i have, in my head, a lot of mental notes that i want to remember and share with everyone, but i always forget. something about my uncle doing something very funny. or maybe something i saw on sky train? something about how horrible the flooding situation is in thailand? ah, i think i thought about my mom doing something funny, or something she would do on sky train and it made me smile very big and miss her terribly. and flooding is expected in bangkok this weekend. water washing down from the north.

killed a roach today. medium size. one less roach in this building!

the more i read thai, the better i feel about walking around this town. i also got exposed to some amazing old thai music. i think it's beautiful and the stories are so poetic, tragic, and romantic. such as one song, น้ำตาแสงไต้, tears of light, an inauspiscious love story about a soldier who rows a royal boat into land, breaking the the boat. such consequences result in death, but the king excuses him and the man returns to say that he must die for his wrong doing. it is the law and if the king lets him go, others will do wrong thinking they do not deserve to be punished. the king kills him and the wife, who honors this decision, but cannot help having a broken heart. it's about the splendor and sadness of her tears, which sheds like a candle burning in the night.

i think i would love thai poetry. if only i knew more vocabulary... i think my situation with my confidence in my command of thai is very similar to what i experienced with my english in middle school, and then later, art, in college. i didn't have enough of a vocabulary to talk about what i was thinking or what i was feeling. it's so frustrating knowing that something very deep in you cannot be reached and shared with other people. no one in my family sees the point for me to learn thai beyond simple conversation. they're incredibly discouraging about it, how it's a waste of money, but the purpose behind my interest in learning thai is beyond a quantitative result.

it's fascinating how as an individual you will consider how much you've changed or grown, but in the eyes of your family, they consider you exactly the same, as if you are just how are you.



ah i remember what it is i wanted to say: i washed my clothes by hand the other day, but i must have done something wrong because each piece smells like a different kind of curry.