauce, and red curry. so goood! it sort of freaked me out a little to see the fish they ordered look like they had just plucked it from the ocean and placed on the plate. but i tried some! im trying to try everything. i always feel bad if i dont like it though. im trying to be more honest about saying, hm...im not a big fan of that, instead of saying, yeah it's ok...and my friends reading my feelings on my face and saying, just say you dont like it sherri..heehee..

TOUR THE LAND

i then got to spend the night at ja's. it was my first time meeting a thai family. her mom is the cutest thing ever created, and sat on the couch smiling at me quietly the whole time. she speaks english, but apparently is very shy around farangs. her dad was sweet and chatted with me about how much thai's enjoy keeping their kids at home with them even when they have grown up. ja sort of half smiled at that comment. heehee..

the next day we had green curry with chicken and rice for breakfast. apparently in thailand they eat the same things for most meals. ja thought it was weird when she was in the states and had only toast for breakfast. its not enough to fill you up until noon, she said. i didnt mind the curry for bfast, it was really good, but i perfer my yogurt and granola..

ja was my tour guide the whole day, i was so blessed! she took me first to her university. we had to take the river boat there, which is a common form of public transport. we went on the tourist boat full of europeans. she said she takes sometimes if she is running late, so she was already telling me about every site before the tour guide with a muffled accented voice could try to talk about it.

her school, tamasat university, was our first stop. it was sweet cuz it was right next to the river. they had all these announcements painted on boards, like we had at UNC, and one of them was announcing stage play auditions. ja told me that she did a stage play a few semeters ago. i asked her if it took a lot of her time, and she said it did. i thought she would say because she had to practice her lines and such. but instead she said it was because she had to run all these laps everyday, do push-ups and sit-ups and get in really good shape. i was like, what? for a play? she said that it was important for them to get their energy up so that the audience sitting in the back could feel the same amount of energy coming from them as the people in the front. wow, i dont think we do that in the states do we? high-energy performance?

then we meandered to the grand palace! sadly, my camera ran out of battery, so i couldnt take any pics. but ja was generous enough to take lots of pics for me which she said she will send soon...it was sooooo HOT when we were there. so we tried to go quickly before the sun sapped us of all our energy.

the grand palace is where the king lives sometimes, and used to live all the time. so the first thing i thought, to be honest, was gaudy. there was gold everywhere and shiny gems plastered all over that. they also had a temple there where there were some young buddhist monks doing a ceremony so we couldnt go in. ja told me to stay away from them because they arent allowed to touch women. i kept wondering what would happen if i tripped and fell into one accidently. could be interesting.

then we went to another temple called wat po where they have the largest reclining buddha in thailand. it was sort of intimidating because it was so big and its half slanted eyes would just stare at you. then at the temple ja did her buddhist rituals of bowing, and i sat and watched. then when we were leaving she gave money for them to make renovations to the roof. she wrote her name on a roof tile and added it to the stack already there. she said they do that so in their next life they will live in a nice house.

then we shopped and shopped in the markets. ja helped me baragain with people for my things, or i guess she baragained for me really. im pretty bad at it. i even got a king shirt! its a yellow polo shirt with the king's emblem on it. everyone wears them on monday. so i wanted to be prepared. im excited to wear it..

6 BUCKS FOR A MASSAGE...

two days ago i got my first thai massage! thailand is famous for their massage skills, so i wanted to test it out. i was headed to a higher class place i found online, but then as i was walking to the skytrain i saw one right next to the station advertising massages for 200 baht, which is only 6 dollars. my friend Praew had told me earlier that was a good price to pay. so even though it didn't look very classy, i decided to go for it.

i was led to a room upstairs and given a huge button-up shirt to change into in this curtained off area with two mattresses on the ground. i put it on and was just standing there with only the shirt on feeling awkward. then the masseuse came up and she was like, "oh!" and grabbed these gigantic brown pants that were lying on the bed and gestured for me to put them on. i think they could have fit a sumo wrestler, but i felt better after i tied the drawstring and had them on.

