back in november, lexa and i were wandering through the market outside tesco in suphan and we saw some betta fighting fish for sale. oh my god, what if we got some fish? that sounds awesome...but lexa's assignment was only for five months, and both of us were planning on doing about two months' worth of traveling starting in march. what would we do with our precious fish come march? surely they'd die without us, and we wouldn't travel with'em.
so, of course, we came to the next logical conclusion: they would have a fight to the death.
[michael vick jokes here, i know, i know]
tonight was the night. shit talking was flying through the air. for weeks before, people were speculating on who would win the fight. lexa and i each had our own tactics: i fed my fish, lexa didn't; i cleaned my fish cage semi-regularly, lexa hadn't cleaned her cage at all in 2010; i sweet talked my fish on a regular basis, lexa bitch slapped her fish every night before bed.*
at 8 pm on february 23, 2010, the fish fought. we flipped a coin for home court advantage. i won, so lexa fished her fish (yuk yuk) out of its cage and dropped it in mine. FIGHT ON, FISH!
at first, my fish looked like mincy kitten balls (to use an australian term). he was running away from lexa's fish, ducking behind the flower in the cage and sprinting around the edges. lexa's fish was mobbin' in the middle of the tank and just checkin' shit out like he OWNED the arena.
but it was just a tactic my fish and i had discussed before the fight, and it worked beautifully. the fish started biting at each other's fins, and at first it was a pretty even fight, but then my fish just started to pwn. he would grab lexa's fish and drag him around like a rag doll, ripping off fins whenever he felt like it just to show off his strength. at one point, lexa's fish had his side up at the top of the water and he was looking really dead. we were convinced we could call an official winner when BAM he rose from his fake slumber to attack my fish. good move, but not enough to be called a leader by any means.
there's plenty of video. don't worry.
after maybe 40 minutes we got kind of bored and started talking and watching youtube videos. it's 11 pm now, and the fish are disappointingly still alive, kickin' it in the same tank together. my fish just kind of sneak attacked lexa's, but overall, they seem pretty tired and they just kind of float around. i'm gonna go to bed pretty soon here, and i'm expecting to wake up to two dead fish in the morning. i'll keep you updated.
*UNCONFIRMED.
5:52 pm update: both fish are still alive. lexa's fish isn't moving, except for one fin. "i think he's nodding off into death."--maddy
23.2.10
19.2.10
sangkhlaburi (finally)
i had an unexpectedly busy day today...four classes, grades to turn in, students doing make up tests, eating stuff, blah blah blah. i came home intending to turn on the australia channel and zoning out for a bit, but in an unexpected life twist, the australia channel isn't working but the internet in the apt is, so here i am, on the internet. hell yeah.
so sangkhlaburi* last weekend. it was absolutely phenomenal and is sitting on my top three list of places in thailand. it's way over in the north west of thailand, almost touching myanmar/burma** (although...myanmar does share quite a bit of border with thailand, so telling you this doesn't give you much of a hint as to where it is). joe, deb, ilan, alex, alex's dad, maddy, ally, lexa, and i woke up early on saturday morning to hop in a personal van to sangkhlaburi. the first couple hours of the trip were fairly uneventful--lots of flat, rice-paddy-filled central thailand goodess (sarcasm).
after a stop at at delicious coffee place (mmm white chocolate mocha), the drive got increasingly more beautiful. mountains started popping up around us, and our van started to wind uphill, through more and more forest-type situations. we stopped to overlook a lake and as soon as we got out, i could smell the difference in the air. you know that incredibly recognizable scent of forest? it was that. it came at me unexpectedly and all at once i realized how much i had missed this. suphan is SO FLAT. i can't see any mountains. even when we go up the tall tower in the middle of the city, i swear i can't see a single mountain. just...rice paddies.
so anyway, we make it to sangkhlaburi.
