Whoot!

Okay, so it's four in the morning, but ladies and gentlemen, WE HAVE A DRAFT!

It's currently 48 pages long.  It's sloppy, it still has gaps, and it took me a week longer to finish than I'd estimated (then again, it also ended up being longer and more complex than I had in mind, so basically, the fact that I did more work at that stage will hopefully mean that there's less editing and filling-in to be done now).

I now have a week and a half to substantially re-write it and fill in the gaps in the research, but I feel a bit more relaxed about that now.

I can do this.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... New Year...

The last of my presents are in the post!  And as a thank-you for my copious business, the post office gave me, with great ceremony... a free pack of post-office-branded tissues.  I do not understand my adopted country at all.

Also, my local 7/11 has a cardboard Christmas tree outside - by which I mean that it's actually cut out of a brown cardboard box, and then edged with a green tinsel garland and green ornaments to make it appear more... frondy, I guess.  There are presents underneath that are hilariously wrapped almost exactly the way I wrapped the ones I sent - in Thai newsprint with sparkly ribbons.  Vindicated!  (This is even funnier because 7/11 has actually started stocking wrapping paper this week - sorry, recipients of newsprint-wrapped goodies! - but only single, individually cellophaned sheets for small presents.  I guess it wasn't financially worth it to crack open a bunch of them just to decorate the shop.)

New Year's displays have also started appearing, although they tend to be a lot more, well, rationally-sized than Christmas displays in the West.  Usually, we're talking fireworks, balloons, garlands, a few presents (mainly toys, although the 7/11 display includes boxes of Oreos with a "To:" and "From:" space), and the ubiquitous "monk kits".  (These are buckets full of practical items, like canned food, bottled water, and matches; there's a monk's robe coiled up at the bottom.  People bring them to temples on holidays as a kind of offering.  The idea is that they make the monks' lives easier by reducing the need to go out and get everyday stuff themselves.  The first time I saw them, I thought they were just really boring gift baskets.)

Tomorrow there's an office party for those of us still kicking around, and then the office shuts until January!  Which is kind of nice; I mean, I'll still be working every day from home, but I'm realising more and more that the times when I'm naturally productive =/= office hours.  I think that occurred to me at about 2.30 this morning, as I was wrapping up a section on biodiversity conservation.

Get Your Motor Running

Well, the draft of my report is still very rough, and I keep finding more ground to cover the more I look, but I now have a good chunk of… um… words.  They may not be perfect, but they’re words, and there are lots of them!

I don’t know if I’ve explained exactly what it is I’m writing:  basically, it’s an advocacy guide to all national and international sustainable development rules affecting Burma, plus a look at whether and how those regulations are being applied on the ground.  So, it’s a big book of anything that would allow activists to go, “See, you said you were going to do this, and actually, you’re doing that.”  It’s the “on the ground” stuff that’s often the most difficult to track down – information from inside the country can be hard to get and verify.  But holy crap, I’m learning a lot along the way.  There probably could not be a better crash course to start my placement than researching this thing.

I think I’m moving out of the “ZOMG EVERYTHING IS NEW!” phase, so the character of these posts may change a bit.  Here’s a roundup of a few things from the past week:

• I’m slowly getting to know people in the office.  I still feel a bit awkward making conversation, but I’m trying, and everyone’s been very sweet about it.  (It’s difficult to explain, but there are different cultural rhythms and styles of conversation – for example, there’s a particular way Karen people tease each other.  It reminds me a little bit of trying to fit into a British office for the first time.  It’s a more dramatic change than that, of course, but on the plus side, this time I was prepared for there to be differences.)
  
  I still have lunch with the folks in the office a few times a week; it’s usually a mix of conversation in English for my benefit, and conversation in Karen while I smile and stuff my face. :)  Also, it gives me the chance to try loads of new foods, both home-cooked Karen dishes and Thai food from the local market.  The big discovery this week?  I knew that you can eat fresh jackfruit, and that you can use the flesh in a curry, but damn, no one told me that you can eat the seeds, too!  (You’ve got to boil them first, but still.)  They’re like giant, warm macadamia nuts.  I love that freaking fruit.  It is the most awesome fruit.

