Work: An Introduction

So some of you (namely my mother) have been asking for more details about work and life in general. I'm at work, and don't really have a lot of time to write at the moment, but I thought a glimpse at the company iTunes would give you guys a good glimpse of what it's like to work here.

Keep in mind that we have a stereo system installed, so these choice selections are routed through the entire office and looped all day long.

Express Your Vote

Technology is amazing!

Finally, today, after months of eager anticipation and repeated ballot reapplications, I received my absentee ballot... by email. I was pretty excited until I realized that my ballot has roughly one week to make it to the States, which would probably set some kind of speed record for Thai post.

So I went to the Chiang Mai US Consulate web page, which informed me that the consulate will be closed from October 23 - November 11, for no apparent reason. Great.

However, then I dug a little deeper and was led to this page, my saving grace, called Express Your Vote. EYV is a joint initiative between the Overseas Vote Foundation and FedEx that allows US citizens living abroad to FedEx their absentee ballots for a special rate. In Asia, that special rate is FREE.

So I'm going to fill out my ballot later today and swing by the Chiang Mai FedEx branch early tomorrow. My ballot is guaranteed to be in Cook County two days later, and I get a FedEx tracking number to make sure. I heart FedEx.

All that said, I know pretty much nothing about Illinois, Cook County, or Winnetka politics, so please feel free to tell me how to vote. If, say, you have a beef with Judge Themis N. Karnezis of the 12th Circuit Court, now is the time to air your dirty laundry. I'm especially riveted to hear peoples' thoughts on the proposed Illinois State Constitution Convention.

All Good

Despite a few concerned emails to the contrary, I still have both of my legs attached firmly to my body. Swelling is down, nothing is infected, and the bruise is fading. I never had a fever and therefore never needed antibiotics.

It's all good.

I'm planning on exacting my revenge on Class Insecta by importing Cane Toads. That should show those buggers.

Small Amazing Things, pt. 4: Bugs

Taking this series to its most literal extreme, I wanted to talk a bit about tiny little things that are everywhere around here: bugs.

I have been in Thailand for nearly four months, and I swear that I have seen a new, different insect every single day. The biodiversity, nevermind the population size, is astounding, and really makes you wonder why we humans think that this is our planet.

Some are beautiful, some are strange. Some are huge, and others tiny. I have watched spiders hunt, stuck my ear up to a stingless bee's tube hive, and fed ants to Antlions (NERD alert: definitely the inspiration for Luke's mode of almost-execution at the beginning of Return of the Jedi). As I noted last week, I've even seen bugs wrestle.

 I've eaten bamboo worms, grasshoppers big and small, bees, ants (mostly unintentionally) and giant water bugs:

 

I occasionally swat at cockroaches at home, and have waged a pretty impressive chemical war against mosquitoes.

Until Saturday, I would have said the Ted v. Bugs scorecard would have shown me with a considerable lead. And then everything changed.

I was driving my motorbike on the highway to go climbing early in the morning when I felt something hit the inside of my thigh. This happens occasionally: trucks kick up gravel or sand, and it stings your shins, thighs, or chest.

Except the stinging didn't stop. It actually got much worse. I instinctively reached down and pulled an enormous wasp out of my leg. I then freaked out, pulled over, closed the face mask of my helmet (so nobody would hear me?) and started screaming in pain. I waited about five minutes to make sure I wasn't going to pass out, then I got back on my bike and drove on.

I climbed all day in spite of the discomfort, although I could tell something was definitely not quite right. That night, I went out to stay with my host family, had a few beers, and forgot all about it.

In the morning I woke up to a stiff leg, and a red lump on the inside of my thigh that was about the size of my palm. But things kept getting worse. By Sunday night, the swelling had wrapped around the back of my leg and down towards my knee. My skin was stretched tight like a drum, and the inner half of my leg felt half-asleep and half-itchy.

Right now (about 62 hours after the sting), my right thigh is about double the size of my left, and the inside is turning from an irritated red to a bruised purple. I tried to take pictures, but it's my hairy, pale thigh, and you don't actually want to see that.

