handlewithflair

2010-03-01T08:10:00.002+07:00

Not really likin' life too much right now. ALL I do is work - and I really don't enjoy it. It's stressful, there is rarely any gratitude, and I feel like I am wasting my youth...This weekend Geoff and the kids went to one of our good friends funeral. Why am I not there? Good question. Selfish coworkers? maybe - probably. I don't know - I may never know. At any rate I'm here - with this darn dog we got for Amber, finally home from the hospital I've been at ALL weekend. I used think I was a dog person (I am *definitely* not a cat person). But this dog - ugh, I just don't know. He is very "bitey" Why can't he just be cuddly and sweet - not the best personality. Makes me never want a dog again. Anyways, the most encouragement I get at work is from the janitors and the lunch ladies - how sad is that. "It will pay off - don't worry honey. In the end it will all be worth it." I hope they're right...I would NEVER encourage my kids to go to med-school. In fact I would *strongly* discourage it. It may possibly get better later - but there is a hellish decade spent smack dab in your youth. I don't know, maybe life is just harder for everyone after a certain age? I'd like to write a book - interview tons of people - the janitors I used to envy - yes, envy - how much stress could they have - emptying that trash the wrong way is not going to kill anyone, the patients, the teachers, the doctors...Yes, I will write a book - on life and expectations and perceptions and on reality - that is, If I'm gone from work long enough to do it - I will.

chicago 0711 on 3/1/09

2009-03-01T20:11:00.003+07:00

On the interview trail again - somehow I thought catching a plane from Indianapolis at 0600 sounded like a swell idea. Obviously I did not think that one through - but I did save a buck...I had to wake up at 0330 to meet the car downstairs outside the hotel at 0400 - and Indiana is an hour ahead of us - which I also did not account for - so basically I've been up since 0230 this morning - great. I was interviewing for my plastic surgery fellowship at the university of Indiana. I got there the evening before and since the night was still relatively young I decided to catch the hotel shuttle to downtown and do a little shopping - but then I got sidetracked when I met some guy that announces for motorcross - and I wouldn't have known what that was save for the commercial I saw in my hotel room right before I left. Anyhoo, I was hungry and ended up eating dinner with him and his friend and a place called St. Elmo. GREAT steak, one of the best filet mignons I've ever had - mmmmmm I can still taste it! Anyway, had some decent conversation, met some of the racers including some guy from New Zealand I got to chat with a little, and apparently the owner of one of the teams who happened to be the son of the owner of the redskins - whatever... I was unimpressed. Coy I think his name was. Come to think of it he was more cocky than coy - but it was only a 30 second conversation - I think I was just offended because I'm pretty sure he insulted the great state of Texas - who would do that?!? Soooo, I did not do any shopping but I did get treated to a great meal and got 2 press box passes for the motorcross show the next night - unforunately - it never happened. The friend I met at interviews, nice gal from Cali, and I went to dinner when apparently we should have been leaving for the motorcross. By the time we got there and the shuttle dropped us of about a MILE from the stadium and we ran because we were so cold (I was loosing feeling in my face and my fingers) the promotional will call booth was closed and my friend was in the middle of announcing and couldn't come down. For whatever reason it just wasn't meant to be. The bartender at the hotel where we ate did look at us a little funny and declare that we didn't look like the motorcross type. I'll take that as a complement but I still thought it would have been a cool countercultural experience. Oh well! At least I tried!
Boarding in 20 minutes....tried to sleep but couldn't - which ultimately led me to pay the $9.99/month for this airport service so I could get online and google: "pop-up cot travel airport" to no avail, so I went to facebook to pose the question to anyone who will listen if they knew of where I could purchase said cot - and if not to state that I would invent said cot and make millions. I actually have quite a nice design in my little head...
Anytime I tell someone I'm from Austin they kind of ooow and aaaaw. Funnny. It is a great town though.

Alright, that's my update..

Back in Birmingham

2008-03-16T01:31:00.002+07:00

Well I've moved 3 times in 7 months. Not fun! This least is for the next year and a half - I made sure to ask what would happen if I had to break the lease - I'll just loose my $750 deposit. I guess I can handle that. So I guess I've been in my new place with the fantastic view but ghetto exterior for hmmm, 1.5 months - and STILL haven't finished unpacking. Good thing for that giant walk in closet - it's full of boxes. But I've been busy - went to Ecuador for a week (more to follow) went home for a week, and I've been sick - I'll unpack eventually!

Boston 2007-8

2008-03-16T01:30:00.000+07:00

Hard long cold year. will add pictures later :)

One year later

2006-07-23T04:34:00.000+07:00

I feel so far removed from those previous posts. Since then I have moved from Houston to Alabama - thanks to my family. That was actually a lot of fun. My entire family took off from work to load me into a Uhaul and drive me to Alabama. I found the most amazing loft there, *exactly* what I had been wanting, and loved every second of that place. I miss it - especially now considering I am sleeping on a friends air-mattress in a studio in Boston and my only other furniture consists of a pop-up chair I bought down the road at CVS and the unopened boxes I shipped here from Birmingham. I am only living in this place for the first month, I get to move next weekend to a place much closer to work. Right now I have to take a cab to work every morning, that's like $8-9 a day. Ugh. I walked once, the vagrant to me ratio was a little high, and who wants to walk 45 min to work at 430 in the morning! I'll keep taking a cab.
I don't think I actually miss Birmingham though, funny 'cause life is definitely no picnic right now. I guess because it's not home. I just miss Texas.
Intern year, what can I say. Compared to what I've experienced this past three weeks, Carraway was a complete cake walk. I knew I had it easy, except for those few months w/ those horrible residents, man they were awful...what makes people so unpleasant?
When I think of my year in Birminham I think of
-interviewing w/ Zsila, going on our little tour w/ our new found asian friend romeo, the botanical gardens - how birmingham should have been renamed perfectville.
-going down to find a place to live w/ my great Aunt Rhonda, and meeting Stephanie, the girl who showed me my loft, we turned out to be such great friends. Funny, we had both been in Thailand at the same time, 30 miles away from each other. Stephanie lived in my loft too, she and her brother shawn, and the rest of her family totally took me in. I'll always be grateful for them
-sitting in my loft on my red couch gazing out those hugh windows of what was once the chamber of commerce - sometimes living in an old building can be spooky, but I figured the worst thing that ever happened was that someone got fired.
-how beautiful Birmingham can be in the spring, *everything* blooms
-Jenny, what a great friend, walking the dogs

Scared to death

2005-05-05T17:22:00.000+07:00

We just arrived by plane in the south Island of New Zealand (we flew into the north island, at Aukland and stayed in a dorm in a hostel with some other people from Scotland & Colorado - it was actually a really cool dorm, a lot nicer than the one I stayed in in Rome, it had a dance club, an internet cafe, and a restaurant),
Anyways, my shoulders are in knots b/c Zsila had to drive into town from the
airport. .

Zsila couldn't find the paper that showed my proof of having my license renewed so I couldn't drive until we could find an internet cafe and print one out.

Why is that a problem you say? Aside from the fact that she
is already a very scary driver:
1. We have to drive on the left side of the road. (which comes w/ more problems than you realize).
2. It is a campervan
3. There are TONS of hills
3. It a stick - Zsila doesn't drive a stick...

But aside from making everyone in Queenstown infuriated, nearly hitting two people and a black dog - we finally found a parking spot (although I'm not sure you could say we were actually IN a parking spot, but we were at least in the parking LOT.

I really thought we might die, we were lurching and stalling all over
the place! What a day...

Alright, we're gonna go ride a gondola and have some hot chocolate, it's deliciously cool here!

-Julie

P.S. We were thinking about going skydiving, but I think I had all the adrenaline I'll be needing for a while just on the drive into town, so I think we're going to just take a hot airballoon at Sunrise on Saturday - they provide a picnic breakfast and everything - I'm soooo excited!

Everything went wrong, in Hong Konk by Zsila (my comments are in bold)

2005-05-05T17:04:00.000+07:00

i have to type fast, but here's the scoop.

we had a layover in hong kong for five hours. so we got off the plane and took a train into the city then a fairy across to an island and took lots of pics of the skyline. it's all so high tech and definately not lacking in funds. it's very clean and sterile. it's like new york but more high tech. it's also kind of like san francisco b/c it's on a hilly island in the middle of the water. beautiful too!

okay, we made it back for our flight to aukland, NZ and had already checked our two suitcases from bangkok straight through to aukland. so we just had a huge backpack and smaller one to carry on in hong kong. well, as i try to go through the gate, a woman stops me and says my back pack won't fit in the over head compartment. i tried to nicely explain that it did in every other plane that is the same make and model of the one we're taking. she refused and showed me the dinky little basket that i was supposed to fit my bags in which were way smaller than the overhead space. so, then they told me to go check more bags in. julie was in the exact same boat. so, we go to check more stuff. they proceed to tell me it will be $250 U.S. !!!!!!!!!!! uhhm, hello, that is the price of another plane ticket somewhere. we had to pay supposedly b/c of the extra weight. of course we were overweight with luggage b/c we packed for a month in thailand and two different continents (and because we each have bought an entire other bag of stuff!). we both hurredly realized we were about to miss our flight so we just scrambled sitting on the floor in front of the checkout desk with everyone standing in line behind us watching us. (All the sudden it was like we were the only ones, in a room by ourselves, we HAD to figure out how to make it work). we both silently prayed for a miracle. we needed everything to fit as carry-on. They told us to throw away stuff. what was I supposed to throw away. so i started chunking shoes. good shoes! (I had a whole bag of stuff I was throwing away, shampoo & cond., I wripped the pages out of my journal that I had used, so much stuff, I was like what do I no *absolutely* need) then i had a revelation!!!! i pulled out all of the clothes and yelled for julie to start putting on all of her clothes and i would too. I already had pants and a shirt on. well, I then had three more pairs of pants on top of that. we were standing there in a panic just putting clothes on top of clothes. julie stuffed more shirts in her sleeves! (At least Zsila was wearing pants, I was wearing a skirt and had to put on Jeans under it, in the middle of the airport. It was totally nuts. We must have looked so rediculous standing there putting on every article of clothing we had with us, I Looked like a marshmellow! A shortsleeved shirt, several long sleeved shirts, a sweatshirt, AND my Jacket, in addition to several pairs of pants, I was sweatig like I'd never left Thailand.) I have never done anything more ludicrous or hilarious in my entire life in an airport. i passed inspection and made it in the gate without having to throw anythign away. wow!

we sat in the airplane hot as could be from all of our clothes we put on and had to take them all off and repack for our huge over head compartment space we had to put them in. a lady from NZ sat next to us who told us she had seen the whole thing. Man that was crazy. We were laughing hysterically as we sat and waited for the plane. Oh no, we have to go back through and do the same thing on our way home. please pray that we can pull it off again.