• My friend Pam and I were the whole of our team for the UN Irish Pub’s weekly pub quiz this time around (the teams vary in size a lot, depending on who’s free and in the mood) – and we came third out of about twenty teams!  Whoot. :)  It was the first time we’ve won a prize since I started coming along (I refuse to believe that those two events are related, despite the evidence :)), but the prize for third place is a jug of beer… and I’m not a huge beer fan, and Pam doesn’t drink (plus, we both had to drive back home).  So we ended up wandering around, pimping our beer out to the remaining teams in an apologetic sorry-we’re-smarter-than-you-please-have-some-beer kind of way.  (Pam’s theory is that you can get away with saying almost anything, provided that you add, “Have some beer!” at the end.  “You’re astonishingly ugly.  Have some beer!”  “May the hand of God descend and wipe your lineage from the face of the earth.  Have some beer!”)  It was cool, actually – we met some really nice people.  As frequently happens when you wander around giving out free booze.

• I bought some deodorant.  It is “whitening”.  I am scared.

• Full points and a free jug of UN beer go to my friend Lee, who predicted that I would end up loving my motorcycle.  Until very recently, I didn’t think that would be the case; I was competent to ride it, but it was still (and frequently still is) pretty nervewracking, and knowing I would have to do a tricky drive (like, say, in heavy traffic) the next day would make it tough to sleep the night before.  I still have occasional bad moments, but over the past few days, something’s shifted.  There have been times, driving along the superhighway – on a bright day, with the mountains rearing up just ahead of you, or late at night, when there’s very little traffic – when I’ve found myself wanting to go faster, wanting to open up Arcee’s engine a little more and see what she can do, and (at least briefly) really loving the feeling of flying along the road.  It’s faintly possible I may have started singing under my breath, “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway…” :)

• Yesterday, I went out to dinner with another of my fellow VSOs (a Canadian volunteer named Taskin, who’s awesome), and had sushi for the first time in Thailand.  It was lovely – really fresh sashimi, and salmon tempura rolls with crispy flour on the outside, which I haven’t seen elsewhere.  And afterwards, we wandered around the funky, Camden-style local student market, with its racks of funky, often gloriously nonsensical t-shirts, like, "Stupid T-Shirt Company - We Do Only Stupid Thing!"  (Some of them were perfectly legit, like the one with a picture of an AT-AT that said, “Imperial Taxi Service”.  On the other hand, there were a couple where the joke could have been intentional, or possibly the result of an awful translation, like the shirt that demanded to know, “Are you single or fixed?”)  We even found a late-night ice cream parlour that makes a brilliant range of flavours on site – brownie, chocomint, real vanilla bean (which is rare here), two-tone chocolate – and where the proprietor let us taste about half a dozen before deciding.  So I got to have brownie-batter ice cream while Taskin taught me some Thai verbs.  It was a really nice night. :)

• Last night, I saw one of the little lizards that inhabit the stairwells (not Henry; he’s my special shower lizard) dashing madly down a wall when he heard my approach.  Unfortunately, this particular wall has a recess that starts about two feet above the floor, and for some reason, instead of sticking to the wall as it curved inward, the lizard simply ran out of wall and fell to the tiles with a *smack*.
  
  I looked at the lizard.  The lizard looked at me.  If you were going to subtitle that silent exchange of looks, the conversation would probably go something like this:
  
  Me:  Hey, dude, are you okay?Lizard:  I meant to do that.
  Me:  Ohhh-kay, are you sure?  Because that –
  Lizard:  Totally meant to do that!
  Me:  It’s just that that looked like a pretty nasty –
  Lizard:  I SAID I’M FINE!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, some of us have flies to devour.  *tail flick*

This weekend’s experiment:  Baking cookies inna toaster oven!  Stay tuned.

My Life In Pictures

The old city through the gate, and Doi Suthep mountain beyond.