If it's not better in the morning, I'm going to the hospital. You win, bugs. You win.

Much-needed catch-up post

Okay, so I've been delinquent lately, especially with posting photos. So, risking a really bulky post, here's a blow-by-blow of the last three weeks or so [photos].

Kwang's Wedding. Kwang, a guide at CMRCA, got married three weeks ago [photos]. The wedding itself was a surprisingly small part of this weekend spectacle. The company rented a van and drove south to Nakonsawang, about 6 hours away, where Kwang's wife, Boy, is from. We had a student program the day before the wedding, so we left at about 9pm. Taw drove while the rest of us drank beer in the back. We were tired, and they are Thai, so it didn't take long for things to get interesting.

We arrived at about 3am, and the wedding started roughly 4 hours later, at the auspicious hour of 7:39am. This is so it could end at 9:39am, the luckiest of all times of the day (3 is a lucky number in the Thai culture; 9, or 3 3's, is the luckiest). The wedding went roughly like this: we sat in plastic chairs under a tent. Monks and everyone important went into the house and did a bunch of things we couldn't see or really hear. Then we each gave our blessing to the new married couple by pouring fragrant water over their hands, and gave them a gift of cash in the envelope that we received our wedding invitation in. A short reception followed, but it was hot, and the late morning, we were all exhausted, and the music was uninspiring, so nothing to great went down.

However! then the fun began. We raided the reception's leftover whiskey (of which there was a LOT - that's what happens when your reception begins at 10am) and drove to a large lake nearby. The drinking began in earnest as the CMRCA group and a couple of other climbers from Bangkok and Krabi relaxed on the beach eating Som Tam. There was a lot of typical Thai (read: 12-year old) fun and shenanigans, such as throwing people into the lake, burying people in the sand (and adding Kathoey anatomy), and telling stupid jokes. It was a hell of a good time.

The next day, we made our way back to Chiang Mai, but the normally 6-hour drive took about 10, since we stopped and made quite a few detours to hit up famous shops, stands, and markets, including one that sold massive dried fish, another that was a big candy store (not that impressive), and a third that sold just Guava. Guava is widely available in Chiang Mai. I have no idea why that stop was so important (or exciting). We also drove a bit out of the way to have lunch at Pui's house in Uttaradit, which was really nice. And the whole thing was very fun, and typical of a Thai Tiow.

Climbing. I have been climbing a lot, partially because it's been amazing, and partially because I'm slowly realizing that there's not a lot else to do here. Went bouldering with some friends a few weeks ago at a beautiful spot next to a river about a third of the way up Doi Suthep, just east of Chiang Mai:

I've also been heading out to Crazy Horse quite a lot, and am starting to feel really good about the way I'm climbing. I'm on-sighting routes that I couldn't touch when I got here (6b+!), and I climbed my first multi-pitch last week.

Homestay. I've been going out to visit my Thai family about every other week, which has been fun, grounding and relaxing. Last time, I learned a game that apparently small children and drunk men alike play.

It goes like this: 1) Clap your hands on your thighs 2) Clap your hands together. 3) Simultaneously, grab your nose with your left hand and your left ear with your right hand. 4) Clap your thighs 5) Clap your hands. 6) Grab your nose with your right hand, and your right ear with your left hand. Repeat, and increase the pace. Try not to poke yourself in the eyes or grab both your ears.

It is also Kwang wrestling season (chone kwang), so the markets are all abuzz with the large beetles. Boys buy them as pets, and keep them tethered to sugar cane with yarn or locked up inside of a takeout soda cup. Men force them to wrestle, and gamble on the outcome. Here's a short video of the action, but I also took a few pretty pictures.

The Kwangs don't appear to actually get hurt during the fight... those big teeth are actually just horns that they use to scrape away sugar cane. It's incredible how much fun it can be to be in a big crowd and watch one insect try to push another off of a stick.