actually, i'm gonna pause the chronological story telling for a minute here to explain something. we organized this personal van+driver through brett, this older australian guy who works at school who has a thai wife and hooks us kids up with vans to cool places. it's awesome. the only thing is that the van drivers pretty much only speak thai. so if we have an up-in-the-air itinerary (like we sort of did this past weekend), there's a LOT of language barrier crap and a lot of miming what we want to do and getting through whole conversations with one or two thai words and pointing and, eventually, calling brett who will put his wife, cat, on the phone to actually talk to the guy in thai.
there was some sort of miscommunication with the driver, so when we got to sangkhlaburi, he took us to some wat and the mon village before we checked in to the hotel, and we were all really confused...whatever. we were wandering around this temple and stumbled upon a cemetery out back. i LOVE cemeteries. wandering through cemeteries is an arnold family favorite. i was thrilled and i took about a hundred thousand pictures. farther down this path was what looked like a crematorium...creepy. death abound.
after an hour or so we hopped back in the van, checked out the mon village real quick (more on this later), then drove over to p guest house. this place was absolutely gorgeous. the rooms were made of stones and overlooked this incredibly beautiful lake dotted by little shacks. if you go to sangkhlaburi--and my god, you should go to sangkhlaburi if you're spending time in central thailand--i'd say stay in p.
lol. stay in p. that's funny.
after a yummy lunch (curry and fruit shakes...nom nom nom), we changed into our suits and ran down to the lake. there was a bamboo raft about 20 feet away from the p guesthouse dock, and we spent a couple hours leaping off, swimming around, and just generally enjoying life. those were two of my most content hours yet in thailand.
just before sunset, we wandered down the way to what's rumored to be the longest wooden bridge in thailand (every city/region seems to have its superlative, no matter how inane it is) to the mon village. the burmese govt doesn't exactly love the mon people, so a fair chunk of them have ended up in thailand (go on, click that link for the wikipedia page if you're aching for more mon information). they live what seems to be an incredibly simple life. they live in basic little shacks near the lake (sometimes literally ON the lake), and i think they pretty much provide for themselves. it made for a quiet refuge and relaxing atmosphere in the whole area.
we made it back to suphan by 6 pm on sunday evening, and i immediately wanted to go back. good thing i'm here until october.
*it's really hard for my fingers to type the "gkhl" next to each other. they're rejecting all those awk constants stuck together.
**WHAT DO I CALL THIS PLACE? i want to be respectful of whomever i'm supposed to respect the most in this situation.
so sangkhlaburi* last weekend. it was absolutely phenomenal and is sitting on my top three list of places in thailand. it's way over in the north west of thailand, almost touching myanmar/burma** (although...myanmar does share quite a bit of border with thailand, so telling you this doesn't give you much of a hint as to where it is). joe, deb, ilan, alex, alex's dad, maddy, ally, lexa, and i woke up early on saturday morning to hop in a personal van to sangkhlaburi. the first couple hours of the trip were fairly uneventful--lots of flat, rice-paddy-filled central thailand goodess (sarcasm).
after a stop at at delicious coffee place (mmm white chocolate mocha), the drive got increasingly more beautiful. mountains started popping up around us, and our van started to wind uphill, through more and more forest-type situations. we stopped to overlook a lake and as soon as we got out, i could smell the difference in the air. you know that incredibly recognizable scent of forest? it was that. it came at me unexpectedly and all at once i realized how much i had missed this. suphan is SO FLAT. i can't see any mountains. even when we go up the tall tower in the middle of the city, i swear i can't see a single mountain. just...rice paddies.
so anyway, we make it to sangkhlaburi.
actually, i'm gonna pause the chronological story telling for a minute here to explain something. we organized this personal van+driver through brett, this older australian guy who works at school who has a thai wife and hooks us kids up with vans to cool places. it's awesome. the only thing is that the van drivers pretty much only speak thai. so if we have an up-in-the-air itinerary (like we sort of did this past weekend), there's a LOT of language barrier crap and a lot of miming what we want to do and getting through whole conversations with one or two thai words and pointing and, eventually, calling brett who will put his wife, cat, on the phone to actually talk to the guy in thai.