-Zsila

Tsunami

2005-05-05T16:28:00.000+07:00

The next day in Phuket we took a tuk tuk to kamala, a primarily Muslim community. This is where the tsunami caused the worst damage. All the other beaches looked completely cleaned up with only a few shops on side streets showing signs of destruction where the waves had swept through. However, this spot is just a few Km from the beach where we were & it was just sooo destroyed, I'll have to wait till I get home to update the blog w/ more pics (I'm in New Zealand and no longer have a personal computer & you can't do that at these internet cafes). It was really sad - people were outside of their half destroyed shops, hoping for tourists with their open signs posted. We bought some icecream and a coke for our driver. We also just walked around and prayed for the people there. It was quite sobering. It is just so weird that 5 months ago I was sitting in our living room over Christmas watchin the coverage day after day and then just a few days ago I was standing on that very beach and looking at the haggard hotels - piles of filing cabinets, chairs, and other debris all stacked up outside on the beach with "no passing" signs.
It was a ghostown.
It would have been nice if we could have some of our time helping there. At least we got to leave some monetary contributions...
I heard it snowed in Amarillo, 5 inches. That's crazy - and half way around the world I am seeing the effects of what probably also resulted in that crazy weather.

Reading the newspapers on the plane really makes you realize how mad the world is outside. I mean, I know we have weird horrible things in the US too, but I don't know, the rest of the world can be pretty savage and scary - but mostly - so unpredictable, in the worst kind of way. Nepal was in a state of emergency until a few days ago (the king fired the government, gave himself absolute power, and put most of the politicians in jail), in Laos parents make their children swim across the river to Thailand to beg for money. And it is a *rushing* treacherous river, and when they don't come back w/ enough money they get beaten. In India a priest (in addition to other people) was gorred to death by a bull (which is pretty Ironic considering they consider the cow to be a sacred animal - anything that would rip your flesh to shreads and leave you a bloody, dead mess doesn't seem very sacred to me, but then I'm not Hindu). In thailand a 14 year old boy was put in Jail for putting excess chili powder in a nearly empty bowl (there is apparently a specific law against this that was passed in like 1957, isn't that nuts!).

And that's your world news for the day.

On a lighter note we had great fun the first night we were there. There were about a zillion people out and about. In fact we had so much fun that by the time we decided to look at our watches it was nearly 4 in the morning! How was that possible! There were still people *everywhere* eating dinner outside and everything. It was nuts. That was a great little excersion...

Parasailing in Phuket

2005-05-02T01:15:00.000+07:00

Hey guys. Change of plans...
So I was going to meet my friends sister in that country - We left for the Nan airport at 1:30 and didn't arrive in Bangkok until after 8. Yeah, we totally missed our connecting flight to Udon Thani where we were meeting our friend and all of her friends from Europe and her roommates AND there was not another flight that night. I talked w/my friend and w/ zsila & we all decided it wasn't really worth it to go there (b/c we would still have to take a bus from the airport etc.) I was really disappointed at first but we got a *great* consulation prize - even if it did cost us an extra $75 for the plane ticket. We had already called the Baptist Guesthouse in Bangkok (where we stayed the first time) and arranged to stay there when we were still in the airport in Nan. So when we got to the airport in Bangkok - which we are *very* familiar with - I even chatted with a friend I made at PB air the last 3 times we there and he gave us a bunch of pumpkin seeds to snack on :) We went to Thai airways and got our tickets transferred from Udon Thani to Phuket, which took some doing. We got a taxi and by this time recognized our surroundings enough to give him directions. We arrived at the guesthouse a quarter 'till 11, everyone there was already asleep or gone so we grabbed the envelope which already had our names on it from the inbox, stored our luggage in another room & drug ourselves upstairs.

Yeah - an airconditioned room! It was soooo nice. Then we woke up the next morning and headed back to the airport. I finally talked (actually, *paid* -literally) Zsila into going to this really awesome hotel. I mean we are going to be here for ONE night, we might as well do it right, when will we get to be here again. We are staying at a new hotel in Patong - IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!! It is either a 4 or 5 star hotel and was only like $96, isn't that amazing! As soon as we walked in we got first rate treatment, they had us sit down and brought us ice cold cloths and these great iced ginger drinks while they checked us in. Our room is awesome, I LOVE the bathroom, sooo nice - especially after what we have grown accustomed to over the past month. The beach is breathtaking and the night life is great - soooo much going on. We ate two huge hamburgers then laid out by the pool this afternoon. The pool is enormous, like 3-4 olympic size pools placed end to end with all these neat alcoves and shallow places to sit. Then we went and walked on the beach - the sand *literally* sparkles like diamonds, I've never seen that before. It is so beautiful. There really weren't that many farong's (westerners) on the beach, but a lot of local thais - mostly just wearing their clothes (either b/c they don't have swimsuits or they are modest). Hey Dustin & 'Manda - the beach we are at reminds me a lot of that one we went to in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua - only bigger, more touristy, and more pristine. The mountains on the side even wrap around like a crescent - just like they did there. Our hotel is in an awesome spot! I love how they sell fresh chopped fruit on the side of the road and on the beach - yummy! When we were walking on the beach we saw these people parasailing so we decided to do it - I mean what an awesome view - It was such great fun! The thai guys running it were a hoot! We got all harnessed off and we started out just standing on the beach with the big speed boat on the ocean in front of you along with a pile of rope and then as the rope unravels and disappears in front of you they are like "one, two, three, run! And then all of the sudden you are just waaaaaay up in the air looking down at all the clumps of fish - thankfully I saw no sharks:) And then you just stretch out your hands and it is like you are flying high above the ocean looking at the mountains and the beach below. Gorgeous. And well worth the $15.
Then the boys took us back to the hotel on their little motorbike (don't freak out Dad - it was right down the road) so we could pay them. I reeally have to go to the bathroom and I have a feeling this place only has a squatty potty & I am not to keen on those so I might have to wrap this up quick. We just went to this fun bar and had lattes (yes it's 10 million degrees outside but I had a latte). We made friends with the girls working there and I bought a T-shirt. It is called 2blacksheep - it's an Irish pub! But, of course not really. They had this crazy band of younger to middle agers rocking out, playing all the songs we know, actually when we were walking by they were singing "I love rock and roll." Hilarious. These people all look like, well, not a band, and they are all rocking out with their cute thai accents. The played the cranberries - which the British dudes we befriended were singing at the top of their lungs. It was just too much! The weirdest juxtaposition of cultures and environments, and music. So after the band took a break we talked w/ the Brits about how scandelous Prince Charles and Camilla are, how Prince william is probably really so&so's son (princess Dia's "officer & a gentleman"), and how they all want him to be king and think Charles should just move away. It was all very entertaining. This morning on the plane I was reading the Bangkok post - I'll have to bring it home, it was soooo interesting. In it was a lot of stuff about Nepal, Burma, etc. They are so jacked up. Anyways, at one of the little shops outside we met this guy that is Nepalian, grew up in Burma, and now lives here, so I picked his brain about the situations there. I love talking to people from other cultures. I have learned so much this month.

Ok, I had to suck it up at use the squatty potty. It's basically like a urinal stuck flat in the ground and you just literally squat, I forgo to put toilet paper in my purse earlier so yes, I had to drip dry (I know TMI - too much information!) Then you take the bucket from the trashcan fool of water next to it and dump a bucket full of water down so it will "flush." How nuts is that, I'm sitting here typing on a computer (even if the letters are writtin in pink magic marker on the keyboard!) and there isn't even proper plumbing.

Oh, back to the Nepalian - He recommended this place for us to eat - about 20Km south of where we are. So we got in a song tow (and the driver offered to wait 2 hours while we ate and then drive us back, I'm talkin' serious service in this country people - we bought him a chocolate Sunday 'cause he was so nice!) This place rocked! The tables were right on the beach - the beach that was littered with all the little wooden curved fishing boats that had been out no doubt catching our dinner. We walk up and do we get a menu? No we get this cut little Thai girl (and this is ALL outside) pointing at these cement vats filled with water and HUGE fish and blue crabs and she is like - "pick." That's what I call some fresh seafood! I talked to my little blue crab. I was like "sorry I'm about to murder you..." He tasted delicious. As they say here - arroy ma ka! Zsila picked out a white snapper - that sucker was splashing all over the place! (that is until they grilled it with coconut and ginger and it came out as a flaming soup, it was awesome). We shared the two and then both had chocolate for dessert - I had a banana split - mmmmmm.

I cannot tell you how utterly surreal it is to be here. Do you know how absolutely glued I was to the TV over Christmas break... I was completely captured by the tsunami coverage. I remember doing my FP rotation and telling the staff how I didn't know where I was going to go in April but how I would really like to come here and now here I am! God is good.

Ok, I will write more later.

Love y'all!

Oh happy day

2005-04-28T20:52:00.000+07:00

Well, first I want to start out by giving y'all (some of the Thai nurses that live here too speak Engish and I was asking them a question and *of course* I started it with "do y'all" you should have seen the look they gave me, they had NO idea what I was saying, or what y'all meant, they had never heard it) anyways, I wanted to give y'all an update on (I hope y'all are appreciating this updates because I endure many a bug bite at this computer). The girl below that I have a picture of - the one I'm giving the scalp injections was back in clinic this week, I had her come back after 2 weeks. And I am SOOOO excited for her, you would NOT believe how much her hair has grown back in just 2 weeks - thank all of you that were praying. All but one bald spot has so much hair growth. Actually that last one does too, it is just gray hair. Ok, I'll finish my happy day story in a minute. Zsila was helping the Ashburn twins with their chemistry but now she is done so we are going to go back to watching Anne of Green Gables, I love those movies. That and I am about to scratch myself to death. Ahhh!

2005-04-25T15:42:00.000+07:00

There weren't any more patients so I went and got my "boomerang." That's Noi in the front, making cotton balls from a bid hard spool of cotton. I'm in the background weighing my boomerang to see how much it is going to cost to mail in home. Thankfully it is only about 5Kilos, so it shouldn't cost more than around $25, but that is the cheapest route, so I won't see it for like 2 months. It's not really a boomerang, It's that wood carving I was talking about earlier...

2005-04-25T15:36:00.000+07:00

There are always patients that bring us stuff. Today they brought us this fun fruit called leechy or something like that. There is an opened one in front, it looks sort of like an eyeball. It tastes *really* good - sweet & sour, and has a funny, smooth, pit-like seed in the center. There are all kinds of really weird fruits here, I'll put in some more pics later. Two of our favorites are hairy eyeballs and mangoseen. They're like something out of a star wars movie...

2005-04-25T15:31:00.000+07:00

This morning in the clinic, Dr. A and I discuss a patient. Usually Mondays are the busiest but this morning went really quickly. We see patients from about 9 - 12 and take a break in the middle for a few praise songs, and a testimony. All the Thai girls that work there come out and sing with a guitar - it sounds so pretty :)

2005-04-25T15:29:00.000+07:00

Afterwards we went by to pick up the Ashburn's daughter, Anna, she's a sweetie! They were all swimming in the giant quarry, having a great time...They were using old bottles and pieces of styrofoam as floaties.

2005-04-25T15:27:00.000+07:00

Once we decided what we wanted she took our measurements. I got a skirt, top, and matching jacket, & Zsila got a shirt & top. Who know's how they will turn out!

2005-04-25T15:26:00.000+07:00

This is the house of the seamstress we went to. She was a really sweet lady. We stepped inside and she handed us some magazines w/ patterns so we just sat down on the tile floor and flipped through them. It was really hot and the sweat just kept trickling down every avenue on my skin it could find.

