Christmas Comes to Chiang Mai

There’s a fancy, Western mall down the street from my house where I get my Starbucks fix. They decorated for Christmas!



And they had a beautiful 4-story tall tree. Not quite Rockefeller Center but still made me happy/homesick when I saw it.



I, however, will not be spending Christmas in Chiang Mai. This afternoon, I’m leaving for Pang Maphaa in Mae Hong Son, which is where my project is located. (This makes me realize that I’ve never said anything about the main project I work with on my blog. It’s called The Life Skills Quality Education Enhancement Project and you can read more about it here.) My PiA friend Mara and my coworker Ive are coming too. On Christmas Eve, Mara and I will be leading some of the local teachers in an active learning lesson on hygiene and hand washing. Then on Christmas day and for a couple of days afterward, we’ll be building a playground and painting classrooms at one of the schools the project works with.

Then we head to Ko Chang (tropical island paradise 6 hours from Bangkok) for a week to celebrate the New Year. So I will be out of contact for a little while but know that I am thinking of all of you and wishing you a Merry Christmas!

Life Essentials

So I spent last weekend back in Nan! There was a 3-day weekend for the King's birthday and I decided it would be nice to take a little trip. It looked the same, which was comforting. I visited the morning market and got the breakfast I got every day last year. I went to the night market to see my favorite tofu/peanut sauce lady and she still has the key chain I gave her. I even stayed at my old apartment because this year's PiA fellows live there and I crashed with them. I got to see some of my kids and the teachers for a bit on Saturday because they were leaving to go to a drama competition. My boys have deep voices and are tall and my girls have boyfriends. Ah, they grow up so fast.

The main reason I went to Nan though was to pick up a suitcase I left there last year. I had packed it in a frenzy when I was packing up my Thai life, trying to decide what would be essential for my second go-round. By now, I had honestly forgotten most of what I put in it. Apparently, I decided in April that my essential items for living in Thailand were my bootleg DVDs, a first aid kit, a couple of skirts, my cold-weather clothes (which seems kind of backwards when you think about it but I actually wear at least a sweater and a scarf to bike to work every morning now that it's the "cold" season and a chilly 60 degrees), a motorbike helmet, Steph's leftover sunscreen, hiking boots, and a copy of "The Time Traveler's Wife".

Oh yeah, and these:



Team Anti-Thesis. MHC Champions 2007.

Protests and Pandas and Hippos, Oh My

So, my current country of residence has been in the news quite a bit lately. DON’T WORRY. I’m fine, I promise. Most of the protests are in isolated areas of Bangkok, and Chiang Mai is fairly politically unified. So far, my daily life has remained unchanged. The few notable exceptions are that I can’t wear red or yellow, I can’t visit certain areas of Chiang Mai, and when I was walking around yesterday, I saw a group of pro-government supporters driving around with megaphones. Luckily, I don’t look good in either red or yellow, I wouldn’t go to those areas of Chiang Mai normally anyway, and the protesters were loud but peaceful. Please know that I am being careful and keeping on top of the news and that I, PiA, and my organization are all looking out for my best interests. So really, you should not be worried about me. Also, worst case scenario, the Chiang Mai airport is still open and operational.

In more exciting news, I went to the Chiang Mai Zoo last weekend. I was a little worried about what kind of condition the animals would be in, but apart from some inexplicably hairless ostriches, it was really a great zoo. There were signs in English and I'm pretty sure most everything was correctly labeled, though I still would like to know exactly what a "jungle cat" is. There were white tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, camels, monkeys, penguins, and baby koalas. We paid the $3 extra to see the pandas and it was well worth it.



But the best part was THIS:



Yes, those are hippos. Yes, they're resting their chins on the edge of their cage. Yes, those are small children approximately 2 feet away from them. There's a lady who sells bananas right outside the hippo exhibit and YOU ARE ALLOWED TO FEED THE HIPPOS. Apparently, this now has them trained to wait around right where all the people stand so that you can throw bananas into their gaping mouths.

Manvale, what time should I meet you there?

November 17th Already??

I know I owe a Catching Up - Thailand post, but I've put it off for so long now that I have a whole month to catch everyone up on. Luckily, I got an email from my boss this morning that sums up my past month at work better than I could ever explain it myself:


"มีคนชวนไปประชุมเรื่องก่อตั้งวิทยุชุมชนสำหรับเด็กและเยาวชนที่โรงเรียนสอนคนตาบอด วันที่ 25 พ.ย. 51 (ยังไม่รู้เวลา)

ณ โรงเรียนสอนคนตาบอด อยากให้ปาน กับ อาสาสมัครต่างประเทศสักคนหนึ่งไปด้วย เขากะจะทำภาคภาษาอังกฤษด้วย

Kirsten, Do you understand?"

Catching Up - America

As many of you know, I spent my birthday in San Francisco with the Forbes Family Commune West. It was a glorious time filled with wonderful people, free birthday drinks, audio tours, a trip to Forbes Island, and delicious American food. AnnVale was clearly concerned that I might neglect my cupcake consumption, so she sent this along to Meg's.

Not quite as many stamps as it took to send mail from Botswana, but still pretty cool. Inside each card was a designated "Snack Stop", the address, phone number, and hours of the snack stop, a suggested treat, and directions how to get there from Meg's. Armed with all this information, I spent the day before I flew out on a delicious scavenger hunt.

Snack Stop #1: That Takes the Cake, Hella Nutella Cake
After a very far walk up and over a number of ridiculous San Francisco hills, I arrived at my destination...

...only to find it closed. Luckily, I found what I thought was a suitable alternative just a few stores down.

