Exciting stuff - or fun things to read, are in LARGE font. Dreary stuff in small font.

I'm teaching 4 classes today - 3 of them math in English and one of them English in English. I woke up today at 5:30am with a phone call to my friend's phone that her friend had arrived from "Korat" - a city to the West of us. She put on some warm clothes - it's about 55F degrees outside and I made her put on a large t-shirt of mine as well. I told her to be careful. She fired up the 20 year old Yamaha motorcycle and off she went to the bus-station to pick up her best friend of 5 years.  Tomorrow is the last day for the hot water shower I have. I'll move into a small room, the rent at this house is too much to continue since I am not teaching as much as before. I figure I can use the hot water pot to mix with some cold water in a bucket and splash-shower myself from now on.

Got a text message on the phone - "gin kowl khao tom moo, mai?"  Eat rice soup with pork, no? I responded "Mai! Now Maak Maak! NO - it's too cold! I wasn't leaving the bed. I had the usual banana cake and instant coffee without sugar... brushing my teeth twice to attempt to remove the yellow stains that were forming from too much of the same routine.

I'm in the computer room at school. Outside Thai men are doing EXTENSIVE renovations to the High School where I work. One of the Princesses is coming in less than a week and they are working around the clock to make the place look "polite" enough for her presence. I can't fathom how they'd get everything done that they started. It's a Catholic school and yet there might be 3 Catholics here out of the 2500 or so people running around here. 3 of them wear white robes. The rest? Buddhist and a couple of Muslims.

I read today an amazing story by a guy named korski at stickmanbangkok.com -
(http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Reader/reader2194.htm) about a visit to Cambodia and the strange folks he met up with. Happy pizzas filled with marijuana... drug talk and more...  He writes like I imagine that other gonzo writer wrote like... he died recently - can't recall his name. Never read more than a page of his stuff, but it was interesting.  His name will come to me....  after a Google search it did, Hunter Thompson.

The sun is shining. The wind is blowing. It's 8:55 am. I teach first class at 10:30. Last class at 5 here. Then I have a private class from 6-7. Two beautiful girls and one small Chinese guy. All 23 yrs. The two girls play computer games ALL DAY AND NIGHT - literally 15 hours per day. The guy works at his store from 8 am to 6. Comes to class. Goes home and drinks with his friends.

It's time to get a jacket soon - I have a chest cold and I'm coughing up some yellow stuff from my chest. Riding on the motorsai (thais' say) it must be high 30F with the wind-chill at 70 kilometers per hour.

I feel better about the run-in with "Excise" officials. I think they'll throw away the paperwork they filled out and my friend's wife won't have to go to jail and us to court over it. Read about our short trip to Laos for cheap Beer Laos and Whiskey here > Vern and friends unjustly accused   If you're wondering if they took our beer and whiskey... they took 4 bottles of the beer laos - one for each excise official. They might as well have cut off 4 of our fingers. They also took 1000 baht ($25 USD). It could have gone very very wrong though. We were making enough fuss that I started thinking they'd plant some yaba (drugs - heroin) in the car. I quickly shut the trunk and doors as we arrived at the police station. smart thinkin'. My momma dint raise no fool.  Well that's a lie, she did, but that's my sister and nobody has time for that story.

In the paper the other day it told citizens to NOT return phone calls if someone calls you and you miss the call. Reason: You may call back and set off a bomb in one of the Southern provinces since the insane Muslim radicals were setting off bombs with ringing mobile phones.  This was their tactic - call someone and hang-up so the person would call back and set off the bomb.  Make sense? to them it does. Now if someone calls me and I miss it, I call back as fast as I can, hoping that I set it off as they are holding the bomb.  The situation is close to out of hand. They've already killed monks.  The next step would be if they set off a bomb in a tourist area. The prime minister here would likely go berserk and send the military to kill every last Muslim in the South.  He already permitted them to shoot THOUSANDS of "known" drug dealers and users over the past couple years. Shot them in the street. Many in the back. Nobody talks about it much, the Thais like him. I don't do drugs. Nor does ANYONE I know. So, I guess his policies are working as far as that's concerned.  My biggest fear here is that the police stop me for a scam and then plant some drugs on me for a big payoff. However, I can't afford the payoff and they put me in jail for a terminal length of time.