2005-04-25T15:24:00.000+07:00

Yesterday afternoon we went by the fabric store to pick out something so we can have something made before we leave. The fabric is a lot different than in America. It doesn't come by the yard. You just by the whole section which is patterned on one side and plain on the other. It seems like it would be really hard to work with. I bought 2 big sections for right under 1,000 baht like $25. A lot of these fabrics would make great pillowcases, and some looked thick enough to cover furniture.

No more tests in med-school, by Zsila

2005-04-24T23:28:00.000+07:00

We finished our Texas Medical Jurisprudence Exams! Yea! I'm so glad! Julie reminded me that is our last test in medical school. to think of all the tests we've taken and they are over, praise the Lord! that is an awesome feeling. this test actually wasn't that big of a deal, but it was necessary that we pass it online.

can i tell you about the journey we had while taking it? before we left for chang mai we were only able to take the first part of the two exams. that was b/c of a time factor and interference with nature, shall we call it. it was hilarious. it was late the night before we left and julie and i were in the lounge and we kept having interruptions by all God's creatures great and small. we'd be trying to read the book or take the test and then you would see something move by out of the corner of your eye and it was almost as if we were watching a tennis match. our eyes would be looking at the test or the book and then you'd see our heads move from right to left as we silently in unison followed the path of the lizard on the wall right in front of us. not to mention the sounds these lizards make. lizards the length of your pinky finger can hoot and holllar let me tell you. it sounds like a loud kissing hi-pitched noise. we always know where one is when we hear this. oh i love it when i hear it coming from near my bed especially! :) then an 8 legged spider would run across the desk just above the keyboard when we were trying to take a timed exam! at one point i was sitting across the room and julie was at the computer and all the sudden she froze and gasped. oh yes, sitting right next to the mouse of the computer was a massive tree roach! at this point, i couldn't take it any longer. this was not condusive to studying or my distraction free test environment! :) if only the people in america knew what we were going through just to pass this test. only in thailand can you have modern technology coexist with lizards and every type of tropical insect that you've only seen in museums. trust me! i'm serious, i saw a spider the other day that was something i have seen in the natural science museum and i'm pretty sure it was poisonous. great!
back to the roach - like i said, enough was enough. i calmly asked for a shoe and went to town getting that buddy. he was a little fast so at first i only got part of him and he turned over and did the famous cochroach dance. does la cucaracha sound familiar? i've noticed most of these critters just come out late at night. i forgot to mention the ants that were near the keyboard, but never seemed to sting us.

we took test two today after our trip and decided to do it right after church while less nocturnal creatures were out. it seemed to work out well.

anyways, i must say i've never taken a medical school test quite like these and will always remember the distractions that come while taking it in thailand. please, i'll take people coughing or getting up out of their seats anyday over these creepy crawlers. :)

it was a fun experience!

-Zsila

2005-04-24T23:14:00.000+07:00

Our driver took us to this really awesome place on the water for lunch. Here we are in front of the King's tree, I forget what it is called, golden something. On his birthday they planted them all over the country. His color is yellow because he was born on Tuesday or something, every day of the week has a color here.

2005-04-24T23:11:00.000+07:00

As we drove around from place to place everyone we saw on the roads was soaked to the bone! At a stoplight these people stop to drain the truck bed of all the water. Hmmm, that reminds me of an aggie joke...

2005-04-24T23:07:00.000+07:00

Our really nice driver, he drove us ALL over chiang Mai ALL day long, and finally dropped us off at the mall, where I got to eat pizza - Yea! It was so good...

2005-04-24T23:06:00.000+07:00

At the umbrella factory. Do you remember those Mister Rogers adventures? I loved those! Well, this day was like a bunch of those all strung together :) In fact this factory reminded me of a particular episode - or maybe it was reading rainbow, where they made construction paper out of old jeans because at this factory they painstakinly make the paper for the umbrellas by hand in a fashion that was very similar to the way they made that construction paper.

2005-04-24T23:01:00.001+07:00

Mom & Dad, you would *love* some of the swings they had here :)

2005-04-24T23:01:00.000+07:00

Sitting on a giant piece of rosewood. They use that and teak for most of their work here.

2005-04-24T22:56:00.000+07:00

Trying my hand at the wood-carving place. They had some really beautiful stuff, the problem is getting it home!

2005-04-24T22:54:00.000+07:00

Those yellow things are the cocoons of the silk worms. After they form these cocoons they put them outside in the sun so the worms will die. That's right - gasp - it's murder! I wonder if all those animal activists know about this...
After they know the worms are dead they boil the cocoons and they start to dissolve into whispy hairs which they take and spool into thread. No wonder silk is expensive! But I don't know why it stains when it gets wet - would anyone like to commet on that?

2005-04-24T22:51:00.000+07:00

The worms at the silk factory in Chiang Mai. We had soooo much fun going to all the factories with our little personal driver.

The spirit in the Banyan tree

2005-04-24T22:32:00.000+07:00

On the way up to one of the mountain village we always pass this tree. It is such a giant tree. I don't think you can really appreciate how big it is from this picture. All those dark things are giant bee hives. It's a really weird tree.
I was chasing these cows down the road right before I took this picture, fun times.
Thai people worship a number of random things, and trees happen to be one of them. It is generally believed here that most spirits living in trees are good ones. Of course the Bible and Christianity has a name for these spirits too - demons. Anyways, they make offerings to the tree and pray to the spirit they think lives in it. They also tie these huge ribbons of fabric all around the tree at the bottom. And, if one of their spirit houses is ever broken, they will place it at the base of one of these trees because it is "bad luck" to just dispose of one. I'm tellin' you, it is like stepping back in time here. Whenever you visit the mountain villages all the people, even the little babies have "spirit bracelets," but I haven't really understood exactly what their purpose is, something about protection. And all the villages have their own witch doctors. That reminds me of a patient I had my second year of med-school. He was a self-proclaimed witch doctor, but obviously not a very good one because he had sliced his foot open and instead of coming straight to the doctor he had just been dragging his bleeding foot all over his kitchen floor for like 3 days, using his own crazy concoctions. As a thank you once he did finally heal, he brought the doctor I was working with a real shrunken head. It was pretty freaky. I don't want to know where or how he got it - I mean is it even legal to own one of those? That also reminds me that I never finished the head-hunter story. I'll have to get back to that too...

The Banyan tree

2005-04-24T22:31:00.000+07:00

I really want to hurry and write about this before I go to bed but there are to many things scurrying around in here and it's startin' to freak me out. I'm pirched on top of this chair because I really don't want anything to scurry up my leg. There are waaaaay to many lizards in here...and roaches - AAAAAAhhh! Ok, this might be a short blog...

No more curry!!! By Zsila

2005-04-24T21:57:00.000+07:00

tonight at the birthday party, we all lined up to go to the buffet to get the thai food prepared for us. amy was with julie and i and she made sure to tell us to stay away from the "dried blood." i asked which dish it was and she said the one that was "brown." well, there were several dishes so i spotted one that was brown and decided to stay away from that. i was excited i saw a dish i like here called green curry chicken. you pour it over rice. amy and i were next to each other and as i was putting the curry on my plate, she said watch out for the brown things! what??? i thought they were on the dish next to mine. she said what i was mistakenly looking at was pork. the brown things she had been referring to were IN THE CURRY. hello! this is majorly important for me to know about. the dried blood was in my curry on my plate! what could i do? so, i went back to the table and thought i could just pick around the dried blood squares. suddenly it occured to me, that it was in a liquid medium and dried blood can dissolve! i took one bite and realized i think i was tasting blood.
needless to say, i put that plate to the side and focused only on the fruit.
just some fun surprises you find out about in other countries!

julie, on the otherhand, had her own crisis. she ate some fish and after getting a mouth full, proceded to tell us that she had about 12 bones in her mouth! she couldn't do anything, but excuse herself from the table and the room and deal with it in a bathroom.

i crossed another life stepping stone. dried blood, who knew?

