End of March 2006

Nothing much.

I just came to summarize what life has been treating me for this month...

- Spent an incredible trip for 2 weeks in Bali with Alex (who came with a laptop...Boooring! :-( )
- Have been tutoring boys & girls (my 15 beautifully pain-in-the-arse students) 7 days a week...so far it's been 3 weeks
- Went back to minggle with people at my former working place a bit for the making-merits ceremony & my marketing boss' farewell party (now she's back to the same business again, cosmetic firm, yet bigger...something spelled & pronounced like French :-)
- Went to Sanamluang (Royal field, near the Grand Palace) to pray with N'Kik (my sister from the Camp Discovery @ Horseshoe Point)
- Met up with my long-lost friend Klui at the fitness and a super looooong updates, now he's very determined with his poem work & earn a living as an insurance sales
- Dinner with AIESEC old team (Oh!, Fon, Nuan), P' Weaw and Christian. Juicy gossips & AI's secret mission....we know what're you doing..
- Met up with P'Chote who just got back from Japan for a little break...thoughtful conversations as ever about human' brains and dominatation..hummm
- Tried to get $ from the government...see? I'm jobless!
- Went to a friend, Peung,'s new magazine launch at Siam Paragon...Bravo to SHAPE (Thailand)!
- Worked out with the Switzerland Embassy for my visa...a little trip to see my boyfriend before I start working this May

Finally,...

Got a cheque from tutoring...now I can start breathing again.... :-)

Paradoxity Street

Have you ever been in Silom?

The place which is full of paradoxity:-

- The most expensive coffee from Starbuck's and the cheapest one (10 baht) from the street vendor
- luxurious and hip restaurants and cafes full of farangs and rich Thai and the stalls by the street of Kao Ka Moo, chicken noodles, Ka nom cheen, etc
- sanity and insanity (like this girl, I met her everyday talking about politics)
- undesirable goods to purchase (keychains, dolls and whatsoever on the floor sold by a pitiful old lady) and SUPER desirable food to shop for --Rotiboy for example..it's a phenomenon

etc..

Need to go teach now!

Living in the Free-of-Charge services (while being jobless)

I just realized I registered to several clubs while I had a job. As for now, being jobless, I find some possible ways to cut down my costs...(but really?)

transportation (back-forth) -- Mama (she goes to the city area everyday anyway)
shower -- fitness first (free shampoo, conditioner, soap, TV, music, etc)
free internet & a place to read -- library at alliance francaise
free photocopy -- my tutoring school
free snacks + drink -- fitness first & school
free magazines & entertaining VCD/ DVD -- fitness first & alliance francaise

Odd farangs in Silom

I'm here in one of the ugliest roads in Bangkok, Silom Road.

Farangs (foreigners) here seem to have an excellent ability of speaking Thai. Also, they have very local tastes.

At the Kanom Chin shop on the street:
Farang: Aow Kanum Chin 2 tung. (I'd like to have 2 packs of Kanom Chin) Sai teen kai duay na krub. (Please put chicken feet, too.)

At noodle place:
Farang: Mee Kafae Boran mai krub? (Do you have traditional Thai coffee?)

Reality Hits

After the fun trip in the blissful Bali for 2 weeks and I’m back to reality.

Construction of our new kitchen.
Jobless.
And completely lost.

We hired a man who works for building house in our area. It seems that he doesn’t have so much fund, so he always came by to advance the money from us. It does bother me and my mom. Moreover, we gotta go select the tiles and other utensils by ourselves. And it seems to me that this guy has no idea about taste and can’t really give us advice. Anyhow, luckily this place called Home Pro where you can select thousands of things about house and most importantly there’s free consultant available. We eventually succeeded in choosing tiles and see the fabulous look of our kitchen after the 8-hour straight of consultancy. We drove the guy crazy. (Hi 5 to mom!) Anyway, it is a bit exhausting for me to do everything for her when she went to work. There’s no proper transition of her inputs. From times to times, I have no idea what the construction workers talking about and I don’t know what my mom wants or have talked to them when I was in Bali. I was completely clueless. And she never picks up her cell phone.

Having no job makes me feel completely useless. I have longer time in the day and frustrated every moment. No friends to see (they’re all working). Difficult to get out of the house (no car for. FYI, I can’t drive.). I know I will be working this May. But when there’s no contract signed, then it’s so difficult to predict the future. Even my fortune teller can’t tell! Fortunately, I am like Pascal in Reflet (The French book I’m studying.), je donne des cours de grammaire a les eleves. There are more than enough students to teach. I can’t believe that there’re lots of Thai students who will be going through IGCSE ESL (English as Second Language) exams this May. God bless them. And yea, I will survive in the next 2 months.

That’s the update for now.