Day 197 and I still have my passport!

Quality read: Top Five Regrets of the Dying: http://beyondtheopposites.com/?p=94


29 minutes until bedtime.

I don't feel like I have anything of great importance to post about (not sure I ever have) or breaking news in any way. Blows my mind that tomorrow is December; glad I can finally shave this Burt Reynolds style mustache off my face. Last weekend was great, had American Thanksgiving here so everyone brought food to the party and got to have some traditional Thanksgiving food along with some "British" food. Also got a massage, bought a waterproof bag even though I keep telling everyone rainy season is over, watched the Cowboys win and other things that make Teacher Bert happy. Oh, I was a judge at a English competition. Good thing I wasn't the judge of making the signs:

So me and Omar volunteered to help out on Saturday morning, just had to read some questions (very slowly I'm told, apparently my super fast speaking skills are frowned upon here) (which I'm almost told everyday that I talk too fast) (YA?? WELL MAYBE YOU READ TOO FAST!!!!) then mark them with 2 other people. I think they were around grade 4-6, here is one of the questions. And you can't gooooogle the answer:

Most kids wrote negative, one group answered minus, but one group answered this:

 Don't talk.

Is that really your answer? I'm taking it as a personal jab. A funny jab but answers hurt. 

Oh and Friday night I had my great helmet stolen. But it is 98% my fault, i didn't lock it up and it was fairly late at night at a place where people drink adult drinks so not surprised it went missing. We ended up getting paid for our 2 hours work and got paid enough to buy the same helmet again so it all worked out. 

Kendra, I'm assuming this is a daily occurrence?

Three day weekend coming up so going to some floating bungalow place with 50ish people from our town in a big double decker bus. Trying to have the upstairs only guys and girls downstairs but it isn't really catching on. Waited too long on the London job to book my flight to Bali now flights are more expensive so will wait until March to go, not sure what I'm doing for Christmas break but there is a pretty big New Year's party going on on one of the islands so will probably start the NEW YEAR strong there. That's about it, enjoy whatever day you read this on, embrace change and keep an eye our for those SharkTurtles.

I never thought I'd be on a boat. It's a big, blue watery road.

November 21st 2011 4:46pm.

I.......did not work today. I did however eat a chocolate bar, popcorn, drink sprite and watched the movie "In Time" at the movie theater they have here in town. The movie was in Thai and had no subtitles. I knew this going into it but I was just desperate to watch a movie (who can really pass up Justin Timberlake on the big screen? I mean come on) It was definitely interesting, before the previews start you have to stand up to show respect to the King while a video montage of the King doing King stuff is played. Debbie I said King montage, not wedding dancing montage. It was a simple enough movie to watch and still understand but I'm going to need to be filled in because there was a guy in that movie who I have no idea fits in really. And it was probably the first movie in a long time that I didn't laugh really loud at because..well.....it was in Thai.



Went to Railay on the weekend and went rock climbing for the first time. I liked it but it was way harder than I thought it was going to be. Probably didn't help that I went with Stu and Jake (Jake must have be part monkey) Weather was really good on the Saturday, beautiful beach that sold cheap cheap but good good Thai food. Did not rage on the Friday night, went to bed early but stayed out till 4 on the Saturday to make up for it. Someone in the group did something that night that one person deemed a "federal offence" and almost got caught. It was a good night, flew by that's for sure. Would go rock climbing again just need to go with worse people than me and a bit easier wall.


In other news, there are 9 days left in November/Movember and I'm only at 10% of my goal to raise money for prostate cancer research.  I only need one person to donate $10 until the end of November. I think this is manageable.
One last timbit of information. I really like sub-contracting my problems out such as shaving and doing laundry. Well I started getting my hair washed at a salon for 50 baht. Such a good deal and is basically a head massage. American Thanksgiving this week. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6CfKcMhjY&ob=av3e

Big C Station-Your shopping station.

These pictures were taken at Loy Kratong, a festival that takes over Thailand. Short definition:
"Apart from venerating the Buddha with light (the candle on the raft), the act of floating away the candle raft is symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot. People will also cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of the bad parts of oneself. Many Thai believe that floating a raft will bring good luck, and they do it to honor and thank the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha".
We made Kratong's in my class on Thursday which was way more fun than I expected. Not a huge fan of doing art or being artistically creative but the one I made isn't half bad. My Thai teacher has some picture from class so I will post them when I get them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBRCZ4y-hFg

No Bert Brandon post would be complete without some stolen pictures. These I think are from Chiang Mai where the festival is the biggest apparently. So if you decide to come to Thailand to check it out, head north.




 Other than fun Thai festivals going on, got my room clean, doing my best on the maintenance aspect of it all. Tried going to a waterfall yesterday but drove right into some rain. Turned out well because we ended up eating by the river, excellent Thai food and the drive was fun. Did some Skyping, makes me feel happy and not that far from home. My mom is looking at buying a house in Ottawa so it would appear I will be spending May till Novemberish in Ottawa at Chez Mom. After that, I'm thinking going here:


Or here:


Suggestions may be submitted.

Rainy season????

22 minutes until bed time.
A few things. I'm not very good at describing things and my English could use some work.
I do a very fast possibly non existent revision before posting.
I wouldn't really take my advice or listen to the things I say. I honestly don't know what I'm talking about.

