Please Stand By

This is the final week of school, so I am very busy. I will post again as soon as possible.

Happy Valentine's blah...blah...blah

Ah, it's that time of year again. The time of year when winter is finally beginning to fade away, there is a hint of spring in the air, and every mismatched pair of losers that happen to be currently 'shacked up' together can celebrate the fact that they are not alone.

I am not bitter. I have no problem with Valentine's Day itself. It's the people. It's the people that really get to me. "Gee, Doris, it be Valentine Day. Better throw on yer good t-shirt and jeans and we can head on over to the Legion and get shit-faced. Oh yeah, can you wear those crotchless panties I got ya for mudder's day?" Yeah, that kind of thing.

The celebration of love should be an everyday occurance and not just once a year. By taking part in this artarded holiday you are perpetuating the stereotype that everybody sucks! I know that love is totally necessary. Love is like a toll-bridge. It is annoying, it slows you down, it mucks up your plans, and we all have to go through one eventually.

Some old dude named Erich Segal said, "True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. " I think that this says it all. You can be happily in love, or whatever sort of situation you have going, and not do it with all of the bells and whistles. I know that I am not alone in saying that public displays of affection are not cool. They are blatant cries for attention. "Look at me! I am in love! I have someone!". Pathetic!!!

Well, that about sums up my Valentine's rant. But don't be disappointed, Easter is just around the corner and we all know how much I love those Christians!

I know negativity isn't the answer, I got it wrong on purpose.

My Edumacation Never Ends

Since moving to Thailand I have been constantly learning new things. I have been discovering a different culture and different types of people here in this land of near psychotic, gun toting, bi-polar, cheating lovely people. Today I would like to focus on the different ways that my vocabulary has been expanding. This is mainly due to spending so much time with the English, Australians, Irish and Americans.

Here are a few examples of my new favourite words:

bogan: person who takes little pride in his appearance, spends his days slacking and drinking beer. I learned this word from Natalie. It is a popular Aussie slang word that is basically the same as white trash.

chav: mainly derogatory slang term in the United Kingdom for a subcultural stereotype fixated on fashions such as imitation gold, poorly made jewellry and fake designer clothing(often Burberry), combined with elements of working class British street fashion.

ginger: this word is pronounced like "singer" but with a hard 'g'. Like minger, this is a derogatory term for a person with Gingervitus: red hair, light skin, freckles and no soul. It is the same as ginger, pronounced like the spice, but sayin g the other way makes it much more offensive.

dirty sanchez: a disgusting sexual act. It involves the anus, feces, penis, and upper lip. I don't want to go in to detail about how the dirty sanches is done, but I will tell you that it ends with a woman having a moustache drawn on her upper lip with doo-doo on the end of a penis.

slag: one of my favourite words. From the U.K., it is used for a woman that has casual sex with many partners. Slag stands for "She'll Lay Any Guy".

That is the end of my vocab lesson for today, I must get to class now.

We Are Siamese If You Please...We Are Siamese And We Will Kill You!

I Love Pig


Thai men are known to be sweet-talkers. But as one Australian girl discovered, some just cannot master that fine art. For confidentiality, lets call her.... Matalie.

After meeting randomly and being carted off to a karaoke establishment she decided that this was not the place for her. She returned to her hotel room without incident and quickly passed out.

Then there was a knock at the door. Without giving it much thought, Matalie opened up to see her Thai admirer standing there. I should also mention that he is a soldier and has a gun.

He professed his love for her there in the hallway. Then he said "I love pig!" Matalie did not immediately understand until he put his hands at his side to show the width of a lady that is most pleasing to him, and he repeated "I love pig!" He was clearly calling her a pig, but he meant it as a term of endearment.

He tried to enter the room, but Matalie managed to get him out and close the door.

Not long after there was another knock at the door. Of course Matalie knew exactly what was waiting on the other side, so she decided to ingnore it. Too bad for her, this guy was not giving up. He was going to get his 'pig' come Hell or high water. He continued to knock on the door for more than an hour. A steady knock....knock...knock...knock...

Eventually he did go away, but poor Matalie will never be able to erase that night from her mind.



That's Retarded!!

While listening to a live band with Tara and Yasmine, I also received a bit of unwanted attention. It was from a 'special' boy sitting at the table behind us. This guy was very 'special'. He had a huge head, the first sign of problems. His nose and eyes were very crooked, much like Sloth from the Goonies. He had all of his teeth, but unfortunately they were all crammed to one side of his mouth. And perhaps the biggest giveaway was that he could not stop drooling.

I am sure that his friends thought that they were being nice by taking him out of the house for a few hours and letting him have a drink or two, but if they are going to do this then they must take responsibility for him. They cannot allow him to just go around the restaurant and hug everyone...they hug sooo tight!

