Friday, August 26, 2011

Thai Thai ICB Outreach Outing

Last Saturday a group from my church headed to one of the slums in Lat Phrao to spend an afternoon with neighborhood children from the Thai Thai Church there. It was a sort of "late Mother's Day" event, as we couldn't do it Mother's Day weekend because most people were busy or out of town. As the kids were arriving, Ajarn Ruth's son played guitar while the children sang songs.


We(the leaders) were each assigned an animal, and the children all got laminated cards with the various animals on them, and had to find their leader by making the same animal sound. I was the cat team. After finding our group, we lined up for a relay race, where the children had to walk about 20 feet to the bucket of colored water, scoop out a spoonful, then carry it back to our team cup.

The first team to fill their cup won.



We won! :D


Third, we spent about 15 minutes teaching the children Jesus Loves Me..in Thai! We had a printout of the English pronunciation of the Thai words, and we worked with them as best we could...before having to perform for the rest of the groups. My team did well; I was proud of them.




We finished with the mothers seated along one side as we gave the children gift bags to present to them.




After we were done, dinner was served!


Mission accomplished :)

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Thai Prisoners Choir Concert


Last Tuesday night a group from our church had the privilege of attending the Thai Prisoners Choir concert at the Thailand Cultural Center in Bangkok. It poured rain, and took me nearly three hours to get there from my apt, but it was well worth it. Have a look:
(I know there're several videos, but I promise they're all worth watching.)












Her Royal Highness Princess Something was in attendence as well, so there were tons of Royal security people around.


And I got a picture with the bagpipes player! I was so excited; lol I was like a 13 year old girl at a Backstreet Boys concert...10 years ago.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Say Hello to my Little Friend

After finally booking my Europe flights for October on Monday with a travel agent, I had some cash "left over," and decided the time had come to FINALLY replace my iPod. As you may or may not remember, I tragically left my first one in the taxi to my apt coming back from my trip to Paris in December. I've suffered, cried, whimpered, complained, and made excuses for the last eight months, but in the back of my mind promised myself I wouldn't board the plane in October without one.

I went to the iStudio store on Monday, in the pouring rain, right after booking my flights. I stared at the new models, hating their ugly shape, touch screen, and lack of circular volume scroller. Be that as it may, though, the model I had before had been discontinued, and I figured it would be better to have a new one(that I secretly resented for its inferiority to my "first") than to buy one online that was the same as my old one, but tainted by someone else's likely terrible taste in music and neglect. The friendly sales associate who was helping me showed me some of the features and the prices for the different sizes. I knew what size I wanted, but I still had to choose a color. My first one had been a beautiful vibrant metallic green, and I would've loved to have the same color again, but apparently Apple thought that it would be a good idea to make the new ones in pastel metallic shades. They thought wrong. Nevertheless, I had to choose one. Black(which looked more like gray, or dirty silver), green, orange, and pink were obviously out, so I was left with a choice between silver, baby blue, and red. The sales associate told me they didn't have any of the size I wanted in stock that day(in any color), but that there would be more in in three days(Thursday). She suggested I come back in, see the colors in person, and make my choice then. So I thanked her and left, trudging home, in the rain, sans iPod. :/

Today(Thurs) I returned to iStudio, cash in hand(bag), and, after taking another short gander at the products again, I caught an available salesman.
Me:"Sawadee ka, ao nueng sip-hok iPod nano see daeng, ka.(Hello, I want a red 16GB iPod Nano, please.)"
Him:"Oh, vely solly, can only buy red iPod online."
Me: *Frown*

