April 17, 2011

  • News Flash

    In 24 hours I will have started a new teaching job here in Ubon Ratchathani. Should be interesting, and hopefully be the best job I will take while living here. More information after day one is complete.

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    Funding shortages has delayed my continuance in Taekwondo. Hopefully in six weeks I can step back into the classroom. My goal is to reach blue belt by the end of this year. I don't care how long it takes to make black belt, if at all. It was reported a few weeks ago that an 83-year old grandfather completed his brown belt in aikido after 16 years of training. I am almost half his age. I am probably twice his weight, which is making things a bit difficult on certain kicks. Would be much easier if I was taking TKD five days a week instead of once a week.

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    My mom celebrated her 73rd birthday on April 5. She is on oxygen due to damage lung cancer has done to her system. I am getting somewhat bitter about some things in life because of this. I should not be losing sympathy for people who are suffering from some diseases, but the things we inflict upon ourselves are a different story. If people want to live self-destructive lifestyles and end up with some silly disease, you got yourself to blame. Don't expect me to pay the penalty for your stupidity. Pay for it yourself out of your pocket. I don't expect you to pay for my gym workouts so I can lose the weight that I packed on. So yeah, I have some anger about this. It makes me sad that some of my humanity is lost as a result of my mom's years of smoking cigarettes. It takes death to get some people to make changes in their lifestyle. Mom doesn't smoke anymore.

    Some only see tragedy in death. In death I find God's mercy.

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    Since the end of the school term in February, I have made two trips that cost more than they should have. Around the middle of March I went to Suvannakht, Laos, for a new tourist visa. In a longer post I will talk more about Laos. It takes about three and a half hours by bus to travel from Ubon Ratchathani to Mokdahan. The ride to the border is about 15 to 20 minutes depending on traffic. The border hop itself can run 20 minutes or so, and the tuk-tuk is best overloaded to keep the price down as you go into Suvannakhet. In 48 hours I was hopping the border again, and back in Mokdahan going to Bangkok. I was supposed to go to Muak Lek, but I may have slept through the bus stop. Or we never went there in the first place. I spent a day in Bangkok, then took a train back to Muak Lek, where I met a Filippina friend I first met in South Korea over two years ago. The final leg of my trip home was by train, and it was good getting back home at 4:30 in the morning.

    My second trip to Bangkok was for a job interview. I had a couple of firsts on this trip. After visiting the National Museaum of Thailand for the second time, I took a motorcycle taxi to the MTS, also known as the Skytrain. It was my first time for both experiences. The Skytrain is incredible, and the next time I am in town, I will take some photos. The job interview went well, but I am going to have to turn it down. That bothers me, and yet I think it is the right decision.

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    People hate drama. Too bad. Life is drama. Drama is LIFE. People have problems and people need friends. A true friend will not complain about the drama, and will help in solving problems. Anyone who complains about drama needs to stop being selfish and learn to live. Drama will not end. Knuckle under and face reality. And in the process stop being so bloody concerned with reality television. Reality television is like professional wrestling: it is scripted and the outcome has been determined ahead of time. Are people so dense as to not realize this? Eish.

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    On the train to Bangkok for the job interview I had a dream that I was somewhere behind the scenes in Washington politics. Three guys in white shirts and ties were doing things, and for some reason I was part of this team. Joe Biden was one of the stuffed shirts. For some reason I congratuated him on becoming the next president of the US. Then it was on to business as usual. It was rather strange that I would somehow be a part of Joe Biden's team, as I am not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, either. I have no political loyalties. There was no mention of Obama in the dream.

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    Thailand celebrated the New Year begining this past Wednesday. For three days the streets in many towns were filled with people packing bowls, buckets, squirt guns, supersoakers and other instruments of water distribution as they celebrated this holiday's famous water festival. I went out on Wednesday and got hit in the back once by some guy with a bowl of water. I heard that someone from church got hit by a bucket of ice-cold water while he was on his motorcycle. He wiped out, sliding on his left side for a few feet and getting banged up and cut up from the accident. It can be a very wild time. I stayed in doors for the most part on Thursday and Friday, going to 7-11 to get some food and water for the next day. Songkran is not my favorite Thai holiday.