Eventually one of the friends realized that I was beginning to lose my patience with Corky, so they tried to drag him away. But within 30 seconds he was back at our table saying "you, you, you" and tapping on my arm. When I was about to bash his skull the friend came back and finally took him home.


There's Something About Paulie

During the winter festival Paul engaged in bedroom liasons with someone we will call Sybill. They had an okay time, but things became complicated when Paul was introduced to Sybill's friend, which we will call Hormel. What was never brought to Paul's attention was that Sybill and Hormel were more than friends, they were actually a couple. After he bagged both of them, Sybill returned to Paul's pleasuredome for a reinactment of previous events, but Sybill had other plans. While Paul was in the toilet, Sybill deleted Hormels's number from Paul's phone. Well, time goes by, seasons change, and Paul regularly sees Sybill and Hormel in his nightly activities. Hormel always tries to chat with Paul, but Sybill quickly pulls on the chain and draws Hormel back.

Things became quite heated last weekend when Hormel was caught conversing with Paul. Sybill immediately grabbed Hormel and took him to a corner. While in the corner Sybill unleashed quite the verbal lashing on poor Hormel. Hormel left the bar sobbing.
A few hours later after Paul returned to his room there was a knock at the door. It was Sybill! Sybill demanded to see Hormel, confident that he was hiding somewhere in Paul's room. Paul had to show Sybill every nook and cranny of the room to prove to Sybill that Hormel was not in the room.
Paul will soon be killed.


Me Love You So Long Time Forever

When there is an election in Thailand, all bars are closed. Poor Brad and Paul were so bored on Saturday night that they resorted to driving around looking for anyplace that may bend the law a little bit and let them have a good time.

The only place that they found was a karaoke bar. After being there for about 20 minutes, the waiter handed Brad a folded piece of paper and pointed to two women on the other side of the bar. He opened it, and it read "I need you so much". This was very forward, even for a Thai person. The two ladies then invited themselves to the boy's table and to the boy's whiskey. It was obvious that they were prostitutes, and it was also obvious that Brad and Paul wanted them to go away, but they did not. Nothing else really interesting to tell here.


This Is My Rifle....This Is My Gun

Romy also experienced a bit of the Thai crazies. She was dating a Thai soldier. They enjoyed a few weeks of fun, but Romy decided to end it. He did not accept this. There was a constant barrage of phone calls and text messages. I love you, I need you, I miss you. The usual. He even sent her his bank information with his account balance to try and entice her in to taking him back. But, the creepiness really began when he sent her a text message saying." This is my rifle...I am nothing without my rifle!" . Hearing that from a derranged Thai person is not Christmas.

I Don't Repeat Gossip, So Listen Closely!

I enjoyed a fun filled weekend in Nakhon Ratchasima with a lovely Thai named...( what was Glen Close's character's name in Fatal Attraction?) let's say, Ezmerelda.
My relationship with Ezmerelda lasted all of a week. As soon as I began to back away Ezmerelda became more and more needy. Saying things like, "I miss you so much, please call me!". It all came to a head with this text message: "If you do not answer my calls I am going to suicide myself!". Well, I don't respond well to threats, so I didn't answer. Ezmerelda didn't suicide. It is more than two years later, and Ezmerelda is still calling.

The Real Bates Motel: Check in.... Relax... Take a shower...

It was a dark and stormy night. Three travellers, returning from a care-free holiday in Khon Kaen, Thailand find themselves stranded in a small central city called Saraburi. They had no idea that before the sun was to return, they would be fighting for their lives....

Paul, Natalie and Brad were very exhausted after their eight hour bus ride. All they wanted to do was get back home in to their own comfortable beds. Their plan was simple. Take a bus from Khon Kaen, get off in Saraburi, then hop on another bus that would take them the remaining forty minutes to Lopburi. But, this was never to be.

The bus dropped them off on the side of the highway in Saraburi. Sadly, there is only one motorcycle taxi in this city to take all three travellers and their luggage to the bus station. But, the little old man driving the motorcycle seemed more than happy to assist them. He first took Natalie, while Paul and Brad waited by the side of the road for him to return. It was almost midnight and the pair were chilled to the bone from the unseasonablly cold weather. Finally the motorcycle man returns, and informs them that he will take Paul and Brad, and their luggage, all in one trip. This little man weighs about 11 pounds, and Paul and Brad fear that he is not going to be able to get them to the bus station safely, but they make it.

The trio now sit in the less than picturesque bus ststion, waiting for a bus that says, Lopburi. After waiting for thrity minutes, they begin praying for a bus that says Lopburi. After things start to look dismal Natalie, ever the trooper, gets up to ask when the bus will arrive. She returns to Paul and Brad with a disappointed look on her face. The next bus was not until 5 a.m. Their only options are to stay in the bus station and wait for the bus, or check in to the local hotel. Natalie, Paul and Brad weighed their options as they looked around the bus station. It was populated by at least 100 old monks, homeless people sleeping on benches and teenage male prostitutes/drug dealers. The decision seemed easy, hotel!