my masseuse was a little lady who probably knew five complete sentences of English plus a few random words. the first part of the hour though all she did was try to speak in English to me. i would try to speak back and ask questions, but she would just respond in thai and look confused. so i kept laughing while she massaged cuz she didnt understand me, and i didnt understand her, but we kept trying to understand each other.

i had never had a real massage before, so i cant compare it to anything, but this one was pretty sweet. im not sure how the thai massage is really different, but it was weird cuz she was so small, but still could make me feel so relaxed. so it was a fun time, i think i might try out different places too. ja told me that people get addicted to massages though, so i shall have to watch myself...

tonight im going to a church service here in bangkok. i hope i dont get lost! im leaving an hour early just to make sure i find it. my sense of direction still hasnt improved over the past week. oh well, always makes things an adventure...

change of scene

2007-08-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

MOVING ON UP

so i was able to flee the back alleyway life! i called the place where i will be living until decemeber, the evergreen, to see if i could move in sooner than august 9th, and they said i could. i called my director and told her that i had the chance to move in early, and she was just like, "ok." so it wasnt a big deal at all. well, the bigger ordeal was bringing all my bags down the four flights of stairs again, but the superwoman powers came back, and the mission was accomplished.

when i arrived at the front desk they told me i was going to have to pay extra since i moved in early. i expected this, and was like ok..but then it turns out they didnt have a one-bedroom available for me to stay in, only a two-bedroom. then on sunday when the one-bedroom opens i could switch to that so i wouldnt have to pay for a two-bedroom until august 9th. i had no other option at that point. i had my 200 pounds of luggage surrounding me, and the thought of lugging it all to a cheaper place for 9 days and then back here, all for the sake of saving money, sort of didint look like a bright and happy option.

so i settled for spending an extraordinary amount of money to stay in a gigantic apartment....but i LOVE it and feel like i have arrived at a thai resort. i have my own lil kitchen, a king size bed, two choices of bathrooms, one with a huge tub as well as a separate shower. i have a DVD player and a balcony with a view of bustling bangkok. no way! and there are no freaky noises at night! cant get any better..

there is also a workout room which i used this morning. yeah, i opted for not taking the sky train to lumpini park and lifting weights with the sweaty old men..while i worked out i looked out on the outdoor pool, which i might have to jump in later when it stops raining. WOW! i feel crazy blessed to be here.

plus i feel safe, which is probably one of the best factors. im on the 15th floor and you need a keycard to even get to that floor on the elevator. and i just noticed on TV that there is a channel to watch the front desk and see who comes in. how freaky! someone could be watching me whenever i come or go...or i can watch them. could be fun times.

TOURING THE HOME OF A THAI LOVER

jim thompson is a very popular guy here in thailand. i heard from some people before i came to thailand that i should tour his house. its pretty close to the evergreen, so i meandered there yesterday. as i was walking down the little road, this motor bike taxi man shouts, "oh, you are beautiful! where you from?" yeah, im sure he shouts that to every white girl he sees. but i was like, "north carolina!" he and his pals were like, oh, "tar heels!" then another one said, "carolina panthers!" i just laughed..i mean people should know about the tar heels, obviously, but the panthers?

when i got there i signed up for the english tour, there were like five different language tours. i thought, oh, there might be an american on this tour, cool. but whenever the lady would say in monotone english, "now you are free to look around the room," the fifteen other people around me would start chatting to the people they were with in all these different languages. so weird! i guess i was the only one who really knew JUST english. oh well, guess im just an ignorant american.

so what i learned from the lovely tour guide was that good ol' jim from delaware came to thailand during world war II. then after he was done with the army he decided he was so in love with thailand and that he had to return and live here forever. he was an architect and made his house by combing six traditional thai homes. the houses were found around thailand, and dismantled and reconstructed here. pretty crazy! so he is also famous cuz he was into thai silk, and helped bring them fame around the globe for it. he also had a sweet jungle garden around his house. BUT...then he dissappeared in 1967 and no one knows what happened to him...sort of creepy.

