Chronically Sleep Deprived

My friend Julie, who is spending the summer in China, commented in a recent email that she hates it when people paint an overly rosy picture of foreign experiences. She was speaking of her own experiences, of course, but it got me thinking. I have been editing out some of the more colorful details of our lives here. I know it comes as a surprise that there are less than perfect days here, but it can't all be pad thai and mangoes. In the interest of full disclosure, this post will be an entirely upfront account of the past week. Hopefully this will prevent the real estate boom that would have been caused by all of you moving here to experience Thai fire drills. This week has been a, uh, shall we say, challenging one, to say the least. Monday afternoon I was in the 7-11 with Trea when she grabbed her arm and said "hot." She'd been bit or stung by something, and her arm was swelling. Her arm continued to swell for the next 30 minutes, until I jumped in a songtaew and too

Last Saturday night we had the opportunity to attend a welcome party for new teachers (that would be us and two others). We had some great food (fish stomach soup, anyone?) and some even better karoake. It seems the tradition is for new teachers to sing a karoake number, but I weaseled out of it. I put the focus (and the pressure) on John by suggesting to Mai Yai, the school owner, that he sing in Thai. There's a group called Loso that's been around forever, they are kind of classic rock here, and we have one of their albums. So, Mai Yai got Joke, her daughter to help (little side note: Mai Yai is a nickname which means "big momma," and her kids are Joke, Jick, and Jack. Too funny.) They managed to find the song John knows the best. He totally rocked it. Not only did he have the best voice of all the men, the fact that he sang in Thai blew everyone away. To really get this, you have to understand how sacred karoake is here. I've heard it's like that all over A

Disclaimer: The following post is all parental bragging. If that bothers, offends, or bores you, skip this post. So, Grandma Jeffery and Grandma Harbertson, (I thought I'd address you directly, since you're probably the only two people still reading), Trea is doing wonderfully. She has adapted with amazing speed. Already she is learning to wai (a Thai custom where you raise your hands, palms together, and bow slightly. You show more or less respect by how low you bow your head, how high you raise your hands, and how long you hold the wai . Thais wai when greeting/saying goodbye, before accepting a gift, and to apologize). Trea hasn't mastered "Sawatdee kaa" yet, which is the greeting phrase for a female speaker, but she wais and says "kaa." She'll also do it before accepting something, if prompted. She also says "aroi," which means delicious, and sometimes repeats random things John says to her in Thai. Mostly, though, she seems to think

We had a fire drill at school today. It was not, however, remotely like the fire drills I had in school. First, it's a once-a-semester (sometimes once-a-year) event that has been planned for weeks, and everyone knew it. It's actually been rescheduled a couple of times because "it might rain." It's the rainy season in Thailand; there's a good chance on any given day that it's going to rain. Andy (one of the other farang teachers) suggested he just pull the fire alarm one day. There are two problems with this, it would seem: one, there's no fire alarm, and two, Teacher Jick (my boss) said, "if it's a surprise, the students will walk all over each other." Right, because we wouldn't want to spring a fire drill on anyone, would we? Anyhow, they finally decided to just do it. To add an element of excitement, the school had the gardener and some of the teachers set small fires throughout the grounds. Yes, you read that right. Real fires. Al

John and I decided last week that we really needed to invest in cooking equipment. We did debate this, because with the abundance of cheap take-out, it's not necessary to cook. It will also almost always cost more to cook at home, especially since it will be farang food 90% of the time. But, much as I love not HAVING to cook/grocery shop/do dishes, there are times it's nice to be able to cook familiar foods. And not to brag, but I like my own cooking. So, off we went to find a stove. Yes, you read that right. A stove is not an automatic in Thailand; many people simply don't cook at all. There are some stoves here with ovens, but they're tricky to use. It's almost all gas heat, which make it difficult, I guess, to evenly and consistently heat an oven. Anyway, much as I would love to be able to bake, it seemed more logical to opt for the standard gas stove. The heat makes baking often sound extremely unappealing! We found a shop selling the stoves, and luckily the own