fun times

ok, so this post ended up being deleted when i tried to publish it...not so fun. in any case, this post was about fun things i've done in the past few days. i wrote it after reading a bunch of dense articles on quality of life and statistics (can somebody explain cronbach's alpha to me?) ...anyway, here's a snapshot into my quality of life lately :) besides the post being deleted, i feel like it's been improving as time goes on...

fun friends:

i try to hang out once a week with my next door neighbor/landlady chi. last week we got a massage at this women's prison which was cheap (120 baht for an hr) and one of the best massages ive gotten in chiang mai! my masseuse was nice and we had a cool conversation touching subjects like learning massage, how the women who work there get paid, where we were from, etc. the program they have at this prison seems pretty cool - the women get to choose if they want to enter a vocational program and there's a salon, a massage room, and a store that sells items that the women make (embroidered pillows, tablecloths, etc). i wonder how many women pursue the professions they learn in prison after they get out.

after the massage, chi and i ran a bunch of errands (including eating noodle soup with homemade fishballs, picking up belgian chocolate, pork filled chinese buns (baozi!), and going to the bank) before picking up her daughter at international school. it was cool to see the school grounds and be surrounded with kids from five to eighteen getting out of school and kinda weird in a way - i havent thought about being back in secondary school forever. anyway, in front of the first grade classroom, two girls approached me. one said, 'who are you?' and the other said, 'i know, she's a mom. are you a mom?' and i laughed and said no, i was the friend of a mom there. this short conversation reminded me that little kids just see other people as kids vs. grown ups and also that i could be a mom at my age. even more surprising, i think i am looking forward to being a mom....i just dont think im going to be able to pick up my kid from school though :(

aside from hanging out with chi, ive met a new friend through karyn. when we met, we actually realized that we'd met at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok two years ago since we both were doing work related to IVDU's. anyway, her name is maddie, she's british, and she's been living in chiang mai for the past four years. she also has a thai bf who does work with ivdu's and who id met before in bangkok. we met for coffee and then she took me to the harm reduction center here where i'm going to try and hang out. i was kinda dressed up since i had to give a journal club talk on cryptococcosis in immunocompetent pts in the afternoon and they were nice (but kinda wary) of my presence, which was totally understandable. cool thing is that the house isnt located too far from my apt and i think i can really help out just talking about HIV/AIDS, ARV, coinfection with Hep C, etc. right now they're going through some restructuring and there's a retreat this weekend, but maddie and i are going to try and think of some ways that i can help out, so im excited to get involved with the community.

in my own condo community, i hung out with the ramen shop owners mai and his brother one night last week when it was pouring and i was too lazy to venture out for food. i was on the only customer in the shop and they gave me free beer and we talked about different things, including the effect of smoking on health, hip-hop, motorcycles, and why I didn't speak Thai perfectly. i was really surprised to find out how little mai knew about smoking (besides that it was 'bad' - he asked what effect smoking had on his lungs, if it affected anything else, etc.). when they asked me about seeing hiv patients, i talked a little about hiv and was like, safe sex is really important, y'all should wear condoms whenever you have sex. this was followed by awkward silence but im serious. girls arent supposed to talk about this stuff, but i feel like im in a unique position and they are just like, oh, she's a crazy american....oh wait, american policymakers are totally all about abstinence and not giving people any sex education. blast!

finally, i dragged poo and nui to this free concert hosted by the US embassy and consulate in Chiang Mai and CMU's Faculty of Fine Arts in celebration of HM's (his Majesty's) 60th anniversary on the throne. the concert featured the New Orleans All Star Brass Band, made up of three generations of jazz performers, and it was awesome! the venue was a little terrible though (huge convention center with horrible acoustics) and it was a lot of Thai people's first experience with jazz, so they weren't totally comfortable clapping along or dancing, which the performers really encouraged. p'nui and i danced though :) and i think they thought it was interesting. cultural exchange in action. after the concert, i hung out with ben and his friend at the drunken flower, a local pub/restaurant that is frequented by the NGO community and cool farang. i liked the atmosphere but didnt drink anything...i just have no tolerance these days and dont like riding home alone when i dont feel well. i think things'll be much better when i have a motorbike though...

fun food updates:

last night vit took me to eat my first shan meal, so im expanding my culinary horizons. the restaurant was on the second floor of this house and well decorated - it was open with bamboo poles and woven mats for the roof (the owner built everything himself), and the lamps were upside down containers used to hold sticky rice at the market. ill have to take a pic next time i go there. anyway, it was really cool because the house was surrounded by trees and vines and it was just like hanging out in a house. the food was great, and vit told me before we got there that there wasn't a set menu - you just show up, the owner tells you, 'i recommend these two or three dishes today,' and then he tells you what they are and you agree. last night we had stir fried tofu with green beans and peppers, this soup with onions and dried fruit (a little sour, only eaten in southern china/northern burma), and pork with peppers and this yummy sauce. i also tried shan tea (a little bitter, and black) and learned some shan words with vit and the owner. it was very chill, and we even got a sneak preview of the gallery they're opening on the first floor with burmese paintings done by a shan artist who i think also lives in the house.

work is going well too...but that's not the subject of the post. :) more pics to come soon!