So apparently this is rainy season

It hasn't really rained at all this month and has been hot as Hades outside.
If anyone who has lived with me or knows me really well, keeping my room clean and organized is a STRUGGLE. Not sure why, I get motivated once a month to clean and organize it but its the maintenance that I have an issue with. It actually does bother me and sort of affects my sleep. So. I finally bought a bunch of things to make my room less awful. Long story short I bought  a few plastic drawers to put in my room, thought I could be a hero and drive with one hand with the plastic thing in my hand. Couldn't do it. So this really nice maybe 16 year old Thai girl gives me some rope so I can tie it around the plastic drawers and drive home with it and gives me duct tape so it didn't fall onto the street. Made my night. There is a picture of this, you will get it hopefully soon. Went to a Halloween party the other night, here is a picture or two:





A few other facts.
Went "swimming" on Saturday with 2 other friends. Now, there was a small sign that I can only imagine said closed. I can't read Thai so we decided to ignore said sign. Well 20 minutes later a Thai lady shows up and she is not amused. Isn't smiling or trying to motion that we aren't allowed in there, just is speaking Thai really fast and is not in a good mood. We get the hint and start to leave. She starts talking to some other Thai people and is laughing and is probably a nice person. We pay muban dues so we thought that we could swim for free, apparently it is like 20 baht or something so this lady had a bit of a hate on for us (In Thai culture, the foot is the dirtiest part of the body and Thai people don't step over you, they will walk around just so you don't see their feet) well so this lady as I'm on my bike getting ready to leave turns her back and kicks her one foot at me. A MAJOR insult here. I was not thrilled. But she is an old Thai lady and there wasn't much I could do. Then the next day, an old Thai man yells and me and Kait (from Kait's corner) (mostly at Kait) for the dog that lives at my house barking at him and the neighbors then the fact that she can't speak Thai. So not the best luck with older Thai people UNTIL later that day, I always wear my helmet but did not this particular trip and long story short got stopped by a policeman saying this is the law in Thailand, why aren't you wearing a helmet. Talk to him for a bit, smiling, bashing my long eyelashes at him, then asks me where I'm from. I say Canada. He smiles and says go ahead. Thank. You. Canada.

Karyn and Scott. Canadians. Enough said. 

Question: Anything you want me to post about that I haven't covered in my non extensive blog history? Anything you want more or less from? DELETE blog? Write a nice/mean/emotional comment here or on Facebook, it might make me feel some sort of emotion. I sort of miss Canadian things.

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.

THE OMEGA NEBULA

Here, a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas mingle in the extremely massive and luminous molecular nebula Messier 17. Also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, M17 is a hotbed of star formation, located about 5500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation.

I think I saw 2 people in love today

(On my way home from basketball and to try and pick up my laundry that is almost never on time (it wasn't ready) I saw a maybe 20ish year old Thai girl on the back of the bike of her I'm guessing bf and she just looked very comfortable and didn't seem to care where they were going, just happy she was hugging the person she adores. I found it very lovely)

Have 10 min before my bed time so here we go. Last time I posted I just got into Phuket. Not everyone loves Phuket because it is super touristy and somewhat seedy. I liked it!! The island is crazy big, if you want a laid back beach, baam Kamala, if you want a party scene that is honestly crazy, somewhat illegal in most countries and surprising, Patong. Want a real thai city, Phuket Town. My hopes were very low for Phuket because I didn't hear great things but I was pleasantly surprised. All about keeping your expectations in check..My mom abandoned me one day for an 8am round of golf which produced this great picture:

  I ended up seeing another teacher from my school randomly in the thousands of people on the main street which went well with the theme of seeing teachers from Nakhon in Chiang Mai. If you are thinking about visiting Phuket, I would try and go to a few different places to get a real feel for the place or if you find the right spot right away, just stay. It was nice spending 10plus days with my mom, I think she really enjoyed Thailand and spending time with her only/favorite son. She was a great travel partner and was good to see a percentage of your family. Highlights were 1-being away from work/real life for almost a month 2-Seeing my mom 3-Chiang Mai 4-Phuket 5-Driving around Pai 6-Doing whatever you want all day long.  7-Buying about 25 Christmas presents. So if you think you cracked my top 25....you will find out in December. 8-Fantastic weather.

Back to normal life feels good though, missed my kids and nice being back into a routine. Looks like the rain is here to stay for awhile, I was telling people here that I think the rain is going to get me down a bit but people gave me some good advice and the last few days I just look at the rain and think "You aren't snow and I can deal with being a little wet" however m;y mood is known to change so will keep you updated on this ongoing battle. Future holds no Europe summer unfortunately so looking into things to do next year, going rock climbing in Railay at the end of November so gives me something to look forward to.

2 quick thoughts: 1-While traveling is fun and new, there are some downsides so if you do decide to travel with someone, make sure you like them because being another world away and having to deal with constant decisions about hotels, food, itineraries, flights, tours ext can get exhausting even if you do like the person. If you are thinking about getting married and haven't done any extensive traveling, you might want to give it a go, you might be (un)pleasantly surprised. I have a feeling a few people on their honeymoons quickly realized they might have just made a big mistake.

2-My hair is getting very long. I went to my barber when I got back and the girl who did it sort of made a motion to touch up the sides of my hair, I nodded. So she did a little more than touch it up, hard to explain but the words uneven and bizarre come to mind. A few kids in my class have the same basic haircut as me. Just sayin.

Brick walls are there for a reason. They're there to keep other people out. They're there to show you how bad you want something.