The Story of Wanda Rouge

This is Wanda Rouge.


Wanda Rouge

Wanda, despite the girly name, is actually a boy fish. We know this, of course, because all of the pretty Beta fish are boys; the girls are much more plain. Wanda use to have a brother, a Beta colored rich indigo and named, appropriately, Wanda Bleu.

Rouge and Bleu belong(ed) to my mother, who likes to display them in unusual and highly effective ways. She'll put them in wide shallow bowls with rocks,or in tall skinny bowls with plants, or in just about any glass container that will hold water. It's always a suprise to find out where the fish are when you visit with her. But you don't have to wait to visit my mother to see the fish, no. My mother travels a great deal, whether to visit friends in Florida or family in Texas. Wherever she goes, though, she takes the fish with her. Transporting them is a bit of a comical experience. She'll put them in whatever container is handy for transportation, which many times is a cup of some sort, which she then places in the car cup holder. Have fish, will travel.

As I said, Wanda Rouge USE to have a brother. Bleu died a few months ago. It was a tragic event, and the family mourned. But Rouge lives on. It's somewhat suprising that, of the two, Rouge would be the one still alive. After all, Rouge is the one that always lived dangerously. One day my mother came back to the living room to find Rouge on the floor. He had apparently watched Finding Nemo one too many times and now yearned for freedom. He had literally jumped out of the water, over the lip of the container, and plummetted to the ground - knocking himself silly in the process. I don't remember if my mother said he was flopping or not... probably not, because I do remember that he was "stunned." Not dead, however; just mostly dead. Mom picked him up and put him back in the container, and then proceeded to tend to him for the next hour or two. Betas don't obtain oxygen through gills like most fish, but rather gulp air from the surface. Well, poor Rouge was too stunned from his fall to swim properly; rather he would just kind of lay on the bottom of the the container, motionless. So, to help him recover, Mom used the net or some other reaching utensil to gently lift Wanda Rouge to the surface every 10-15 mins so he could breath. She did this until he finally started moving on his own. My mother says Rouge has never quite been the same since; you have to help him find his food, for example.

Anyway, that's the story of Wanda Rouge, his brother Wanda Bleu, and my mother, patron saint of the fishbowl. And though it is kind of comical, my mother and these fish, it's also touching. Cheers, Mom.

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More info on the Thai water festival

It's called Songkran, and Google Answers has a great explanation of it here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=431355

For those of you that want instant gratification, some pictures of what I'm in for can be found here:

http://www.pbase.com/jamieashley/songkran

and here:

http://www.2bangkok.com/2bangkok/songkran/index2004.shtml

Should be crazy.

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Images from my way out

I've decided to post a few pictures of my journey out of the country. I realize that this will be exceedingly boring for most of you, but I think it will be nice to have a little photo log of the trip.
It's 3:30 in the afternoon and I have lots of work still to do, but I've been neglecting my blog and have to do something to keep you all interested, right? So, without further ado, I present:

NORTHERN LOUISIANA!

Exciting, dynamic, and ever-bustling, northern Louisiana offers plenty of sites for thrill seekers. Whether it's tipping cows, drinking beer, or shooting frogs, the fun never stops.

LOL Ok, sorry, I don't mean to be so hard on the old homestead. Some of you claim that I've abandoned my roots... there may be some truth to that, but I also carry a fondness for the place I'll always know as home. With that said, for those of you that have never been to the northern part of Louisiana (aka South Arkansas) and/or don't know how to pronounce the word "Ouachita", I present a couple of pictures to acquaint you with the surroundings.


Wisner Elevator

This first picture is of the Wisner elevator. My father runs a business that owns (or used to own, anyway) part of the Winnsboro elevator, which looks just like this. Elevators are used to store grain... and that's about all I know about that. They are ubiquitous is northern farm communities, though.


Franklin Parish Roadside

And here is a random picture of what the landscape looks like driving in Franklin Parish. Plenty of cows, or horses, or even goats (if you happen to live in Alto). I went north to visit my Grandmother, but I forgot to bring my camera in and don't have any pictures of her to share.


Geese at Chetola Resort

Moving from the flatlands of Louisiana to the mountains of North Carolina. My parents are retiring there in this little town called Chetola. It's beautiful there, and the community in which their condo resides hosts this little flock of geese. Everyone appreciates them, even if they do poop everywhere.


My darling niece and her friend, the snowman

This is my niece, Ellie. Isn't she adorable? Of course she is, that's one of her special talents :) This was the first time either she or her brother had seen snow, and they loved every minute of it. Here she is being friendly with a snowman that the two of the built (with a little help from their Mom).