-Zsila

The funeral and the monks

2005-04-24T09:32:00.000+07:00

We got invited to a funeral the other night and apparently the more people that show up to a funeral the more "merit" the dead person gets - they think it helps them get closer to nirvana. There are all kinds of crazy rules in Buddhisms (like honking when you pass a temple - b/c that gets you merit too...) So they just invite anyone. No one I was going with (about 6 of us) even knew the deceased. I always thought nirvana was essentially paradise - but no - it's nothingness, you cease to exist. So their entire religion is bent on extinguishing themselves. They believe they will be born over and over again until they finally "get it right" and then they will never be born again, they will just die and cease to exist.
How depressing.
Buddha (which literally means "enlightened one") said he was reborn 500 times until he finally reached "the enlightenment". His real name was Siddhattha Gotama, he was a rich prince, born in India in 532 or something (they actually use his birth for their calendar so here it's like 2537). I'll talk more about that later. Buddhists don't ever "know" anything to be definite. They can never know whether the power of karma will move them up to a higher life or down to a lower life when they die. I think that uncertainty is what leads them to develop so many extra rules like the more people you have at your funeral, the better your chances of moving up a notch when you are reborn.
God does says that "eternity is set in the hearts of men." You can't get away from that sense of knowing that death is really not final, there IS something else. There are very few Buddhists here who actually practice Buddhism in it's truest form - the one that says there is no soul, there are no spirits, good are bad, and there is no God. Buddha just got rid of God altogether, so basically, in a round-about way, you are your own god -all the answers are inside of yourself. The only problem with that is that - They aren't!
I am so thankful that I do know the one who holds all the answers, that I know God and get to experience his peace daily - that I never have to fear death, because I know my future is secure. Unlike what Buddha said his beloved buddhist people can't get away from the feeling of a higher power so here most of the people just believe in the bad half of that power. All around Thailand - in places from houses to car dealerships you will find "spirit houses." They make these little replicas of houses for the spirits to live in and they try to appease them daily by offering them food, etc. But I'll try and talk about that more later -Back to the funeral.
So we pile into Mindy's truck and drive a few miles down the road. The funerals here are all at night and last several days. They are usually at the persons house. So we walk up and there are these big canopies with plastic chairs underneath, sitting on a dirt floor outside the house of the old lady that died. There are these speakers set up with really strange music (which we are told is always played at funerals) blaring out of them. We take a seat in the pastel colored plastic lawn chairs and just start looking around like everyone else is doing. To our left are two huge chalkboards in a row and people are coming up and writing their names on them. Apparently they write their name, what community they're from, and I think how much money they give. Unlike in America, it is the duty of the family of the deceased to provide food for everyone who comes, they had even rented a TV and placed it prominently outside to entertain the guests that would come from far away - and then everyone who comes donates money.
I can see the door inside the deceased house in front of me and to the left. It is open and a bunch of flip-flops and sandals are piled in front of the two steps that lead inside. The doorway gives off a warm, red, smoky glow from the pile of incense sticks smoldering inside. Dark shadows are flickering and you can't really see all the way into the house because of the darkness. Everyone is sort of just milling around. The girls we came with are saying that there is usually a lot of waiting involved in funerals. A "girl" comes by with a tray of water glasses, I grab one as I turn back to here what Noi is explaining to me and Zsila leans over and whispers (that's a man!). She is proud of her new found eye for the he-she. "Yes, Zsila that's a transvestite," and I turn back to Noi. Ever since we first arrived in Bangkok I tried to point them out to her (some of them actually make pretty girls and it is hard to tell) but she would NOT believe me. "Julie, that is NOT a guy." When it was painfully obvious to me that is WAS a guy. And now that she realizes I was right she tries to spot them before I do, it's a game now - Like slug-bug only, not...) The really funny, or sad I should say, thing is when you see an older European talking to one and you *know* he has no clue...Our cab driver told us that some of them think/hope they will come back as a girl in their next life. Anyways, I'm getting off topic again.
Then Zsila decides she wants to go inside the house so some of our Thai girlfriends and Zsila and I get up and walk to the house, slip off our shoes and walk inside. There is a picture of the old lady that died, it had been touched up in a weird way so that her midface was sort of blurred in an attempt to make her look younger. It was on a makeshift easel with flowers and some Christmas lights surrounding it - and a bowl of sand in which an abundance of incense sticks had been haphazardly placed. Besides a strange metal and glass wardrobe sitting off and away from the back wall (and still filled with what I assumed were the deceased clothes,), the articles to the left of the door I just described, and the people in the house, it was completely empty. The "house" was a really a shack, boards of wood composing the floor and walls. In the corner some of the boards had either rotted or were torn away with areas large enough for a dog to squeeze through. The small entry way was lower than the rest of the one-roomed house and a handful of men sat on the small ledge, dangling their legs, some almost lounging. No one seemed particularly sad...One of the men hopped up when we walked inside and asked in Thai if we would tell him what an American funeral was like. "Nothing like this" I thought to myself. We gave a rather quick description because other people were coming into the house and there really wasn't much room, so we went back to our seats.
A man grabbed a speaker up front and started talking. There was a table in front of us with a younger girl and guy who seemed to be taking money out of a big plastic bowl and putting it into a handful of separate envelopes. We waited a while longer and then we saw the first monk saunter in, almost forget to remove his sandals at the door, and step inside the house. Darn, I can't remember how many monks there were....either 5 or 6. It depends on how much money you have but the fact that the number is odd or even has significance, ok, wait a second - OK, I looked it up. Usually monks come (because they come for all kinds of reasons, ceremonies and such that people pay them to come to their houses) in odd numbers because even numbers are "unlucky." But, at funerals it is different for some reason and I think the number can be even. However, I remember counting the monks when they came out and I thought it was 5...Aaaaanyways - there were monks. Actually most of them looked pretty young to be monks. They were all wearing bright saffron (orange - the same color as the gates in central park! There is a picture of that at the beginning of my blog). I don't think there is really any rule to what color their tuniks or whatever have to be but almost all of them are usually some shade of orange, and they all shave their heads and eyebrows like every 14 days, can't eat after 12 noon, can't touch a woman, can only own a certain number of articles - and this number seems to be ever increasing, and can now include cigarettes, hmmmmm - AND Zsila said she's pretty sure she saw a monk on a motorcycle way up in the mountains the other day with a girl tied around his waist :) - They have a gazillion and one rules and every male buddhist is supposed to spend time as a monk at least once in his life, there is no specified time. People say that a lot of guys become monks so they can just be lazy, but, I don't know, I haven't asked them! But the real reason they become monks is because it gains them and their family merit. Later in life many Thai men spend the remainder of their lives as monks.
Soooo, the monks slowly trickled in to the house and sat in a row against one of the side walls of the house. I could see them through the doorway. All the Thais around me got in the wei position (like they're praying with their hands up in front of them), but not the Christian Thais of course. It was kinda like they were worshipping the monks or something. It's sad, since Gotama took away God they'll just worship any and everything. There is a lot of idol worship here, which sounds so archaic, but it is ubiquitous...
Then the monks started their chanting, it was pretty creepy, and no one understands what they are saying because they speak in a language no one knows, something from India. It was just a very dark, oppressive occasion. Definitely not like the funerals we have - where even though there is a lot of sadness, there are people saying words of peace, blessing, and encouragement. This funeral only had a spirit of fear and lifelessness - one big vacuum. Yuck! Oh, and this is the kicker - on the last day of the funeral they take the body of the deceased and light it on fire for everyone to watch. How macabe is that! The people here say it is really bad when they do it stake style, with the body standing up, being burned from the feet up until the face flames away as everything disintigrates into a pile of lumpy ashes.
Yeah, I'm glad I went on the first day and not the last, I don't want a living picture of hell imprinted in my mind!
Alright, now everyone go enjoy your day :)

2005-04-21T14:44:00.000+07:00

Injecting steroids into the scalp of a young girl who is losing all of her hair. Please pray for her...

2005-04-21T14:18:00.000+07:00

The waiting room at our clinic. The pharmacy is through teh door on the right and the rooms where we see patients is behing me.

The Clinic

2005-04-21T13:09:00.000+07:00

We work in the clinics Mon - Fri from 8:45 - 12:00. Occasionally we'll have some patients in the afternoon (OK, once). It is actually a really nice clinic, complete with nurses, a pharmacy, a lab, an x-ray machine, U/S, a small OR for minor procedures and 3 rooms in which we see our patients. And it is all pretty well stocked. They work on what is called the "30 baht system" which means they can all be seen for 30 baht each (less than a dollar) and then they have to pay for extra procedures/medicine - but it is all still pretty cheap.
It is definitely *a lot* different than working in the states. People here just don't have a good understanding of their bodies. They'll tell you they have low, low pelvic pain - so of course, reluctantly, you do a pelvic exam only to realize in the end they have a gastric ulcer! Not even remotely near their pelvis. They just have difficulty telling you where things hurt. Another irksome quality is the fact that they *never* bring their medicine with them, or know what their taking, or know what the last doctor said is wrong with them - they just don't realize this is important. But they are all just too adorable and so you can't ever be genuinely annoyed, and they are all very thankful. Most of them come to our clinic because they trust us, but they don't trust the other doctors in the hospitals, and they know that we genuinely care. That's nice...
It's also a little frustrating, a lot frustrating, because you can only do so much. There are serious limitations. You can't even put anyone on Coumidin (blood thinner) because you can't take an INR (to monitor the level of the drug - which for all you non-med. people is actually rat poison. That's right, your grandma takes rat poison every day for her heart...)
All of the people are really sweet. It's funny because all the men come in complaining of dysuria (it hurts when they pee) but only when they are working out in the fields - it's because they aren't drinking any water as they sweat half their body weight away and they get all dehydrated. Simple stuff like that. Of course, there's plenty of not so simple stuff too, and we don't have the resources to diagnose it. Another sad thing is that if you have chronic kidney disease they can't get treatment in this country - dialysis is too expensive so they just don't offer it!
How blessed are we to be born, and live in the county we live in. So many Americans have NO idea...but that's another blog.
A lot of the patients I see work in the rice fields - all day. No one is ever really clean. There is just a gradient of dirtiness - but you don't really notice it after a while. Everyone wears flip flops so feet are just in a constant state of being covered with a thick layer of dirt. I think I'm even a little dirtier! Especially with all the extra sweating - yummy!
This really is the land of smiles. I had one old man come in - he must have been smiling his entire life, the few seconds you could catch him not smiling you would see these wisps of white coming out at the edges of his eyes, like crows feet only it was where the sun had never hit. He smiled so much that the creases in his eyes never relaxed long enough to be tanned by the sun. How sweet is that :)

You know it's hot when...

2005-04-21T12:58:00.000+07:00

-You ask the nurses that live near the clinic what they did today and they say, "Nothing. It was too hot. We couldn't do anything."
-The most important holiday in the entire country is centered around getting total strangers sopping wet
- you wake up in the morning covered by a bright red rash like nothing you've ever seen on your own body (except the time you had poison Ivy 3 times in 9th grade and had to keep going to the nurses office to put on Calamine lotion) and it's a weird rash because it doesn't itch. At first you are just red *all* over, they just in little spots all over. You finally realize, no you don't have a bunch of new bed buddies, you have a heat rash...If Julie has a heat rash we ALL know it MUST be hot!
- You take a shower in the middle of the day - with your clothes on - just to cool off before you take another nap.
- You pour water in your bed before you go to sleep at night.
- Before you pour the freezing cold water you've been hoarding in the freezer on your friend to freak her out, you pour it on yourself
- Being slimy starts to feel normal...

Nan

2005-04-18T23:00:00.000+07:00

We really didn't want to leave Chiang Mai, but we had no choice. One of the missionaries, mindy, was our ride back. We actually had a really interesting trip. We hadn't met her yet and had a good time getting to know her on the long way back. she grew up in Papa New Guinea. You know that place with the head hunters at least they had head hunters until they were outlawed in the 1980's. Yeah. We were playing pong here in the U.S. and they were still chopping each other's heads off and eating them for dinner. That's crazy. This girl had some awesome stories. she told us about when they first got there and they were required to live with a tribe for five weeks and they had to live as they lived. Her older sister was 12 at the time and somehow through a big miscommunication she had questioned them about the big celebrations they threw. But the tribe, misinterpreted it to mean that she had become of age and had her first period. (can you imagine how embarrassed her sister was when she realized what she told them!) so basically, their family just ended up going through with it b/c it was just too big of a mix up. The head of the tribe informed them that it was tradition for the men of the family to go into the forest and were not allowed to come back until they had hunted enough to provide meat for the entire tribe (like 200 people)ฌธษ๊ธษณ๊ฌ็

2005-04-18T22:49:00.000+07:00

We wait to trade our oxen in for elephants, we're moving up in the world! Literally...

2005-04-18T22:41:00.000+07:00

Me right after I got ambushed by a thai kid on the side of the road and his posse.

2005-04-18T22:40:00.000+07:00

...and the kid who got me!

2005-04-18T22:37:00.000+07:00

Our nice, big elephant. Zsila is holding up the bananas we fed him on the way. It was a huge clump and they would just chuck the whole thing down their throat and swallow! The top of their heads really looked like a big hairy butt. Whenever we went through the water he would reach down with his trunk, suck up water and spray it all over us. Even the elephants played songkran! We smelled like elephant all day :)

2005-04-18T22:31:00.000+07:00

sitting in the box chair right before our little elephant driver hopped off and let us drive the rest of the way. It was nuts!!!

2005-04-18T22:27:00.000+07:00

Zsila and I right after church, and after I decided to start of Songkran right - by throwing her in the pool w/ her church clothes on. Yes, I got wet too. And, the missionaries youngest daughter was like, " I wanna come in too!" She is soo cute. However, her mom didn't think it was too cute that she jumped in the pond with her Easter dress on - but she quickly got over it, and we had a great time. I've never gone swimming with a skirt on!

