Earthlings

So, a few interestingish things have happened in the last couple of days. Firstly, I found my bow. In my closet. Exactly where I left it. So no need to panic, my host sister isn't a cleptomaniac (sp?). Went shopping at Fashion Island yesterday with my host family, where I acquired a Friendship Book of my own, which all my Thai friends are super excited about filling out. I told them just to write in Thai or English, whichever they prefer. And if they don't want to write either they can just draw a cartoon or something. Interpretive dance. Whatever. It's the thought that counts. Husna gave me a picture of me and her (with other people in it too, but in the picture me and her are front and center together) and wrote on the back "In Thailand... From Husna". Praew also sent me a text message yesterday that was super cute.. it went like this: "WOW!! Better things waiting for u. I wish u r loved, u r lucky, u r healthy, u r wealthy, u r safe very happy... Merry X'Mas praew" It was very sweet of her. Today when I got home from school I had some mail waiting for me that included a postcard from Bessy (that she sent right around the time she sent me my Christmas parcel (which got here weeks ago) and before she went to Hawaii (and I've already gotten all the postcards she sent me from Hawaii), a New Years card/gift from Bessy (and Nanny!), and a Happy Holidays type card from my family for my host family. What I can conclude from all of this is that mailing things sucks. Despite being super happy when I do get mail.. I don't understand why, for example, the post cards from Hawaii got here so much sooner than the one from Canada :S Maybe it's just Canada Post that sucks. Anyways, still hoping that my Christmas Parcel from my family will get here in time for Christmas.. but it's starting to look like it wont. It took 10 days just to get from Creston to Vancouver... As Alyson wisely said though, it doesn't matter when it gets here, it's the thought that counts. And she is right. I just hope that it does get here eventually, and isn't lost or something.

Today after school Patch and I went out with Cherry and her friends to eat Boat Noodles to celebrate Cherry getting into University! Cherry paid for all of our Noodles, and when we were done stuffing ourselves with them, Patch bought us Rotee (which Cherry refused to eat because it will apparently make her fat... I don't see the harm in eating one lil Rotee during a celebration.. it's only if you eat them everyday (like, ahmen, me) thats when one will become fat... but that girl is obsessed with being thin) in order to celebrate her universityness. Patch and Cherry are both going to the same University, which is fairly close to Nongchok (about 1/2 hour drive.. it's the same Uni that P'Beam goes to.. and Patch will be in the same faculty as P'Beam (English), while Cherry will be in Science). I know the reason why Patch decided on this Uni is because it is so close, so she will be able to live at home and will be able to save on housing costs and what not. I'm assuming that Cherry will be living at home too. I dunno, part of me just feels sorry for that girl because she is SOOOO afraid of living. She would never go on exchange because it is too dangerous, she would never even go to the south of Thailand because of the tsunami a few years back, she won't eat anything that would ever cause her to be fat, and now she's going to the closest possible university to home. Part of me just wants to give her a drink and feed her some cake and take her on a rollar coaster or something. Be spontaneous.

I spent a good portion of Sunday trying to download a documentary on Google Video called "Earthlings". It is all about animal rights, and is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. Unfortunately, my internet decided to crap out halfway through downloading the movie, so I never got to finish watching it. The bit I did watch though focused on animals as pets, animals as food, and animals for clothes. I believe it goes on to explain about animals for sports, and animals used for testing products. However, let me just say that what I did watch has been enough for me to decide that when I get back to Canada I am becomming vegetarian. I've already cut pork out of my diet.. so how hard could the rest be? Although I must admit I had really been looking forward to that first Alberta steak when I arrived home. I won't go into details about what was shown in this video, because I think that it is something everyone (esepcially people who eat meat (as Joaquin Phoenix says in the video, "If the walls of slaughter houses were glass, we would all be vegetarians")) should watch. I don't want to sound like one of these preaching vegan/PETA types either. One point I did find interesting in this movie though, was about how in North America, we have dog catchers who go around and catch all of the stray dogs living in the streets, take them to pounds, where most of them are put down.. In Thailand however, they have no such thing. Stray dogs are just left to wander the streets, beg for food, and most likely starve to death. The question which is now in my mind is, which is better? A life full of starvation, heat exhaustion, and injury, OR no life at all? Buddhism believes that life is always better. I'm not sure what I believe. One day when I was walking home from school, a cat crossed my path who seemed to have aquired a rather painful injury to its head. It appeared at though it's brain was exposed. I thought about how if that cat were in Canada, it would certainly be put to sleep, but because it is in Thailand... it is left to suffer (?) and die naturally. Which would the cat prefer?

Enough for now.

Oh, I almost forgot. You really have to love stereotypes, eh? (hahaha I am the only one who is totally amused by that sentence?) Here are a couple of ones I've come across recently. Whilst talking to my host cousin Ron about what Thai food I will miss when I go back to Canada, he made a comment about how healthy Thai food must be compared to the food I'm used to, because all Americans (despite the fact that I'm Canadian :S) just eat hamburgers all the time. Secondly, while talking to one of my host dad's friends about why I chose to come to Thailand, he asked me what countries some of my friends chose to go to. I told him that last year one of my friends went on exchange to France, and his answer was, "well that's not different from Canada." I was like, "uhhhhhh well for one thing France is in Europe." And he said, "yes but French are still farang (Thai word for foreigner)" This is deffinately one thing that drives me crazy about Thai people. All white people to them are "farang." And for some reason Thai's seem to be under the impression that all "farang" are English speaking (usually from America). Everytime I walk down my street on the way home from school, all the Thai people come out of their houses and yell "farang! hello! you! you! my name is?" OhmygoodnessI'maforeignerandIcanwalk!Lookatmego! There are times when I just really really really wish I didn't speak English. I wish I was French Canadian or something, just so I could pretend I didn't understand them (not all foreigners speak English) and keep on walking. I would like to point out that when I went to the Airport with my class while they did their English project of interviewing foreigners, not a single person who we interviewed spoke English as their first language!!

And, to conclude this post of ranting, I have forgot my English. It is official. While writing in Husna's friendship book yesterday I forgot how to spell "address" (or is it adress??). I also wasn't able to tell Patch the proper way to spell "anklet" off the top of my head (is it really "anklet"? because that doesn't look right to me.. Jan I need your help!!) And on the very unfortunate side, although my English is declining, my Thai isn't really getting any better.