another half-baked idea

I've gotten used to sharing my living quarters with diverse flora and fauna over the last ten months -- ants, geckos, mold, cockroaches... I usually ignore them as best I can, but the thought of a roach scurrying around while I sleep gives me the creeps.

Killing them presents a problem for me; stepping on them is the most efficient method, but the crunching noise it makes is too horrible to bear. I decided last night I couldn't do it anymore. I needed a less hands-on means of destruction.

When I got home from Saxophone and turned on my bedroom light, I spotted one of the little fiends near my closet. One swift throw of my sneaker and the roach was on its back, frantically kicking its filthy little legs.

I grabbed a bottle of Off! from my vanity and crouched down to poison the sucker. Twenty-five sprays seemed sufficient. Eventually, he lay still in a shallow pool of mosquito repellent. I scooped him up with a piece of paper and flushed him.

I cleaned up the bug spray with Wet Wipes, turned off my lights, and got into bed, only to get right back up again when I realized I'd lose 50% of my brain cells overnight if I slept in those fumes.

I turned my fan on. It wasn't enough. I changed positions so my head would be as far from the spray as possible, but I could still smell it. I got up and found my surgical mask (a leftover from the swine flu scare). I put it on and laid back down, imagining how ridiculous I looked sleeping in a face mask. Finally, I opened the sliding door to my balcony and left the screen door shut.

So far today, brain activity seems normal.

red shirts, blood, and graduation

Our school was closed on Monday and Tuesday, thanks to the protests. It was really nice to have a few days to sleep, sit by the pool, eat, and relax.

Since last Friday, protesters have been streaming into the city via bus, truck, and motorbike. I got to watch some of it from the smoothie shop windows as the neverending parade headed toward Victory Monument. It was kind of like watching a high school pep rally. People were decked out in red clothes and accessories. They stood in truck beds and clapped, waved, shouted, sang, danced, and held their red flags high.

Yesterday, protest leaders organized a blood drive. In a bizarre attempt to make some kind of point, they poured the blood out at the four gates of Parliament. There are several videos about it on CNN's Web site. They're supposed to be doing it again in front of other government buildings today.

We were really hoping graduation would be canceled. I mean, would you come to work if a crowd down the road was dousing buildings in blood? But there hasn't been any violence, so I guess the show must go on. We're at school today for graduation rehearsals.

Thursday is Prathom's graduation and Friday is Mattayom's. Tomorrow, if he ends up attending, we'll curtsy before the Crown Prince of Thailand. Fancy-shmancy.

politicking

I never thought I'd be so excited about political unrest. We have this Friday off for another round of Red Shirt protests.

As glad as I am to have a free day, I know it'll be hard to go anywhere, because traffic will be extra-horrible. I wanted to go to the Red Cross Queen Sirikit Snake Farm. You get to watch them milk the snakes' venom!

Speaking of politics, I finally got an idea of the kinds of little power struggles that go on in our department.

Ake came to me yesterday afternoon with nothing to do, wanting to improve his English. Specifically, he asked, "What are some words that Thai people say wrong?"

Sure, yeah, just hold on a sec while I pull out my handy list of every mispronunciation I've heard in the last 10 months.

I went to the bookshelf and pulled out a bedtime stories book from the '60s. He read aloud and I corrected him. After working a bit on pacing and intonation, he told me that some teachers were asking why he was teaching English here. He studied art, not English, in university, and has been teaching computer classes at the school.

"But Sukjai asked you to come teach English, right?"
"No, Ajarn Mina [the head of Prathom]."
"Right, so then, you're supposed to be teaching English. I don't understand."

Then he asked who the best English-speakers were in the department. We named off three teachers, all of whom are only part-time. He wanted to know who was the best of the full-time teachers. Alyssa, Mariela, and I thought for a minute, and then ventured that Sukjai was probably the most fluent.

He kept dancing around what he really wanted to say and went on to tell us he wasn't sure he should be teaching English. I assured him that yes, he definitely should be. Alyssa told him straight up, "Your English is better than Sukjai's, hands down."

He was vague about which teachers were gossiping about him -- we don't know if it's an English teacher or someone in another subject. He's only 27, so my theory is that one of the older teachers feels threatened by his English abilities and is trying to cut him down.

Maybe it's not a bad thing we don't know Thai. There's no telling how many times a week these petty battles are fought.

pre-spousal carousal

We had a bachelorette party, Bangkok-style, for Mariela on Saturday. Our attempts at dressing like Thai teenage girls looked more like "Tacky Day" during a high school spirit week, with our mismatched accessories, graphic tees, ridiculous hair, and piled-on jewelry. And one mustn't forget the icing on the cake: miniature hats bought for us by Simone!

