Red in the Morning

Well, a few weeks ago, I did the second annual Khatachuk Amazing Race Scavenger Hunt. There were about 16 of us that took part in it, and it was a lot of fun, and a lot of hot. Probably dummied a good 4-5 waterbottles that day. Anyway, while Natalie and I didn't win (a respectable 5th place out of 8 teams), I got a decent wife-beater tan while is almost as classy as wearing a wife-beater in general. Overall, a lot of teams had some unreal costumes and team names - The Loewen Grangers (the last names of one couple) was my personal favourite and a classy homage to the Lone Ranger, in case you didn't get the joke. Everyone made a spectacle out of themselves, and I'm not entirely sure why anyone would give us a double-take.

I think the crowd were good sports. You know, if you weren't Thai, or if you were like this couple who found it hilarious when we asked if their 7 year old son would feed a stranger a chocolate-covered banana so that I could post it on the Internet without their permission. 

And now, welcome to the new blog addition - "Only in Thailand" (food edition):

Only in Thailand do:

1. People willingly eat chicken feet, pig's tongue, and chunks of black coagulated blood in their soup, but find mashed potatoes and gravy absolutely disgusting.

2. People use ketchup packets on their pizza. Maybe I'd give this a try if there wasn't already tomato sauce on the pizza.

3. People love ketchup on pizza, but think that ketchup chips are the strangest idea. This is while they snack on shrimp and seaweed flavoured Lays.

Last weekend, I went to Linkin Park at Activ Square with Natalie. After a two and half hour cab ride., we finally got there. I should know better, but this consider this a tip if you ever take a cab in Thailand: If your cab driver doesn't immediately say "okay" after you tell him your desired destination, that means that he probably doesn't really know where it is but clearly will not tell you this until at least 100 baht into the cab ride. It's especially bad if you say the name of the place you want to go, and he unsuccessfully repeats the name in broken English and in the form of a question, ala Ron Burgendy. Example:

Me: "Activ Square please."

Cab Driver: "Act-rivv Skare?"

Me: "Active Square, you know where that is?"

Cab Driver: (5 second pause) ".....okay."

Then you get in and he immediately gets on his cell phone and you don't understand any of the conversation except for 'Act-rivv Skare'.

Anyway, the show was really good and I even know most of the songs since we had downloaded the last two Linkin Park albums a few days prior so we would actually recognize the set list. They were really good live, and I learned that Thai crowds are super boring and tame, but also that they love to politely fist pump and jump during songs that they know. It only rained on us for a short while, and I got to use the thuper thweet Thai washrooms that were actually a group of hollowed out school buses that were now turned into a divided groups of urinals. After using the makeshift piss shack, I was just so glad that I didn't have to crap.

We were too far to really get any good pictures of the stage, so we just got randoms to take pictures of us instead.

It was also perogie-making Sunday this past weekend, which was a combination of fun and delicious. We ran out of dough, but by that point had already churned out around 200 perogies. This means that I probably clowned on 10% of those 200, which I am not ashamed of in the slightest. Perogies are my favourite food, and six months is six months too long for me to go without them.

School has been decent, and the kids finished their exams for Term 2 the other week, and none of my kids failed. This may not seem like a big deal, but I think it is a good sign since I've noticed so much improvement in many of the kids since I started back in May and it makes you feel good to know that even they may not retain the knowledge for their whole life, that I helped teach them so many different things already.

NHL preseason has started, and two Philadelphia Flyers have already been suspended, which is both ridiculous as well as not entirely surprising. The 2012 Winter Classic was also announced this week, and the Flyers will be making their second appearance in it, and will be playing the New York Rangers. While the logo and jersey design has not actually been released yet, consider the Winter Classic retro jersey the first thing on my Christmas list this year.

Am I the only person who finds the amount of newfound hockey fans hilarious now that we have a team to cheer for? And once these "fans" (air quotes = Internet sarcasm) learn the rules of hockey and the names of two or three teams that aren't from Canada, they'll be set!

I leave tomorrow morning for holidays! Singapore, Yogyakarta, and Bali. It's almost as cool as Winnipeg in October, and I'll try to make the best out of it somehow. Also, congrats to Liane for getting a teaching job! Bring some class to Transcona and teach the shit out of those kids!

Finally, if you ever want something to make fun of me for when I get back home, I saw the Taylor Lautner movie "Abduction" earlier this week. Don't worry though, I hated it.

love, Mark

Taxis Sono Qui

I always feel like there should be some witty opening to these, but really I'm not that exciting. It was a typical rainy night tonight, so I procrastinated my grocery shopping, thus sacrificing having food to eat for breakfast tomorrow. Instead, I chose my time would be better spent doing laundry, writing a blog and listening to the Backstreet Boys. I'm sure a 12 year old girl somewhere in the world is doing the same thing.

Really though, I have nothing to say. I guess I have to make a trip to the hospital this week at some point, which may or may not happen before the aforementioned grocery shopping. Long story short, since I got out here, I've had these white spots develop on my stomach because of the sun, and now basically I have a ton of them all over my shoulders and arm. Basically I"m a hideous freak and should be exiled. They're more cosmetic than a reason to actually be concerned, and hopefully it's not a big deal. I'd take a picture and show what this looks like, but this is coming from the guy that has the generic black outline of a person for a profile picture on this blog.