12/15/05

Got home last night at 5:15. Ate dinner - some grilled Tilapia and some stir fried veggies and pork pieces. Pork is everywhere in Thailand. Safer to eat than chicken now too maybe with this bird flu pandemic looming. To catch bird flu at this stage one would need to French kiss an infected bird on the beak for more than 15 seconds, however, they are warning us that this is happening with greater frequency (cold weather?) and soon the virus will make the jump through the air to infect a good percentage of us.  I've all but stopped eating chicken, eggs, chicken part s - feet and stuff. Though they still serve it at school and while I won't eat the chicken, I'll damn sure eat the soup it was in. My "private logic" needs a closer look by some astute psychoanalyst.  I'm sure there's something profoundly wrong with me.

I took photos of a yellow pomegranate that was sweet. They have them here. Why we don't have in the usa I don't know. This yellow one had annoying seeds in each little juice bubble though and it necessitated spitting out large wads of seeds once I sucked all the juice out of the bubbles. Picture > Yellow Pomegranate type thing.  While eating it I noticed the worm things were making an all out effort to scale the walls. I've NO idea where these things come from but they are plentiful. If I counted now there would be over 100 on the floors, walls and hanging themselves from the ceiling. They inch up the wall very slowly - by their mouth. Once at the ceiling they hang vertically from their mouth. And there they die. I don't think they turn into anything. Just die.  Then I have to go scraping them down once a week. Strange things. I don't have a name for them. I call them wormy things with a seed backpack since that's what they look like. Picture > Wormy thing with seed backpack.

A co-teacher from the U.K. and the one in charge of the English program here at school left a french bread loaf on my desk again. It was like a gift from Jesus himself. In fact, I call anyone that brings me a french loaf from the grocery store my "God and Savior" because it is the only really delicious farang food to be found in this THAI-centric town.

Tonight I'll move to an upstairs bedroom. No need for the whole house anymore I decided. Time to save more money since i'm not teaching as much. Will have cold water showers from now on. Coldest time of the year. I think worth the money savings though.

Got another call from a local university. They want me to teach 6 hours on each Sunday for a number of weeks. I'll teach English to PHD candidates in political science. Should be incredible fun.  But, the extra money will add to my "Disaster fund". I decided a few months ago that I need to have a fund of 100,000 baht in-case I end up in jail for something I didn't do or in an accident I wasn't responsible for - and yet still have to pay for everyone's claims out of my pocket.  Without this fund I will be at the mercy of anyone. With it, I will still be at their mercy but able to buy my way out of some things... 
C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N is alive and well here.  In fact, if I wanted someone dead it would only cost about 50,000 to effectively cover my tracks well enough with local law enforcement.  Another reason for the fund... if someone wanted ME dead, I may have to pay the guy TWICE the amount HE was paid to kill me, to go kill the other guy instead!  Yes, it can be that bad here. I try not to make enemies here (anymore).  Cambodia is cheaper to live - and cheaper to kill someone. And, you could do it yourself for about 10,000 baht - probably LESS as the Thai baht really goes far over there.  And, they don't really care who kills each other over there.

I just returned from lunch and they had friend chicken legs - so I had 4. What are the chances? I live my life according to probability.  It's true.  Many many things I do I do because I think, statistically, I'll be OK.  However, I've been OK for a long, long time now. Probability says that with all that's out there - SOMETHING is gonna get me. I push that thought aside with a simple "god that chicken was good" reminder... there, it's gone now... nothing to worry about today.

The sun is shining. Wind is blowing. About 65 degrees F.  The princess is coming in a couple days and the whole school is wrecked.  There are crews of about 20 guys and girls doing the work. They wear silly Muslim scarf type things to cover their face so they don't get dark.  It used to give me an eery feeling.  Now, they're family, except we can't speak.  We stare at each other a lot. I like to imagine that the men are smiling at me as we stare. I like to imagine that the girls are supermodels under their layers of sun-blocking clothing. At least very good looking.   The Thai men DO NOT like dark skinned women here. Nobody knows why... but probably same thing as American guys LIKING the dark-skinned women. Society, advertising, cultural B.S.  A dark-skinned girl has as much chance of marrying into money in this country as a cricket has of not being eaten.  They eat crickets like popcorn here. Same with scorpions, and bugs of every sort. My students have told me of eating Cobras and other cool stuff - the big geckos pronounced "too-geh"...  My friend Jon told me someone offered him a whole frog - head and all - was boiled and that he tried to eat it but was sickened by it.