 PHOTO DUMP!

I've posted pictures of special things and events before, but here are some random shots of my everyday life.  (And food.  Lots of food.  By request.  Sapna. :))  Enjoy!


This is Thae Pae Gate, the eastern gate into the old city of Chiang Mai (and the gate nearest to me).  You might just about recognise it from the Loy Krathong photos - this is where the lantern garden was.

My flat.  Sorry about the mess - I took these in the first couple of days I was here.  You can see the former Kettle O' Doom on top of the fridge there.  Once it passed from providing hot water and punishing electric shocks to JUST doing the shocks, I retired it. :)

Picture display on the side of my wardrobe.  Check out the Hampstead Players' Fiddler on the Roof flyer on the lefthand side there.  Awesome design!  By the way, the long sheet is a set of Undead Alert Cards, so that you can keep people informed about your zombie-infection status.  I am currently at Threat Level Blue - In No Way One of the Living Dead.

View from outside my front door.

Shower lizard lives right outside my shower!  (Finger provided for size reference.)

 Foodie section of the post!  Above, the way I get most of my meals these days - in a plastic bag from the local market (or from the noodle stand near my house).  Top, fish with rice and cilantro.  Left, another Thai staple - panang with sticky rice.

Guilty pleasures section:  Above, market-stall fried chicken and fishcakes.  Left, chocolate eclair (15 baht - that's about 30p - from the market, but you can only get them rarely).

If you're thinking of being my baby, it don't matter if you're black and white.

*waves*

Hey, everyone!  Right now I'm happily ensconced on my bed with the contents of the care package Margaret just sent me (chocolates, jaffa cakes, and M&S Christmas tea, which is delicious), and with a three-day weekend ahead of me, because Monday is the king's birthday.  (There are GIANT PHOTOS of the king, complete with gilt and flags, all over Chiang Mai this week.)  I'll still be doing some work over the weekend, but I'm basically ahead of schedule; the outline for my report was supposed to be finalised by Monday, and not only have I handed it in, but I've got a chunk of the first chapter written.  The rest of it's still pretty daunting, but I'll get there!

So, the highlights of last week included getting my driver's licence (whoo-hoo!), and THANKSGIVING.

The driving test in Thailand... well, explains a certain amount about the drivers in Thailand.  It's a doddle - straight line, turn, up a hill, down a hill, easy slalom (although I feel incredibly smug about the fact that the slalom is one of the things my London motorcycle instructor despaired of my ever getting), and drive along a plank.  Not that I should talk; I've had the licence for almost two weeks now, and I'm still very much getting used to the bike, so I'm benefitting from the somewhat lax system, too.  And I'm still rather hypocritically proud of myself for getting this far. :)

Now, this is the design for both licence plates and driver's licences issued in Chiang Mai.  I'm showing you the plates, because the text on the licence covers most of this.  I'm sorry that the picture is still pretty blurry; it was the best I could find online.  I want you to direct your attention to the bottom right-hand corner there.

WHAT.  ARE THOSE PANDAS.  DOING.

So, yeah, I've got humping pandas on my licence. :)  Hey, it's a good thing!  They're endangered!

Since getting my licence, I've been experimenting with further distances and trickier drives.  The first real excursion on my own was just to the local Western-style bakery (bribing myself with cake was an essential part of the learning process :)).  After that, I've driven to the Night Bazaar, taken the full loop of the Superhighway to go meet friends for dinner, and, last night, driven right into the old city for pub quiz night!  I'm still a bit leery of traffic, and so far I've only gotten up to about 50 kmph before feeling like I'm going to shake apart, but... yeah, I think that, "I'll get there!" is the theme of this post.