They walk in with a bit of hesitation. The place is very very old, and not well maintained, but it is only for one night. As they take the elevator up to their floor, they are slightly concerned by the noises that the old elevator is making, but they carry on. Walking down the hall was a bit more unnerving. It looked like an actual mental hospital. It looked as if there should have been little slots at the bottom of the doors were food trays could be slid in to the ravenous patients inside.

They enter their room.... there has to be some mistake... is running through all of their minds. It is a very dismal place. There are stains all over everything, possibly blood. There is a strange hook hanging from the ceiling, possibly once used for hanging sides of beef. The curtains opened up to the buzzing neon sign of the prostitute bar downstairs, and the sign was covered with dozens of pigeons that must have been in the midst of mating season. There were so many small distustings that this little blurb cannot support them all.

Natalie, Paul and Brad decide that there is no way that they are going to be able to sleep in this festering palace of decay, so they head across the street to the 7-11 for some relaxation-inducing beverages. As they are leaving their room, they notice that the door of the next room is open. As Brad is closing the door of their room, he peeks into the next room and is terrified by what he sees. He immediately grabs Paul by the arm and pulls him over so that he can also view what Brad was not able to put in to words. It was a room just like theirs, but to accentuate the drab hovel, they have decided to decorate their room with Nazi paraphernalia. Paul and Brad quickly run to join Natalie and make sure that the people in the room next door did not witness them spying in to their private anti-semetic lives.

After 7-11 they were hesitant to return to the room, but knew that they had no choice. They sit down and decide to calm their nerves with some television. Too bad for them that the only English program on is about a mortician, doing bloody, real-life autopsies.

Finally, after much shivering and cowering, they fall asleep. All of a sudden, Paul and Brad awake sinultaneously to the sound of something in their room, They can see that Natalie is still fast asleep, it is not her making the noise. What was it?

Please leave a comment and tell us what you think visited us in the night. The answer will be revealed in an upcoming post.

My Issues With Thailand (Updated)

I have now been in Siam, the land of smiles, for almost three years. For the most part it has been an amazing experience and I love this country, but I do have some problems with the kingdom that I would like to address now. I want everyone back home to know that I do love it here, but it would make me feel better to bitch for a while. I am going to do a top 10 list of my biggest annoyances.

10) Colour-Coded Clothing: Thai people think that it is totally normal for everyone to wear the same colour each day of the week. Monday was yellow King shirt day. Wednesday was provincial colour day, Thursday was traditional Thai wear day and Friday was blue Queen shirt day. This was annoying enough, but recently the King's sister passed away, so for the next 100 days, everyone in the country must wear black. I own one black shirt, and I do not plan to buy more black shirts. So, teachers and students are welcome to think that I am a skag for wearing the same shirt everyday. I don't care, I've had enough! Baaaaa!

9) The Powers That Be: Thailand claims to be a democratic country. Thats about all I want to say on the matter, because I don't want the Thai government to ban my blog.

8) Asian Drivers: Everyone in the west has heard of the streotype that Asians are terrible drivers. Well, judging from Thailand, it's true. They all drive like Mr. Magoo on crack.

7) Sexual Ambiguity: You never know who you are talking to. Is this woman really a man? Is this straight man really gay? Is this man really a woman? These are the questions that you must constanly ask yourself in Thailand.

6) The Smell: Thailand stinks! It is to be expected, since dumpsters sit in the unbearable heat for days. But, for a country that depends on tourists to survive, something needs to be done about that smell.

5) The Dogs: Thailand has a terrible dog problem. They are everywhere. Some of them are missing limbs, or have no hair. When you ask a Thai person why nothing is being done about the dog situation, they tell you it is because Thailand is a Buddhist country. Buddhists can't kill other animals. What the Feck? They would rather watch these stray animals suffer and starve to death than just put them out of their misery. Another unanswerable question in Thailand.

4) Making Friends, Losing Friends: One of the best things about Thailand is the great assortment of great friends that I have made. Sadly, they usually only hang around for a few months, then we are condemned to a lifetime of facebook friendship.( That's your future, Paul!)

3) Thai Teacher/Farang Teacher Competition: Many Thai teachers really like having foreigners around to help them and the students improve their English, but others are much less happy having us here. They think that we are threatening their jobs, which we are. They have been teaching english for their entire careers, even though many of them can't speak English themselves. The battle is on bitches!

2) Thai Music and Television: Awful!! I do enjoy Thai music that is more western influenced. But, traditional Thai music is so terrible!! It is whiney and shrill, and all sounds the same. I don't even want to go in to how terrible the Thai television shows are.

