It has been a long time since we posted anything.  Here is my attempt to catch you all up with what is happening in the next couple of months, and what has happened in the past couple of weeks.  

  At the beginning of this month I finally found a job that I thought was worth taking.  I am teaching Science and Math to 7th, 8th, and 9th graders at a very expensive private school in the west of Bangkok.  So far it seems like a good match.  My co-workers are all people who seem truly interested in teaching and I am really enjoying not having to teach English.  

  Maya is a little unhappy that I have found a job.  She has since lost her houseboy.  I just can't get as much laundry done when I am at work for 10 hours a day.  Maya and I have also been adjusting to the fact that she spends a majority of the month away.  To be honest, it was much more difficult when I didn't have a job.  The good news is that she is back in Bangkok until the 5th of January, so we are having some quality time together.

  In fact, on the evening of the 24th, we are jumping on a night bus and heading down to Krabi to rock climb for about six days.  Both of us are extremely excited.  Then, on the 1st, we are coming back to Bangkok to meet with Maya's father.  He is going to be in Bangkok to visit for about a week and I am truly looking forward to meeting the man that brought Maya into the world.  After that, its back to work on the 5th.  School for me, and Maya heads off to Kuala Lumpur for three weeks.  I will be going down in the middle of the month to visit her for the weekend and check out the capital of Maylaysia.  

  The next big event after that is the wedding of two of our best friends, Marcus and Pascale.  They will be getting married on the beach in Railey and it should be one hell of a party.  Pascale is French and, from the sound of it, everyone she has ever met is flying over for the celebration.  Marcus is Canadian and, it seems, most Canadians are pretty lame and not many of them are coming.   We also have some friends from Japan who are tentatively trying to make it.  Our good friend Dan will be flying in from England and, hopefully, my little brother Mike will also be able to make it out for the event.  There is a small rumor that the Tamir might also try to make it but I have absolutely no confirmation on that.   

  I am going to co-officiate the ceremony with one of Pascale's best friends from Japan, Delphine.  She will be in charge of the French translation of the service.  It will be the first time I have a partner in performing a wedding and I think it will be a lot of fun.  

  And that is not the end.  After the wedding, it is back to Bangkok for a couple of weeks and then we get on a plane and fly into Austin, Texas for a couple of days.  I am scheduled to meet Maya's hometown entourage and then we are flying to Tulum, Mexico to attend Maya's sisters's wedding.  Then back to Bangkok and back to the grind.  

  To my folks in Oregon.  The plan right now is that we will be back in Oregon in the fall for a week or two so that Maya can meet my home state entourage and so we can attend Aaron and Katy's wedding.  You will all get a chance to meet Maya then.  In the meantime, anyone who wants to come and check out Thailand, our doors are open and we would love to see any and all of you.  

  That's what I have for now.  You all have our email addresses and we would love to hear from you if you get the chance.    

All my Love and Lickens,

Brett

Yes.

Well, I was suprised! Not that I said yes, of course, but that the proposal even came! As to how he proposed... for now, that's our little secret. A really big thanks to our friends and family for all of the congratulations, well-wishes and open-hearted acceptance about our decision, especially since most of my loved ones have never met Brett and vice-versa.

If you're curious about plans, here's what we've come up with so far:

Date: 2010
Location: USA
Attire: shoes optional.
Food: Lots of it.

If anyone's got any good wedding location suggestions, please throw them at us.

Surprised?

I am.



Maya said 'yes'.

Maya: This is rundown of relatively recent events.

I wrote this smack dab in the middle of week three of the new job. The 1st week: training. The 2nd and 3rd week: trial by fire. My first trip was to a refugee camp in Sangklaburi, in Kanchanaburi province in Thailand. The area is covered in lush mountains, postcard worthy rural scenery and stunning national parks. Here's what the view from our resort looked like:
















The first day of real work, I woke up in our Sangklaburi resort on Tuesday and piled into our SUVs with my co-workers at 7am. We headed to the local market for breakfast and to pick up a lunch. We then drove about 45 minutes, much of it off-road, up windy, muddy, bumpy mountain “roads” to find my office waiting for me. Here's what it looked like:
























And here's our tech guy with a monkey:

So there I was. I was sitting in a grass hut on a plastic chair in front of my laptop and surrounded by an interpreter, a family of 3 and one large, empty case folder staring me in the face and the only thought that came to me was, “Huh. What do I do now?”


So, I did what any normal person would do… I introduced myself. The rest flowed somewhat naturally from there. The job is filled with small details, a dictionary’s worth of acronyms, exotic names that defy English phonetic transcription as well as my pronunciation abilities, not to mention a procedural maze that you could get lost in for days. That said, recognizing that it’s very early on in the job to be making such bold statements, I love it. The people I interview, while not always able to tell me what I need in the most succinct and efficient manner, are fascinating. My co-workers are all lovely. This particular camp is stunning. The children running around the camp, waiting for their parents to go through the process bestow upon you the best smiles when you stop to notice they’re peeking at you from around the corner. I feel privileged. There hasn’t been a day when I’ve been hesitant or reluctant to go to work, yet. Like I said, this is just week 3. Week 14 might have me singing a different tune. I’ll cherish this while I can.

Thankfully, Brett, despite his scraped-up state, was able to join me for the weekend in Sangklaburi. Brett, my co-workers, and I rented motorcycles and spent Saturday cruising around looking for waterfalls. We scooted down to the border town of Three Pagodas Pass and stood in awe of the surprisingly minature nature of said famous three pagodas.

We finally made it to our original destination, which was Khao Laem national park. While hiking in Khao Laem, Brett and I met our first leech. Well, leeches, to be accurate. They are surprisingly cute wormy creatures for being such bloodsucking, well, leeches. My leech never made it past my shoe. I was special in that respect. The rest of our little gang were not so lucky. Here's a picture of one of the waterfalls in Khao Laem:

So. It’s going to be a whirlwind of a time. I return to Bangkok for a weekend and head out to Kuala Lumpur so-early-it-will-still-be-dark Monday morning. Three weeks there then back to Bangkok for a week. I hope to have more pictures up on Picassa of our Sangklaburi adventures as well as pictures of the refugee camp after KL.

Maya: This is just to catch you up

The semester came to a close and I tried my hardest not to cry when saying goodbye for the last time to my angelic little munchkins during our parent/teacher meetings. One student’s parent reported that he cried when he found out I was leaving. I, in turn, cried then and there. I miss them still.

Towards the end of the contract, I had a bit of a decision to make. The decision: to continue to teach kindergarten (which I’ve discovered that I really, really enjoy) at what seems to be a fabulous little international school just a short distance from our new, wonderful apartment or to get back on the NGO track that I had aimed for with a solid NGO doing really interesting work.

My first thought was, “Damn, I’m lucky to have the misfortune of having to decide between these two fantastic jobs.” I had interviewed at both places. I was immediately excited about the international school. The administration and the grounds were impressively warm and welcoming. They seemed psyched about me. I was psyched about them. There was some mutual psychedness all around.