SLEEPY SHOPPING SHERRI

i got to hang out with ja again last night. it was so nice to be with a friend after not really hanging out with anyone but myself for two days. i get sort of boring after awhile. we went shopping together! i was half asleep the whole time though, jet lag wont let go of me. while i was waiting for her to arrive i was sitting on a bench and started to doze off. then i jerked myself awake as i started falling sideways. the security guards at the mall probably enjoyed watching that. anyways, tonight im going to get dinner with her and her friends, then i think i will spend the night at her place. we might go tour the grand palace tomorrow. what fun!

OH! and i got to go to a thai grocery store. it was on the bottom floor of the fancy mall, called gourmet market. it was huge, and had everything. i love grocery stores, its so sweet to wander the aisles and look at all the different food. there was a good amount of american stuff, but what made me most excited was seeing that it even had tim-tams, my favorite cookie from new zealand! discovrering that assured me that i will be very happy here.

right now im watching the maid make my bed with fresh sheets. wow, i wonder if she is going to do this everyday i live at this place? fine with me...

some new pics... http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

no, i wil not be jet lagged...

2007-07-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

hmm, so i have discovered that even though im trying in my mind to forget the fact that my body has jumped forward in time so that i can get over jet lag quicker, my scheme doesnt really work. my body wont listen to the lie, its not as gullible as i thought it was. as a result the past few days i have woken up at 4:30/5 am ready to go. i already have problems with not being able to sleep in normally, but thailand has taken me to a new level. hmm..so instead of lying in bed trying to force my brain off and my body to sleep, i have decided to give up the battle and blog instead.

CENTRAL PARK BANGKOK STYLE

so yesterday i decided would be my chill out day since i had killed myself the day before wandering for hours around the tall malls. i got on the metro to go to lumpini park. i love parks and was thinking it might be sweet to run there, since lots of people go there to run i heard, but first i wanted to scope it out.

of course, nothing is as simple to find in bangkok as it so easily appears on the map. well, perhaps it might be simple for most people, but for directionally challenged sherri, its not so easy. so once i arrived at the right station, i kept walking back and forth on the same food stall/cheap clothes/cheap watches filled aveneue, not discovering lumpini park admist any of it. i think the vendors were getting used to me and didnt take much notice of me after awhile. i wasnt really in distress about it though, i wasnt in a rush and was discovering life on the bangkok streets, so it was all good.

anyways, i eventually found the park! it was not as naturey as i thought it would be, but what do you expect for a park in the middle of a city? there were wide asphalt running paths that super sweaty old men were gasping along on. there was also a lifting weights area, where you could just sit and gawk at more super sweaty old men lifting weights. i took a pic, i think that made them happy and feel all tough. how cute.

i found a sweet little bench next to the lake to spread out on and read my book. i sat there, while wataching the little swan paddle boats slowly drift by. then i peered over at one family in a boat near me and saw a reptile like head coming out of the water. i was like, aww...how sweet a cute turtle is coming out. but no...as i watched the head kept getting longer and skinnier and the body started to pop out and it was so freaky! im not sure what it was, some sort of lanky reptilian creature. it just sat for awhile on the edge of the lake, sticking its tongue out and looking formidable. i then told my thai friends about it later, and they said that the name of the creature is what you call someone if you dont like them and want to call them a bad name..i can see why.

BANGKOK IS LIKE...

as i wandered the busy streets, i was trying to think of other places i have been to that bagnkok might remind me of...i think it definitely has a mix of mexico city, because of all the vendors everywhere selling some appetizing, some not so appetizing food. then some of the alleyways remind me of kenya because there are native thais selling things out of their tiny shops. those parts sort of reminds me of the slums, but not quite as rundown. yet, it also feels a bit like a European city, with all the levels and levels in the fancy shopping malls. then everything gets thrown off with the exotic palm trees speckled all over the city, under the sky train lines that run above. go bangkok for being so unique!