there was some sort of miscommunication with the driver, so when we got to sangkhlaburi, he took us to some wat and the mon village before we checked in to the hotel, and we were all really confused...whatever. we were wandering around this temple and stumbled upon a cemetery out back. i LOVE cemeteries. wandering through cemeteries is an arnold family favorite. i was thrilled and i took about a hundred thousand pictures. farther down this path was what looked like a crematorium...creepy. death abound.
after an hour or so we hopped back in the van, checked out the mon village real quick (more on this later), then drove over to p guest house. this place was absolutely gorgeous. the rooms were made of stones and overlooked this incredibly beautiful lake dotted by little shacks. if you go to sangkhlaburi--and my god, you should go to sangkhlaburi if you're spending time in central thailand--i'd say stay in p.
lol. stay in p. that's funny.
after a yummy lunch (curry and fruit shakes...nom nom nom), we changed into our suits and ran down to the lake. there was a bamboo raft about 20 feet away from the p guesthouse dock, and we spent a couple hours leaping off, swimming around, and just generally enjoying life. those were two of my most content hours yet in thailand.
just before sunset, we wandered down the way to what's rumored to be the longest wooden bridge in thailand (every city/region seems to have its superlative, no matter how inane it is) to the mon village. the burmese govt doesn't exactly love the mon people, so a fair chunk of them have ended up in thailand (go on, click that link for the wikipedia page if you're aching for more mon information). they live what seems to be an incredibly simple life. they live in basic little shacks near the lake (sometimes literally ON the lake), and i think they pretty much provide for themselves. it made for a quiet refuge and relaxing atmosphere in the whole area.
home sweet home.
oh my god, that sunset. i'd make the five-hour drive up there again just for that. you'll have to look at fbook pictures.
on sunday, we woke up early and took a speed boat (which is not at all like this...more like this plus a motor) around the lake. the original sangkhlaburi was actually flooded over a long time ago, so in the middle of this lake pokes out the top of the old temple. during the dry season, you can see a fair bit of the temple coming out of the water. it was simultaneously awesome and a bit creepy. the lake during sunrise was tranquility at its best. it's like the fog knew exactly how to place itself on the water and around the mon houses to make everything look like a picture.
on our way out of town later that day, we went to three pagoda's pass, a border crossing where you used to be able to buy a one-day burmese visa and kick it in myanmar/burma for a while. but, alas, the border's been closed for a couple years, so i just got to look at burma/myanmar real close. it looked the same.
we made another pit stop at the saiyok waterfall a few hours down the road. lonely planet said it's a fun place to watch thai people frolic around. i was figuring we'd see a few families, maybe a couple picnic lunches, but mostly a calm, serene waterfall area.
not true.
*it's really hard for my fingers to type the "gkhl" next to each other. they're rejecting all those awk constants stuck together.
**WHAT DO I CALL THIS PLACE? i want to be respectful of whomever i'm supposed to respect the most in this situation.
17.2.10
wake up, give finals, grade, grade, grade, sleep, repeat
that's all i'm doing right now. (real talk: i should add "eat" between every one of those.) i wanna upload pictures of sangkhlaburi and write about it before it all slips out of my brain, so hopefully i'll find an hour or two where i can do that. (slash when i'm really bored of grading, i'll procrastinate and do all of that.) sorry for my absence, internet.
but you know what a week of grading means? another blog post about the hilarious/incredibly sweet answers the students have given me. get pumped, but be patient.
but you know what a week of grading means? another blog post about the hilarious/incredibly sweet answers the students have given me. get pumped, but be patient.