Then, later that same day, I interviewed for a 6 month caseworker position for the International Rescue Commitee. It would be assisting Burmese refugees apply to the US resettlement program. The job sounded fascinating, meticulous, fun, exciting, scary, monotonous, and being constantly in flux, all at the same time. The catch: I would be traveling 3 weeks out of the month, mostly to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Now if I were an unattached, carefree gal, this would pose no issue. However, I am an attached, carefree gal. This would mean that I would spend 1 week in my new and wonderful apartment. 1 week out of a month with Brett… the same man with whom I’ve spent almost every waking moment for the past 6 months.

I mulled it over, and then mulled it over, alternating between decisions every 5 minutes. Poor Brett, who had to listen to me mull it over incessantly dragging a month out into an eternity. But ultimately, when the official job offer came from IRC with a really sweet compensation package, I couldn’t pass it up. Brett, being the fabulous and amazing person he is, is taking it very well. Only the occasional guilt trips about leaving him alone and his sure-to-be sudden change in diet come up now and then. I am still in contact with that fabulous little school, leaving the door open should, in the future, something might work out.

Ps. Having just reread this, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the overuse of the word “fabulous”. I blame it my recent viewing of “Sex and the City: the Movie”. This also serves as my public apology to Brett for having suggested we watch it together. I'm sorry, Brett.

If you thought the last post was long....

I am not sure if I have mentioned how amazing Maya is. If I have, bare with me, I am going to do it again. Maya is amazing.

She has recently landed a job with an organization called the IRC (International Rescue Committee). She is spending her time, and getting paid, working with Burmese refugees in the hopes of getting those that qualify resettled to the United States. How cool is that? Not only that, but they pay her well and her benefits are fantastic (i.e. they pay our rent). The only drawback is that she has to travel. A lot.

For three weeks out of every month she will be somewhere else. Somewhere else referring to many of the places that she will be that I won’t be. These past two weeks she has been in the very west of Thailand in a small city called Sangklaburi, in the province of Kanchanaburi, on the Burmese border. She comes back this weekend. On Friday night we are going to a Halloween party. I am not sure what we are doing on Saturday or Sunday, but then, bright and early, Monday morning she gets on a plane to Kuala Lumpur for three more weeks.

I, on the other hand, am unemployed.

Just before she left for Sanklaburi, Maya and I went to a hospital and got eighteen of the twenty-three stitches removed from my foot. It was a glorious day. I was walking normally. Maya and I were in good spirits. We came home. We went to bed. Maya got up in the morning and left. I woke up later (unemployed). I made some coffee, checked my e-mail, made a mental list of things that I needed to do on Monday that was something like:

• Work on project
• Laundry
• Find a job
• Find a job
• Work on project
• Eat something
• Find a job
• Find a job
• Work on project
• Eat something
• Grocery shopping
• Work on project
• laundry

Not a bad list for a Monday morning. If you are wondering, I have recently bought an external hard drive and am in the process of putting all of the music I have with me onto the drive so I no longer have to pack around 45kg of music or pay the excess baggage charges related to such a fine collection.

So I began. I started burning some CD’s, got some laundry going, sent out a few replies to people who seemed to be interested in interviewing me, played some free cell (not on the list), ate something, arranged some interviews for later in the week over the phone, hung the laundry out to dry and started another load, more work on the project, ate something again, and then more work on the project. Man, this is lame.

At about six o’clock I got a call from one of Maya and my trainers from the TEFL course. Her name is Sangeeta and she is a very, very interesting woman. She was in Bangkok that evening and we decided to meet for some drinks. We met at about ten and had a few drinks. She suggested that I apply for a job teaching with TEFL International and offered to put in a good word, then we discussed my dislike of the process of eating and she suggested that I suffered from some kind of rare psychological disease, and we bore witness to some very strange behavior from some very drunk people. In the process of watching the drunken people we started a conversation with the people next to us who were also commenting on the decidedly indiscrete actions of some of our fellow foreigners. Sangeeta decided to call it a night around mid-night and I decided that I wasn’t ready to drive back home yet, so I stayed at the restaurant and drank water and talked with the couple for the next couple of hours.

At about two o’clock I decided that it was time for me to get home. I said my goodbyes, put on my helmet, and began the 7km drive back to my apartment. To be honest, 60km/h is not a terribly fast speed to be riding a scooter. I have pushed the little bastard up to about 110 (although it doesn’t like it at all). That said, I was driving home at about 60km/h on a fairly deserted road. A much slower van pulls into my lane off of one of the side streets. I turn on my blinker and start to change lanes.

That is when I heard an explosion. I am not really sure why or what happened. I can only imagine that I ran over something sharp or that I possibly hit one of the lane reflectors at a bad angle. Regardless of the cause, I no longer had an inflated back tire. 60km/h suddenly seemed very, very fast and the wobble that I had developed didn’t seem to be wanting to come back under control. In an instant the rubber on the back tire pinched up and the bike and I went down on to our respective left sides and we slid all the way across the street and into a curb.

The entire incident took maybe a total of five seconds. It was, however, on of the longest and most terrifying five seconds of my life.

Thankfully, I was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a helmet. Unthankfully, the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up half-way, my helmet didn’t have a chin-guard, and I was wearing sandals.

As soon as I stopped moving, I jumped up and moved the bike out of the lane of traffic. Then I stood there, a bit dazed, trying to take a personal inventory. I looked at my helmet to make sure I hadn’t hit my head very hard; there were only a few scratches from the slide. I started moving down the left side of my body. I lost some skin on my chin. Oh, and there on my forearm. This is all still by Braille, I am a little scared to actually look at the wounds and I am beginning to become aware of the faint smell of mid-rare steak. My fingers were sensitive. There was skin missing on my back, on my hip, just below my knee (damn, tore a good pair of jeans), and then, holy shit, I didn’t really have the top of a foot any more.

About the time that all of this was registering and the pain was starting to allow itself to be felt, a very kind man on a motorcycle pulled up to check and see if I was ok. I would really like to tell you what he said to me, but I can’t. He was speaking in Thai, I in English, and we found some common ground in hand gestures. From what I gathered he was about three blocks behind me when my tire blew out and he saw the whole thing. He put me on my bike (now with no back tire) and, slowly, we hobbled down the road about a kilometer to, amazingly, an all night motorcycle repair shop.

The boys at the shop started working on my back tire. The man who brought me there disappeared and then reappeared about three minutes later with beer. I politely declined. To which he responded with the only English I heard from him all night, he said “medicine”. I still declined and tried to fight off the overwhelming urge I had to collapse.

It took about fifteen minutes to get the scooter back to functional order. I paid the mechanics and told my Good Samaritan friend that I was going home (which happens to be one of the few Thai phrases I can muster). He insisted on following me, so I let him. I got home and said goodnight, at which point he offered me some more beer which I again declined.

