mlia

seriously though. i know you think that because i'm off in thailand now, i must be doing something crazy all the time. i probably always have fascinating stories or thrilling culture clashes.

but mostly, i go to work, i get excited about watching tv, and i spend a lot of time thinking about what i'm going to eat later. i'm still just as boring as i was in america.

li rong just told me the chinese version of the creation of the earth and of man. keep in mind this is a second-language convo for her, so i might not have everything right. apparently, there was this god guy who was born and grew up inside the atmosphere ("airs," she called it), which used to be really tiny. when the god guy got older, he stood up and was HUGE. he expanded the atmosphere and the light stuff floated up to become the sky, and the heavy stuff sank down to become the earth. hence, the creation of the world.

then this lady god came along to create humans. she took the soil from the ground and shaped it into humans. these handmade people would become the famous rulers and academics and stuff. to create the common people, she took a whip and whipped muddy water. the droplets that flung off became regular people like you and me. so in china, we've been whipped from the beginning.

november 15

that's when maddy and i will be setting our feet back on glorious american soil once more. last night we bought our tickets to san francisco...

...from paris.

this means a few things.

1. we're officially flying home the other way around the world. we're doing a trip around the world with a year of teaching in the middle of it.

2. getting back to america is real. we screamed last night when we bought the tickets. i've been a mix of joy and utter sadness since i hit the "continue booking" button. on one hand, HELL YEAH i miss america sofuckingbad and i can't wait to get back to see everyone, to have full conversations with strangers, to speed up the pace i talk at, to get a new job, to find a new apartment, to eat mexican food, to have fast internet, blahblahblah. but on the other hand, i have a really awesome job here (scratch that...i actually HAVE a job), my students have turned out to be WAY more awesome than i could've expected, i get to travel whenever i want in arguably one of the most beautiful places in the world, i'm friends with some pretty neat people around here...you know, thailand's pretty neat. sometimes i think i'm stupid for leaving such a sweet set up.

3. we're old enough to make transcontinental flight decisions on our own. when we flew to paris, ucsb/aup told us when and where to fly (and even booked us the flights). when we flew to thailand, ciee pretty much gave us step-by-step directions for how to get here. this time, maddy and i decided everything.

i hope to god this doesn't mean i'm an adult.

p.s. in a semi-related note, i read this article about how adulthood starts later. it's all i've been thinking about this week.
p.p.s. kyle said he doesn't like this new layout, so i'm prob gonna change it pretty soon. sorry, i know change sucks.

WORLD CUP BABY

i'm into it this year. maddy said to me one day, "i think i'm gonna try to get into the world cup this year." i was like EFF YES this is a great idea, so we started researching the cup and spread the idea. now everybody around here has a team (i'm america--can't betray the usa, duh), we're in an fbook group, and i have a feeling watching games down the street at mr. wit's bar will become a habit. the second game is on at 9 pm here, which is perfect cuz 9 pm is also game watching o'clock.

i know, i know. i'm being such a poser just getting into soccer now when it's cool and trendy and stuff. i don't give a crap.

yuk, i have a bug bite right on my neck. the mosquitos are out with a vengeance this time of year.

oh, to change the subject completely, maddy and i went to bangkok yesterday. i needed to buy a new camera (that whole lost purse in samet thing) and wanted to go to panthip to do it. i've also been on the hunt for a mah jong board for a while now, and efei was like, "um why don't you go to chinatown?" duhhhh nicki. so maddy and i left suphan around noon with a set bangkok itinerary. this is the only way to do bangkok. we're PROS at this city now. if you need some shit done in bangkok, you come to us.

so we got into panthip, avoided the douches selling pirated dvds, and went straight to the canon booth. i picked out the camera, paid the guy (who took my cash from me and disappeared for an uncomfortably long time before he returned with my camera), and we were OUT. on the walk back to the bts we walked past micky d's and saw that they had world cup glasses and we were like HOLY CRAP WE MUST OWN THOSE IMMEDIATELY. so we bought them.

we hopped back on the bts and made our way over to chinatown, stumbling through the streets and eventually making it on to yaowarat street, the heart of the town of chinese. i have no idea why we've never been here cuz chinatown rules. it wasn't loud and crazy and headache-inducing like the other parts of bangkok. oh, no, don't get me wrong--it was crowded and the stores were in a senseless jumble and the streets were still crammed with food carts. but it was somehow quieter. hard to explain.

(also, my brain is jumbled cuz i may or may not have had a few beers with the argentina-nicaragua game last night.)

anyway, we bought some chinese snacks (aroi maaaaaaaaaak), had some spring rolls, and sat down at a street stall and had noodle soup, watching the traffic go by and enjoying dinner with strangers. street food is one of the number one things i'll miss about asia.

we got home last night around 8:40 pm and headed right out to wit's for the argentina game. oh, and re: usa vs england game, a tie is ok. we'll take what we can get.

oh also, i changed my template cuz blogger's got all these cute new ones and when i signed on it was like "HEY user, wanna have one of these?" and i was like "yes."