1) I Love You: For some reason, Thai people think that is perfectly normal to say I Love You to anyone at any time. If every person in this country that said I Love You to me was telling the truth, I would be the most loved man in the world. The problem that arises from this, is that you never know if they are telling the truth. I Love You can mean: I like you, I want money from you, I want to have sex with you, or in rare cases it can mean I Love You.

Brad's Birthday, Manju's Last Weekend and Mith's Final Hoorah

So, these are the events of my birthday weekend in Bangkok. I was turning..mmm(no snickering!), 21, so I wanted to have a big birthday bash.

We arrived in Bangkok in the early afternoon so that everyone could accomplish what they needed to do before the birthday extravaganza. All that I needed to do was find a simple white tshirt. But, as you can see from the picture, I could not find one. Sadly Bangkok, one of the largest cities in the world, has no white tshirts. But I made do.

Our shopping adventure was followed by drinks in the hotel room. Danny was still nursing his wounds from the motorcycle crash the night before, and I was constantly answering calls from Mith promising that we would show up.

We finally leave the hotel room and jump on the skytrain. This was the longest train ride ever because we knew that at the end of the ride was Charlie Brown's. The best Mexican food in Bangkok.
I have to say that we all over-did it a bit in the ordering. Everyone ordered an obscene amount of food. Hannah and Danny got a gigantic plate of nachos that they didn't even start on. I had so much that I could feed a Thai family for an hour. Luckily I had Mith with me, the human vacuum, to finish all of my leftovers. We were sitting with Lou and an interesting assortment of other foreigners. Tequila was consumed...then on to Suriwong!
We witnessed a lovely hardcore sex show. Everyone was mildly impressed but I think that it failed to live up to expectations. After the sex show, we sat on the sex-show street at an outside bar where Manju was groped by a gay prostitute. But, our seats did offer a great view of old white men trying to pick up hot young Thais for the lowest price. Silom is a wonderful place to people watch.
After that is was back to the hotel, where ***some text missing*** with a greased up pig and two Baptist ministers!!! Wow, crazy night.
Manjula is now back in America, living in New York, and Mith once again wandered off into the sunset, which he usually does.
It was a good birthday, hope next year's can live up to it. Praise Cletus!

"Enablers" Update

I got an email from Keara today saying that she read my blog, and it made her miss the old days. Well, that's what you get for leaving us, bitch! Just kidding. But, it made me realize that I need to add two more enablers to my old enablers post. Adding one without the other would be total lunacy. It would be like doing a post of Tara without Yasmine, Mihaila without Joelle, or Me without Paul. So, here it is:





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Name: Keara O'shea (right)
Age: 25
Hometown: Bruree, Ireland
Best Quality: She speaks her mind. ( Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of it.)

Keara was one of my co-teachers at Pibul Wittiyalai School. We entertained ourselves for hours by playing pranks on each other. I am still the champion of that contest, (the text message, the upside-down drawer). Keara is the type of person that everyone loves the second they meet her. The profainity that spews from her mouth at a mind-boggling rate just makes her more endearing. We have had many adventures together, but Keara has since moved on to greener pastures in Australia. She is a geology major, so she went to Oz in search of her calling.

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Name: Ann Marie Egan (left)
Age: 25
Hometown: Cashel, Ireland
Best Quality: She is the most fun 'grown-up' that I've met.

Ann Marie was another co-teacher at Pibul. She was very responsible and grown-up, much more than the rest of us who prefer to remain immature. But, even though she was very adult, she could be just as fun and immature as the rest of us. My favourite memory of Ann Marie is a motorcycle road trip that we took together to a sunflower field. It was a great day. Don't worry, Ann Marie. I won't tell everyone about your little incident that day at the fish restaurant! Ann Marie has also moved on. She has a great man, Robert, waiting for her back home.

Youtube Myspace and I'll Google Your Yahoo

" Tomorrow, tomorrow...I love ya, tomorrow!"

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Things got quite rough on Koh Samet. I am not sure why they allowed themselves to be photographed in this state. I would have been in the photo as well, but I was still inside sleeping it off.

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Hannah can be a little clumsy sometimes. So, for her own safety, it's best that she always wears a helmet.

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Manjula had a good night.

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This is Chris, Melodie, Thomas and Danny. I don't really have a story for this picture because I don't remember it being taken.

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This is what happens when Brad is given a camera. I thought that they wanted me to take a picture of the penguin.

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We get bored sometimes, so vogue-ing helps to pass the time.

True Canadians

My godmother emailed me these pictures yesterday, and I thought that all of the Canadians that visit my blog would enjoy them. And it will also serve to reinforce all of the sterotypes that non-Canadians have about us.