I got inside, turned on the lights, and started to undress.

There is a certain amount of sickening, disgusted, revolted, disbelieving, nauseating, make you want to cry, feelings that go along with actually seeing wounds on your body for the first time in good light. It’s not that I was bleeding because I wasn’t. The slide seemed to have taken care of any chance of that by cauterizing the wounds pretty thoroughly. After looking at each an every wound I decided it would be best to take a shower and try to clean everything out the best that I could.

I got in the shower and started dabbing at things with soap, wincing, dabbing some more wincing, etc., all the while forgetting that I live in Thailand and the last place for me to be with fresh burns from a motorcycle accident is standing underneath the untreated water that comes out of my shower head (not to mention that the first place I should have been was at the hospital, but alas, my voice of reason was in Sanklaburi).

After my shower, I dried myself off and started looking for the medical supplies. You may or may not know that Maya and I recently moved apartments and, as a result, I had no idea where anything was. I tore the kitchen apart in that near panic of the wounded. I couldn’t find anything. It was probably about four in the morning by this time.

I broke down. I called Maya. I woke her up. I am sure that I sounded all kinds of weird. “Maya, Maya, where did we put all the first aid stuff? I can’t find it anywhere. Do you know where it is?” To which she calmly responds, “Brett, are you ok? What’s happening?” At this time I believe I gave her a rather brief rundown of what I have just told all of you. Did she panic? No. Did she get angry? No. Did she seem unduly concerned? No. Did she tell me where the first aid box was? Yes. Did she suggest that I should go to a hospital? Yes. Did I go? No…not right away.

Maya is amazing.

I doused my wounds in betadine and hydrogen peroxide, and, when I was finished chewing on my tongue, I slathered the whole mess with anti-biotic ointment and went to bed.

I got up in the morning, took another shower, cleaned my wounds again and continued working on my project and finding a job. By late afternoon it was starting to become apparent to me that I was losing ground with my injuries. They were all weeping horribly, and the ooze was forming weird crystals on the undamaged parts of my skin. I had never seen anything like it before and, I must admit, it was really gross. By Tuesday evening I had decided that I should see somebody that was more qualified to deal with my injuries than me.

I went to Siriraj hospital. As I walked in, the nurse smiled. “Motosai?” she questioned. I nodded yes. We started the new game of charades and by the time I got all the proper forms filled out and filled out the necessary details of the accident it was time to get ‘cleaned’. And now I will digress.

The last time I had to have wounds ‘cleaned’, I was seventeen years old. I ran the Hood to Coast that year and, in the middle of my second leg, I rolled my ankle. In order to complete my final leg I taped my ankle in to a solid and barely moveable unit. I ran the 10k leg (five up and five down) in a good split and then passed out in the back of the van. Four hours later I woke up in Seaside at the house we were staying at and started to remove the tape from my ankle. As I came around the heel, a huge chunk of flesh came off with the tape. That didn’t feel good, but again, I took a shower, cleaned it out and went on with my life. My parents were staying in Seaside for about a week, but I had to get back to Salem for the beginning of cross-country practice.

I would run on the foot with the missing piece of heal everyday and the first mile was always excruciating. Eventually, the wound would start oozing and everything would loosen up and it would be no problem to run. I kept this up for about a week. When my mother got home from her vacation I was walking around the house in shorts and a tee-shirt and she noticed all these little black dots that were forming up the back of my left calf. She immediately threw me into the car and took me to the doctor.

Turns out I had a staph infection that was dangerously close to both going necrotic and entering into my lymph system which would then stand a very good chance of killing me. All of this because of some tape. Anyway, the doctor laid me on my belly on his table, put a bit in my mouth, and asked my mother to leave the room. She refused and, to this day, I think she regrets it. I remember a scalpel and a wire a brush and a lot of pain.

Now I return to the ‘cleaning’ I had a week ago. They didn’t pull out a scalpel, but they did pull out the wire brush, and this time with no bit. I persevered. The nurses looked at me with a mixture of sympathy, pity, you idiot why didn’t you come in yesterday, and an expression which I read as ‘foreigners make funny faces to try and hide the fact that all they really want to do is scream’.

Forty-five minutes later I was bandaged up, prescribed anti-biotics, and sent out the door. The whole process cost me about ten dollars (without insurance), which is another reason why the U.S. is so completely f@#ked right now. I took a taxi home and slept until the following afternoon.

Maya, upon hearing of all of this, got concerned that I wouldn’t be able to make it out to Sanklaburi for the weekend as we had planned. I assured her that I would be there and that it would take more than crashing a scooter at 60km/h to keep me away from her. She laughed at my idiocy. I bought my bus ticket to Sanklaburi. I left on Friday at 12:30.

I arrived in Sanklaburi on Friday at 19:30. Seven hours on a bus with no leg room is a very good place to be if you really want to focus in on and get to know all there is to know about the intricacies of each and every one of your throbbing wounds.

I arrived in Sanklaburi just in time for Maya and her new work-mates to pull up to the station, gather me up and take me off to dinner. We had a lovely meal that evening. Sitting on a terrace overlooking the lake that contained the old Sanklaburi (there was a damn built at some point which flooded the old city) and at the H’mong temple on the other side of the lake, we had some good food and some lovely conversation. Then we rented motorbikes. I laughed to myself.

In the morning we woke up and went down to the market for breakfast. We ate. I went to the pharmacy and got some supplies to re-bandage myself. Maya and I doctored my wounds and then we, along with her co-workers Nazaar, Matthew, and Sara, took off on the motorbikes in search of adventure.

We first followed some signs to a waterfall. We got off the bikes, onto the trail, and about a kilometer into the hike we came to a very full stream. After debating for a while we decided not to try to cross it. We hiked back out, got back on the bikes, and headed for Three Pagodas Pass.

Three Pagodas Pass is a really amazing place. If you ever find yourself in Sanklaburi, in the province of Kanchanaburi, in Thailand, GO THERE!

While we were at the pass we decided that we still wanted to see a waterfall, so we got back on the bikes and headed back the way we came and then about another 30km through the hills to a local national park. Again, we started hiking through the jungle, forged some small streams, hopped on rocks, ducked under logs, and finally, arrived at a small waterfall. We ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘awe-ed’. We took pictures. A few of the more adventurous of us climbed around the side of the waterfall and went exploring. Nazaar, taking pity on me and not wanting to leave me behind, sat down with me to have a cigarette and eat some granola bars.

It started raining. The adventurers came back. We got ready to go. We noticed the leeches.

Matthew pulled about four out of his shoe. Sarah had one that had already bitten in, she plucked it off, Nazaar had few in his shoe, Maya and I were clear. We started back through the jungle. Nazaar saw a leech jump. I was wondering if the leeches could smell all of the open wounds that I had. By the time we got back to the bikes we had all discovered a few more leeches. Sarah was bleeding out of her leech bite hole. Those people who told us things like leeches have this anti-coagulant in their saliva really weren’t kidding. Such a very little hole, such a whole lotta blood.