12/16/05

Breakfast today consisted of "FROSTIES".  Kellogg's calls it that here - I think in America it's still called FROSTED FLAKES.  I bought two small boxes last night at 7. (Thais call it 7, it's actually 7-11). I bought a small can of milk too. Wow - good stuff. I topped it off with some banana cake that 7 sells - it's GREAT STUFF. I hope they sell it at all the 7's and not just this tiny place in Ubon. It's made fresh at a bakery.

Last night I taught extra class here at school. It's another hour and I get 300 baht to teach 3 kids. I gave them 2 pages to fill out in English. One question asked them to list all the countries they can think of. I've given this to other grade levels also. These kids were 12 yrs and they couldn't think of more than 10 countries. One of them came up with 4.  This is NOT without trying! The Thais are not the most worldly people. They are very very shallow in what they know about the world. I thought Americans were bad. Thais are much much much much worse.

When I got home I ate some instant noodles and drank a beer Laos. I had 3 students over for class at 6pm. I prepare lots of questions in advance b/c it's a conversation course.  It absolutely astounded me what these people HAVEN'T done in their lifetimes and what they DON'T know about their own country. These are 3 university graduates. All with BS in computer science. Two girls, one guy.  They might appear bright to other Thais.  These 3 did not even know what was going on in the SOUTH OF Thailand where over 1000 people have died - both Muslim and Buddhist ...  MONKS have been murdered in their own temple and these kids are clueless.  After a few minutes of waiting for an answer they said - terrorists... and some people killed.&nbbsp; They then said that it was people in Malaysia fighting the Thais.  Oh my salt!   Amazing!  They rarely watch news on TV. Even more rarely read a newspaper. They are culturally illiterate even about their OWN culture! It's pretty incredible to see.  And sad.  After they left I called the "smart est" one of the three with my other phone that they don't know. I let it ring once. She called back! I let it ring... proving my point. (see 12/14/05 entry for WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER return a call to a number you DON'T know here!)

The girls' day consists of...  Wake up at Noon or 1pm.  Don't eat "breakfast" (1st meal). Get on internet. Play Rangnarok on internet - a fantasy game.  Chat with friends (in Thailand). Eat 2nd meal (lunch at 5 pm). Go see "Mr. Vern" at 6-7pm on Tues, Wedn, Thurs for an hour to "speak" English. Dragging a sentence out of them is an accomplishment.  They'll eat "dinner" about midnight. Before and during, they'll watch television 2-6 hours AS they are playing on the internet. This goes on until about 4 am when they go to sleep and start the process again the next day.  On the weekends they may stay in the room the ENTIRE WEEKEND on the internet and sleeping.  Thais value their sleep that is one thing I've DEFINITELY learned!

I've never met people so devoid of hobbies and activity.

I talked to my landlord last night about moving into the upstairs bedroom. He wants 3000 baht per month. But, he will not move back into the house. He said I can use the things in the house anyway... hmmm... so now I will be effectively saving 3500 baht per month and still have access to the same things - especially the hot shower downstairs and the kitchen with fridge. I was intending to pay only 2000 baht but I thought he'd move back in downstairs with his wife. Hmm. But, the one catch, he will be trying to find someone to rent out the bottom room. If he finds someone - he'll tell them same thing - they can use kitchen, hot water shower, etc. I think I will go for this deal as I will still save over 10,000 baht over the next 3 months that I stay in Ubon AND i'll get the hot water shower and access to kitchen.

I researched Chiang Mai on the internet yesterday. It is QUITE a bit more expensive than Ubon for rent, food, and fun. I looked for alternatives on the map last night and there is no real alternative except Phuket, Patong.  It's a great place except ANY girl that you walk around with - everyone thinks she's a whore. If I brought my friend from here the Thais' would all think she's a whore and the foreigners would all be asking her how much for "boom-boom". 