Throughout the night, Mariela had to complete various silly tasks, including, but not limited to:

- Taking a picture with a ladyboy
- Running around the taxi twice while stuck in traffic
- Buying a stick of fishballs and presenting them to a stranger, saying, "Would you like to try my balls?"
- Taking a picture driving a tuk-tuk
- Singing and dancing to "All the Single Ladies" in the middle of a busy street

We had dinner at Kuppa, a nice restaurant on Sukhumvit soi 16. Our food was OK, but the dessert was great. Simone's choice -- cheesecake with blueberry compote -- was the most delicious cheesecake I've ever tried, hands-down. Better than The Cheesecake Factory, and just a step above my friend Ryan's cheesecakes.

We headed to a salsa club and then on to Khao San Road (backpacker/dingy bar central) for dancing. Good times were had by all, even if we had sore throats the next day from all the smoke in the air.

We may have been lucky to survive that last cab ride. Erin likes to think the driver was just a happy soul, but the rest of us had a sneaking suspicion he was on something when he started giggling like mad at Mariela doing her Chinese fire drill.

Oh, well.

I love WedMD

If I have symptoms -- any symptoms at all -- I like to use WebMD's Symptom Checker to figure out what horrible ill[nesse]s may have befalled me.

For one thing, clicking on the body parts and scrolling through every possible thing that could be wrong with each one is just fun. As a self-described hypochondriac, I naturally begin to imagine that, yes, yes, I do think that could possibly be a bald spot on my head.

But doctors hate self-diagnosers, right? I can imagine the sighs and rolled eyes when they see lists of diseases procured from the WebMD Syptom Checker.

Today's symptoms are dizziness and a slightly nauseated feeling. That's all. No headache. No fever. No vomiting. I don't want to go to the clinic on our grounds, or even a hospital, because doctors here do only two things: 1) neglect to listen to what you're telling them and 2) prescribe an antibiotic, along with three or four other medications.

WebMD suggests 20 possible conditions, including Meniere's disease, acute kidney failure, Botox injection, and esophagitis.

What should I do now?

in trouble

We were met with quiet, almost-tangible hostility when we walked into the office yesterday. Sukjai didn't acknowledge our existence, but sulked into his breakfast of chicken and rice.

We sat down and exchanged nervous glances. When he left the room, we discussed a plan of action.

"Should we let him approach us?"
"No, in Thai culture, younger people always come to the elders. You can't make them seek you out."
"Okay, okay. So we have to approach him somehow."
"Not when La Bruja [a.k.a. P.Cham -- the third grade English teacher/office-politics puppet master] is in the room. We can't have him drawing strength from her."
"No, no. That wouldn't be good."

We caught him 15 minutes later as he was walking past our cluster of desks. Kristy -- a brave soul -- said, "Um, Sukjai? Do you have a second?"

We were immediately shot down. He waved his hand as if to say, "I don't even want to look at you right now" and told us he'd talk with us later.

I, for one, was relieved. At least the ball was in his court.

He waited until 3:40 to finally call us out of the office to have a chat. We sat down in a classroom and he said, "Well, what happened?"

Erin told him the same exact thing that I'd told him on the phone. He told us he felt so surprised on Tuesday when he came to work and none of us were there.

"Believe me, we were just as surprised when you called!" Erin said.

We assured him that we meant no disrespect and never would have missed work had we not truly, sincerely believed we had time off. We told him we'd stay an hour late next week to make it up, and he was placated.

Like everything else that goes on in our department, it was a needlessly dramatic buildup to an inconsequential outcome.

koh chang

When we left Bangkok early Friday morning for Koh Chang, Erin and I thought we had six luxurious days to kill there. This morning over breakfast, my cell phone rang. It was Sukjai, wanting to know where I was.

The conversation went something like this:

Erin and I are on Koh Chang.
"Where? You're supposed to be in Bangkok."
I thought Lita asked for two extra days off last Thursday.
"She and Alyssa and Amy and Simone asked off, but you and Erin and Kristy didn't."
There must have been some kind of miscommunication [imagine that!], because we all thought when Mariela asked off, she was asking for all the foreign teachers.

The compromise Mariela had come to was that we'd get Tuesday and Wednesday off in exchange for staying two hours late every day next week. She kept all of us informed on the status of these negotiations.

We assumed Sukjai understood that we all wanted time off. Hello? Why would the rest of us be happy little worker bees when four of our number were off gallivanting around?

I guess I'd forgotten what happens when you assume. He sounded ticked. Said he needed to talk to the three of us when we got back. It pretty much ruined my morning... until I went on a four-hour snorkeling trip! I saw a baby octopus. It was fantastic.

The rest of the long weekend was great, too. I had a coconut-oil massage, ate nachos, and stayed in a bamboo hut. Seriously. Wood floors, bamboo walls, corrugated metal roof, mosquito nets hanging over the beds. We had the works.

Incidentally, I loved sleeping under the mosquito net. Spaces in the bamboo walls made it so our nets were dappled in silver-blue patches of light. It looked and felt like we were sleeping under Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

I really liked Koh Chang. There weren't touts bugging you every five minutes like there are at Koh Samet. And the food was cheaper, and better. There were fewer people there, making it a very quiet, chill weekend. Overall, I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I feel rejuvenated enough to face the coming wrath. Wish me luck.