We rode the bikes back to the hotel. Upon removing my shoes I found an exploded leech the seemed to have bitten in to my ankle and then gotten pinched between my ankle and my shoe and somehow, maybe unable to control the flow of my blood into its slimy little body, exploded. My leech bite hole bled a whole lot, too.

That evening Maya and I found the Sanklaburi hospital and got my bandages changed and my wounds cleaned again. It turns out that walking around all day makes open sores more sensitive. I winced and gritted my teeth as they applied the betadine and bandages. As we were sitting at the hospital Maya mentioned that it was funny how many hospitals we had been to in our seven months in Thailand. I pulled out my wallet and started going through the cards that I had:

• a hospital near our old apartment (for the herpes)
• BNH hospital (for the stitches)
• Paolo hospital (for the removal of the stitches)
• Phayathai hospital (this was for Maya’s vaccinations)
• Siriraj hospital (for the initial cleaning of my wounds)
• Sanklaburi hospital (for clean dressings after the jungle hike).

Quite a collection for seven months in if you ask me.

On Sunday we went to the H’mong side of Sanklaburi. Sanklaburi is divided in to two sides, divided by the lake. We checked out a large wooden bridge. We walked up a hill to have coffee. We went to the big H’mong temple. We looked at some Buddhas. I decided I was tired. We got some lunch, went back to the hospital for some new dressings and then went back to the hotel so I could take a nap.

Maya watched a movie. I slept.

I woke up for dinner. We ate. We watched Dave Gilliam’s (sp?) ‘Google-whacked’. We went to bed. Maya got up and went to work. I spent the day chilling in Sanklaburi. I got clean bandages. I checked my email. I drank a soda. Maya and her crew came back from work. We ate more food at this cool little vegetarian shop/bakery/restaurant that supported a local orphanage. Maya bought a lot of stuff. The vegetarian pizza was good.

On Tuesday morning I woke up with everyone else and went into town to catch my bus back to Bangkok. Seven hours later and with an even deeper understanding of the personalities of my wounds, I arrived home. I went to bed last night at about ten thirty and slept until this afternoon. All told it was about sixteen hours. My theory is that I wore myself out this weekend

Through all of this all I have really learned is that Maya probably should not leave me alone for weeks at a time without expecting me to fill in the void with injuries...

Glitches, Niches, and Stitches: Another weekend in Thailand

Brett:

The weekend started off innocuously enough. We participated in our schools annual sports day festivities on Friday, which really meant that I spent the day sitting around watching students compete in cheer-leading competitions (sports day, c'mon!) while I simultaneously got sunburned and rained on. At the end of the day, and much to Maya's dismay, I got to climb around on some scaffolding in the effort to clean up after the days festivities.
Four o'clock rolled around and we hopped on the scooter and made our way back home. By five p.m. we were home and both in various stages of napping when we got a call from one of our good friends here. Emily, our good friend here, let us know that this would be her final weekend in Bangkok. She has decided to move on, or move back, to the more financially lucrative, albeit much colder in the winter, pastures of S. Korea. We thought about declining the invitation but soon found out that some of our other friends, also friends of Emily's, had already canceled on the evening and we, being the bleeding hearts that we are, could not stand the thought of Emily spending one of her last weekends here without the pleasure of some company, even if it was ours.
So we roused ourselves from our siestas, got cleaned up, and headed out for a few drinks at the Tube. It was a quiet enough evening, we were only out for about three hours. We got a surprisingly easy taxi back home (no fussing, or arguing, or asking multiple drivers for the lift), and were in bed by about two a.m.. By any account, not bad for a Friday night.
Saturday rolled around. Maya spent a majority of the day filling out security applications for a potential job at the IRC (International Refugee Committee). I spent most of the day sleeping. Around five o'clock, I went for a run and then Maya and I prepared to go out again in order to celebrate a couple of birthdays. The first celebrant was a co-worker of ours and we helped her issue in her 24th year with some delicious Indian food, towers of beer, and buckets of vodka screwdrivers. We also used the opportunity to introduce Marcus and Pascale to a few of our co-workers.
The dinner went well and at about 9:30 we headed to one of our favorite bars in the area, Rain Dogs, in order to help celebrate the birthday of one of Marcus' fellow CELTA students. B.J. (I know, it's hard for me not to chuckle as well) also happened to be turning 24 (these young kids are really making me aware of my receding hairline). We had a few beers and, as the evening progressed, Emily showed up and informed us that our friends, the Brits, who had canceled the night before would be making an appearance as well.
The Brits (aka Simon and Matthew, pronounced Maffew) got a bit lost so, at around 11:30, I went out to find them and guide them in. I located them after about 10 minutes and got my first clue that the evening was about to get more interesting. On sight, Simon came barreling down the street and tackled me. Now, Simon has had a general feeling of hostility towards me ever since the night that I punched him in the stomach, and, as we both went careening to the pavement in front of an on-coming taxi I thought to myself, "I probably deserve this and, hopefully, now we're even."
Well, the taxi didn't hit us and neither of us got hurt, though we both ended up a little bit soggier than we began. We made our way back to the bar and Maffew proceeded to order a bottle of whiskey to keep the festivities going.
The great thing about Rain Dogs is that the clientele is in charge of the music. They have a computer set up that we can access and plug in our mp3 players, ipods, mini-discs, and what have you. They also have an extremely large selection of music of their own. This is really a great thing, but you might question the wisdom in letting random drunk people have access to a machine that costs a significant amount of money. We, however, were in no state to question wisdom.
Since we were the only customers in the bar, the music was ours. We were drinking and talking and having a generally good, relaxing evening. Towards about two o'clock Maya started getting a little sleepy and decided to head home. I, being the phenomenal boyfriend that I am, prepared myself to walk her out to a taxi. She said her good-byes and I said my see-you-in-a-fews and we prepared to walk out of the soi to hail a taxi. Just as we were walking out, the Brits started pumping out a little Modest Mouse, which caught both of our attention. We both headed back in to have an end of the evening dance-around.
This is when the evening turned. Something happened. I don't know what. It was dark. There was movement, then even more movement, then a loud crashing sound and no music. The Brits had started wrestling, or having sex, or maybe just gotten excited about something one of them said about a soccer game, and the next moment there was no music and a computer on the ground.
Somewhere in the midst of coming back in to dance and the crashing of the computer I had decided to take my sandals off so that nothing would inhibit the amazing dance moves I was pulling off. Did I mention it was dark?
There is nothing like a thousand dollar machine hitting hard concrete to get the attention of, well, everybody. My instinct was to move towards the way-laid monitor to make sure that it was still intact.

This was a bad instinct.