15.2.10
interesting fact!
yesterday, feb. 14, was chinese new year. there's this chinese descendants' museum in our town and all last week they were setting off fireworks. on feb. 13, our chinese friends stayed up late, made dumplings, watched the celebrations in china on a big screen tv (i think it'd be something like us watching the ball drop), and exchanged those red envelopes with money in them. when i came into the office this morning, i asked efei, our resident chinese teacher, how her new year was. then i asked her if they say gung hay fat choi, just like every american kid learned to say during our super short lessons on chinese new year.
efei: "what?"
me: "gung hay fat choi...you know, like what you maybe say on new years. i dunno, that's what i always learned in school."
efei: "OHHHH gong shi fa tai. you say it like southern chinese people."
turns out that gung hay fat choi (which she said way differently, like an actual chinese person would say it and not the americanized way) is part of a more rare south eastern dialect of chinese. it's not the most popular way to say "good luck and you'll make lots of money in the new year" in china. i wondered why americans everywhere (seriously, hasn't everyone learned gung hay fat choi?) learned this rare version of the phrase. efei guessed it might be because they speak that in hong kong, where people are very rich and can travel/up and move to america.
new knowledge, learned and stored.
efei: "what?"
me: "gung hay fat choi...you know, like what you maybe say on new years. i dunno, that's what i always learned in school."
efei: "OHHHH gong shi fa tai. you say it like southern chinese people."
turns out that gung hay fat choi (which she said way differently, like an actual chinese person would say it and not the americanized way) is part of a more rare south eastern dialect of chinese. it's not the most popular way to say "good luck and you'll make lots of money in the new year" in china. i wondered why americans everywhere (seriously, hasn't everyone learned gung hay fat choi?) learned this rare version of the phrase. efei guessed it might be because they speak that in hong kong, where people are very rich and can travel/up and move to america.
new knowledge, learned and stored.
12.2.10
the pigeons on the porch
i've told you about these guys before. ever since i've lived here, the porch has not been for humans. the porch (which is really a balcony but "pigeons on the balcony" doesn't have the same alliterative ring, and i'll always ditch truth for alliteration) is primarily for the pigeons. at first, i was thrilled to have a set of eggs in the cardboard box someone put out there. "oooh! look at how the pigeons love it! i've made such a hospitable environment! i'm like snow white!" (even though i didn't do anything.)
then i wanted the porch to be for humans because it's nice to open up the doors and kick it outside and stuff. but another pigeon decided to lay another pair of eggs. okay, fine, these ones will hatch, the birds will grow up and fly away, THEN i'll have the porch be for humans.
but those eggs grew up to be the GROSSEST, MOST ANNOYING pigeons that have ever lived. they have these disgusting growths on the sides of their faces, and their feathers aren't precisely healthy looking, and i don't think they can fly. they're definitely sick. i would feel bad except they're cruel birds. when healthy pigeons come to the porch, the sick ones start fighting with them and violently grabbing food out of their mouths. the sick ones make this bizarre screeching noise when they're doing it, too...like a squawk but at a high pitch and a scratchy throat. oh my god, it's terrible. whenever they start doing it, i angrily knock on the window to shut'em up.
i don't know what to do about them. i don't want them here anymore, but i don't think they can go anywhere cuz i'm fairly certain they can't fly. the other day, they hardly made any noise and just sat on these towels...i think they're dying. ew, what would i do with dead pigeons on the porch? ew ew ew.
then i wanted the porch to be for humans because it's nice to open up the doors and kick it outside and stuff. but another pigeon decided to lay another pair of eggs. okay, fine, these ones will hatch, the birds will grow up and fly away, THEN i'll have the porch be for humans.
but those eggs grew up to be the GROSSEST, MOST ANNOYING pigeons that have ever lived. they have these disgusting growths on the sides of their faces, and their feathers aren't precisely healthy looking, and i don't think they can fly. they're definitely sick. i would feel bad except they're cruel birds. when healthy pigeons come to the porch, the sick ones start fighting with them and violently grabbing food out of their mouths. the sick ones make this bizarre screeching noise when they're doing it, too...like a squawk but at a high pitch and a scratchy throat. oh my god, it's terrible. whenever they start doing it, i angrily knock on the window to shut'em up.
i don't know what to do about them. i don't want them here anymore, but i don't think they can go anywhere cuz i'm fairly certain they can't fly. the other day, they hardly made any noise and just sat on these towels...i think they're dying. ew, what would i do with dead pigeons on the porch? ew ew ew.
disgusting.
p.s. we're going to sangkhlaburi this weekend. i'm pumped. see you on sunday night, internetz.