Songkran

2005-04-18T21:12:00.000+07:00

"Songkran is the traditional thai new year. it marks the time when the sun passes from the zodiac sign of aries into that of taurus and is celebrated every year on april 13 or 14th. in fact, sangkran which once was not only the traditional but the official thai new year, spreads over three days from teh 13-15th, and this has always been a happy festival for one and all. in the north around chang mai, sand is taken into temple compounds in this time. it is believed that this will bring good health and prosperity, and that the more sand one takes into the compound the better. sangkran day begins with early morning merit making- offering food to monks, releasing caged birds into the air and fish into rivers and streams, and paying homage to one's ancestors. sangkran has always been associated with water, and respects are paid to elder relatives and friends by pouring scented water over the palms of their hands while uttering the wish of blessing. and besides these more reverential forms of paying respect, water is thrown rather less ceremonally by, and at, all and sun dry." - Thai ways by dennis segaller

we stepped on the bus in Nan city. a first clas bus that would be taking us on the six hour ride ending in chang mai. it was definately the nicest bus i have ever seen. complete with leather seats, a bus attendant, and chinese movies with thai dubbed over. zsila slept in the seat infront of me, of course while i watched the scenery slowly pass by. it might have been a first class bus, but it definately was not fast. there are no highways in northern thailand. we finally arrived in chang mai many bus stops later. every town we stopped in had people crowded on the streets holding their buckets of water. the entire way you would have thought it was raining- the whole six hours there were drops of water streaming down the windows of the bus. that is sangkran! we got off the bus and failed to realize that the national anthem was playing. after it came to our attention that we were the only people not standing erect i remembered how important that their national anthem was to them, oh well. people were pretty forgiving. we shook our heads at the tuk tuk drivers and started haggling with a thai man that spoke pretty good english. we agreed on 80 baht for the both of us and climbed in the back of a song tao (that means two row, it's a little truck with two rows in the back for people to sit on, it also has a cover). we had just started down the road, my back pack to my side when i felt a very cool splash of water all on my left. it had begun. i was already wet. we got to our hotel, a very nice four star hotel.

we only had a few days in chang mai and really did our best to make the most of it. that first night we just walked across the street to the night bazaar and just got a feel of what everything was like there. we woke up early the next morning to go ride elephants. they picked us up in a van and we made friends with a couple from holland (zsila called the guy Mr. Holland friend all day long). there were also a couple of nice girls from israel that we had fun talking to. we got to the elephant show a little late. but not late enough to miss the elephant football. it was hilarious. they had these giant soccor balls and they could hit those suckers far. some of them got fancy and were hitting them with their back legs. then they played basketball with their trunks and painted some pretty pictures of flowers with their trunks. after the show, they let us over to the platforms and we rode in ox carts through the village. and from there, we each got on our own elephant. it was a pretty long ride and it was hot! when we got down to the river, there was a very steep incline. the driver of our elephant was still sitting on its head, he leaned way back and held his hat as we slowly made our way down the river bank. zsila and i were sitting on the back of the elephant in this weird box seat with a bar to hold on to in front. it felt like we were going to fall out. when we got to the bottom of the river, he motioned for zsila to get on the head of the elephant as he hopped down. i was like great, this thing is going to run away with us. zsila was like are you sure and then just did it. our little thai guide started walking through the water in front of us and the elephant followed. he took some pictures for us and then motioned for zsila and i to switch places. not an easy task! crawling around on this giant head of an animal! there was nothing for me to hold on to so i just had to squeeze really hard with my legs on his head right behind his ears and brace myself with my hands. it was a long ride- i was sore for two days after that! we had a couple more steep inclines. yea, that was a little scary. we made our way back to the other side and crossed the river again. we dismounted the elephants and went and had a great thai buffet lunch, sitting with our new found israeli friends. from there, we took a long raft ride with the raft guides playing sangkran all along. throwing each other into the elephant dung ridden river. it was a good time.

we spent the night in chang mai at the night bazaar. there was so much to see. we finally had to just split up. one night i was in a little shop run by a bunch of pakistani men. they were all up towards the front lounging around eating dinner. i spent a lot of time there b/c i bought so many things. i was trying to tell them that i didn't have any money b/c i was a student (all the vendors think that b/c i'm american, i'm rich). i showed them in baht how much i owe to the bank for my school. and they were like law school? i said no, med school. all of the sudden their tone changed and they pointed to a guy lounging on the ground and said he has headaches, bad headaches, can you help him? what was i supposed to do? so i started asking him all of the questions, nope not a migraine, not a cluster headache.. he just had a tension headache. i probed a little further and it turns out he is just a very stressful person. i told him he needed to go down the street and get a massage (in fact, that's probably where zsila was right as i was saying that). they were like advil what's that? one of them went to the back and came back with a milllion plastic baggies and threw them on the floor. pretty soon, this little blonde girl, me, and a bunch of pakistanis were huddled on the floor sifting through every kind of prescription medicine you can think of. benzodiazepines. they got it. antibiotics they had it. i was like no, you just need ibuprofen. it was funny. i made friends. with a bunch of pakistanis. then i went on my way to shop some more and meet more fun people. for such a big city, it's amazing how safe you felt walking around by yourself late at night. there were just so many people around and everyone was walkign around smiling, in great moods.

the next day we visited all the handicraft places. we basically had our personal driver the whole day long. he was so sweet. we saw umbrellas, silver, wood, silk, it's like we stepped back three centuries. it was very interesting. it cost more to ship things home than to buy them. that was the problem. in fact, i have a big problem sitting in my room right now. and it's solid wood, i don't know how i'm goign to get that thing home. i bought it at the night bazaar. and by the time they had it all bubbled wrapped up, it looked like a giant boomerang รห รห หน ดีใ ร กนืงะ นไ ไฟ รงท ไพระรืเ woops, this stupid keyboard just switched to thai, anyways, i pointed at my giant boomerang and i was like look a boomerang. somehow all the thai vendors knew what i was talkign about. and they were laughing their heads off! the next night, i was passing by their shop and they asked me how i was doing. i was like i still don't know how i'm going to get that boomerang home. i remember being in one shop during the day and these really fat old irish men and their friends were walkign by in the street like they were having their own parade. they were soaking wet from head to toe, just dripping and singign some crazy national song, just as crazy as can be. zsila and i had actually been together shopping at that time. we were both half wet from various strangers doing their best to soak us. zsila went on ahead. she was looking for a particular shirt. not long after that, i see zsila off in the distance walking down the sidewalk towards me. i couldn't stop laughing. she could not have been wetter if she was swimming in a pool with her clothes on. she was absolutely drenched! water just dripping from her face and her hair. apparently, she had run into some americans not far up ahead that had decided she was definately entirely too dry. what an insane holiday! mom, this is definately the holiday for you. this would be your absolute dream holiday i hope you get to see it in person some day. it's so perfect, it couldn't be hotter and then some nice stranger pours freezing cold water down your back and cools you down. even the nice old ladies come up to you with their bucket of flower water pour it on you and mutter something in thai. there's no age limit to "playing sangkran" as they say.

oh i forgot to say- when we got back from riding elephants that day, as soon as we pull up from our hotel, everyone in our van knew we were about to get it. of course, the hotel we stay at during sangkran has a fountain in front of it. everyone was posted up in front of our hotel using the fountain as their arsenal. there was no way out. we were wet before we got halfway out of the van. of course, they got us! we were the dryest thing around but not for long.

2005-04-18T14:21:00.000+07:00

some other people on the trail in front of us, and some other people next to them on a raft. It was a VERY hot day.

In Chiang Mai for the week...

2005-04-14T22:16:00.000+07:00

Hello all,
well, I'm sittin' in an internet cafe - it is only 1 baht/2 minutes, that's like 1/2 a cent! Crazy cheap... I can't believe how cheap everything is over here - however, I have managed to find the most expensive things. My shoe fettish helped with that. I'm having soooooooo much fun that as I type this I am literally dizzy with exhaustion. My wrists are hurting so I'll have to type more. But I'll give y'all a taste of the past days events:
-my legs are sore from riding the elephants yesterday, I've spent a lot of the days soaking wet thanks to the holiday over here, and I have done some MAD shopping - interspersed w/ massages!
Love you all!

2005-04-11T13:15:00.000+07:00

Outside the clinic. We have "solid rock" on Thursday nights where we teach the children English, have a Bible study, and play games. They are soooo much fun!!!

13. Bombing in Bangkok?

2005-04-09T11:31:00.000+07:00

Nope, it was actually a few hundred miles south of Bangkok, if I could figure out how to post pictures, I would stick a map of Thailand in here - ugh! Technology bites.. Anyways, here's the scoop:

Security forces have been on high alert since Sunday when alleged Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand launched a series of bombings, including one at an airport in Songkhla province that killed two people and wounded 70 others.

Attacks have occurred almost daily since. In the latest attack, a bomb exploded Friday at a municipal office in southern Narathiwat province, (way down south near Malaysia) wounding a security guard.

Violence blamed on separatists in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south has claimed nearly 800 lives since January last year, when an insurgency thought for years to be dormant revived.

The southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani are predominantly Buddhist Thailand's only region with Muslim majorities. Southern Thai Muslims have long complained of discrimination by the central government. Security forces are accused of heavy-handedness in cracking down on the insurgents. (They were telling us here how some Muslims armed with machetti's and knives tried to attack a police station down south and all 200 of them were gunned down and killed. In a later, similar incidence all of them, mostly young men, were rounded up, literally piled on top of one another, and driven several hours away. 80 of them died from suffocation. Sad, huh. So basically, yes, violence breeds violence. Why do they have to be so violent in the first place, chill!).

So basically there IS a lot of violence in the south, but it is nowhere near us, and has spared tourist places like Phuket, etc. - so far. The Muslim sects here are being pressured by those in Malaysia to press the issue of Islam. They want to teach their religion in the schools here, but Thailand is 95% Buddhist and simply won't stand for it. The prime minister is pretty hard core. In fact when they started their "war on drugs" about 3 - 4 years ago it was just a little different here than in the US, when they say war, they mean right out war. They just rounded up all the big drug dealers and shot them. There used to be a big drug rehab center here where I am, but now everyone is either dead or too afraid to seek help, that's sad...

In short, we are very very far from the violence (we are in very Northern Thailand, Bangkok is sort of like central Thailand) - and don't sell drugs in Thailand or the Prime minister will shoot and kill you...
This is your brain. This is your brain after you did and sold drugs - spilling out a hole in the side of your head after you've been shot - any questions?
Now wouldn't that have made a more effective commercial?

Now that my friends, is a war on drugs...

2005-04-09T11:30:00.000+07:00

Map of Thailand

12. I SAW THE LIZARD!!!

2005-04-09T11:26:00.000+07:00

OK, so it did sound a little scary when they were saying how you would have to cut your finger off if this lizard bit you, but I really wasn't all that worried. I mean I just can't get that scared about a little lizard half the size of a spoon. Well, we were all sitting down eating the delicious food our Thai cook had prepared for us when I heard this weird nose outside, it sounded like a clown nose being honked into a tiny megaphone and I was like,

"Oh, what kind of bird is that?"
"That's not a bird, it's that lizard. It's called a Dukkhe."

Incidentally I was reading a book earlier and in that book Dukkhe meant 'utter human agony.' Great...
So I was like, "Do y'all mind if I get up and look at it?
One of the twins, Luke I think, got up with be and we walked out the back door. He threw something at the wall and it stuck it's head out.
IT WAS HUGE!
Oh my gosh, it *totally freaked me out.* Any time you imagine something that could bite your finger and potentially lead to it's loss as being infinitely small and then you see it face to face and realize it is a giant monster - that is not a good feeling...wonderful.
And how deceiving, they make this fun little sound, like their tooting their happy little horn through their happy little lizard megaphone, and then they bite your leg off...I guess it's a good thing they make that sound, kinda like a rattle snake :)

Lord keep that lizard far from me!

11 1/2. Thirty hours in Bangkok, continued....