It seems that not only was there a computer on the table but there was also a whiskey glass, which became an invisible two centimeter high, 10 centimeter long tendon slicing ninja.
I stepped towards the computer, forgetting that I wasn't wearing my sandals. I only stepped once. I stopped. I thought, "Maybe this ain't so good." I limped towards a chair. I bled all over everything. I sat down. I continued to bleed. And bleed. And bleed.
This is about when everybody else stopped worrying about the computer and started noticing all of the puddles of blood on the floor. Then they noticed me, in a chair, looking at my foot with, I am sure, a confused expression. I always seem to get confused when I hurt myself.
Then began the hospital debate among inebriated people as we tried to clean the wound and assess the damage. "How bad could it be?" "He'll be all right, get him another drink?" "Maybe he should go to the hospital." "I don't want to go to the hospital, get me another drink!" "It looks worse than it is." and then Maya, "We're going to the hospital." Luckily for me, Maya hadn't really been drinking and was still well within normal visual capacities. In the commotion and debate the staff at the bar had also already decided that I was going to the hospital. By the time I knew I was leaving there was a taxi waiting.
We put my foot in a plastic bag so that I wouldn't bleed all over the taxi. The hospital was maybe a ten minute ride away from the bar. We got there and I limped into the hospital room and removed the bag that contained a considerable amount of my blood (whiskey doesn't seem to lead to conducive blood clotting coefficients). We removed my sandal, which was glued to my foot by the blood that was congealing around my heal. The nurses began to clean the wound and, before long, the doctor was there to begin stitching.
I was in a surprisingly good mood. I spent my time joking around with Maya and reassuring the doctor that there was nothing to worry about and that everything was going to fine. He informed Maya that I had sliced one of the tendons in my foot. I asked how long it would be before I could run and if I would be able to do the vertical marathon I was planning on participating in next weekend. He laughed a bit, told me it would be six weeks before I could run and then told me that there was no way I was walking up 62 flights of stairs. This information put a bit of a damper on my mood, but I was at least thankful that I had followed through on my run earlier in the evening, since it now seemed like it would be my last for a while.
In the end, I ended up with twenty-three stitches in my foot. Five of them are internal and, I imagine, are holding my tendon together, the other eighteen are external, 16 in my middle toes and two on my big toe (I am not sure if those two are completely necessary, I think the doctor was just having fun being with me). My foot now looks like this (when it isn't covered in bandages):

However good my mood was on Saturday night/Sunday morning, by the time I woke up on Sunday mid-morning I was intensely aware of the fact that a man had been sticking his finger into my foot and pulling on a tendon.
The past two days have been a bit uncomfortable and I stayed home from work today. After about two hours of consciousness I inevitably feel the need to sleep again and all the doctor seemed to think I deserved for the pain is paracetamol (he is probably right). For my American friends, that is Tylenol, and not even that good Canadian Tylenol. I did manage to clean our apartment today, and Simon did call to let me know that we are, in fact, now even.

Maya:

While Brett had nothing to do all day but sit around, my situation, as a K1 teacher was quite the opposite. However, instead of having kids concentrated in one area, they were spread out over an entire field, uncertain as to why all these people suddenly wanted them to run or take all the red balls out of the basket or sit down when the whistle blew. Many, once they got the hang of the game had fun. Others were terrified and wanted nothing to do with it. There were parents to talk to and kids without parents to keep entertained so that they wouldn't think about their parents not being there. There was my Thai teaching assistant who had a tendency of lining them up and leading them somewhere without telling me where there were going. It was a special kind of exhaustion. I did, however, win a gold medal for the teacher's vs parents chairball game. That's right, chairball. How can I explain this game? It's like ultimate frisbee meets basketball meets chair meets trashcan. No dribbling. Once someone has possession of the ball, passing it to a teammate is your only option. At the end of the field is a chair. On this chair is someone holding a trashcan. The goal is to get the ball into your own trashcan. I was the defender. I almost knocked some poor mother off the chair. In my defense, I did grab hold of her and made sure she didn't fall once I was sure the ball was no where near the trashcan. We schooled the parents, 10-2. Teachers got the gold medal. I was exhausted once we got home, but ended up having a lovely evening at The Tube. A headache started to set in before I went to bed. Fearing dehydration, I drank lots of water. It didn't work.

The next morning, I woke up with a headache. Not just any headache. An anger headache. I can't remember the last time I had an anger headache. It grew as filling out forms that should have taken 30 minutes took me 3 hours due to formatting and scanning issues. It grew as the house took on a funny odor that was unbearable. It grew as the announcer for "whacked-out sports" on AXN barked away on the TV. I demanded the announcer's demise, ceremoniously turned off the TV and then noticed Brett conveniently and wisely making his way out for a run. After making efforts to halt the odor, my anger headache turned into a sad headache. It was miraculously cured with fresh air, a beautiful balcony, delicious Indian food, and good company.

We moved on to my favorite bar in Bangkok, Rain Dogs. The night got better as Emily and Nick miraculously appeared without any efforts of coordination (on my part as I had forgotten my phone at home). The Brits showed up as well (with a bit more effort involved). Whiskey was had. I, fearing the return of aforementioned anger headache, laid off the juice and drank water. The hour of "go home now or out all night" came about. Noticing where the company was headed in addition to my lack of alcohol's convivial influence, I decided on the former. Goodbyes took about 30 seconds longer than it should have as, while I was saying my final goodbyes, I heard a crash. A computer monitor was on the ground. I had heard glass break. I went over to ascertain the damage and saw two pools of blood, then more, then followed the trail up to Brett's bloody foot. So bloody, you couldn't see the source. I caught a brief glimpse of it when I tried to wipe some of the blood away but it poured down so quick, all I could tell was that it was bad. Oh, and how. I heard stupid things coming out of Brett and Simon's mouth. Things like "It'll be fine", "Just stop the bleeding and put a bandage on it". I argued. They argued back. Marcus sided with me. More arguments back. I decided that, as the most sober person and the only one with a decent look at his foot, there would be no more arguing. We were going to the hospital. The bar staff were unbelievable. They called over a taxi, one of them came with us to the hospital and despite my objections, payed for the taxi and waited in the waiting room until I came out to tell her it was OK. We shall not be walking in empty handed the next time we go to Rain Dogs.

Brett, having had his fair share of beer and whiskey, was in a fine mood. In fact, I couldn't get him to stop laughing. The doctor took it well and let me watch him dig around the inner workings of Brett's toe as well as show me the torn tendon. Very cool. Brett asked me how many stitches. I guessed. Maybe 7 or 8? And how very wrong I was. It was all fun and games until the bill arrived. And it arrived with a thunder. A couple of ATM withdrawals accompanied with Hail Mary's later, we had just enough to pay the bill and get us home. Luckily we have a bit of reserves but a word to the wise. Emergency care at a private, International hospital: not bargain basement prices. But, how could one put a price on Brett's foot, right? Sigh.