Sun is shining. About 70 degrees F. Windy and cloudy. It's Friday. I have no classes after school. Nor do I teach an extra class at school. I can't play badminton with my Aussie and English "mates" because my left knee has a strange hurt to it. Like Art hritis. Don't know what's up with it. If it's Art hritis I will kill myself because I refuse to get old at 39 yrs.  Nothing fun planned as next week I'll go to Chiang Mai by bus and home by train.

It's time for a haircut this weekend. I cut the front and sides myself and then go to have the back cut. I know they wonder what happened to the front and sides, but with the language barrier there are few questions. It's good that way, I can be bizarre in some things and nobody will ever ask WHY I did something. They figure - foreigners do funny stuff.  I'll go see this cute little hairdresser nymph who flirted with me last time. I think haircut was 100 baht ($2.50 usd). but it SHOULD have been 50 baht like they charge the Thais.  I think she cut it OK. It's a step-up from the ladyboy that was cutting my hair for a couple months until I figured out it HAD to be a ladyboy. I was stumped for months trying to figure out whether girl or boy. I finally realized, JUST because I COULDN'T figure it out that it was a ladyboy. Must have been. So I found this new hairdresser nymph's place.

The Monk that was leaving the MONKhood called me again. He calls from the temple as he has no cell phone. No money for cell phone. Probably no idea how to work a cell phone. He stayed at Wat Pah Nanachat for 4 years as a monk. He told me he can't concentrate on breath longer than about 10 minutes.  AFTER 4 YEARS!  Anyway, he want's to teach here in Ubon and was thinking I'd help him out - find a place, find a job. But after I met him - there was a very bad karma he was emitting. I just got a feeling that he was a psycho-killer in England before he came here.  He DID tell me that he wanted to change his life after his horrible motorcycle accident in the UK. I really had the feeling he was a horrible dude and after meeting him and him showing me the temple and grounds I didn't feel good. I had to get out of there! 

Ever since I meditated back in 1996 I have had this sense about people. I can tell very quickly if they are "genuine" or if they mean what they say... I can sense their true motivations for things...  It's not near as spot-on as it used to be... but still there occasionally. I FELT IT with this guy though.  Wish I knew his real name back in England - I'd Google him.  Right now he's known as 'Tit Ian". Apparently if you leave the monkhood they call you "Tit" something.  One way of exiling you in a humiliating way.

Another hooded worker outside the window. I decided I'll get some photos of these hooded hoodlums and post here shortly.

12/19/05

At school. One of the princesses is coming today. I think there are 4. This is the one everyone likes most. Not sure why. The prince just flew overhead in one of the fighter jets. He comes here to practice flying at the military base. He comes also because he has a couple girlfriends here as well as his wife's family - and he recently had a baby with that wife.  Oh, he had a baby with a girlfriend here too.

So today we're being shuffled around.  We have no office, it is now a serving point for beverages. I wore white polo pants today, which are apparently not "POLITE". But, nobody told me Friday that white pants were a no-no.  Every other of the 2500 plus people here knew. Hmm. There are police running "willy-nilly" around here.  That's my mom's term for crazy.  Or somebody from the past.  Yes, I think mom.

Last night was COLD again.  Last night I got a call from a co-worker here at school. He is 32 yrs. His 18 yr old girlfriend's (that is still in high school!) father died the other day. Apparently he got drunk, took a bus home. Couldn't find his house and he died in a country field somewhere. Probably hypothermia. He was asking me for some "baht" - money - like dollars. And, I thought he was asking for a bat - a racquet for badminton - I said, YES, YES, no problem - use it for a week... he called me a legend and then started talking about someone dying... and then I said,

wait

wait, wait, wait...

I asked him to repeat because I was lost...  he said, do you have a few thousand BAHT that I can borrow... I said, oh, no mate - wow, i'm sorry - I thought you said a bat....

Anyway, so he was tapped out too - like most of us teachers here. I had just spent money on a graduation thing that my friend has going and we haven't been paid in a while.  Man picked a bad weekend to die.  Anyway, he found 3000 baht from a supervisor here at school today I'm told.  Everyone thinks the AMerican has money here - I'm clueless why.