SWITCHING IT UP

so i have decided the place where im staying now, the temporary place before my housing opens, is a bit too sketchy for me. i havent really felt comfortable here since the day i arrrived. i have to walk down this sketch alleyway to get here, while sometimes odd people stare at me. then i run in and lock the door. it was nice of my director to let me stay in the guest rooms above the non-profit's offices, but i think im going to tell her today that im going to try to move to a hotel. i was suggested to do that after i told my dad how i was a lil freaked out last night. so hopefully she will understand and not fire me or something. hehee...im going to see if i can move into my apartment early and pay extra or something. but i shall keep you updated...

AN OH THAILAND MOMENT

i was in this store and saw a shirt that says, "I like to dress up because it makes me feel happy and confident." it cracked me up! hmm..but it doesnt seem like the person wearing the shirt would be very dressed up though? so would they be happy and confident? oh thailand....

PICTURES!

so i have pics of that shirt and more! enjoy them...there arent many of me since im wandering by myself and dont want to look like a dork taking pictures of myself. but maybe i will do that today for fun.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55907373@N00/

the first tastes of thai life..

2007-07-31T06:18:00.001-07:00

SPICY OR SPICY OR SPICY?

this morning had my first street vendor food! i decided to chose my vendor by picking the first one i saw with someone standing in line cuz the line must mean they are good..so when i went to the worthy vendor i pointed at the dishes, and i asked what meat it was. she was like, "pig, or chicken." then i pointed at the chicken stuff, and she was like, "spicy!" i was like, "what isn't as spicy?" then she pointed at each dish, "spicy, spicy, spicy, spicy." haha..so i decided to do it the thai way and asked for the chicken. she was like "are you sure you want it??" i said "yes, but only a little bit..."

so after my first two bites my lips felt numb and like they were on fire and about to fall off all at the same time. but at least it had good flavor! so my first thai breakfast consisted of a small container of rice, a wee bit of chicken veggie hottness and a fried egg. all for under a dollar! woosh! im eager for the day i will be able to eat without my lips falling off..

then i wandered some more and found a coffee shop! its called mau's coffee beans. it had a cool modern feel to it. i asked for a cappuccino and thought i could just get it to go, but she directed me to sit down. so i sat and waited and listened/watched some sort of thai american idol superstar singing easy listening songs. she then brought it over in this funky cup and saucer with a wee spoon. but first she laid out a placemat, and a folded napkin. then she also gave me my very own container
full of sugar packets. the cappuccino was pretty good, almost met my standards. i even got a little creme puff on the saucer to eat after my drink. go thailand!

SHOP INTO CULTURE SHOCKNESS

so my director, ja, is super cool. she is 27 and we have a lot in common. she was sweet enough to take me to buy a cell phone and show me the malls. but then she had to leave to meet someone, so i was left, gaping up at the seven story malls alone.

at first i was a little overwhelmed, but then i got my bearings, and enjoyed myself. i loved the independent feeling of going wherever and just wandering with no goal in mind but to explore. i felt thai culture zooming at me full steam though. i couldn't absorb it all at once, so it was making my mind boggle. there were so many different stores, and different people coming at me. its ok though, cuz i got a cool shirt and even got to barter for it. hmm..but she didnt accept my offer of 180 baht. so my bartering skills need to be worked on...

CANT ESCAPE UNC...EVER

then the best part of my day, was when i met up with my friend ja, who studied abroad last semester at UNC. i had just sent her off in may at the airport in raleigh, and then a few months later i get to catch up with her at a mcdonalds in bangkok. how crazy!

so we chatted merrily for awhile, and she helped me with my thai. i had been asking everyone all day how to say thank you, and no one really helped me. they just repeated the phrase to me with a blank stare. then i would try to say it back and a bunch of goobeldy gook would come out. but then ja slowly went over with me each tone, and i sort of got it. its hard cuz i feel like i sound like a man when i use some tones cuz they are really low. then i feel like i sound like im whining when i use the other tones. then other times i sound monotone. it feels so unnatural. but im sure i will get used to it.

its so nice to have friends here and to be meeting new people. but i didnt feel super alone even when i wasnt with them because i know God is with me. its pretty sweet..

whoa, where am i?