There's a couple of cool things coming up in the next few weeks, but maybe I'll actually talk about them after they happen. This coming weekend is the second annual Piyapat apartment-led "Amazing Race" at Chatuchak. In case you're not from Bangkok, Chatuchak is:

Once only popular among wholesalers and traders, Chatuchak Weekend Market has reached a landmark status as a must-visit place for tourists. Its sheer size and diverse collections of merchandise will bring any seasoned shoppers to their knees – this is where you can literally shop ‘till you drop’.

The 35-acre (68-rai) area of Chatuchak is home to more than 8,000 market stalls. On a typical weekend, more than 200,000 visitors come here to sift through the goods on offer. Veteran shoppers would agree that just about everything is on sale here, although not all at the best bargain rates. But if you have one weekend in Bangkok, squeeze in a day trip to Chatuchak Weekend Market and you will not be disappointed.

So... it's pretty big I guess. I got lost a lot the last time I was there and got really sweaty.

Basically there's going a lot of people at the apartment that are going to lose to myself and Nat the Cat.

Actually let's be real here, Natalie and I are probably going to end up being the stereotypical Amazing Race young couple. We're going to be lost, probably in 9th or 10th place on the brink of elimination, unable to do the physical challenge or activity and I'm going to by the alpha-male douchebag boyfriend who is screaming at my girlfriend in public and embarrassing myself.

At least we might win best costume?


It rained so hard the other that my wall started leaking and I had a big puddle of water on my bedroom floor. It didn't leak through the window or anything, it actually soaked through the wall, like if I pressed on the wall it would expel more water.  I'm on the third floor of the apartment by the way.

Well, I've done a good job of having nothing to say. Hopefully J-shore is downloaded!

Yours Truly

I just realized that I haven't been driving in almost five months now, which has been kind of fun, but also makes me want to get behind the wheel again if not for the only reason because while out here, the "coning" trend has been born and I want to try it. On a related note to my parents - YouTube "Coning". My dad will love it.

Well, the fridge is empty, which makes me realize that if I lived by myself, I would starve. Or survive off of apple yogurt, Fruit Loops, and water. Speaking of water, only in rainy season in Thailand could it rain so hard that on my ten minute walk from school to the apartment, could I come home almost completely drenched while holding an umbrella the entire time. 

Oh, I got my cast off on Sunday which means I'm typing this with no cast, or with any real power in my left wrist since it's been 6 weeks since I've moved it at all, so it's a baby bit stiff. Still, I'm happy to now be in a removable cast, which is actually really ghetto and will probably stink worse than the last cast that I couldn't remove. I was on Koh Samet this weekend, then showed up to the hospital an hour and a half late for my appointment still carrying all of our luggage from the weekend. But really, I think they couldn't be angry since I had body-painted my hotel room number (E-13) on my cast. What? It was a new place for me, you can't expect me to remember where I'm staying.

In case you were wondering, I ate 20 pieces of sushi, some tempura and an ice cream on Monday at the mall for all-you-can eat sushi. $10 Canadian, not a bad deal. Which reminds me, and I'm not joking at all, the one thing I actually miss from back home is a couch to lay down on. You are probably wondering why I'm complaining, since you might be asking why I don't just lay down on my comfortable bed. Which means that you have never been to the Piya-pat apartments. 

Teaching is going well, and you'd be surprised how hard it is to explain the difference between "there", "they're", and "their" to Grade 3 Thai kids. I think they're making improvements as a whole, but there are days that make me want to punch myself in the face, and today was definitely one of them. I'm not going on a particular rant, since well... I'm lazy. But also, as I told my kids today, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". Which was promptly followed by Gavin telling Ice 2 that "[he] hates him" and me sending him out in the hall. Ugh. What almost makes this more amusing (amusing = more self-facepunch-worthy) is that while going in the hall to talk with him after resulted in him coming to the conclusion that he would rather not come back into the classroom and instead sit in the hot, humid, un-airconditioned hallway instead, and me practically having to beg him to come back into class. Uggggh. Oh yeah, this is my smartest student by the way. Oh well, everyone has bad days. 

I feel like that was an unfair thing for me to do in sharing that story, so in an amusing Gavin story news, while playing Hangman at the end of class on Monday, he suggested the word "xenotransplantation" and proceeded to write it down for me and give me the definition, as I basically gave him a "whatthefuck"expression. So did the rest of the class when they eventually got the word by guessing every letter in the alphabet. Oh yeah, he just turned 8. 

The West Memphis Three are now free, and while everyone has their opinions about it, I think it was the logical one. 

Finally, I saw the new Jets jersey reveal today, and I really enjoy the jersey. Sometimes less is more, and I think while the old Jets logo is one of the coolest hockey designs ever, it is just that - old. It doesn't reflect anything that the team was, and change is not always a bad thing. It's really classy, the colours remain in tact, there is some heritage and prestige to it so it's not a makeshift logo, plus I really like most of the current Jets roster.

That being said, I still can't wait for the Flyers to dummy the Jets and take the Stanley Cup.