In keeping with the medical theme of the weekend, I left a snoozing, wounded, and hungover Brett to see this. Instead, I forgot where the darn thing was, went to the wrong shopping center but bumped into really fascinating display of preserved conjoined twins, cut to show the shared heart and liver, a preserved brain hemorrhage, kidney and bladder stones, a smoker's lung, and live sperm and dust mites under a microscope (not the same microscope) courtesy of Siriraj Hospital and med students, some of whom spoke English and explained the displays to me. Very high on my cool scale. I will try to make it back to see "Earth from Above" now that I remember where it can be found. I came home with presents for Brett (an Eco book, pharmacy goodies to clean his boo-boo, and the ingredients for mac and cheese).

With such an eventful weekend, Monday was almost a welcomed relief. I came home to find that Brett had cleaned the house, one foot and all. My ill-fated hero.

Tumultuous Times for Thailand

So there's actually quite a bit of news to tell. First off, In case you haven't heard the news, the Thai government is in a bit of a bind:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/03/thailand

There was rioting on Tuesday and school was canceled on Wednesday. We have seen NONE of the action. We never have occasion to go by the government house, which is where all the protesters are. All I know is that the misnamed People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD)* want the current PM to resign for being a puppet (PAD says) for the last PM (who the PAD ousted from power). It's not my fight. I don't know enough nor can I really gather enough information from the few Thai who I've asked about it. From what I gather, there's displeasure with the PAD and the PM. No one really knows how this one will end. What I will say is that, coming from a fairly gun-happy place, the one thing that is refreshing is the lack of guns during the riots. Protesters were yielding weapons like bats and canes and machetes but very few guns. While these things are still dangerous, they are not as quick tempered and distant as guns and I find the absence of firearms very reassuring.

*PAD does not, from my VERY meager understanding, look well upon voting rights for the rural poor, opposes cheap health care as well as more even distribution of the country's wealth (but when do those who have the wealth get excited about redistributing it?)

In other, more self-centered news: Remember that whole "ode to our new home" post I wrote? Yeah, scrap that. We've decided to ditch the easy life for the money making life. In a fit of attempted fiscal responsibility, we have come to the realization that we might need some money in the future should we, I don't know, off the top of my head, ever want to afford an international plane ticket out of Thailand. While one can live quite comfortably in Thailand on the baht, it doesn't translate so well into other currencies. Bangkok has the most prospects of high paying jobs. We do like it here and are finding more and more nooks and crannies that we can attach ourselves to so we made the decision to hunt mostly around here. Please wish us luck and strength as I hate job hunting almost as much as I hate cockroaches.

Oh, and my little sister is getting married. Congrats Kit! Not surprised but very happy!!!!

My Man of Many Talents

A rebuttal of sorts.

I am a lucky girl. Brett is one talented man. Besides his obvious talent for exaggeration, evident by his blog about my mercurial moods, he also has a slew of abilities and attributes that not everyone might appreciate:

• He knows everything. Even if he doesn't, he does. At least he thinks he does.
  
• His command of the art of procrastination rivals mine. That says a lot.
• He has an amazing ability to keep things interesting and challenging. Usually this ability is augmented when beer and or whiskey is involved. Like the time he decided to leave the safety of friends and wander the unknown streets of Chiang Mai in a blind inebriated daze searching for our hotel for an undetermined amount of time until a friend happened upon him in a tuk-tuk and brought him back to the hotel at which time he discovered that his wallet which contained the only ATM card to access ALL of our money was no longer attached to its chain. He stumbled back in around 3 am. Yeah. Haha. That was fun. One night in Bangkok, as the song goes, he fell asleep on a friends balcony only to come back into the apartment convinced he was working, still at school and that those of us sleeping were sick children in the sick bay that doesn't exist in our school. He walked out of the apartment, dazed and looking for a way to leave the school. He at some point in his wanderings up and down the halls realized he was not in school but then could not remember which door he came out of to come back into the apartment. A special talent, indeed.
  
• He matches my stubbornness. We might be the only couple who have spent an entire 1 hour bus ride going back home in the following manner. Brett: demanding I give him the phone. Myself: refusing to do so until he said "please". I spent an entire hour ignoring him as he demanded the phone non-stop through "Gimme the phone" songs - mostly remakes of old guns n roses songs, repeating the same phrase in different pitches and tones, and making up rhymes. Luckily buses in Bangkok traffic are loud. I don't think our fellow passengers suffered as much as we did.
• His powers of concentration and OCD behavior when it comes to puzzles and games is unnerving. I could leave him alone for hours, days even, and come back to find him still playing scramble, scrabulous, or whatever word game or puzzle he is currently obsessed with. His ears do not hear. I could shout up and down screaming the house was on fire and maybe 10 minutes later he would mumble, "What?" and wonder to himself why his feet were so warm.
  
• He pushes me to improve myself. He knows about my secret desire to be an international assassin, capping off and slicing through those responsible for atrocities with my hitori hanzo sword. I am often inspired by the action scenes (but NOT the plot) of the latest angelina jolie movie. Death proof was particularly galvanizing to improve my drop kicks to the head. I also tend to express my appreciation for people through more unorthodox ways. Fake sucker punches to the stomach are my way of saying I care. Only certain personalities bring this out. Randy is one. Luke is one. Brett, by way of being the only person with me most of the time, is one by default. Knowing this. He still says things to me like, "I want you to see 300." It's as if he wants me to really perfect my artillery of fake death inducing moves. He does, however, actually bother to wonder aloud as to why I spend the following week practicing slicing his guts out and beheading him.
  

But beyond all of these wonderful attributes, Brett's crowning achievement is his ability to stay horizontal for prolonged periods of time. An entire day even. 12 hours of sleep a day? Chump change to Brett. Not when there are 24 hours for the taking! When left to his own devices, the amount of time that that man spends laying down is astounding, asleep or awake. Those of you who know me might say, "Now, not so fast, Maya." But really. In this matter, the man puts me to shame. He has an unparalleled flair for utilizing cushioned flat surfaces, and should I ever buy a card reader for the memory stick in my phone, photographic evidence shall be offered up.

Of course his crowning achievement isn't really his ability to stay horizontal, impressive as it may be. It's his generosity, kind-heartedness, patience, level-headedness, integrity, and all the other gooshy wonderful things about him, not least of which is his willingness to put up with me.

Ode to our (hopefully) future home.

As I've mentioned before, our cozy little nook of Bangkok has been much better than anticipated. I like our apartment, and all the people who work in it. I like the food and have found where to buy mango sticky rice. I like my Thai lessons, despite the fact that I haven't become miraculously fluent after 3 lessons as previously hoped. I expected to hate every second of being in Bangkok. I don't. In point of fact, I like it.
But I love Krabi. Our recent vacation to Krabi and Tonsai reminded me of all the reasons I left the hustle and bustle of Japan and came to Thailand. Brett and I spent a day of our vacation checking out Krabi on motorcycle. What follows are my unfair comparisons.