2007-07-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

i really need to sleep i have decided. i have only slept for an hour here and there the past two days so i guess it might be good to do some of that. ahhh! but im in bangkok!

here are the headlines:

I FINISHED BOOK SEVEN OF HARRY POTTER!

NOTHING BAD HAPPENED, NO DELAYS, OR LUGGAGE LOST?! CRAZY!

I FOUND JA, EVEN THOUGH I WAS A LOST AND CONFUSED SAD LOOKING AMERICAN GIRL FOR AT LEAST HALF AND HOUR

sorry those headlines arent really proper journalistic style at all. im too tired to care though. ja was super sweet and went in a taxi with me to where im staying now. im all by myself in some guest rooms that the foundation im working for has. i just heard all these loud noisesm and it sounds like water is pouring from somewhere right over my head. hmm, so other than feeling a lil freaked out about the random flood sounds, im great! i just bought a lychee drink from the 7/11 and had my first cashier look at me like i was a new exhibit at the freak show. many more of those to come im sure...

i love you all. now i shall hopefully sleep. please keep me updated...

random rants from an exhausted excited sherri

2007-07-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

i was just sitting on the front porch with my friend, watching my last summer thunderstorm in waxhaw. the sky kept shocking us, flashing from bluish black to an eerie luminescent blue. the thrill you can get from those storms is so sweet. mainly because you don’t know when the thunder will roar next or how bright and big the next bolt will be. as im in a contemplative mood tonight, it made me think of my trip tomorrow. how its totally not in my control really, all that is ahead of me. yet that’s the adventure of it, if i knew everything that was next, how lame and boring that would be...

yeah, so im leaving in a few hours. i cant wait for the flight. mainly becauase i shall finally delve into the final harry potter book. it has been sitting on my shelf tempting me the past week, and now i will finally allow myself to read it. i hope the 26-hour travel day--charlotte to dulles to tokyo to bangkok-- is long enough to finish it. if not, maybe i will have some convenient delays to give me more time. who cares about going to thailand, i just want to see if harry survives...

so my director, who i will be working for in september, is awesome enough to say that she will pick me up at the airport. even though i have seen her pic, i hope she doesn’t blend in with all the other thais running about in BKK. oh well, it will be an adventure finding her. i hope she has a sign with my name on it-- i have always wanted that.

im going to be a little sappy and say that this summer i have really come to realize how blessed i am when it comes to having amazing family and friends. as i have traveled around, seeing those who are important to me, and getting phone calls and emails from those who are important, but i couldnt see..i cant believe i have such people surrounding me, and I really don’t deserve it. its hard to leave such cool people, but thankfully technology makes the world tiny and keep us close.

ahhhh! im off and away...i shall try to blog as soon as i get some wireless in bangkok to say im alive.

here i go...

packing progress

2007-07-24T20:32:00.001-07:00

hmm..hopefully i will get inspired soon. 3 days till take off. oh dear.

getting ready to jet...

2007-07-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

wow..i leave a week from saturday. that makes me freakin excited while freakin me out a wee bit. im slowly checking off my to do list for the summer. its so refreshing to get stuff done that i have been wanting to do forever like clean out my old room and finish my kenya scrapbook...

next step is packing. which im forcing myself to finish on thursday! we shall see if that occurs. i would not like to repeat the same packing job i did when i studied abroad in new zealand. i started packing the day before around midnight and didnt finish till like 3 am. of course, i brought WAY too much stuff. hopefully i shall learn from my past.

i wonder what life will be like 9 days from now...

NO WAY!!