10.2.10
aerobics
you know how i'm pretty bad at aerobics in the states? well, i spose you'd only know that if you went to an aerobics class with me at school, but you can guess. you've met me. you know how klutzy i am. i don't think anyone's ever said "hey, you know that graceful and coordinated girl nicki arnold? man, she really knows how to do aerobics."
i'm even worse at thai aerobics. holy crap.
maddy and i had both seen this group of people doing aerobics in town, so we decided to go check it out today. we got to the area just as everyone was arriving, and a group of women closest to the stage where the instructor was said of course we could join (i'm putting words their head nods). the music started and it was that crazy fast thai musci that i dislike but've grown used to.
but that doesn't change how insanely fast it was. i couldn't even do moves properly. the instructor--a thai version of the gaily gay aerobics instructor--lead us through seven or eight different sequences and i didn't catch a single one. after about half an hour of trying really hard at following this guy, i finally looked over at maddy and we just started laughing and making fun of ourselves. even she couldn't catch it, and she's been dancing since she was a baby. i had no idea what was going on, but all these thai ladies around us (and the adorably passionate old man in the front) had the routine down. bitches.
i have no hopes of ever being as coordinated as the instructor or the very fit ladies in front, but my aspirations include wiping the confused look off my face and getting a good ab workout from laughing.
i'm even worse at thai aerobics. holy crap.
maddy and i had both seen this group of people doing aerobics in town, so we decided to go check it out today. we got to the area just as everyone was arriving, and a group of women closest to the stage where the instructor was said of course we could join (i'm putting words their head nods). the music started and it was that crazy fast thai musci that i dislike but've grown used to.
but that doesn't change how insanely fast it was. i couldn't even do moves properly. the instructor--a thai version of the gaily gay aerobics instructor--lead us through seven or eight different sequences and i didn't catch a single one. after about half an hour of trying really hard at following this guy, i finally looked over at maddy and we just started laughing and making fun of ourselves. even she couldn't catch it, and she's been dancing since she was a baby. i had no idea what was going on, but all these thai ladies around us (and the adorably passionate old man in the front) had the routine down. bitches.
i have no hopes of ever being as coordinated as the instructor or the very fit ladies in front, but my aspirations include wiping the confused look off my face and getting a good ab workout from laughing.
9.2.10
mlia
average things i've gotten so used to in my life that i didn't realize i should blog about them:
- my hard-as-a-rock bed
- one or two geckos in my room at all times, making their distinct gecko noises
- stray ants wandering on my bed, my computer, my desk at school, etc.
- constant bug bites (though i have to give a shout out to maddy here, who deals with more bug bites than anyone i know...brave girl)
- cold showers (it might be a hot country, but my apartment has air conditioning so i'm actually cool most of the time, and i'd really like just one steaming hot shower.)
- a terribly slow internet connection that kicks me off/stops working at random
- locking myself out of my apartment (though everyone who's ever lived with me knows i do this fairly often. also, it seems that when you make a complete fool of yourself, thai people like you better, so the front desk ladies and i are getting along better and better with the passing of time.)
- shouting in the classroom
- being shocked at a dead quiet classroom
- teaching 40+ students at a time
- eating at one of the same three restaurants almost every night of the week (i have no stove, oven, or even toaster oven, though the last is subject to change).
- asking the question, "where do you want to go for break?" and legitimately getting the answer, "i dunno...we could go to malaysia or vietnam or another island..." (i'm sorry, this was a really annoying bullet, but i felt like all of my other ones were really complainy, so i thought i'd toss in this uppity one just to spice things up.)
- taking minivans everywhere
- missing family/friends/america
- the gloriousness of the fresh food market in town
- song taus, suphan's closest semblance of a public transportation system (though someday soon, i'll get to a full post on this)
- THE DISGUSTING, NOISY PIGEONS OUTSIDE ON MY PORCH
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