2005-04-08T11:40:00.000+07:00

So we quickly set out a plan to enjoy our 30 hours in Bangkok as best we could. The couple dropped us off near the sky train, Zsila bought an umbrella on the way, and we walked up the steps to buy our skytrain tickets. It was actually really nice and clean. The only problem was figuring out what direction to go. We walked a lot of steps and finally ended up on the right side, headed toward Mo chit. We changed trains at Siam and then headed south to the end of the line. We walked down the steps, and onto a large water taxi

What an amazing time.
When we had been driving home the first time from the airport in Nan, without our luggage, I had already been thinking that losing our luggage was probably God's way of letting me see Bangkok. I had *really* wanted to see that city. So, inside, I wasn't that worried about the luggage, because I felt like there was another purpose. Thanks, God! He loves us so much, he even cares about the little things. I mean getting our luggage once we got there was so ridiculously easy, it took all of 10 minutes - and then we headed off to the city. And what a great time we had, I am really thankful for it.

The water taxi, the feeling of being somewhere ancient and progressive all at once - what a strange thing, the smiling people, the funny boats, the barges, walking through the little market places, the old thai women making their garlands of Jasmine, one of which is still hanging in my room -it's fragrance resting everywhere, the crazy fruit, the reclining Buddha - so big and imposing, and gold, the monks - on their cell phones, just walking down the side-walk, standing in front of the pictures of the king and queen and having an old Thai man stop to tell us with as much pride as he could muster, as he pointed at the pictures, "My King, my Queen!"

What a different place.
Yeah, it's like stepping back in time but remaining in the present...

Stumbling upon that park with a zillion kites, people peddling weird, scary, gross food. That one big rainbow flag with the funny music that only played when it was in the air. The dirty ground, trash everywhere. The many small, stray dogs, their tongues sticking out, dripping onto the ground in the heat. The tuk tuks zipping around. People bowing outside a white wall, their incense burning.
All the fruit vendors, and the sweetest pineapple I have tasted.
Lots and lots of skinny skinny people, everywhere.
Getting dark so early. Eating dinner, walking around the closing shops.
The nice family at the eyeglass store, showing us on the calculator how much money it would cost them, in baht, to go to the United States. Too much they said. Too much. They seemed to think about it often. One of the girls asked if she could come home with me...

People lining the streets, selling clothes, bags, jewelry, all laid on the ground in the dark night. Water dripping from buildings onto the floor below. Getting a massage a midnight. They taught us to say thank you: Ka pun ka.
Taking a taxi back to the guest house. Sukumvit and Soy 13...
Rain as soon as we got home. Rain all through the night. Waking up and walking through the flooded streets to eat breakfast, so much fun. Taking pictures. The cars driving by and spraying water all over us. Laughing hysterically - totally soaked! And then another car. Oh well! Finally making it to the Federal Coffee house and having some serious breakfast - as the water started to come in the restaurant, Zsila wondering if we were in the midst of another disaster and didn't even know it. Man that was a great breakfast: eggs, bacon, pineapple, papaya, pancakes, however - the coffee was awful, I think I'll just have to stick to the tea here, or have some at starbucks when I get to Chiang Mai!

I think I'll just stick in Zsila's webpage for reference:
newzealforrice.blogspot.com
She wrote before a few days ago and probably has more on our time in Bangkok.

All I can say is that I love culture shock and I had plenty of it here!

Bangkok rocks!

2005-04-07T15:12:00.000+07:00

Just Browsin' in Bangkok....

2005-04-07T12:38:00.000+07:00

Night vendors on the side of the rode in Bangkok near Siam center. It was a lot of fun, I even bought some new glasses at a nearby store. We left at midnight - after our massage :) and they were all still outside selling stuff - crazy!

11. Thirty hours in Bangkok

2005-04-07T05:10:00.000+07:00

We got in the taxi and headed for the Baptist Guesthouse. Giant Billboards sprickled the skyline, many in English, advertisting things like "New York to Hong Kong, in record 17 hours," VHS, and International schools. Once we got off the highway we drove down skinny roads, littered with even more motorists, their mouths covered with white masks, evidence of the extreme pollution there.
Street venders, people, tourists, crowded buildings, dirty sidewalks, and a million colors, signs, words, and other stimuli jumping out at you like so much confetti. We finally got to Soy 13, which seemed more like an alley than a street (soy means street). Sandwiched at the very end was a small gate and a short sign that said "Baptist Guest House." There was a guard there with a small dog (actually all the dogs in Thailand are small - lot's of ridgebacks...). we swung the gate open, and walked with our bags to the guesthouse - a large old house with wood floors, long hallways, most of the rooms upstairs, a large common room downstairs stacked with books and magazines, lots of chairs. It looked just like you would imagine it looking, it might as well have been 1938 in Bangkok or something. This nice older couple from the states (they were probably in their late 60s, early 70s) came up to meet us. They run the guesthouse. How fun is that - I hope my husband do something adventurous like that when we are older...so awesome. Everyone can be useful, age is no excuse! They handed us a manilla envelope, it had a form we needed to fill out, some info, and our room keys. The cost of the room, with tip, ended up being 420 bot, split 2 ways, it was only about $5 each. Thailand is cheap! You can get a room for 100 Bot if you need to, or cheaper.

2005-04-07T03:00:00.000+07:00

These really nice - OK well *everyone* in Thailand is nice, that's why the nickname for Thailand is "The Land of Smiles." Anyways, these really nice women all over Bangkok sit and string flowers to make these beautiful lays. I wish you could smell them - they're sooooo pleasant :)
lay

10. Back to Bangkok

2005-04-07T02:43:00.000+07:00

So we're speeding to the airport, quite literally. We had to get there in time to buy tickets and get on the plane by around 10, and it takes about an hour to drive to the airport. On the way there Dr. Ashburn is giving us instructions. I'm pretty sure Zsila hasn't fully engaged yet, so I grab a pen and start to jot things down.
"First you'll need to take a shuttle to the International side and find your bags. Then you'll need to shuttle back to the domestic side and buy tickets back to Nan. But don't get tickets if you don't find your bags. Once you find you get your return flight you'll probably need to get more money at an ATM. Then go outside and get in line for a taxi, if you don't get in line, you'll have to pay more money. Make sure the taxi says "metered taxi" and ask him if the meter works. Then hand them this (he gives me a paper with thai writin on it). These are the directions to the Baptist Guest house you will be staying at. It is on Sukumvit and soy 13, but soy 13 is a one way street, etc. etc. Here are all the numbers of the people in Bangkok, here is my cell phone, and here is my house phone...."

Everything was happening so quickly, I felt like I should have had a message that would self-destruct or something...

We got to the tiny airport, bought our one-way ticket to Bangkok for about 2,000 bot (~$50) and boarding soon after - now you can't do that in the states. I'm glad the price doesn't go up here for last minute tickets!

We walked out to the plane. Little kids and people on the motorcycles lining the chain link fence near us. It is just an hour flight, but they still serve a tiny meal with every flight, this awesome fresh squeezed nectarine juice (it makes my mouth water just thinking about it!), and hot tea - it's wonderful! They also play this strange earie thai music on take off and landing, and all the flight attendants in their funny uniforms greet you and each other with hands held out in front palms together, fingers outstrethed as they make a little bow and say, "sa-wa-dee-ka" That is their way of "shaking hands." I like it!

We landed, went to the information, called some people, and finally just walked upstairs to try and find the Dragan air office. We saw a "lost & found" sign so we just decided to go inside. "Hello?" There was a little man back around the corner who spoke a little English. We handed him the tracking numbers for our baggage and he told us to go down the hall, down the stairs and to the left where the security office was.
The security office was a walled in room with glass windows through which we saw a half-dozen uniformed men, dozing in their plastic chairs, their chins near their shoulders. A uniformed man gestured for us to go across to the other side of the building. We walked across the floor to the other side of the big open room, with people and their bags bussleling here and there and found a little doorway on the right with a sign that said something that didn't seem like we should be there. We walked in, there was a metal detector next to a desk and more uniformed men. They gestured for us to sign the book on the table and show our passports. None of this made sense, we thought for sure we were in the wrong place, but we just did what they said anyways, then we went through another doorway which opened up into another big giant open room that had people getting their luggage off the conveyer belts. The ushered us off to they left to another room. We again gave them our baggage tracking numbers and walked down a short hallway to the room. Their were more uniformed men, lounging around, and some random baggage lining the room, none of which was ours. We went through another doorway to a room stacked and stacked with luggage. "Oh, Lord, I prayed -*please* let my bag be here." Zsila found her bags but I did not find mine. Then we walked back out and there it was - "Yea!" I was so happy I hugged the little guard standing next to me and they all laughed.
That was such a great feeling. My bag is HUGE and I have *so* much stuff in it, for this trip and for New Zealand - I had to pack for 2 climates!

9. our home for the next month

2005-04-07T01:11:00.000+07:00

OK, I really will get to Bangkok and the lost baggage, later...
So it started raining as we drove home, dodging the many small motorcycles and slow trucks. There are two lanes - but it's more like an elaberate, vertical game of frogger than lines of traffic. We would come with in inches, it seemed, of the truck in front of us, before speeding up to about 90 km/hr to pass it. Actually, the motorcycles just drive on whatever side of the road they please, they are really more like giant gnats zipping this way and that, each one with entirely too many passengers.
We hadn't gotten very far from the airport when we saw a wreck on the side of the road: motorists and a beat up truck hanging off the grassy ravine, and a jumble of Thai people all clumped and milling around. A frazzled man was slowly climbing out of the drivers side (the right side) some blood slowly trickling down his forehead to his cheek. I wondered if we should stop, but I guess they weren't hurt too badly. This must happen all the time. We kept driving through the drizzle.
I was sooo tired. We stopped in a small village on the way home at an ATM. We got 5,000 more bot - we would need to buy plane tickets tomorrow to go back to Bangkok and hopefully find our luggage.
Halfway home it was dark already, at nearly six. I was glad it was dark, maybe this meant I would be sleeping soon. We passed an even smaller village and the road worsened, but overall I was surprised at the good conditions of the roads - later I would find out this was due in large part to their king, who is very reveered here. He is not like a king in Europe, here what he says has power, and people still bow at his presence. We left our shoes at the door (I think I'll adopt this habit at my own home, it's nice) and dropped our backpacks - our only luggage, inside. We met the rest of the family, Anna, 12, the other twin, Luke, and "aunt" Jerry. On the mission field they call all of their elders either aunt or uncle. We sat down to eat some dinner. I was a little hungry, but at that point all I really wanted to do is sleep, not eat. Aunt Jerry had something special for dinner though - hamburgers. Beef is very hard to get around here. All they have is chicken and pork. So, I ate it gratefully, and it was very good. And then they had chocolate cake and brownies - something I was definitely NOT expecting, that was a nice surprise. Like they were saying, Thailand really isn't a third world country, it is a second world country, thanks again to their king, and the succession of good kings before him.
Mary Ashburn showed my the common room, which - again to my surprise - has an air conditioner for when it gets *really* hot. That's where I am right now, it is to the right of the main house, out in front and perpendicular. Everything here has these funny slatted windows that you can open and close, there are tile floors, overhead fans, 2 fridges, a small oven, and even a microwave. There are also a couple of small leather couches, some books, this computer, and a cabinet full of "tribal threads," Bible covers, purses, handbags, etc. made by the hill tribes people that you can buy.