Bangkok Traffic: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more exhausting, hot, and grey. Bangkok has gazillions of motorcycles, motorcycles taxis, regular taxis, songtaews, buses, private commuter vans, cars, tuk-tuks, and the occasional suicidal pedestrian trying to cross four lanes of traffic instead of using the pedestrian bridge (we admit to joining their ranks on occasion). They are all vying for the same 1 m² of free space in which to wedge their vehicle of choice in order to cut off the driver who dared to allow said space to exist and thereby advancing half a meter closer to their destination while gagging on the carcinogenic accumulation of exhaust fumes. Krabi's traffic, however, is actually like a good, lazy summer's day.

Where Bangkok is like a flash flood carrying with it sewage and jewels, Krabi is a peaceful brook. Bangkok is a cacophony of horns, vender calls, rushing cars, trains passing overhead, stereos blasting and public aerobics being conducted on the street corner with instructions assailing you over giant speakers along with badly remixed Spanish dance songs. Krabi is the whisper of a breeze, the lapping of waves against boats and docks. To be fair, there was still the occasional but wholly ESCAPABLE audio assault as you pass the main market. Bangkok is a collage of astronomically expensive, mouth watering luxurious high rise condos and office buildings, high fashion shopping malls, dilapidated buildings, beggars, business men, prostitutes, students, tourists galore, billboards, discos, karaoke bars, mom and pop shops selling random household necessities, 5 star restaurants and and endless streets of outdoor food stalls. Bangkok has everything (except an affordable climbing gym). Krabi does not. Its a simple child's drawing of a couple of buildings and some trees. It's lovely. It's a drawing I can't wait to live in.

Click here for photos.

The Mercurial Moods of Miss Maya Marie

We have now been living in Thailand for almost four months. Since the beginning of this adventure we have been together approximately 99.9% of the time.

I would say that constitutes a large majority of time to be spent with any one person.

We live together, shop together, eat together, work together, travel together, clean together, argue together, make friends together, and get sick together. In the process of this 'togetherness' I have learned a lot of things about Miss Maya that I had not known about during the first year of our relationship. They are as follow:

• Any time Maya would like to do something she lets me know by asking me if it is something that I would like to do. For example, "Hey, Brett, do you want to get a massage?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to have vegetables for dinner?", "Hey, Brett, are you hungry? Do you want to get some lunch?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to stay in tonight and watch that movie in Spanish?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to go downtown and get a bikini wax?".
  
• She uses this same tactic whenever there is something she wants me to do. For example, "Hey, Brett, do you want to get up and do the dishes?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to do laundry today?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to update your resume?", "Hey, Brett, do you want to pay more attention to me?".
  
• Maya is obsessed with how her hair looks. The problem is that I have not yet been able to develop the ability to determine what exactly the parameters are for a 'good' hair day and a 'bad' hair day. Her hair consistently looks the same to me, black and curly.
  
• She gets suddenly sensitive in the middle of conversations in which we are both viciously poking fun at each other.
  
• I can go from being her hero to being a man who never does anything in a period of about 27 seconds, depending on how I answer her questions about what it is I want to do.
  
• She doesn't like demands.
• She doesn't like it when I point out that she makes demands.
• She also doesn't like it when I spend the hour and a half bus ride home telling her to give me the phone over and over and over again.
  
• When she decides to pinch, it leaves bruises for weeks.
  
• It is ok if I sleep when she is sleeping or if she is sleeping while I am awake, but it is not ok if I am sleeping while she is awake.
  
• Kindergarten children have a profound effect on her state of mind and her ability to communicate.
  
• I am supposed to understand what the words mean, and what she means by the words.
• I am expected to learn how to tolerate random and unexplainable punches, stabs, karate chops, and Judo moves, usually directed at my stomach, without responding negatively.
  

With all this in mind, I think there are very few people that I could have made this trip with and still like. With all the ups and downs of the past six months it is truly amazing that we are still willing spend most of our time together. Hell, its amazing that we still enjoy talking to each other on a regular basis.
I am also sure that there will be a rebuttal to this forthcoming, so hang on to your hats, I am sure it will be good.

The Fates shine down upon us...at least temporarily.

We haven't posted much recently, but its mostly because there hasn't been much to post. There is, indeed, little to report. We are miraculously disease free. No more herpes or zombie flu, no sleeping sickness or bot fly infections. I'm developing my instincts for knowing when a 3 year old is going to puke on my lap. My class of adorable angels just keep getting cuter and smarter by the minute. They can tell me to be careful when I trip over a bench while trying to give them more soup during lunch and give all the correct answers when I ask them, "Can you bite? Can you hit? Can you push?" All in English! We have a coffee maker and a DVD player and the season set of WeeDS thanks to Marcus and Pascale which I am now completely addicted to. We haven't been robbed or pick pocketed. No earthquakes or tsunamis. While I type this I am knocking on wood so loudly my knuckles are red and my next door neighbor thinks that I have bought a drum set. Life is good.
We got paid without problems and booked ourselves a flight to Krabi to do some long awaited climbing and some reconnaissance on living there come October. We've told our employer we won't be continuing past our contract. Bangkok has been better than expected but doesn't hold any of the things we came to Thailand to enjoy, except for spicy food and friendly people. The school, despite the commute, has been a great experience and Brett is wagering I'll spend 1 whole day crying over missing my class of little munchkins so much. Brett's class asks him questions like why do white people like dark skin and Thai people like whiter skin, which he answered very well, and why do people have eyebrows. I don't know about his answer to that.
We start Thai lessons next week, we've decided to save money for the move to Krabi and not buy a scooter and I have recently acquired a decent looking bottle of wine and found a grocery store that makes my mouth water and my wallet yearn for lightness. We are giving the following advisory: Don't go see Wanted. That's it, folks. Sorry for the lack of anything exciting to report.

P.S. Happy Birthday America. May you grow up enough to stop making stupid decisions and get over your pre-emptive self righteous bazooka phase that a 232 year old should be over.

In other news... Bush Tours America to Survey Damage Caused by His Disastrous Presidency

Top 3 things you don't want to hear, in Thailand or anywhere for that matter.

3. and I quote "Babe.......BABE.......BABE, you're not paying enough attention to my herpes sores." He's a charming devil, that one. Luckily those herpes sores are looking much better now.

2. "WREAGGGHHHH"... again. I was barely keeping it together as my body soared to a high high fever and my nausea keep getting stronger and then that dear little boy blew foul smelling chunks all over my classroom. I left school shortly there after in tears from a high fever and exhaustion and scaring everyone in my path, including the taxi driver who kept telling me to go to the hospital.

1. "I think you have the flu, but it could be Dengue. There is an outbreak of Dengue right now in Bangkok." I sat there, moribund, in the doctors office counting all the countless mosquito bites I've suffered in the past week.

Luckily, its the flu. The most atrocious, lay-you-flat-and-rob-you-of-your-will-to-live flu I have ever experienced. The symptoms started on Tuesday and I have just now found the energy to sit at the computer and type this out. But, on the bright side, at least its not dengue. Woohoo.

