eek! i havent updated for a week!

im not sure what happened, but it appears i havent updated in a week. instead of boring you all with minute details of the last seven days of my life, i'll attempt to provide a quick synopsis.

i spent the past three days (i took a long weekend - sat, sun, mon) in bangkok. about 90% of the time was spent at bangkok hospital, where my uncle is recovering from a 3vCABG (translation for non-medical peeps: triple bypass). the hospital is a private one and crazy nice...on the ground floor there's an S&P (bakery/cafe), Au Bon Pain, 7 Eleven, and more. my uncle called it a 'hospitel' (combining hotel and hospital)...i found it to be like a spa. Anyway, if you're in a private room, you need to have someone stay with you overnight, and so this weekend that person was me. Most of the time there were other people around, and i got to hang out with four cousins i didn't really know well before since most of them had only recently moved up to bangkok for work. their nicknames are cha'ay (peekaboo), nit noi (a little bit), nong (younger one), and oam (i dont think there's a translation for this). they're all around my age, which is cool. maybe i'll get to see them more when i go down to bangkok, but i think it was awkward for them to interact with me because they assumed i couldnt really speak thai (even though i can, grrr). oh well.

other highlights of the weekend included catching up with old bkk (bangkok) friends, including nan (a bridesmaid in my wedding and a cardiovascular icu nurse at the largest public hospital in thailand), krit (gay dude who is a super great friend and took me to the airport yesterday), noi (red earth makeup artist at siam square - she did my makeup and hooked me up with free makeup applications in chiang mai) and amalee (fellow fulbrighter who has lived in bkk for the past five years and works on development/child trafficking issues). i miss bangkok!

pre-weekend highlights.

friday: my neighbor and landlady chi (chinese-american mom) invited me to hang out with her on friday morning, so we went to run errands while she showed me around town. we got our nails done at this local place, and i got a nice french manicure and pedicure done for 350 baht (almost $9). she also took me out to lunch at this local vegetarian restaurant (all you can eat for 65 baht - $1.50) and introduced me to this homemade ice cream place (yay custard apple ice cream). we talked about asian american stuff, living abroad, and other interesting things. good times, fun stuff!!

friday night: dinner with ben and some admin ppl at the research institute where i 'work'. this one girl would not stop talking about going out with her friends and getting drunk. needless to say, i lost interest after awhile. her friends were even like...'smile and nod'. at least she gave me a ride home though.

thursday: i went to opd (outpatient) clinic with poo from 9 AM-1 PM. there were about 110 patients for 2-3 docs to see in the morning. saw lots of hiv cases, some sad cases of patients who decided to change their own meds and ended up developing resistance, one of a cachexic hill tribe woman who didnt understand any thai and didnt have an interpreter, a guy who looked fine but had a CD4 count of 4. got a new phone from the research institute and am just figuring out how to use it (still) but it's loads better than my old piece of crap. thursday night, i got this massive headache and felt sick, so could not really enjoy eating at this restaurant next to a waterfall that poo and nui took ben and i to. after taking some ibuprofen i got better though, and poo, nui, and i went to the night market (really small scale jj, open stalls, cheap clothes that i cant fit into because im too big).


wednesday: kickass 2 hr thai massage, 240 baht ($6). other stuff as well, but not as exciting.

today:
i have grand plans to get a bunch of stuff accomplished - going to journal club in the afternoon and will try to read more papers and get a proposal together to look at quality of life among the HIV+ cohort here. also plan to check out the gym across the street - im getting tired of being sedentary and also im really sick of people telling me im really fat (thai people are super bad about this. two examples from the weekend: one woman, who's my aunt's friend, was like, 'you're tanya? i thought you looked familiar; i met you a few years ago, but you've gained so much weight now. wow, you're really fat! how many kilos have you gained?" Example number 2: my uncle (who i went to hang out with at the hospital) saying, 'hey, if you gained a few more pounds, you could enter the miss chang (elephant) contest (for super huge women in thailand).' uh..thanks.

more updates to come :)