Ewwww! I just saw a huge lizard on the wall! Lizards have never bothered me until we were eating dinner here the first night and Dr. Ashburn got up to kill a black lizard on the wall. They said if they bite you on the finger, you just have to cut your finger off - I thought they were just kidding, yeah - not kidding. Scary. I'll be on the look-out for black lizards - Lord help me! They just won't let go. Kind of like a hermit crab, but much worse. They said one time the saw one lizard bite another, so to try and see if he woul let go they through them in the water. Neither one let go and finally they both just drowned...

Anyways, we finished eating dinner, and then Mary Ashburn showed me around. "You're a little more alert than Zsila, so I'll just let you show her in the morning." Yeah, Zsila was starting to not make too much sense...
We went to our rooms, which are on the bottom of a two story structure next to the common room house. The thai nurse aides live above us. I decided it would be best if we were in 2 different rooms, at least that first night, just so neither one of us would wake each other up - Zsila can be a noise sleeper :)

I poured water on my sheets on the bottom bunk in my room and turned on the fans. It was very hot. I had no trouble falling asleep.

The next thing I remember was a knock at the door. It was Mary, she had our clothes we had given her to wash, all nice and folded. "You are leaving in 15 minutes." Wow. Well, this really did feel like our own personal "Amazing Race." I hurriedly brushed my teeth , washed my face and shoved some stuff in my back pack. We hopped in the truck - They had placed a bag of bananas (theirs are different, they are short and squatty, actually the perfect size for a banana, I usually can't eat a whole one) and some tangerines in the back seat for us to eat.

8. Bangkok and lost baggage

2005-04-07T00:00:00.000+07:00

I'm sitting here drinking hot tea and listening to the birds and bugs outside the window. It is a really really cool day. "It's cold, NOT cool" said the thai nurses in the clinic today. It is around 70 degrees. It might have been cooler this morning.
I had to go get some trail mix - yummy!

It's 2 in the afternoon outside, but in my head I'm afraid it's still 2 in the morning. Actually, if Texas hadn't had the time change Sunday it would be 3AM, so I guess it's really 3 AM in my head. They say it takes 10 days to get completely acclimated. I keep thinking I've already adjusted, but I guess not. It was easier feeling that way in Bangkok, we were doing so much - even if it had been 3 in the morning I don't think I would have been tired.

So I guess I'll start from the beginning, or at least from last weekend, today is, hmmm what is today? Tuesday. So weekend before last - I stayed in Houston and packed all my belongings (well nearly all - still clothes in my closet and dishes in the kitchen) I had my CS board exam all day monday, went to clinic tuesday (and got my car worked on - I had A LOT of errands to run before I left on my trip). Wed. my preceptor was nice enough to give me the afternoon off. So I went and ran the rest of my errands or at least tried. I then *started* packing Wed. night. Thursday morning I had another test - for Internal Medicine (quite possibly the easiest test I've had since kindergarten). Then ran some *more* errands (like got a new suitcase - which we recently lost - I'll get to that later).

Then Meagan & Beth took Zsila & I to the airport. It was one of the first really hot days in Houston - maybe that was to prepare me for the heat here. I think I am just going to get used to my body being covered in a thin film of slimy sweat - yum.
But not today of course, because today it is "cold" - thanks to the rain -which I'll get to later as well, rainy season has come early - Houston has nothing on the flooding in Bangkok!

So we got to the airport, where I realized I had forgotten my makeup - horror of horrors, the one thing I really didn't want to forget (as I sit here with like no makeup on). Anyways I made myself get over that let down and we got on our flight to LA. We sat with this nice tall (Zsila says gay I say questionable) guy named Anthony and talked real estate (Zsi and I are both looking into buying a place for residency). He showed us where to go once we got to the airport - which was a weird airport. We nearly missed our connection to Hong Kong. We were *running* through the airport. FOURTEEN AND A HALF HOURS. Zsila got the window seat on all of the last 6 flights we've been on since we left last wed. (It should have only been 4, but we'll get to that). She was nice and let me have the window seat a couple times though :)

That was a loooooooong flight. I'm kinda glad I really didn't sleep the 3 days before I left though. And, will all the craziness lately, my mind really didn't mind just sitting there and watching "The Incredibles" and whatever else was on. My mind did mind the fact that Zsila was unconscious for 14 hours straight, and my Ambien aided body only slept 4! Ok, I'm sure it was more than 4, but that was the longest stretch of not waking up every 5 minutes. I was stuck in the middle, crowded from both sides, Rip Van Zsila on my right and nice but slightly creepy old dude who hogged the arm rest and kept jabbing me in the side guy on my left.

We had left Houston at 7PM and arrived in Hong Kong at around 6AM, their time. We waited for the shops in the airport (it was like a mall) to open about an hour later and wheeled our bags around in a little cart the whole time. Every airport over here has these great little carts. Why don't we have carts here? They are sooooo handy! And they're free!
Anyways, we ate some breakfast in a little cafe at the airport and boarded our flight to Bangkok. That was only like a 3 hr. flight. I tried to sleep, but couldn't - again. We got to Bangkok and had to walk to the domestic side (we didn't realize there was a shuttle). It was a loooooong walk. Such a funny airport. It was like the one in the Bahamas only A LOT bigger. There were a lot of bright red Europeans - everyone was sunburned. There were people from all over the world there - but not many Americans. Lots of families and couples and stuff on vacation.

we got on a little bus to board our last (or so we thought) flight to Nan (pronounced non). It was one of those tiny little planes. Everyone in the airport gave us a funny look when we told them where we were going - they all expected us to be on the way to Phuket or something, not many farongs to go there(that's what they call us: westerners, kind of like the spanish gringo, but not really). We got to the airport (which was the size of a big 7-11). The "baggage claim" was niceley labeled with a sign about a wooden bench, where they dumped the luggage after they took it off the little beat-up pick-up. Unfortunately, OUR luggage did not get dumped there. It didn't make it.

Apparently, after we arrived from Hong Kong we were supposed to pick up our bags and go through customs - I didn't know! We were in that airport in Bangkok for FIVE hours, we had plenty of time. We asked the dude when we got our boarding pass for Nan if our bags would get put through to Nan and he told us yes. Well, apparently, Thai people are really big about not losing face and don't want others to lose face, so instead of saying they don't understand they just say "Yes" to whatever you are asking. Hmmmm. So we spent that five hours walking around, people watching, etc. Basically we spent it in a haze b/c we were both so exhausted.

Soooo, we met the nice family we are staying with - the Ashburn's (they are originally from E. Kentucky, the dad is an FP Doctor there). Their oldest daughter, Amy -18, and one of their twin boys - Bruce -16, met us with Mary and Tom Ashburn at the airport. We got in their van after talking with the people about our lost luggage and started our drive to our final destination - right outside Chiang Klang (which, incidentally, I never did find on a map before we left - so I never actually knew where we were going!).

The drive was picturesque. Very green, Gold Buddhist temples scattered here and there - it seems like every village has one. the green mountains in the background. I saw one lady, wearing those fun asian hats far far far below, washing her clothes in the river as we sped by - that's when it hit me, wow - I'm in Thailand. There are so many beautiful, brightly colored flowered plants everywhere, hot pink, yellow, red, purple, it's georgous! People here drive mopeds and little motorcycles everywhere. You will see some guy on his motorcyle with his little baby in his lap in front of him, and as he passes you turn your head to look and there are two more kids behind him, little kids! Crazy. It's very weird driving on the left side of the road. Mary Ashburn was sitting up front on the left and she kept turning around to talk to us, right when I'd start to get nervous because she had been turned around so long, I'd remember that she wasn't the one driving, it was Tom, on the right. We had been traveling for over 30 hours straight...

Lot 'O Buddha

2005-04-03T21:27:00.000+07:00

This is definitely the most gold I have ever seen in one place. This is the reclining Buddha and it is gargantuan!

2005-04-03T15:59:00.000+07:00

Zsila and I in the airport in Hong Kong, *very* early in the morning and who knows what time in Texas...By this time we had been traveling for about 20 hours and still had 2 more airports, a 5 hour lay-over, and lost luggage to look forward to! We actually didn't have an April Fool's day, it was lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. We left on March 31 and arrived on April 2nd, with the 12 hour time change and our semiconscious state on the planes, April 1st just - wasn't. Weird, huh? Of course on the way back Sunday will last a day and a half for us...

MATCH DAY

2005-03-17T12:09:00.000+07:00

My 2 roommates, Meagan & Erin, Artie, Beth, Rob and I with our unopened envelopes - about to find out where we will be living for the next 3 - 5 years, and which residencies we will be starting.

2005-03-17T12:08:00.000+07:00

Opening my envelope. Man was I a bundle of nerves. I didn't get my first choice but I am happy and looking forward to June 22, that's when I start! General Surgery in Birmingham, AL.

2005-03-17T12:07:00.000+07:00

Eating lunch with Zsila, her mom, & my fam after the match at Lupe tortilla - one of my *favorite* restaurants in Houston - I am soooo going to miss their fajitas!!1

7. I'M GOING TO THAILAND!!!

2005-03-08T10:32:00.000+07:00

and 2 weeks in New Zealand :)

Craziness, I went to Dallas this weekend to visit all my college girlfriends (Hi guys if you reading this - I L*O*V*E you!!!) who by the way are 3/4ths pregnant (Thanks for stickin' w/ me Lis).

So Zsi's mom (the great friend I have that's going with me on this crazy excursion - you know, the Cobsalad chic - yeah, actually she JUST called me from Chuy's - I wonder if Wellbutrin would help her with that addiction ;) - call's me Friday as I'm en route to Dallas:

Zsi's Mom: Well, I was just calling to tell you that the travel agent needs to know before 3:30 what y'all's plans are for after Thailand - Europe o r Thailand. Zsi said she would trust your decision (no pressure!). There are only 3 seats left for the flight to London...

So, 10 minutes and a couple of phone calls (Daddy knows best), I decided on New Zealand. I mean, hey - when am I going to have the chance to be on that side of the world again!?!

7 weeks outside of the country
I cAN'T WAIT!!!

6. Epiphany of the Day

2005-02-25T11:56:00.000+07:00
As I just quickly skimmed through my most recent blogs I had a somewhat disturbing epiphany - I'm like - an adult! Ugh, all that stuff I just wrote about - traveling to New York, dealing with patients, wondering what state I am about to move to, the fact that I am going to be a DOCTOR in 3 months. I mean, just walking down the street, getting my latte at my favorite coffee shop, talking to my sister on the phone, I am just ME, me looking out on the world. My world that really doesn't operate with a sense of how old I am, I just AM. But now, reading over these, it hits me how very adult all these happenings are. I'm not sure how I feel about all that...
I think tomorrow I am going to have to go make some prank calls, buy some ice cream, call my best friend and tell her about the cute guy I saw in the hall, take my shoes off and feel the grass get stuck between my toes (well, maybe not that part, I think it's going to be cold tomorrow and we all know how I feel about that), have my dad remind me that I shouldn't wear dark lipstick because guys will think I'm "loose" (that's about as close as my parents ever came to talking about the birds and the bees, well - that and the time I was 10 and my best friends, two identical twins I happened to look a lot like, and I asked my mom what it meant when people gave you the middle finger. Ha! that makes me laugh just thinking of her explanation, and her hand gestures, what a nut. Oh, and the books my dad tossed at us about 10 years after we already knew everything in them. It's called kids talk, not to mention the most uncomfortable class ever created - health class. This is random but there was some video we had to watch once and all I remember from it was some dude taking a shower and splashing the water on his face and then some voice warning that having your shower too hot can damage your eyesight - is that the weirdest thing you ever heard or what?!? I guess it made so little sense to me that it always bothered me - probably because I take such hot showers, thanks to my cold-naturedness and I always wondered if it would hurt my eyesight, but didn't care enough to just take warm showers, ANYWAYS, yeah, they never taught us that in medshool. MAN, can I ramble), and then - remember, I'm saying what I am going to do tomorrow, which now as I type is almost today - I'm going to write in my little pink diary with the tiny key and then lie there and dream about what I am going to be when I grow up - you know, after I become a plastic surgeon...

