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06
06
2011
Uninvited Visitors
The uninvited visitors that will enter your house just because the door is open, here. An open door is nothing like that brothel exploding with neon lights and signs in the scaled model neighborhood in Betelgeuse. It is only a means to allow for hot air to be released and precious circulation to flow to keep the concrete house from over-heating and its inhabitants from exploding like an un-slit potato in a microwave. The same goes for a closed door – also not a welcome sign. Don’t you know it, some days I pad lock the front door and run … Continue reading
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04
2011
Blue House
Yo listen up here’s a story about a little [girl] that lives in a blue world and all day and all night and everything [s]he sees is just blue like [her] inside and out. Blue is [her] house with a blue little window… I’m blue da ba dee da ba die… Pretty heavy stuff, Eiffel 65. I used to feel that way a lot, you could say chronically. But then I got married and moved to New Orleans and though I was unemployed much too long and beer is much too cheap and abundant in that charming town (a potentially … Continue reading
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02
2011
Chang Squash
More pictures, more about them later. chang squash Page: 1 2
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02
2011
First Photos
Hey, This is actually Elliott, but since Ashley probably took most of the pictures I’m posting it here. They’re not from any specific event, just the past 4 weeks we’ve spent in Thailand. Hopefully the picture posts will be more thematic later. Oh, and after trying about 15 different plugins for displaying pictures in a picasa gallery, I finally settled on the kpicasa plugin; its easy and displays the galleries exactly how I wanted. PST – 1 Page: 1 2 3
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01
2011
Social Anxiety
I’ve neglected this blog too long. That and I’ve failed more days at keeping my New Year’s resolution than I’ve been successful. So much for journaling everyday. But! As I am ever too lenient with myself, I guess I’ve been ok with letting it slide because we’ve been given quite the detailed schedule from PC for our daily technical and language/cultural training, which in addition to weekly personal assessments are more than enough to refer back to. Last Saturday (1/22) our subdistrict/Thambon had a community mapping project assignment. Because our house is centrally located with a restaurant conveniently located out … Continue reading
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04
2012
Earth Day Acts
Hey, here’s some stuff I did for Earth Day. Items with “*” have pictures below. 1. Fixed shoes with superglue instead of buying a new pair* 2. Organized recycling bins* 3. Began recycling tetra-packs* 4. Began recycling paper 5. Talked to at least 20 people about Earth day and picking up trash 6. Picked up trash in my community for about an hour 7. Talked to at least 10 people about crocheting plastic bags 8. Crocheted plastic bags in my village meeting place for an hour 9. Peed in a bucket all day and poured it on the compost pile … Continue reading
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02
2012
Excuse me?
So I’ve been going around from village to village (16 in all) in my sub-district teaching how to make Ovitraps. Mosquito traps that help prevent the spread of Dengue. I made a brochure to help explain how to make and use the traps (a friend also translated it), but there would be no way I could explain how to make the traps without the help of the health clinic staff. So what did I actually do today? I taught a villager how to spray paint. When we get to the village meeting place I explain a little bit about making … Continue reading
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02
2012
Sorry mom, dropped out of law school…
So over the past few months I have apparently become very ugly. Super-really-very-not-handsome to be exact, at least this is what my Thai counterparts say (or actually Ashley’s Thai counterparts, mine aren’t so superficial). They’ve also assumed i’ve become a villain, a thief, a character whose hindrance by moral quandaries is nonexistent. What has happened? In short, I am pursuing goal 2 of the Peace Corps: “Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.” In shorter: I’ve grown a beard. Whether it is actually part of our culture or not, I tell people that … Continue reading
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11
2011
What is the Language I speak?
Another pen pal letter to Chicago and Batesville: The main language spoken in Thailand is Thai. The Thai language has it’s own alphabet, its own script, and has sounds that the the English language does not have. Every Peace Corps volunteer has 8 – 10 weeks of language training, and this was the most important part of training because the Thai language is very difficult. During training, everyday we practiced speaking the Thai Language for about 4 hours. We did not learn to read the Thai Language because speaking is much more important, and the Thai Alphabet is very complex. … Continue reading
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10
2011
Dumb or Lazy?
So if anyone was wondering, we moved houses, and everything is great. The house is much better (a traditional thai house, on stilts), one of my best friends is our neighbor, and even our landlord seems a bit more trustworthy. I’m sure we’ll be posting a video sometime soon. One of our tasks, as Peace Corps Volunteers, is to exemplify and teach about Americans. All Americans. Short Americans (Ashley). Tall Americans (myself). Scientific Americans (Marc Hauser). Magical Americans (Harry Potter – maybe not American, but I’m sure you get it as an avid reader of my blog). This obviously is … Continue reading
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10
2011
Ants still marching (or It’s Raining Ants)
So perhaps this isn’t worth posting either, but my desk at my office is sometimes covered in ants. I thought maybe they lived in my computer and came out occasionally, or were attracted by sugary foods that sometimes overwhelm my desk. I have discovered, however, neither of these are the case. They come from above. Literally. There is an AC unit right above my desk and apparently the ants have made their home there. When the AC is turned on it occasionally blows out an ant which later falls in my proximity. As I am writing this ants are falling … Continue reading
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10
2011
House
So our house is pretty great right? You’ve seen the pictures, we’ve put a lot of work into fixing it up, planting a garden, paying for an installing the internet line, and we even have food that crawls right into the kitchen (the snake)! Well today I was told that we have to move. Not to worry, our landlord told us we have plenty of time to look at houses. We have 3 days. And we just paid a full month’s rent. And when we looked the first time, there was only the one house available. Somewhat frustrating, but this … Continue reading
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10
2011
What I eat in Thailand
I’ve started a pen-pal exchange with a school in my hometown. I thought I would post them; they’re probably a more standard blog post than I like writing, but maybe someone would find them interesting (and they’re already written). Enjoy! If you’ve ever been to a Thai restaurant, you might be familiar with dishes like: Pad Thai, a dish with thin noodles, eggs, and tamarind juice (picture) Pad Seu, a dish with wide noodles, eggs, and often broccoli or Tom Yum, a hot and sour soup made with lemongrass and shrimp I live in Northeastern Thailand (called Isaan in Thai), … Continue reading
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10
2011
Corruption in a place other than the one I am in
So there might be some corruption in my area that I don’t know about, but since I don’t know about it, I’m not going to post about it. I am going to post about corruption that my friend, also serving in the Peace Corps (but in a country far from here) has to deal with. My friend was brought to her community to work mainly with a community bank. We’ve all heard of the wonders of microlending, especially among women groups, so she was particularly excited about this opportunity. She was told by the mayor of her town that she would … Continue reading
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07
2011
Ants go Marching
Not terribly excited about this post, but check out the ant pictures below. They come, they eat, they’re gone within an hour, leaving an inch thick trail of their ant-ness behind. I’m in favor of the whole process, they devour decaying rats or insects quickly, but they freak Ashley out. Ants go Marching The close ups were taking by flipping the camera lens around (works with an normal DSLR, not sure about the new ones with semi-transparent mirrors), there’s not a lot of control, but it beats buying another lens.
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