Herpes...but not that kind of herpes!

Three days ago I developed a raging headache. When I say raging I mean that it was bad enough to keep me from wanting to talk. I wasn't even talking to myself. I thought I was severely dehydrated so I started drinking more water.
About the same time I noticed three crazy bumps on my shoulder. I thought they were a weird cluster of pimples or just massive mosquito bites. Neither being an odd thing.
I went to work with my aching head and my tender 'pimples', got through my day, came home and spent the evenings lying on the couch, staring in the direction of the TV/wall, not speaking the whole evening.
The second day I asked Maya to have a look at my 'pimples' because they were really sore. I still had not connected them to my raging headache (now on day two). She did.
She said they looked funny. She said I should get them checked out. She said they were black on the inside. That sounded pretty strange, but they were on my shoulder blade so I couldn't really look at them.
Maya took a picture with the camera phone and, she was right, they were black. My first thought was maybe that it was some kind of mosquito-bite cum staph infection, knowing how prone I am to staph infections, but none of the other tell-tell signs of a staph infection were visible. No funny red lines tracing the path of my lymph system. No swelling. No puss bubbles.
I decided it wasn't staph and that maybe my backpack strap had scraped off the tops of the bites/pimples and the black dots in the center of them were just some kind of weird internal scab.

Not so lucky.

I also found it weird that I was developing another, very similar, cluster of odd looking bite-type things on my right tricep. Coincidence? I thought so. There are lots of mosquitoes in Thailand and I didn't have to think very hard before I decided that having similar bite patterns was probably not that odd of an occurrence.

Man, am I dumb.

Today was weird again. I woke up with the same intense headache I had gone to bed with, but that wasn't what was strange. I had been waking up with the same headache for a couple of days now. What was strange was that it felt like the back of my arm had been bruised, it was very tender and very sore.
My first thought was that I had possibly tried to deliver the 'flying elbow of vengence' to Maya at some point in the middle of the night to punish her, for unfailingly taking the blanket all the way over to the other side of the bed, and missed...possibly hitting the night stand instead but still failing to actually wake myself up. I decided not to ask Maya in case I might incriminate myself.
So, the soreness persisted in my arm and about half way through the day I felt the bruise spreading into my shoulder, down my arm, down my back and through my ribs. Still no visible signs of infection (bacterial, that is) I finally linked my raging headache to the funny thing on my back, though. I became intensely aware that the pulsing headache had roots under those crazy three black dots on my shoulder blade.
Headache persisting and invisible bruise growing, Maya began insisting. Go to a clinic, Brett. Go to a clinic, Brett. Go to a clinic, Brett.
I was stubborn. No. No. No. No.
Maya said, Are you ready? Let's go!
I said, O.K.
We went to the office of our building and asked for the closest clinic. Suphab, the matron of the building and, as it turns out, the neighborhood, was curious about why I was seeking out a clinic. I told her that I was afraid I had some kind of infection and wanted to get some things checked out. She gave us directions to the neighborhood clinic.
We got there. It wasn't open. We called back to the office of our building. Suphab suggested I had herpes. I winced. Herpes is bad and I couldn't think of anything that I had done that would warrant me breaking out in herpes on my shoulder blade and arm.
She came and picked us up and took us to the hospital.
Turns out it was herpes.
A better way to describe it might be like a muted case of the chicken pox.
Otherwise known as shingles. This is what wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Herpes zoster (or simply zoster), commonly known as shingles, is a viral diseaseblisters in a limited area on one side of the body. The initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes the acute (short-lived) illness chickenpox, and generally occurs in children and young people. Once an episode of chickenpox has resolved, the virus is not eliminated from the body but can go on to cause shingles—an illness with very different symptoms—often many years after the initial infection.

Varicella zoster virus can become latent in the nerve cell bodies and less frequently in non-neuronal satellite cells of dorsal root, cranial nerve or autonomic ganglion,^[1] without causing any symptoms.^[2] In an immunocompromised individual, perhaps years or decades after a chickenpox infection, the virus may break out of nerve cell bodies and travel down nerve axonssegment and infect the corresponding dermatome^[3][4] Although the rash usually heals within two to four weeks, some sufferers experience residual nerve pain for months or years, a condition called postherpetic neuralgia. Exactly how the virus remains latent in the body, and subsequently re-activates is not understood.^[1]

If you can't read that because I have made it way too small, here is the link to the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_zoster.

That's my story for the week. I am currently on a program of skin ointment and antiviral pills that should keep me busy for the next seven days. Maya wants me to let you all know that she is too lazy to write her own post, so she wants me to tell you all that she got thrown up on, all over her lap, today. She knows it isn't as bad as shingles...but it is much smellier.

Lightening storms, algebra, and cab drivers who don't match their photos.

NEW RULE #1: If you get into a taxi and the photo of the driver in the cab license does not match the actual driver it is a good idea to put on your seatbelt and take your neck brace out of your bag and put it on.
NEW RULE #2: Always carry a neck brace in your bag in case you get into a taxi where the photo of the driver in the cab license does not match the actual driver.
NEW RULE #3: Be prepared that, when learning algebra, there is some kind of strange neurological electrical storm that begins to occur in the minds of 11 year old students that can cause them to spontaneously do something like this:
This move ends with the student landing on his feet behind his chair and then sitting down to return to copy the rules of angles from the board. The rules of angles are pretty straight forward. However, in the time it took me to write the eight rules to angles on the board one student managed to do this two times.
The eight rules are as follows:

1. The sum of angles on a straight line is 180 degrees
2. The sum of angles at a point is 360 degrees.
3. Vertically opposite angles are equal.
4. The sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees.

5. An exterior angles of a triangle is equal to the sum of the two opposite interior angles.
6. An isosceles triangle has two equal sides. The base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal
7. An equilateral triangle is a triangle with three equal sides and three equal angles.
8. A rhombus and a parallelogram have two pairs of parallel lines.
Truly an amazing thing to catch out of the corner of your eye.
Which brings me to the thunderstorms in Bangkok. Also a truly amazing thing to behold and probably not terribly dissimilar to the event that is occurring in the minds of eleven year olds when studying algebra.
For a couple of nights in a row, Maya and I have turned off all the lights and sat on the couch watching the sky outside our window. We have seen some truly breathtaking demonstrations of the power of nature as thunderbolts have come shooting out of the sky close enough that we can't count to one before the sonic boom of thousands of pounds of superheated and quickly dissipated air rattle the very foundation of the building that we live in. And that is to say nothing of the rain that accompanies it. Luckily, the storms usually role in around ten o'clock at night so we have plenty of time to get in our after-work swim before Thor unleashes his wrath on this poor city in Thailand that has absolutely no idea who he even is.
As I write this blog I look like this:
Oh, and I should totally, like, be grading papers right now. Ha!