2005-02-25T11:00:00.000+07:00
Me & Jeremy, hard at work on the stroke team...

5. The Stroke Team

2005-02-25T10:58:00.000+07:00
This is probably going to sound horrible and insensitive, but unfortunately, it's true - not because I have made it that way, but because it *is* that way: Taking care of a stroke patient is a little like taking care of an incubated alien egg. They are complete extra-terrestrials. They just lie there in their own little sphere of existence, imperviously. Even though you can touch (usually to inflict pain in an attempt to extract any sense of life from them - "I feel pain therefore I am") There is some imaginary bubble encasing them. Disconnection. Stale. Plastic. Artificial. Living death. Yuck.

Of course, some do go on to improve, to slowly crack the invisible shell encasing them and finally break out, back into the land of the living. But a fare share also - "expire." What a horrible term: expire. Who started using that?!? It's not a carton of milk - it's a HUMAN BEING!!! someone who used to be a kid, someone who once needed mom to help them stir the cookie dough when it got too thick, someone whose feelings were hurt when not enough people showed up at their birthday party when they turned 9, someone who remembers when they got the keys to their first car, someone who remembered the sound of their first born crying their first cry, someome who will remember what it felt like to have a tube shoved down their throat, needles stuck in their arms, people nagging them every 5 minutes "can you show me two fingers, Mr. Stewart, can you wiggle your toes?" The people who then proceeded to talk about them like they weren't even there, and ignored them when they started to choke on their own spit - when they wanted so hard to swallow, but couldn't because something in their brain had gone horribly wrong. They want so much for someone to remember what they once were, and what they know they still are somewhere deep inside, preferably someone with a white coat, or at least one of those ugly brightly colored scrubs with the rubber ducks. Heck even the dude shoving that thing beneath their back as they get ready to take the 124th x-ray they've had since they got to the hospital would be nice...

4. THE MATCH

2005-02-23T11:13:00.000+07:00
What utter chaos.
So this is it. We just put the names of these programs, these cities all across America in an order, and just pray that we get one of our top choices. So many things bumbling about in my brain. Way too many factors - how do I weigh them?!? Last night I went to dinner w/ Zsi to figure it out - Chuy's of course - I bet if she had never progressed to solid food she would still be eating the same identical jar of baby food to this day, day after day, month after month, decade after decade... I am equally sure that when I'm ninety I will be still be sitting across the table from Zsila at some Chuy's in the sky, staring at those crazy Mexican fish on the ceiling as I wait for her to pop her teeth back in her mouth so we can start eating the same mexicob salad we have every time we go there. You see - it really doesn't matter what you order there - it all has the same, bland homogeneous texture, color, and "flavor." But - I do like their tortillas. Anyways, back to the match - so I finally, after having about 10 rank lists (the problem, I realized, is not so much that I can't figure out which one I like the most as it is figuring out which one I hate the least) came up with a definitive list. I also had to have a conference call with the fam, Amanda played secretary, mom attempted the role of secretary but got fired after 30 seconds and 'manda resumed her post, - I gave her an E for effort as Dad proceeded to spout out words of wisdom, and Dustin just made wise cracks in the background (thanks dust,'preciate it). My first choice is plastics in Richmond, Virginia. Even last year for some crazy reason my heart was in Richmond, at MCV. No real reason, I don't know why I chose there - let's hope it's fate...
Now if I opened my envelope on match day and it said Richmond, I CANNOT tell you how thankful I will be. Wow, that will be a - w - e, s - o - m - e, sing it with me now!
I was just staring at that list. I talked to one of my friends who is a plastics fellow tonight. He said he thinks he was clinically depressed during his general surgery years. That was before the 80 hour work week (not that programs actually follow that law, but at least it's not as horrible as it used to be). He said he just lived in fear, they could just be having a bad day, or maybe their cat died or something and they could fire you, or at least threaten to fire you for no good reason. He said he remembers spending countless nights at the bar, just talking to the bartender, and thinking how all of his other 20 - something friends were living life, and he was a slave at the hospital. And those wonderful people who say doctor's make too much money - those people have approximately two and a half brain cells. All this to say that I'm glad I talked to him because I think it helped tip me towards what I wanted to do anyways - rank the programs in order of where I think I'll be happiest (even as I right this I feel a twinge of guilt, am I sadistic or what?) instead of where I might have a *possiblity* of having better chances at reaching my ultimate career goals (ranking places w/ plastics fellowships regardless of whether I would hate my life there or not...) I have faith that God will work it all out in the end, he is in total control, not me anyways. I just need to chill.
It will be fine. I'm actually getting a little excited about where I am going to be. I do need to work on my attitude though - about starting my intern year - it is positively terrifying. One day at a time.
Alright, well it is 10:30pm guess I should go find that case I need to look over for neuro tomorrow - ugh, 4-5 more days (I hope I don't have to work Sunday too, I mean it is the day before the test - we'll see).
Nighty night!

2005-02-17T20:30:00.000+07:00
Me, Katherine, and Sharon enjoying: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005.

A little background on Central Park:

"Vince Davenport: Chief Engineer and Director of Construction
Jonita Davenport: Project Director.
One hundred fifty-one years ago the City of New York purchased a large piece of land and asked the two landscape architects, Mr. Calvert Vaux and Mr. Fredrick Law Olmstead to design a public park.
The park is entirely man-made, all the trees had to be planted, soil was brought, there was only swamps and the rocks which had been pushed in by glaciers billions of years ago.
Mr. Vaux and Mr. Olmstead surrounded the park with a stone wall, leaving entrances to the park at each interruption in the wall, where a walkway starts, those entrances are called Gates. (Even though the original gates designed for those entrances were never made...)
After Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, announced, on January 22, 2003, that a 43-page contract had been signed permitting New York artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to realize their temporary work of art: The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005, the fabrication of all the materials was started. The installation, at the site in Central Park, was completed with the blooming of the 7,503 fabric panels on February 12, 2005.
The 7,503 gates, 16 feet (4,87 meters) tall vary in width from 5 feet 6 inches to 18 feet (1,68 to 5,48 meters) according to the 25 different widths of walkways, on 23 miles (37 kilometers) of walkways in Central Park."
-http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/tg.html#statement

2005-02-17T20:18:00.000+07:00
CENTRAL PARK: Can I please just say that I *love* New York. It is an amazing place. No place else has such energy, such diversity, such loneliness, such love, such magic, or such life! What an awesome place.

3. My Feb. trip to New York

2005-02-17T05:51:00.000+07:00
I left Thursday afternoon - and was VERY thankful to be missing days on neuro, and especially to be missing days on stroke - it's awful! I got to Laguardia, took a cab to Katherine's place (58 E 1st street - right off first avenue and next to this funny little bar called the Elephant or something). I didn't get in 'till almost 8. She and Sharon had made Spaghetti and I scarffed that down. It was weird getting out of the cab and walking up to the door that leads to her apt. I feel like I had *just* left there ( I was there the beginning of Dec. for my two gen. surg. interviews). Someone was coming out so I didn't have to have her bug me in. I walked down the little dirty tile hallway to the even littler elevator on the left, got in, and went to the fifth floor. Her apt. is 5B and sits at a 45 degree angle to the adjoining apartment. It was nice to be back. A smile had crept up and was permanently stuck on my face. New York just makes me happy - and I was excited about seeing kat again. I sat on the couch and caught up with Sharon (Katherine's roommate) for a while. We didn't stay up too late. They had to go to work and I had to be at the hospital early. I woke up early the next morning, walked out the door, to the left, across the street, and caught the M15 to 14 street. I walked to Cabrini (between 2nd and 3rd on 19th) and took the elevator to 12

2005-02-17T05:06:00.000+07:00
Me & Katherine, in her apt. in New York, being ridiculous :)

New York Hospital

2005-02-16T20:02:00.000+07:00
View out of the hospital I would be working in if I did my residency in New York, near Gramercy Park area.

2. People are ranking

2005-02-09T00:25:00.000+07:00
I just went to the Plastics website and this was posted yesterday, they didn't say what program they were from.

Just a note to the applicants. I'm a PGY-2 and our program made our rank list today. We were all very impressed at the caliber of our interviewees this year and struggled for about two hours to put people in order. Good luck to all of you. Just remember to rank programs in the order that you want them -- gaming the system doesn't help. And enjoy the rest of medschool. A few notes for next year's class . . . We always lean towards the known commodity when other factors are similar. (wonderful, wonder if that's how it is at the places I interviewd too) Do at least one visiting elective at a program where you think you would like to match. How do you know this before you've been there? Ask your advisor and the residents at your program about where you should look. They'll usually steer you in a pretty good direction. Again, good luck to this year's applicants. I remember the stress from two years ago . . . it was not pretty. Keep your heads up, have fun while you can, and we'll see some of you on Match Day.

Lovely...
Then they also said

We had our last interview last Friday. We have a meeting with all residents and faculty and make a preliminary list. The chairman and PD then go and edit it a bit. From what I saw last year, it didn't change much, since we got our #1 and #2 candidates from the prelim list. It's always good to let a chair/PD know that you want to be in their program. I'm not sure when lists are due, but time is running out.

Hmmmmm
We'll see, 5 weeks 'till match day. I sent another email to the PD of OK, and VA knows how I feel. I just love waiting!

1. THE BLOG

2005-02-05T05:19:00.000+07:00
Today Jeremy introduced me, excuse me, "wonderful" (per Jeremy) introduced me to the world of the Blog. Strange how med-school acts as a screen, separating you from the rest of the world. Not so much like prison, because we have actually chosen to be here. It is so busy cramming us full of the information it requires us to know that a lot of what is out in the world ceases to be naturallly aquired by our brains. It's full! I need more RAM. Or maybe I just need more time, probably both...
I'm on my Neuro rotation, it's Friday. Save writing one SOAP note on a TIA patient this AM and attending grand rounds, I have been essentially worthless. They are finally "releasing" us to go home. Luckily I wormed my way out of having to come in this weekend (yes!) and next weekend I'll be in New York. Well, the shuttle from my apt. (excuse me, "garden home") should be here soon. It only comes once an hour, but is a lot better than driving and parking to ride the train or paying $10 to park. I wonder what I'll do tonight? I'm just glad I get to sleep in tomorrow! Alright, I'll play with this later.