May 25, 2007

Ahh..I missed my 100th blog entry celebration. Oh well. haha. So I have something serious on my mind today. I'm really disturbed and I just want to write about it. Today in Bangkok, Dave and I saw this fat middle aged man beat this woman. Yeah. It was awful. We stood about 10 feet away. She was yelling at him and then he walked over and smacked her head with his arm. She kind of fought back but started walking away...as if she wasn't supposed to be over where she was or something. Dave and I were standing there..me with my "ummm...hi?" face on and ready to freak out. And I didn't. I didn't know what to do? No one did anything? Isn't that sooo messed up? I feel like that would never be kosher in the states. Ahh..I'm so disturbed. Why is that okay? By everyone standing around and not doing anything...that sort of BS is okay! Anyway, I started doing some research on domestic violence and found this interesting article which talks about Thailand domestic violence a little. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr62/en/index.html

It's not the first time I've seen something soo disturbing. We saw dogs getting beat one day on our way to school. I totally started crying because it was so awful. In China we saw a man and woman physically fighting one another and they looked like a couple. We also saw this father YELLING at his handicapped son in Singapore. We gave that guy some nasty looks.

Ahh..I'm so disturbed that it's 2007 and this behavior goes on. What do you even do in those situations? I know domestic violence transcends culture, country, economic status and that it probably happens just as frequently in the states as it does anywhere else in the world..it's just not talked about. So I'm talking about it. Maybe that's as start.

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/
http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1311.cfm

May 22, 2007

One month until our 1 year anniversary. haha..I'm all about dates lately. Things are going well. Just getting ready to leave. I decided to host a horn camp next week. Kind of last minute but when in rome...things are never planned early here. hehe. Anyway, I've been wanting to host a camp for a while now so I'm really excited about it. It'll be one last chance to work with all of my students again. The camp will be 3 days next week and I'm a little surprised that there is so much interest. I organized this thinking I'd have 10 students a day but I've had requests for official letters and now think I'll have upwards of 30 students per day! Totally exciting. I think this means people know me now...which is really good for future projects.

Cheddar is still recovering from getting his claws out. Poor little guy. He's hanging in there but he's lost a lot of weight (that's not a bad thing..he was fat). He can't stand his neck collar and walks sooooo funny with it on...kind of waddles back and forth. haha. We had to cover one of his paws in the past few days b/c it was still open so then he was waddling around on 3 legs. He wouldn't walk on it! haha..he's the most hilarious animal ever. We have to take him to the animal people at the airport next week so he can get a health certificate for the airline and for the U.S. that says he's healthy...I just hope he's all healed by then!

We sent off all of our donation pile today. It's going to a small village outside of Bangkok where one of my student's parents grew up. Makes me happy that we're not throwing anything away.

I'm getting sad about leaving but the more sad I get about leaving I also get more excited about living in the U.S. again. It's such a strange bittersweet feeling. Hard to describe but I felt the exact same way when I left Mexico. Weird huh. Living abroad rocks. I hope we can do it again soon. Maybe back to asia, or latin/south america would be sweet too. I miss Mexico..but not for long. We're going there for Christmas this year! How sweet is that! I can't wait..Mexico rocks.

May 14, 2007

Yay..today's my half birthday. In celebration, Dave gave me a half of a cake. It was a local chocolate cake that was surprisnly good. haha...I haven't written in a while. We were supposed to go to Vietnam last week for a big nationally telvised concert and clinics but they got cancelled! totally lame. So instead we got Cheddar declawed. Poor guy. I didn't want to do it but I can't take it anymore and we're moving back to new everything..can't stand the thought that he'll destroy everything! Anyway, we've been hanging with Cheddar while he recovers. He's super cuddley since he doesn't feel good..yay!

So since we already had our plane tickets to Vietnam we're going for the weekend on a visa run. I think we'll also get a chance to get up to northern thailand before we leave as well. I'm really excited to see what it's like up there.

Our movers came last week and they rocked our condo. Seriously...it only took them 2 hours to pack up everything! Amazing...it's a really reputable company, which we were hesitant about b/c of cost but now I'll never use anything but. It's such a good experience. Love it!

I wonder if I'll continue to write in my blog after we move back. I can't imagine life will be as interesting as it has been for the past 2 years. Well, it will be but in a much different way. Anyway...I'm super bored in Salaya without any of our belongings. Seriously, I wrote an article and practiced for 2 hours....and that was just today! I'm so excited to move back. Seriously. Sooooo excited.