a funeral, a dinner, and a baby

suriya, this adorable older thai teacher in our office, has been taking care of her dad all year. he's very old and very sick, she explained. over the weekend, he passed away. apparently, when someone dies in thailand, everyone even remotely connected to that person goes to the funeral, because even maddy, tahsh, and i got invited. all the teachers in our office went. funerals here last for a number of days--usually about a week, i think. for most of the nights, tons of people come to the temple and bring huge wreaths and listen to blessings or talk about the person or something like that (i dunno, kanchana said the people were chanting in balinese or something, so i had no shot at understanding it). on the final night of the funeral, the person is cremated, and i'm under the impression that it's more close family on that night. anyway, the whole funeral thing didn't seem so sad (and i'm not saying that because i'm semi-dead inside). everyone was there, but nobody was crying (i even leaned over and asked kanchana one time if anyone would cry, and she said no). nobody seemed particularly wrecked, but this is probably because you'd lose face big time if you wept in front of the crowd. so though it was a funeral, it didn't have that same depressing air that american funerals have.

also, kanchana took us to her sister's house this week to help her niece and her niece's friend prepare for an interview on friday. we ate tons of food from the market--kanchana wouldn't stop buying us things--and hung out in this HUGE house. it was awesome. kanchana's gonna teach us how to make papaya salad there sometime soon.

someone in the office is about one month pregnant. that means i'm gonna get to see her have the baby. BABIES!! i'll try to get pictures.

i'm off to the amphawa floating market this weekend, so i'll see you sunday, internetz.

late p.s. if you happened to see this post between 9 am saturday morning and around midnight on sunday night (thailand time), sorry this was all randomly in a different font for a while. and now i have no idea why it's still a smaller font. i tried clicking "normal" up there on the size button. that's real annoying. oh, well.

extremely delayed p.p.s. it's because i wrote this in times and the rest of my blog is in georgia. iiiiiiidiot.

something awesome

when you buy beer at 7-11 (those stores are EVERYWHERE here, btw. i dunno if i've told you before. they're like the starbucks of thailand, minus good coffee and atmosphere, plus that distinct 7-11 ringing sound when you go in the door), they ask if they can open it for you. this country rocks.

anyway, there's something awesome in my life that i haven't told you about yet.

it's my bike.

look at her! what a beaut!

"nicki, you must look like a complete idiot when you ride that bike."

hmmm...no. i look really sleek and sporty. i felt like suphan didn't REALLY know how cool i was, so i got this bike in hot pink so they know now.

seriously, though, this bike is probably the best purchase i've made in thailand yet. i was pretty nervous to ride the bike at first cuz the streets are madness here. the lines on the street are mere suggestions, and looking behind you when you change lanes doesn't always seem to be a necessity. we drive on the left side here (that was a little weird to get used to), but if your turn is down there to the right and only have a short distance to go, you can go ahead and drive on the right-hand side. no need to go left and make a u-turn and all of this business.

motorbikes scream past me and cars (not pedestrians or bicyclists) have the right of way. cars don't have to stop on a left turn, so you better be looking out for them cuz they're surely not always looking out for you.

i thought biking in iv was madness. if i'm supposed to die in thailand, it'll be on my bike.

ohhh, i'm exaggerating. i've had my bike for about a month and a half now, and after a week, i was pretty used to getting around on it. now it's awesome. i don't have to take a tuk tuk everywhere (the excitement wears off after a week or two of these open air fellows being your only transportation), and i can just hop on my bike between classes and make it to the post office/grocery store/whatever. almost every time we ride'em, maddy and i rejoice in the wonderfulness of the bikes.

two wheels of EXCELLENT.

random musings

we didn't do anything thrilling this weekend, so i don't have any thrilling stories. yesterday we went to see this huge palace in ayutthaya and i swear i was in europe for a little while. it looked like a mini versailles. i'll have to show you some pictures on fbook later this week.

to change subjects completely, i realized a few weeks ago what an ugly city bangkok is. not just the buildings, or the traffic, or the stores, or whatever. i mean the people. i can count the number of bangkok locals i've been attracted to on one hand. this is terrible, especially coming from a place as beautiful as santa barbara. i mean, really, about 82 percent of people there were sexy.

anyway, i started noticing the general level of attractiveness of people around me everywhere in thailand, and it's pretty damn low. thai people are charming and fun and awesome, but attractive they are not. especially men. then again, i'm not exactly looking my finest here. my hair has no idea what to do with itself and can't even keep a decent ponytail, much less a semi-good scrunch. and blowdrying? yeah right. my legs are covered in bug bites that i'm pretty sure i'll have scars from. i'm growing my own rice belly. my nail polish is always chipped (though this isn't the reflection of the country so much as my laziness). so maybe you're just meant to be uglier in thailand.

and in another subject change, i found a funny comic on the internetz tonight. usually i think it's pretty stupid when people post comics or internet funnies on their blogs cuz you just stole someone else's humor...and i dunno, i've just never wanted to be one of those people who just points out other shit on the internet.

but i think you'll read this one and understand why i, nicki arnold in particular, felt the urge to show you.

lollll. thanks, digg.

(p.s. extra lolz at the unintentional grammar error, too)