Can we smoke in here?


…and elephants, oh my!
October 28, 2008, 7:36 pm
Filed under: touristing

Daily Advice:

In order to attract and keep readers for your blog, update more than once a year.

I just spent a weekend in a working elephant camp. Domesticated elephants are controlled using entirely verbal commands. We saw a tethered young bull elephant who was getting quite agitated  -  a dog was teasing it from just out of reach. One of the mahouts (trainers – one mahout works with one elephant) UNCHAINED the agitated young bull elephant and climbed up – he told the bull to leave and HE DID. He turned back once to look at the dog – clearly wanting to go stomp on him – but the mahout said no so he didn’t. The mahout didn’t even break a sweat – he was smoking a cigarette on top of this angry elephant, TELLING HIM NOT TO DO SOMETHING. It was amazing.

 
Also I thought that the elephant painting was a bit bogus – that the trainer probably did most of it. But all the mahout does is choose the colour and then he hands the paintbrush to the elephant. The elephant does the painting, and it’s pretty obvious usually what they are trying to paint. The elephants painting in the picture below are only 7 and 8 years old, so their painting look childish, but I saw painting OF OTHER ELEPHANTS, some with their mahouts. Pretty amazing.
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October 27, 2008, 11:45 pm
Filed under: touristing

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worst. day. ever.
October 15, 2008, 4:38 pm
Filed under: being foreign, food, idiocy (my own), idiocy (other people's), moral outrage
Let’s have a recap on my day, shall we?
 
1:30 am – finally get to sleep.
3:30 am – wake up. Decide to check e-mail. In the dark.
3:35 am – break wine glass.
3:36 am – swear
3:38 am – grope way to light switch without shredding feet.
3:40 am – get dressed to go on balcony to get broom
3:47 am – try to connect to internet
3:50 am – do crossword instead of checking e-mail
4:30 am – stop doing crossword. doze off.
6:30 am – wake up. set alarm for 7:30
7:30 am – alarm goes off
7:45 am – alarm goes off
8:00 am – alarm goes off
8:15 am – alarm goes off
8:20 am – alarm goes off
8:25 am – drag ass, red-eyed and puffy, out of bed
8:37 am - dash to cab! get laughed at for trying to make myself (successfully!) understood
 
In the 5 hours I was at work, I:
 
x. Drank 4 cups of coffee – two at a time.
 
x. Gave myself an electric shock (twice) with my external hard drive. The external hard drive that works just fine in my laptop. The hard drive that works on a USB and HAS NO POWER SOURCE. Let’s be perfectly clear: I studied technical theatre in university. I specialised in theatrical lighting at a school that didn’t have the funding for new lights or up-to-date equipment. I hung lights above my head from a shaky ladder. I replaced electric sockets with a screwdriver and an exacto knife. I repaired broken lights and tested them by PLUGGING THEM IN. I dealt with broken and worn out extension cords. I spent hours at a time on grids and scaffolding carrying lights and wrenches around. I dealt with a power grid that had blue-smoke pouring out of it and once, I put out a fire in a table saw. I have gotten more electric shocks in the last six weeks on computer hardware and home-appliances-for-dummies than I have gotten in my entire life collectively. I HATE THAILAND.
 
x. Walked across campus in the heat to the building with internet access. The elevator was turned off, so I walked up to the fifth floor. I somehow stopped paying attention and ended up on the top floor with no more stairs. I turned around to walk down one flight of stairs and went to the wrong office. Turns out the building does NOT have 6 floors, as advertised. It has 7.
 
x. Could not connect to internet. Walked back across campus.
 
x. Was told that there is a SECRET INTERNET SWITCH in the office.
 
x. Walked back across campus. Remember: Thailand is a tropical fucking country. Climbed back up to the fifth floor. Turned on the SECRET INTERNET SWITCH and connected to the internet, and located the map on the website I needed.
 
x. Discovered that the printer didn’t work.
 
ALL BEFORE 10:30 AM.
 
Lunch was “American Fried Rice”. That means: Rice with hotdogs. I didn’t recognize the sauce – it was sweeter than any sauce I’ve had on rice. Halfway through the bowl, I stopped chewing, and looked up at my Thai friend, Pui.
 
“Pui,” I said. “Is this fried in…..ketchup?”
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“….Ketchup and hotdogs?”
 
“Yes,” she said. “It’s American.”
 
“…..That’s not American!” I said.
 
“What’s in American Fried Rice?” she asked.
 
“THERE’S NO SUCH BLOODY THING.”
 
 
 
In Thailand, construction workers work in bare feet or in plastic flip flops.
 
 
I went to the market and listened to Thais talk blatantly and loudly about ‘farangs’ as I walked past.  Seriously – ‘Farang’ is the first word all foreigners learn. I know you’re talking about me, and while I don’t know what you’re saying, I’m intuitive enough to figure out that the raucous laughter is hardly complimentary. We’re not idiots. Be discreet with your racism.
 
 
I found out at 12:30 that HARPER WON AGAIN. I’m not coming home until Canada sanes itself up.
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class act.
October 10, 2008, 3:37 pm
Filed under: idiocy (my own), idiocy (other people's)

Right now, the childrens are on vacation from school. That means that for on whole month, I am not teaching.

I am also not on a beach in Thailand drinking margaritas and looking at pretty mens, because I am on probation still and do not have vacation time yet. That means: I have to go into work for six hours a day for the month and sit at my desk, reading novels, learning Thai, chatting, and occasionally doing some lesson planning.

It’s boring as fuck, let me tell you.

Today, however, is Friday, and my boss sent us home early. There are only four or five of us not currently taking vacation days, and we’re all twiddling out collective thumbs, so he sent us home. So now it’s 1:30 pm on a Friday afternoon and I’m in my underwear, enjoying a rare moment of internet connectivity, and drinking beer.

Yep, I’m drunk in my apartment on a weekday afternnoon, and I LOVES IT.

 

FUN FACT:

In Thailand, motorcycles and scooters are incredibly common. Motorcycle taxis are more common than the more famous tuk-tuks, and when people ride them, they usually perch, side saddle, behind the driver, with their shopping on their lap. I’ve taken one a few times, but usually insist upon sitting forwards, straddling the seat. The last time I went on the freeway, and the driver darted between a bus and a transport truck.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, I thought, but I trusted and sat calmly on the back of the bike as I drove through the shadow of death.

Recently, I saw a family on a motorcycle (I assume it was a family, but of course it could have been three people relatedin any number of ways). The man was riding the bike. A toddler was stnading between the man’s knees, holding the handlebars. The woman was sitting behind the man, carrying a bloody bicycle. The man was the only one wearing a helmet. When they got to where they were going, the man did not do a u-turn on the bike (roads in Thailand have opportunities to U-turn around the median every few hundred meters). No, instead the woman got off the motorbike and carried the bicycle over the pedestrian overpass – up three flights of stairs in tropical Thailand heat – as the man roared off with the toddler.

CLASS. ACT.

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