Ok then... guess I have to go eat my Italian bread I had a friend pick up on her way to the store. I'll try to write something interesting later.

12/21/05

Sun is covered with thick, low clouds. Temperature - high 50's F. Slight drizzle! Yes, rain! I can't believe. I have no classes for next 2 hours.

Last night went to RISOTTO's Italian restaurant and met up with my one friend (Jon) here in Ubon (outside of work). We devoured Bruschetta, spaghetti, large pizza, and each of us ate something from my friend's plate of pork chop, spinach and mashed potatoes. Oh, Jon also had some soup of some sort. Pumpkin soup I think. Is that ITALIAN? 

The princess is gone. She came to give some awards. I got some decent video after a guy in the security arrangement told me not to. I will post here shortly - just need to re-size it so you can see it easily.  Here it is - please right click this link and choose "Save target as..." and save it to your desktop so you can find it later.  Princess of Thailand at Assumption (video)

Co-workers are all playing FUNTRIVIA.com - I played for an hour and now I'm bored. I only seem to have talent for the science and technology subject and they limit play to once every 6 hours for each category... so - I don't think I'll be able to get addicted to it.  Other categories are : tv, literature, movies, people, animals, and other nonsense I have no knowledge of. 

Hmm, nothing exciting to report. I decided to go to Phuket instead of CHiang Mai in the mountains for this break from school. It will be warmer and I'll be able to talk about some business opps with 2 friends down there who are asking me to come back down there.  Phuket is so similar to Maui... mmmmmmmmmmmmm

1/11/2006

I think it's the 11th anyway.  Ooops, nope - the 12th.  Wednesday.

I went to Phuket over the 11 day holiday -by train and bus and mini-van. Wow, if I ever do that again I'll shoot myself. What a pain, none of the schedules of the diff. transportation means seem to mesh. So I had to stay overnight one night in Suratthani and one whole day in bangkok. Neither of which was what I wanted to do. I spent christmas eve on the bus and new years eve on the train.  Funstuff. 

Phuket was a MADHOUSE. It is the height of the tourist season and there were DEFINITELY more tourists there than last year at the same time. I think many had come for the 1 year tsunami memorial and others just to show that they would continue to come to Patong in spite of the tsunami.  Traffic was really horrible.  Hard to find place to eat with few people.  The roads in Phuket are being torn up STILL and are dirt - so riding a motorsai was fun - dirt in eyes a lot.

I have a different view of the whole scene there now.  After living for nearly a year in the Northeast of TH - I see things differently in Patong.  It's really a sick place. I see the girls there that are making their living in a way that they really don't want to - but there is no alternative. Where else can they make more than ME teaching - ?  They can do pretty well during the high-season - maybe 40,000 baht per month.  One girl that works in a club that my friend goes to reported that she went with one guy who gave her 30,000 baht for one night.  So, you can see why they do it.  If they graduate from college here with a 4 year degree and go to bangkok they can look forward to about 8,000 baht MAX per month. 

Anyway... I'm back in Ubon and thinking about where (or if) to move this March.  Ubon has it's pluses, namely it is SUPER cheap to live in and the people are really friendly and cool to foreigners.  There are always jobs here for teaching.  There is virtually NOTHING to do here though.  So, as a consequence, I end up spending more money just trying to do SOMETHING - namely eating out - that sucks up whatever money I have managed to save. 

Other places would be less boring and have better things to eat - better pizza, maybe a subway shop, a pizza hut, mcdonalds...

It's funny - for the last many years in the usa - I didn't eat mcdonalds. coming here and not having anything much to eat in the way of farang food - I eat at mcdonalds everytime I go to a city that has one. Eating cheeseburgers and fries.  There is NO BREAKFAST menu at any mcdonalds in TH - so that is pretty depressing.  No hotcakes. No hashbrowns. No MILKSHAKES EITHER! 

I'm teaching P-3 in 30 minutes.  They are 8-9 years old. They are a good class. They understand the iron fist techniques I've been using.  Today we will review long division. They already learned in Thai math class, but I need to reinforce it in english now. I see them for math 2 days / week.  Really great kids!  The younger kids are the best - the older ones are all goofballs or lazyy.