My darling niece shows her dark side

Here she is again showing her wicked sense of humor. My niece is unusual (I think) in that she has a nearly adult sense of humor. She thought it would be comical to "accidentally" pull the snowman's arm out of its socket. Macabre, yes. This picture doesn't come close to capturing the initial humor of the joke, which made my sister and I crack up.


Ready to ski

And here the little devil is all dressed up for the slopes. Come on now, can you deny the cuteness? No, you cannot. There is no denying, so don't even try.


Dad

My father, whom I love. Not quite as cute, though :)

That's it for now. Coming soon:

The Story of Wanda Rouge

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All Quiet on the Eastern Front

It's been a while since I've posted... there's not much going on to blog about. My life is settling into a routine now, and some of the adventure is subsiding.

Things here are hot, as usual, and apparently April is one of the hottest months. Sometime around the middle of April there's a holiday in which, among other things, your "sins" are symbollically and literally washed away by random acts of water espionage. In other words, for 2 or 3 days the Thais run around with water soakers, water balloons, buckets, and whatever else they can use to hose down anyone and everyone. Westerners are not immune from the onslaught; I have been instructed to bring a change of clothes to the office. Bar business supposedly increases as certain assets are exposed in this way. All in all it should be an unusual couple of days.

I'm waiting to find my muse again... I may be quiet for a while, but I'm still here :)

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Electoral Maps

This guy put together a nice collection of post-election electoral maps. Particularly soothing for bitter democrats (like me), but also just enlightening (some of the middle maps, that is). It turns political around map 6 or so, and map 10 is not appropriate for younger readers (vulgarity).

http://www.lukecole.com/Electoral%20Maps/Maps1.htm

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Moving along

Finally, tomorrow, I get to move. Thank Buddha :)

Today I'm feeling some better. Still a little scratchy in the throat, but my energy level has picked up dramatically. Despite the fact that I had numerous nightmares last night, thus limitting my productive sleep. At least twice, maybe three times I lept out of bed. The first time I swore I could here a voice in my head whispering "get out! get out!". In the surreal logic that is a dream, I was sure that if I didn't escape the room quickly, then the whole room would plunge down into a dark cave-like railroad system that offered no escape and had an unknown destination. So I lept out of bed, threw on some shorts, and promptly realized how silly I was being. But it happened at least once more afterthat... maybe more.

Anyway, I am feeling better. I received a rare offer this morning. Bossman#1 basically offered me a disertation project for my phd. It's an injury epidemiological project that will be kicking off in April to study the effects of injury after the tsunami. Turns out these guys, by per serendipity, happened to do an injury study on 5 clusters last year, 2 of which were subsequently hit by the tsunami. So now they have a prime opportunity to go back in for a follow up, maybe even a logitudinal study, to study the long term effects of a major natural disaster, with case/control already established. They have offered to let me play a prominent role, which I could then use as a phd dissertation.

I really don't see how I can say no, although the enormity of the task is daunting. I'm going to have to step up and take a leadership position... something I've been backing away from now for a few years. But the rewards should be large. I have till Monday to make a decision. I need to get Phuong's input.

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Thai Phrase of the Day #3

How to choose the Phrase of the Day? So many options. But, I'll write about what I've most recently learned. Not exactly a phrase, but a series of phrases: how the Thai tell time.

The Thai have a rather unusual way of counting the hours. First of all, to ask what time it is you say

"Kii mong lao (khrap/kah)?"

The answer depends not only on what the clock face reads but also what portion of the day it is. Kind of like when we read 12:00, we may say it is noon, or we may say midnight. But the Thais do this for every hour. SO,

12 Midnight = tiang keun
12 Noon = tiang wan

1:00 AM is tii neung
2:00 AM is tii saang
3:00 AM is tii saam
4:00 AM is tii sii
5:00 AM is tii haa

"Tii" denotes that it is early morning, and the other words are just counting as normal.

But then at 6 AM we get a change. "Tii" is out and "chao" is in. Furthermore, the word for hours (mong) is explicitly stated at this point. SO,

6:00 AM is hok mong chao
7:00 AM is chet mong (chao)
8:00 AM is baat mong (chao)
9:00 AM is gao mong (chao)
10:00 AM is sip mong (chao)
11:00 AM is sip-et mong (chao)

I put "chao" in parenthesis after 6:00 AM because, even though it is the time of day marker, it is rarely said except for hok mong chao. The reason will become apparent once we get to the evening times.

1:00 PM is bai mong
2:00 PM is bai sang mong
3:00 PM is bai saam mong
4:00 PM is bai sii mong
5:00 PM is bai haa mong

Notice that "neung" (the word for "one") is missing from the 1:00 PM translation. I have no idea why they do this, but they do. "Bai," of course, is the time of day indicator for afternoon.