2007-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

so for awhile the past month or two i have been like, so am i really suppose to go to thailand, what am i thinking? ahhhh...

what led to this confusion was my friend praew, who i was suppose to stay with, told me that it wasnt going to work out like she had planned. her new home, which was suppose to be finished in august, now wont be finished till who knows when. as a result there was no room for sherri anymore.

that is what let to the ahhhhh. but praew proved how awesome she is by searching the apartments near siam square, where i need to be for my course, to find a place for me to stay called the evergreen. it is not ripping-me-off-expensive, not sketchy, and if i only speak english i will be all right. she has connections to it through her university so i get a discount. i will have an exchange student roommate which matches me since i love internationals, and she will be able to commiserate with me and my cultural shockness. and i will even have a maid come in every day and clean it!?

then i was like, ahhhh, but i dont have a job! even though i will finish the course at the end of august it doesnt guarantee me a job. yet, i emailed a church in the area, called newsong, which i heard about through two different people. i asked about their ministry and then randomly was like, so...is there anyone in your congregation who needs english teachers? it turns out there was...whoa!

i got connected to someone who works for SDRF (Sustainable Development Research Foundation) which is a Thai foundation whose mission is to serve people throughout Thailand in a holistic way, one being through education. she is in charge of the bangkok branch which is Elite of Thailand ( lite is SAT prep school), CARC ( Center for at Risk people-Slum Communities and Woman at Risk) and Mobilization Project.

so she said that she needs teachers at Elite to tutor the wealthy kids of Thailand in the SAT so they can go off to American universities. she said since i majored in journalism i could tutor them in the writing section. i love writing, so that made me really excited. i also love that the money they make goes to meaningful causes, yet i still get paid. i even get paid more than what the average english teacher gets paid. it fits everything i was looking for, so after a few interviews i surprisingly got the job!

i will start work in september after i finish my course...its crazy how when i reach the point of wondering how anything will connect...i worry...i wonder...and worry...and wonder... but in the end, for me it usually all flows together without my worrying crazed efforts doing anything to help.

what a sweet blessing.

reality hits

2007-05-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

so i had to send my passport to the thai embassy in DC to get my visa, and this week i got it back! it says kingdom of thailand on it; i thought that was pretty sweet, heehee. it made me feel a bit relieved cuz even though it shouldnt be a big deal for me to get a visa to travel to thailand, government stuff always stresses me out a bit. but having the visa in my hand makes everything seem like this is right, and this is going to happen.

then i got my lonely planet book on thailand and ordered some random memoirs people wrote when they went to thailand from B&N. im so eager to learn about their culture, so i can try to treat my friends and the new peeps i meet in the right way. one thing i learned, that i think i will appreciate, is that the culture is very easy going. they have a saying that goes, mai pen rai, which means like, no big deal. apparently they say it a lot. i guess its like how in NZ a common pharse is no worries. i think i thrive in laid-back cultures. hopefully the relaxed way of living will help me to recoup from my intense pressure and stressed filled so not laid back years at UNC...

also it was encouraging today cuz at my church, vintage 21, they prayed for me and my trip. it makes me feel so loved by Him to know that i have a family praying for me and remembering me constantly while im gone. i was pretty much in awe most of the service and probably the rest of the day. it's a good feeling.

and she is off to see...

2007-05-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

i just bought my ONE-WAY ticket to Thailand today! its crazzzzzzzzzy...im leaving July 28th at 9:40am from Charlotte, and i will arrive in Bangkok at 11:05pm July 29th! it is so bizarre to me.

my plan so far is to chill out in Thailand and begin getting used to Thai culture until August 5th. that is when my CELTA course will begin with ECC and where i shall endure learning how-to-teach- the-English-language-boot-camp for four weeks. i will be in class from 9-6, five days a week and then each night i will have 3 hours of lesson planning. what have i gotten myself into i keep thinking...im glad i love adventures.

im so excited to live with my friend Praew, who was my conversation partner at UNC when she studied abroad here, and her family! ahhh..i have so much to learn. all i know about the Thai language is how to say hello, crazy, shoe and chicken. what a nice combo.