I had an accident with the motorsai - did I write about it already?  will search text to see so I dont bore you.  Nope, didn't see it.

I was going about 10mph and was 2 feet behind a new car.  There were some motorsais left of me and I had to merge with them - cars on right, m.sais on left. I llooked quickly left to see if I could merge. It appeared that I could. When I turned back straight ahead the car in front had stopped dead and I slammed the left rear bumper pretty good and ripped off their paint and then the handlebar of my motorsai dented their left rear wheel well and ripped off paint.

We stopped and I pretended I didnt speak thai except to say that my friend would call them that night - in 1 hour. My friend called, we arranged to meet at a repair shop. The lady called off - she was going to see the princess hand out awards in a far away city. We arranged to meet again. I called off - thinking - what am I going for? I told her - get an estimate and I'll let you know if it's fair and i'll pay it.  She went and got a 2000 baht estimate - which I paid - thinking it's not a bad deal. Probably close to fair. I gave it to her.

I'm ok, and motorsai is ok - my shoulder hurt for a day - cuz it smashed into the handlebars.  When you're not at all prepared for an accident - you can't even tighten your arms  to brace for the impact and hence, a 10mph crash hurt! lol.

So I'm driving slower. So I guess it was a lesson that will keep me alive a bit longer here. I no longer feel confident all the time weaving around people and traffic. I did have 2 girls on a motorsai cut me off by doing a fast U-turn in front of me. I cursed them in English (twice) and they turned around clueless the 2nd time - since they saw me going straight as they turned. My passenger understood though and I had to explain what we do in America is curse everyone out that causes us grief.

I'm sick again off and on. Drinking hot water and spicy soup to keep it from getting worse. 

Hope everyone had a nice holiday...

:)

1/13/2006 

Hi all. Anybody?  We have a carnival day at school today. Playing games, trying to raise money for something at school here. They'll have a beauty contest for 7-9 year olds; lip synch contests, and many other things that will force the farang into their hideout here in the computer center. I did get a pic of the nuns watching the ladyboys dancing in front of the christmas sign... that was cool.

the shower in my bedroom is smelling something awful. I never use the shower - the landlord said not to. But, when someone stays upstairs the drain water comes down through the wall and ends up in my shower.  It then festers a bit and reeks like eggs. I told him this morning - he says... bpen bpai mai dai - impossible - there is no pipe coming down through the floor to leak here.... hmmm... I showed him. He is confused, but accepts it must be drain water because it's very dirty. 

I moved my stuff out of the closet - my shirts were hanging on the shower rod in there.

Ant attack yesterday - infested my hot water maker again.  They move in overnight and set up their eggs in there... moving all of them in there apparently because it's warm.  Then I have to exterminate the whole colony one by one - they are FAST TOO! I should get some video - they are insane the way they duck and weave - trying to confuse where my left pointy finger will fall and execute them there on the sink.  The sink doesn't cooperate and only provides cover because it is a marble pattern - black and white - which makes it kind of like trying to hit the ant in a strobe light - the effect isn't quite as dramatic, but I'm trying to explain to you something that is hard to explain.

My left knee is still hurting - it's screwing up my badminton career. I really felt I was beginning to master the game. I haven't a CLUE what happened - just like ligaments hurting all the time - front and back of it. 

I've ceased playing FUNTRIVIA. It's not fun. I just discovered that the rest of my co-workers have changed their usernames MULTIPLE times when they do badly.  They also have played about 70 games - so they are remembering questions they've seen 5 times before - or 40 times before -and are doing gangbusters - while I flounder.  That, and the fact that I do well only in science and technology - makes for a very crummy 15 minutes of playing.  My co-workers taunt me.  And i'd rather be reading "theonion.com".  Very funny stuff there.  A headline the other day was something like - "Troops, tired of waiting for Bush, create their own withdrawal plan and timeframe".

ANYway... I'll go play some ping-pong back here with the kids - there are some real players! I have no backhand and some of them can exploit that.  Most can't.  Ok - maybe will get some photos of me playing ping pong with them...

cya,