secrets secrets are some fun

on monday and wednesday nights from 7 pm to 8 pm, i tutor two m6 (senior) girls. they're in a low-level class, so their english isn't particularly strong but they're awesome girls. they're sincere and they're trying so hard to learn english and they have great senses of humor.

during our first wednesday session we had about five minutes left. i didn't know what to do so i reached for the standard topic of girl talk: "so, tell me a secret."

they sort of giggled at first and didn't wanna tell me anything, but eventually we got to talking. they told me some pretty interesting things, actually--things that will stay at our tutoring table and never make it into the blog. we talked for about 20 minutes about their secrets and i was like, "welp, ok, time to go, bye!"

"teacher...do you have a secret?"
how do i both maintain the image of professionalism (ha, i know, like i've ever actually been a professional) but also share something intimate about myself that will eventually deepen my relationship with the kids, which will make us better friends, which will encourage them to learn english, which will give them better job opportunities, which will give them a better life? how do i come up with such a secret on the spot!?
"um...next week."

so the tradition of secret wednesday started. mondays are serious--we study for the GAT PAT, which is thailand's version of the SAT. wednesdays are for chatting and catching up on life.

last night a new girl came. in the last 10 minutes, i turned to her and said, "so, tell me a secret."

"really?" she looked at the other two girls. they nodded.
"yeah, tell me a secret." she giggled and asked the other girls in thai if she was seriously supposed to tell me, this teacher figure, a secret. yes yes yes, the other girls encouraged her. they'd already shared their secrets; it was new girl's turn.
"well...i....like....a.....boy," she admitted, followed by a fit of nervous and embarrassed laughing.
"who is he?" i asked
"he goes to univeristy," she said
"oooh, an older boy. what university?"
"kasetsart." this is what i'm made to believe is a prestigious university near bangkok.
"oooh. how did you meet him?"
"i saw him on tv." i was a little weirded out, but i dunno how local tv works around here. maybe everyone watches and he was being interviewed or something.
"who is he?"
"an artist." i thought this meant painter. turns out she meant actor because the other two girls quizzed her on who it was, and when she answered "gun" (which is both a name and a weapon), they squealed and the smartest girl corrected new girl and said he was an actor.
"well, have you ever met him?" i asked.
"oh, in my dream!" she answered. the thing is, she was completely serious about all of this. this wasn't a giggly celebrity crush. she legit likes this famous actor. she went on to tell us that she's in the fan club and how one time she bought a ticket to his concert but for whatever reason it didn't work and that was her one chance to meet him and she was so upset it didn't happen. there was no way i was gonna break this girl's heart and tell her that she had no chance in dating this famous guy.
"you should talk to him," i suggested, because hell, why not try to meet and date this famous actor fellow? he's only 19, she explained, so they're pretty much the same age. and he lives fairly close by.
"i tried! but my ticket, it didn't work."
"no, i mean email him or something. just you and him." the other two girls think this is a sane suggestion. i know i'm being sort of mean and giving bad advice, but this girl'll figure it out sooner or later.

the conversation blended from her actor crush to another girl's crush on a boy at school, and before we knew it it was after 8 pm and time to go home. secret wednesdays are the best.

the thing about monsoon season

i think i like it. i'm fairly certain i love it, actually. but there are sometimes when the damn rains make me so angry that i think there's no POSSIBLE way to love this season through and through. we got real intimate with the season this weekend and we've determined we're all in very complicated relationships with the season.

here, here, i'll back up. last week, lauren, christie, maddy, and i decided we wanted to hike erawan waterfalls over the weekend, so come saturday morning we all woke up early and hopped on a bus to kanchanaburi around 8 am. the bus pulled into the station around 10 am, where we were biked to our hostel.

how quaint. his calf muscles were epic.

we dropped our stuff off at blue star, which has to be one of the most adorable bungalows i've ever stayed in. you walk about a minute off the road and downstairs to a bunch of thatch bungalows over the water. beautiful bungs. 

we hired a personal songtau to take us the 60-some odd kilometers to erawan waterfalls. hiring a songtau, while more expensive than taking the public bus, was probably the best choice we made all weeekend. ugh, man, that hour-long ride to the falls got really boring though. probably cuz we'd just spent the morning in that other bus to kanchanaburi city and we were all hot and anxious to get there.

around one, i think, we pulled up to the falls, grabbed some lunch to go and headed up to the falls. these things are incredibly gorgeous. we marveled at them, swearing there was no way this beauty could be natural. 

honestly, look at that.

nom nom nom, lunch went in our bellies, and it was time to get in. we were four of maybe six white people there and maybe 50 thai people. thai people don't swim in bathing suits, btw. well, the guys go in topless, but the girls go in fully clothed. seriously, jeans and all. sometimes they're even wearing bathing suits underneath. i think they do it both because getting a tan is ugly here and because they're girls and, by nature, self conscious. (yes, i believe all girls are self conscious, and boys are too for that matter. we should all probably compliment each other more often.)

but we're americans and we wear tiny little bikinis so we stripped down and made our way to the water. the thing is there are fish in the water. and they're famous because they bite the dead skin off your feet. these are no small, inch-long fish that just give you a little tickle. these guys are all different sizes, including HUGE...some of'em were maybe a foot long, fat, looking like a delicious meal. maddy'd been to erawan before and warned us about the fish, but the three of us were like, "mehhhhh, nbd. we can handle it."