Work. I've been working outside a lot lately, which is fun, but also exhausting. Monday and Tuesday of this week we had a group of 16 students from Pacific Discovery. This was a really hard program to run, because it was CMRCA's first-ever two-day program, plus we set up our new Tyrolean traverse for them, and got them really muddy by taking them down into the Furnace cave. The real problem was that nobody had been in the Furnace cave in 3 months, since it's flooded during the rainy season. It's a squeezy-crawly type cave, and mud gets washed in with the rain. Plus, there were a couple of, um, bigger kids in the group. So on Sunday about five of us from CMRCA spent 5 hours in the cave, digging the passage wider where there was a lot of mud, and scooping (I think) around 2000 gallons of water out of the deepest section to drop the water level about 8 inches so it was passable. It was pretty funny watching small Thai men try to approximate the size of someone with a 48" waist, and really, really impressive to watch Taw engineer a mud dam and devise a system that allowed us to easily drain water. Crawling in a hot, wet cave and moving mud and water around is exactly as exhausting as it sounds. But also as fun as it looks:

Adventure Racing. Elena Olivi and I are signed up for the Bangkok Challenge, an adventure race just outside Thailand's capitol. There are biking, kayaking, swimming, and trail running (with obstacles!) components in the 6+ hour race. Because we are hard core (and because we didn't want to get shafted with a shorter race), we signed up for the "Extreme" division, which is for "For very fit competitors and experienced racers," instead of just the lame "Adventure" division. Currently, "very fit" and "experienced" is a less-than-accurate description of Elena and me, but I'm determined to be as "Extreme" as possible, so last week I bought a bicycle, some bike shorts, and a Lance Armstrong jersey, so I'll at least look the part (Floyd and Levi for president!).

Today I went for my first real training ride up Doi Suthep. It was really amazing - about 100 times better than I thought it could be. Hopefully more on that tomorrow.

Small Amazing Things, pt. 3: Food, or: Sharing is Caring

Sorry that I've been away for a little while. As things have been deteriorating in the States, I've been spending more and more time reading the news, and less time writing about little ol' me.

James O'Toole was visiting this week from Khon Kaen. It was really nice to have him around, especially now, when I think I've definitely entered phase II, and I'm finding more of these small Thai things to be less Amazing, and more Annoying.

But in an attempt to buoy my spirits and beat out culture shock, I'm going to focus on the things I really love about this place.

Before I came to Thailand, people talked a lot about the food, how delicious it is, and how lucky I was to go to Thailand because I would eat so well, etc. Well, the food certainly is delicious, although it took some getting used to, but that is not what this post is about.

I really love the communal aspect of Thai food, and not just in the family dinner sense. Food here is really the stitching in the social fabric: eating is never a solo affair, and there is no social or even business event that can occur without food. If there is any food out in any circumstances, it is impolite in Thailand not to encourage others (especially your elders) to "eat up."

Today we had a small student group go climbing with CMRCA, and on our way home from the program, we stopped by the restaurant that caters our food (i.e. fries rice) to drop off their tupperware. Two uniquely Thai things happened:

There was a handpainted cardboard sign on the front door of the restaurant/guesthouse complex that simply said (in Thai) "Closed 7 Days." There was no explanation, or even a date. Just "Closed 7 Days" and a locked door. Of course, they didn't want to inconvenience us (greng jai!), so they cooked lunch for us this week anyway, and we let ourselves in.

We had all been active all day, and so Muad and Phi dug out a half-eaten omelette and a box of chicken, and we all had a little snack before handing the tupperware over to be washed. I guess our "Aunt" at the restaurant noticed we were hungry, because she emerged a few minutes later, without any warning, with a huge, steaming hot bowl of "Young Pumpkin Curry" (gaeng fucktawng awn).

We each paid for some sticky rice, shared a Coke, and enjoyed an absolutely delicious meal that was prepared by a people whose restaurant wasn't even open. It was a such an incredible gesture of kindness, and yet I bring it up more beacuse it's a good example of something completely commonplace than because it was an extraordinary act by unusually kind restaurateurs. What wonderful people live in this place.