The Night Bazaar is well worth a visit.  It's a lively, strange mix of traditional handicrafts and the kind of boho art and "Come to the Dark Side - We Have Cookies" t-shirts you'll find in Camden Lock, with loads of fruit and ice cream stands thrown in.  There are posh antique shops and galleries side-by-side with overflowing textile stalls and carts selling Buddhist trinkets, as well as a warehouse-like hall with rank upon rank of both authentic craft tables and tatty souvenir shops (you know those cat statues with the one bobbing arm?  Would you like FIVE BILLION OF THEM?).  The vendors are friendly without being pushy, although a guy selling Indian-style laquer did tell me he'd seen me walking along the river the day before with my boyfriend.  So either I have a doppleganger who's getting more than I am, or I've been sleep- ...dating.

I'd give the Night Bazaar food court a miss, though, if I were you.  It's got a bizarre atmosphere, like one of those slightly fancier outdoor New Jersey malls (usually called a "plaza" or a "colonnade") that's dotted with trees and windowboxes to give it a classier feel.  There are live performances of Thai dancing, which is cool, but the food isn't great for the price.  I was intending to get some sushi, until I saw the sushi.  I think someone defrosted a bag of mixed veg, wrapped some rice around them, squirted the whole thing with salad cream, and called it a day...

Anyway, I did manage to get a little Christmas shopping done (more is slated for tomorrow, when I hit the hilltribe market and some of the craft shops).  As for the pub quiz this week, we came fourth - quite a feat, considering it was just Pam and me for about three rounds!  After that, we were joined by a very nice Aussie couple backpacking around Europe, who helped us shoot ahead in the ranking because one of them knew the given names of all the Jonas Brothers. :)  Before they left, Pam gave them the full rundown of top places to go in Chiang Mai when you've only got a couple of days - a few of the more beautiful or unusual wats; the Night Bazaar and the nearby day market; and loads of excellent restaurants, including a cocktail van the expats call "Latifah's", because apparently, after you've had a few, the proprietor looks a little like a Thai Queen Latifah. :)  I even got to chip in with a few ideas, which made me feel all cool. ;)

And yes, I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Chiang Mai!  I was invited to a party thrown by a friend of a friend - a MASSIVE feast with about twenty people and all the Thanksgiving/Western comfort food you could ever want:  roast chicken, lasagna, mash, bread with garlic butter, stuffing, sprouts, cheese, brownies, and even wine (which is way out of my budget normally, so I appreciated being spoiled by the non-volunteer expats :)).  It was very relaxed, and it wound up being one of those evenings where a few people are lingering, smoking and drinking on the porch and earnestly dissecting scifi novels, at two in the morning.  There haven't been enough of those in my life lately.

I'm enjoying going out with and getting to know the other VSOs and their friends, but at the same time, it sometimes makes me acutely aware of the fact that my own friends - who would love this person or have so much to contribute to that conversation or get a kick out of this random cultural quirk - are so far away.

A few more things:

• Yesterday was the Thai and Burmese Christian festival of Sweet December (an increasingly big deal in this country), which celebrates the first day of the month of Jesus's birth.  Apparently, there are prayers, and then everyone gets together and eats solidly until midnight.  This is precisely my kind of celebration.

• I discovered earlier this week that I fail at rice. :)  I went to one of the local restaurants (little cookshops that are essentially a few tables in a bare storefront, with a noodle stand outside), and for the first time, ordered a dish with rice instead of a bowl of soup.  I started eating the rice the Western way - you know, with a fork.  Halfway through, the cook saw me, burst out laughing, and eventually - when she was able to control her giggles - very gently took my fork away and handed me a spoon, beaming at having enlightened the clearly mental farang.  RICE - UR DOIN' IT WRONG.

• Contractually obligated geek-post:  There's been a lot of debate, online and off, about the depiction of women in comics lately since DC comics relaunched its entire line (and, in the process, gave us some of the most facepalmingly objectifying art of superheroines ever).  A common counter-argument to protests about the objectification of women is, "But men are objectified in comics, too!  They're drawn as perfect specimens with giant muscles and powerful bodies!"  Well, if you're interested, here is the perfect rebuttal to that argument, in the form of an awesome webcomic.  If this kind of pop-culture debate is your thang and you want to learn more in general, don't miss this blog.

Photo post soon!  I'm sure you're all dying to see what my apartment looks like, right? :P