this wasn't true. we stood on this log at the water's edge for a while and freaked out. maddy made the first move and leaped in; christie and i found our balls and leaped in right after here. lauren, on the other hand, stayed on the log and screamed and flipped out for at least two more minutes. the three of us were in the water, constantly moving so the fish wouldn't touch us and absolutely cracking up. we were quite the spectacle. 

lauren eventually manned up and jumped in, but far from gracefully. we hung out in the warm water for a while, climbed behind the waterfall, took some pictures, and pretty much enjoyed life. after maybe half an hour we decided to move on to the next fall. erawan's got seven waterfalls altogether, and we made it our mission to see all of them. our plan of action was to hike all the way to the top one then hang out in the different falls on the way down, depending on how we felt, how much time we had, blah blah blah. we powered up the mountain and made it to the top in probably 45 minutes or so. 

btw, i miss mountains all the time and was so happy to be in them again.

at the top waterfall, we ran into some monkeys. monkeys are cute creatures but they're absolutely evil. we were standing under the monkeys in trees, just ogling over them and adoring them. then i hear this THUD right next to me and see a shovel on the ground. lauren was next to me and we looked up to see this monkey looking right at me ("he laughed in his monkey voice," lauren said)--HE TRIED TO THROW A SHOVEL AT ME. asshole monkey. 

on our way back down we stripped down a couple more times to hop back in the water. like always, it was super hot, but not like always, the water was actually cool and refreshing. at waterfall number four there are these rocks you can slide down and we debated stopping there, but we'd already been hiking for a couple hours and we were tired of taking off and putting on our clothes/shoes and decided to keep walking.

this was the second best decision we made all weekend because about 20 minutes after we left fall numero quatro, the rains came. monsoon season bitch slapped us with all its force in the form of torrential downpour. we just owned it, walked in the rain, and got soaked. my shoes were making that slop slop slop noise that only wet tennis shoes can make. we made it back to our songtau and it stopped raining. monsoon season has a way of doing this--the rains and storms come in, hang out for about an hour, then peace. so we thought we were done. 

but we followed the storm. like us, the storm was headed back to the city, so we got intermittently intense sideways rains for the whole hour back. the rain drops came in like darts. it was suckfest 2010 and i was pretty unhappy. it was cold and hurty. we were all upset at monsoon season, but realized there was nothing we could do and we got laughy. some things happened that i shouldn't talk about because some of us will go on to become professionals in society. 

we got home (i instantly call wherever my bed for the night is "home"), showered off, put on pajamas and went out to get massages. awesome, wonderful, glorious massages. the kind where the whole places smells like lime and deliciousness and they give you clothes to change in to and they do all of you at once. (ha) so so so excellent. 

after massage o'clock we put on some real clothes and grabbed some dinner, drank some beers, had some girl talk. after dinner we met up with matt and jon at a bar. then a special guest met us: ELVIS. the king lives! (seriously, though, an elvis impersonator was at the no name bar in kanchanaburi. he came out to the star wars theme song.)

the night proceeded as saturday nights with beer usually do. we woke up the next morning in the bungs (which, btw, is a hilarious abbrev of bungalow) and rehashed the night. even though we were split up in two bungalows, the walls were incredibly thin so we could just talk normally and hear each other. good. 

hungover and hungry, we wandered down the street to find some bfast and ended up in the same bar we were in the night before (lolz...they serve a good breakfast, actually). fed and feeling better, we headed back to blue star, checked out, and wandered down to mangosteen café for coffee and shakes. we're going back to this café--it was the sort of place that buys and sells books, plays jazzy music, points a fan directly at you, and has incredibly sweet wait staff. 

we got back on the public bus around 1 pm to get back to suphan. this was a hot, sucky ride back. my legs didn't have enough room in my seat because i'm not a thai person and my stupid american legs are too long. it was really effing hot. the fans didn't work that well. it was really crowded for the first 45 minutes or so. complain complain complain. 

but we were back in suphan by 3 pm, strolling through the yoo dee mee sook by 3:15. i don't really know exactly what it was, but it was just an awesome weekend (36 hours?). we all spent a lot of time laughing and talking and i went to sleep incredibly happy on sunday night.

kanchanaburi, we'll see you again soon.

the way i owe you blogs on monday and the way they don't show up until tuesday

you guys, it's JUSTIN BIEBER WEEK IN NICKI'S CLASSROOM! the last two weeks we did boring verb tense stuff in my classes, so i promised my students we'd do something more fun this week. their choice--either a song or a game. the song? eenie meenie, aka the best song in the world right now. judge me as you will, but i fucking love this song so much it makes me cuss unnecessarily.

anyway, stories from the weekend. i need to give you these. lauren, christie, maddy and i went to the erawan waterfalls in kanchanaburi this weekend, which was an excellent choice. i have to write all of it down cuz i'm still without camera so my words are the only way i'll remember things (oh, and everyone else has digital cameras and there are like 124 pictures on fbook...but besides that, no way to remember but my own prose).

but right now i'm spinning into some bizarre delirium cuz i'm so tired. so i'm gonna go to bed now and tell you stories tomorrow. goodnight, world.