6:00 PM is hok mong yen

This is exactly the same as 6:00 AM, except that "yen" replaces the word "chao"

So far so good. But at 7:00 PM we get into some really wierd stuff. Instead of continuing our count of the hours from 6, at 7:00 PM we start over again with 1! "Tuum" is our time of day marker, SO...

7:00 PM is neung tuum
8:00 PM is saang tuum
9:00 PM is saam tuum
10:00 PM is sii tuum
11:00 PM is haa tuum

You can also see now why they rarely bother giving the time of day marker for 7 through 11 AM... the only time they would say it is seven o'clock would be in the morning... in the evening, seven o'clock is called one o'clock.

This is a bit confusing, obviously, and i still haven't quite gotten it down. I'm getting close, though. Minutes can be reported by just enumerating them (i.e. haa tuum sip see is 11:14), but there is also a system of saying "half past" and "quater till" and all that which I have yet to begin to learn.

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A few of the day-to-day details

So this morning it rained here in Bangkok. Not the kind of hard, thunder and lightning, big winds type of rain that can hit Louisiana, but rather a moderate, consistent rain fall without much accompanying hullaballu. This rain, however, was enough to cause some kind of short in the electrical grid, as the lights have been flickering on and off (mostly off) all morning. It's 10:25 now and the power came back up about 15 mins ago.

This will be particularly problematic in a couple of months when the rainy season starts and we get some of this every day... I hope the Bossman keeps those Popular Mechanics coming!

Also this morning I had an "omelet" for breakfast, with toast, bacon, orange juice, coffe, and toast. The whole meal ran about US$ 1.25. There was nothing in the omelet, however; it was really just some scrambled eggs. Suprising because the Thais do make a very tasty omelet that they eat for lunch and dinner, filled with spicy pork and vegetables. This was not that, though. The bacon came out undercooked, I had to send it back. Thais don't eat bacon, to my knowledge... it's their strictly for us farangs.

Afterwards, though, I spent another 5 baht (about 13 cents) for two grilled bananas... which were very tasty except for the left over grill flavor. I'll have to try those again from a different vendor... they are all over the place. Bananas are practically a staple food here.

Tonight I will be dining with Bossman#2 and his guests from the CDC. I won't contribute anything, of course, just be mostly a fly on a wall. And with this cold subduing my usually effervicient personality (lol), I won't even be a very entertaining fly. I can't wait to move into my apartment so that I can establish more regular eating patterns. Buy some milk and cereal... do a little cooking. I need to make sure I eat enough so that i don't come back skinny like last summer.

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Where am I exactly? Thailand or Shangri Lah?

Wierd, wild, wacky stuff.

Bossman has to go to the university this afternoon. On his way out of the office he, very considerately, drops off a copy of Popular Mechanics for me to peruse while he's gone.

I'm kind of scared to touch it... it's a trap, right?

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The 5 stages of relocation/ Thai Phrase of the Day 2

I have no idea what they are... but I must be in phase 2 now.

I'm feeling decidedly melancholy... waiting for the other shoe to drop. Don't even feel much like blogging, though I'm sure there's lots I could write about.

I received Ofoto pictures, thank you, pc, they are great. And I received emails from sr, thank you as well.

I've decided to go with the more expensive apartment... it has a bit more room for visitors, should any arrive at my doorstep :) I'll let you know exactly how much room once I move in. That will happen on Friday. Ugh, another week in this dingy hotel room. Did I mention there's no windows? And the TV is broken also. So I bought a book... "Deception Point" by Dale Brown... the same guy that wrote "the Da Vinci Code". It's pretty good... would make a good movie as well, if done right. Whoever made "Ronin" would be a good choice... a good chunk of the action happens in the dark on a glacier in the arctic circle far from everything. Accentuating the sense of isolation would be a good way to really ratchet up the suspense.

Well, that's it for now. It's about time for lunch... haven't had pad thai yet, I think I'll have some from our local little street restauranteur.

Thai phrase of the day (simple one today): "Kahb kuhn (kah/krahp)" See the first TPOTD for an explanation of kah/krahp. This one just means 'thank you'. If you want to say "thank you very much then you say "kahb kuhn maak (kah/krahp)".