YUM!!


Snack Stop #2: Kara's Cupcakes, Ghiradelli Square, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake
Short walk to Ghiradelli Square, where I managed to avoid distractions

and find Kara's Cupcakes, which was open! Delicious cupcake and you can see from this photo that my snack scavenger hunt is already helping my double chin.


Snack Stop #3: Swirl Culture, Tart Frozen Yogurt with Oreos
Pretty full at this point, but in the true spirit of America, I ignore that full feeling and keep eating. The tart yogurt is surprisingly good, considering I don't like yogurt, and I decide to get strawberries on top instead.


Snack Stop #4: Miette, Ferry Building Marketplace, Snack of my choice
I met TK and Mgalla at Ferry Building Marketplace for lunch and finished my scavenger hunt with a stop at Miette. I opted for some peanut butter cookies to take on the plane.


Out of time, but still one snack stop at Citizen Cake left! Guess I'll just have to stop there on my way back home.

Catching Up - Thailand post coming soon.

No Longer Unemployed, Still Living at Home

This is the first time I've written a blog entry and been able to read all of the buttons on the screen.

After some debate as to whether the new Thai government would allow me to go back and work in Thailand, all the paperwork and visa issues have been sorted out (fingers crossed) and I will be headed to Chiang Mai in mid-to-late September.

Seeing as how I've now gained 2 more months than I expected in America and how my Thai savings cannot compete with the rising gas prices, I weighed my options and realized that as alluring as watching reruns of TV shows from the '90s is, it would probably serve me better to get a job. But who would hire me this late in the summer and for such a short amount of time?

Temp agency to the rescue! That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Just like Ryan on The Office, I'm now a temp. My current assignment is as a customer service rep at a proxy solicitation firm. That means I call shareholders and try to get them to cast their vote for the upcoming meeting over the phone. The job has all the glory one could ask from a call center - my very own headset, a variety of scripts I'm required to read, cheat sheets that tell me what I'm supposed to say if someone says "I don't own any shares." or "I don't want to vote.", an automatic dialer, the promise that all of my call will be recorded, the works. People have generally been nice, especially once they realize I'm not technically a telemarketer, though I've calculated that people drop the f-bomb at me about once a night on average. It's not my worst job - that would be the time I worked as a switchboard operator - and the best part is that they're so busy right now that I can work unlimited overtime. Anything over 40 hours a week = time and a half. Last week, I made just about what I'll be paid for an entire month of work in Thailand. God bless America.

The Big 1-8

Start your countdown widgets. Ajarn Kirsten's triumphant return to America will occur on May 3rd, after a quick 2-week vacation in Bali.

BALI

I know I have much more to update everyone on and I promise I will do so shortly.

more pictures

I'm trying to organize my photos by month. Check them out here.

August
September

More Fun Things about Thailand

1) Sometimes, your co-teacher thinks that your image is worthy of a keychain. Then she decides to sell the keychains to your students, who actually buy them, and makes almost 1000 baht doing so. I'm thinking I really need to start a "Take Your Picture with Aj. Kirsten" side business.



2) Tomorrow is Makha Bucha day. What is Makha Bucha Day, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. All I know is I get the day off.

3) Next week is my last week of teaching. That means I have spent 8 3/4 months as a teacher. Anyone know when that all happened? The way things are shaping up right now, I'll probably spend most of March in Laos with my roommate, and then I'll be back in Nan March 28-April 11 to teach a summer conversation course. Then...?

4) I guess this doesn't really count as new, but I'm still a big fan of the kids' nicknames, especially when I'm grading 180 of the same worksheet and stumble across this gem.

Anybody want to join?

Tomorrow Copplestone and I are going to ride an elephant. If you want to come, meet us at my school at 10 am. See you there.

A round of applause?

Yesterday, as I was finishing my run at the reservoir in town, I passed a group of older men that were streching after their run, and one of them stopped stretching to clap for me. He literally gave me a round of applause and clapped loudly enough for me to hear him over my iPod. It wasn't even in a creepy way - just totally well-meaning and congratulatory. I think it might have been because I'm a woman and Thai women don't ever go running, but I'm not quite sure. I've gotten used to being stared at everywhere I go, but if the Thai people go and up the game and clap at me wherever I go, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. Not a bad way to end a workout, though.

Happy Teacher's Day!

Today is Teacher's Day in Thailand and we have a day off from school to celebrate. After last week, where I had to break up a fight by physically removing/carrying a student out of the classroom and deal with the aftermath of a boy in 5/4 pulling a knife on a girl in 5/1, this is a much-needed day off. On the agenda for the day - cleaning my room because Copplestone will be in Nan in one week! He will bring the blonde population up to a solid 2. I'm dying to post pictures of the Asian Forbes Family Christmas, but my laptop power cord is broken so that will have to wait until a new one arrives from America.

In the meantime, enjoy this video of my roommate, Steph, teaching her fourth-graders, "I Feel Good" by James Brown. Yes, that really counts as an English lesson, and yes, I really get to teach kids that are that cute (you know, when they're not threatening each other with knives).

Also, I think I've finally stopped being and dumb and figured out how to do links in here, so family member who aren't on facebook, enjoy the following albums:

July vacation to Ko Samet

A trek we did with some friends

A trip to a temple with the 6th graders

Kindergarteners

5th Graders

6th Graders

Back in Nan, Safe and Sound

I've heard about the bombings in southern Thailand, so I just thought I'd report that I'm fine, though a little sad to return to normal life after some amazing travels. Details and pictures to follow. Sawat dii bii mai ka! (Happy New Year!)