Hello all,

It's been quite a while since my last email and I apologize, I
haven't really left Bangkok for a couple weeks and didn't feel like I
had much to write about, but here are a few things that have happened.

Two weekends ago I took a trip to Dan Sai, which is almost to the
border of Laos. There was this festival there called Phi Takhon, "the
ghost festival". An ancient festival dedicated to the rainy season
with very early Buddhist roots. People dress up in flambouyant
costumes and wear these gigantic masks made of coconut tree trucks and
baskets. I'll post some pictures soon. The trip was fun but the bus
ride was terrible and we didn't enjoy it as much because we were so
tired. A nice taste of Thai culture.
I then went to school with a friend in a small town called
Chaiyapum. It was a lot of fun, the kids up in the North East of
Thailand, (called Isaan) are incredibly innocent and not the rebelious
hellions that I have in Bangkok.

I've been learning Muay Thai kickboxing and I'm getting quite good at
it. Unfortunately a few beers will get me excited to show off my
moves and we usually beat eachother up on the weekends, all in good
fun of course.
I never realized how intense a boxer's workout regimen is, there are
students that run 10K everyday and box for two hours every night,
quite a bit of exercise.

This past weekend was my 22nd birthday and I had quite a time. I
organized a little reunion of my friends who were spread around
Thailand and we went to the Thailand vs. Iraq football match. I then
suprised them that it was also my birthday. The football match was
awesome, there are these little Thailand headbands that they sell for
like 30 cents on the street and our whole crew sported them at the
game. The Thais were suprised to see so many Farang wearing thailand
shirts and headbands.
We had quite a weekend. Friday night was spent dancing on the Khao
Sarn Road, and after the football game we went to a really awesome bar
called the Saxophone bar, which is the best bar I've found in Bangkok
thus far. The band played a hard rock rendition of happy birthday and
dedicated "knockin' on heaven's door" to me. I met the band
afterward, they were pretty cool.
We got to bed at 7am and said our goodbyes the next day. I was sad
to see them go, but such is the heartbreak of travelling.

I've been learning a bit of Thai and the students love it. It's a
really hard language to learn because it is based on tones. There are
words that when said with the wrong intonation can mean something
completely different and my students laugh at me quite a bit, but
they're helpful.

Observations of Thailand:
There are some huge similarities between Thailand and Italy that I
have come to notice. Everything in Thailand slows down by about half.
Walking through the halls of my school is ridiculous, the kids walk
at a snails pace. Gettting anywhere in this city or in Thailand in
general must be planned to take twice as long. It's just a very
relaxed culture, much like Italy.
Speaking of relaxed, there was an accident at my neighboring school
where huge glass panels fell off the side of a building, crushed a
car, knocked down trees and got caught in power lines. No one was
hurt, thank god, but the thai teachers merely swept up the glass on
the ground and left these huge pieces of glass and metal hanging in
the powerlines, being suspended above our students' heads as they
walked to class. Quite dangerous, but this is Thailand.
Also, the food over here leaves something to desire. It is quite
healthy, very simple, but there are about 7 ingredients used in every
dish and about 2 spices, sweet and spicy. It bores the pallet quite
quickly. I relate it to pizza in Italy, very simple, rather bland.

I'm also tired of being a Farang, a westerner. People bend over
backwards for me and try to rip me off on every corner. I don't need
as much help as people give me and I'm not a tourist. It's fine, I've
learned to deal with it, and use it to my advantage sometimes, but I'm
just tired of being "teacher Farang" instead of "teacher Stephen".

Well, that's about it for now. Attached is a picture of my school.

I hope everyone is doing well and that you are safe. I truly miss you
guys and can't wait til we see eachother again.