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Thai Phrase of the Day 1

Sawat di (kah, krahp)

This is the ubiquitous greeting that is used here in Thailand. It pretty much just means hello, but is more respectful than that. It is typically accompanied by a wai, which is a physical gesture in which the speaker places his hands together, palm-to-palm, as if in prayer, and gives a little bow. The depts of the bow and the position of the hands in relation to the face indicate different levels of respect. When wai'ing a peer or, for example, a customer, the top of the hands will be about an inch below the chin and the bow will be curt. Wai'ing a monk or a revered elder, however, requires that the hands be placed up by the forhead and the bow is much deeper.

"Sawat di" (pronunced Sah-waht-deee) is the actual greeting, and then either "Kah" or "Krahp" is tacked onto the end as a way of being extra polite. If the speaker is a woman, she says "Kah". Men say "Krahp." Unlike most of the romance languanges, Thai changes word conjugation based on the gender of the speaker, not the gender of the sentence subject.

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Feet on the ground

Well, here I am. Thailand... Bankok... for six months, at least! I must say I'm already missing alot of my friends and family. I've gotten used to just having other people around. That may sound trivial, but it used to not be the case. I use to spend almost all my time by myself. The last few years in BR, however, has changed that.

I touched down in BKK about an hour behind schedule, at 12:30 two nights ago. I made it to the hotel by 1:10. Having been here several times before, it was easy to navigate the taxi queue and immigration. Took me probably 15 mins to get out of the airport. In a somewhat disturbing trend, the taxi didn't turn on his meter taking me to the hotel; all airport taxis are supposed to be meter based. He charged a flat 300 baht, which is a little high. Instead of haggling with him I just had him avoid the toll ways, which brought the price more into line. TASC is paying for the fair, anyway.

Yesterday I met Ross, Mike, and Gayle, the secretary. Ross and I spent much of the afternoon looking at a couple of apartments. One is particularly nice... a 17th floor apartment with a balcony. Nice marble floors. It also includes a gym and swimming pool. The other one costs about 100 US$ less, and is alot closer to the office (about a 10 minute walk rather than a 20 minute walk). The floors in the second one are also nice, wooden parquet this time. But the furnishings are not as nice as the first one, there's no microwave, no gym. The main benefit for this one is the closer location and that Ross indicated that if I chose the less expensive apartment they might be able to give me some of the difference as an increase in my stipend.

I don't know which one to choose, I go back and forth. If I was going to live here permanently I'd definately take the first one, but for a shorter stay perhaps it would be better to pocket the extra money and stay closer to the office. I'll probably have to decide this weekend.

So, that's the current situation. Ross indicated that both yesterday and today would be very light work days for me, but I might get started in earnest today nonetheless. I'm pretty awake right now, and don't have much else to do except work (and blog, of course!). The only other option would be to track down a few more apartments, which I may end up doing. My computer isn't coming in till tomorrow, so I'm having to share an office with Mike right now. This a little extra computer he has tucked away in a corner.

I'm trying to learn basic conversational Thai while I'm here; I have no class or plan as of yet, just an ambition. Nonetheless I'll go ahead and start a "Thai phrase of the day" section. I think it'll have to be a regular blog post so that I can archive. Maybe later I'll play around and figure out how to add a second archive section.

So that's it for now. Not very interesting, I'm afraid :) I do have some pictures to post, so those are on the way. Hope everyone is well back in the states!

Thupt

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On my way

I've left Baton Rouge. The flight was not delayed (suprisingly), but less than pleasant. There was a great deal of wind at about 5000 to 10000 feet both around the Atlanta and Charlotte airports, and the plane was tossed around as if it were a mere Cesna. I'm usually pretty stout when it comes to motion sickness, but it was definately touch and go there for a while. I felt my face go white as a ghost; had anyone been paying attention, I'm sure they would have called for an ambulance to meet us at the tarmac! But it was just nausea. Worse, because, I suppose, of Delta's financial troubles, there were no magazines, no pillows, and no little bags for "just in case." If something had come up, it would have been all over the plane.

But I landed safely and am doing well. Had a snowball fight yesterday with my niece and nephew (Elie and Alex), which was alot of fun. Today some of us are going skiing... haven't decided if I'll join them yet. I mean, I'll go, but I may not ski. Don't really have the gear for it.

I have pictures to share, but I'm writing this on a hotel computer and don't have the ability to install Picasa, which is what I use to post pictures. So you'll just have to wait till I get to Thailand for that!

It was good seeing Ron, So, and Toni friday night. I'm sorry no one else could come, looks like there's impending changes in all of our lives. Even as loved family members pass on, we are welcoming new souls into the world. It's the way that it is, and we have all lived long enough now to understand it. But that doesn't make any easier to say goodbye to the ones we love.

That's it for now... blogging will be continue to be scarce until I get my feet on the ground in Thailand. Until next time...

Thupt

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