Super. I'd spent all week(well, all three days), and gotten countless opinions from friends and coworkers about my color dilemma. And now I had to choose again. So I went back to the display table, picked up a blue and the silver, and turned them over and over in my hands for the next 20 minutes, trying to make up my mind. The silver one is very sleek, and would match anything, but wouldn't it look too boring? The blue one would be more unique, but it's not a very strong shade, and it wouldn't match some of my outfits, whereas the silver one would. But what if/when it gets scratched? The silver would show the scratches; the blue would hide them better. But who's going to be looking? Me, that's who. But what if I get home and hate the color and wish I'd gotten the other one, and then I'll be stuck with it!(My thoughts at this point took a 5 minute detour back to my Social Psychology course with Dr. Emilee Mitchell, and our discussions about 'buyer's remorse', and how we're usually happier with our purchases if we don't have any choice in our selection.) College..I miss college. When life was easier..when I didn't have to pay for my own crap, and my barista friends would treat me to complimentary coffee on certain days, and I had a kitchen, and I could take road trips in my car on the weekends. My car. Oh, how I miss my car! My beautiful red..maroon..little car. Though it looked kinda purple-ish next to the Grans' new car..purple..red..colors! This brought me back to earth, and back to the decision in front of me. I looked down and noticed that my hand was holding more tightly onto the blue one, so I took it as a sign from my inner subconscious that this was the color for me.
I walked up to the salesman and asked again, this time for a blue one. They searched the computer.

SOLD OUT.

Okay fine. Silver?

SOLD OUT.

At that point it dawned on me that I was clearly asking the wrong question, so I asked the girl behind the counter, "What colors DO you have?" The girl next to her pulls out a box with two colors in it - green and pink.

WELL. Green it was. I forked over the 6,600B($222), and thanked them as I left, purchase in hand at last.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Genevieve, a lime green 16GB iPod Nano(with built-in clip), and the newest addition to my 'stuff'.


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Happy Anniversary, Grandpa and Grandma!

My wonderful and supportive grandparents, Ted and Doris Towle, are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary today! Congratulations! I love you both so much!!

Last year before I left, at Grandpa's 90th birthday party.


This year in May, when I was home to visit. (plus my Auntie Robin)

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Mother's Day Fun


Friday was the Queen's birthday, which makes it Mother's Day in Thailand, so of course that meant holiday! I met up with a few friends at Becky's apt, and we enjoyed good food, watched Alice in Wonderland, and played frisbee in the pool downstairs before it POURED rain.








Ten minutes later:

Waiting for the rain..

Hit me with your best shot!


Tuesday's soccer game was quite the memorable one. I had a load of laundry to do before the game(which included my shorts for soccer), which finished right about the time we were meeting to walk over to the sports complex, so when I headed out, I figured I'd missed them, and started to walk over. About a third of the way there it started pouring rain. I hid out under a tree for a minute or two, but decided I couldn't stay there forever, so I made a run for it. Completely drenched, I finally sloshed up to the arena, where Tim, Dave and Buzz were waiting. But where was the group from Champs that I thought I'd missed? THEY TOOK A TAXI! Thanks for telling me, jerks. The rain continued to come down while we played, and as goalkeeper, I got the brunt of it. The arena is covered, but not walled in, and the goal I was protecting was on the end where the wind was blowing, and I stood there getting pissed on while everyone else ran around under cover. I wasn't doing too well, and halftime came around, and my team decided to trade me to the other side. Thanks again, jerks. So not only did this mean that my teammates had lost all faith in me, but I didn't get to switch sides of the field, and was stuck back in the same goal. However, it seems fate was on my side that evening, because when we started up again, I was doing great! Blocking shots left and right, I made my first team sorry they gave me away. I even took one to the face! Okay, not straight on(or I'd have pictures of my broken nose and black eye), but the left side. It knocked me to the ground, and everyone ran over; Liam came up and gave me a hug, apologizing for kicking it, but the first words out of my mouth were, "Did it go in?!" It didn't! Bahaha! The redness faded after about ten minutes, and no bruises to report, though it did rip my earring clean out(luckily it was a little plastic 2baht earring, so I won't miss it, and I didn't even notice til after we got home). Having only let 2 or 3 balls in that half, I finished well. When the game was over, the majority of us headed back to Champs(those of us who live here) to grab some drinks and grub at the Mexican restaurant. Since I was still soaked from my run and playing in the wet goal, I walked back with Liam while everyone else took a cab.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011