Day 144- worlds apart

Highlight: In the last few days I have been getting a lot of things accomplished and checked off my list. Well that mixed in with relaxing, napping and TV watching. I was reminded today of the difference in labor cost and cost in general between here in America when I went over the price of what things cost today.

$3 –hair wash, hair cut, and stilling.

$30- Dentist check up and cleaning

$8- dinner for 5 people

Disclaimer: That is not how it always is and as the dollar is getting weaker and the baht is getting stronger prices continue to change but there is still a big difference if you do things locally.

The two worlds I have lived in are so completely different from one another it makes me pause ever time I think about it. I am also very interested to see what role South Africa will play in my world view and into these two worlds I already know so well.

Lowlight: Seeing the dentist has to be a lowlight because it is always so painful even the cleaning process. I don’t understand at all.

For dinner my family went to eat at a local Thai restaurant. Will we were there my dad saw a sign that read in Thai “hiring female employees”. We discussed whether they were asking for a female out of personal preference or because a female could fulfill some pacific gender role at that restaurant. We also talked about how in America it would not fly to request a pacific gender with out a reasonable reason why. When my dad began to ask the man about his sign and why they were wanting just a female. The man said with a laugh “oh we are not hiring anymore, we got an old woman, a old one”. He did not suspect at all that we were about the question his gender pacific sign instead he response with bashing the woman’s age. She was not what quite what he was wanting but she would have to do was the vibe I got.

When I was sitting in the dentist office I started flipping threw the Thai magazines and again noticed something that I had always slightly been aware of growing up. That was that half the pictures in the Asian magazine were of a white person and the other half was of very light skinned Asians.

            Thailand, as much of the world, has a long way to come…

Day 147-Ice skating in Thailand

Highlight: we had a family outing today and we went ice skating. I was not to thrilled with the idea at first but it turned out to be quite fun. We played a little game of tag on the ice and my brother Jon was probably the over all cheapen. I don’t know if the other ice skaters on the ice that day would have said our game was as much fun as we did but no one said anything (one of the benefits of living in a passive aggressive country J) so we played on. We also went and see Narnia. I had forgotten how nice the movie theaters are in Thailand but my chair was mighty comfy J. One of the bigger differences between thai movie theaters and American is right before the movie starts everyone has to stand and pay there respects to the king. I have posted the same video as the one that is shown in the theaters so that you can see what you are missing out on. I would suggest you stand will watching it so that you get to full effect and then maybe pop in a movie.

Lowlight: I would say it has been good day there is not to much to talk about here except for the fact that it is slightly depressing that I have only 7 followers on this thing and one of those 7 is even me. I know there are people coming to this sight and reading form my page partly because I have heard from you and partly because I can see that I have had 140 views to my page. I am hopping that I don’t have 6 really creepy stockerish type people who keep refreshing there page to see if I posted anything but instead there are more then 6 of you out there. if this is so I will highly encourage you to be a follower so that it can A. no longer be a lowlight of mine. B. because relationships go two way and all though this is just a blog it would enhance our relationship if you were my follower J.  C. It is what all the cool people do (all 6 of them). no it is really easy to become a follower and it is of no cost to you. on the right hand of this page you will see a place that says follower below that it shows all the followers I have. All you have to do is click on the big button that says follower. Now if you don’t have a Google, Yahoo or twitter account this might get kind of tricky. But all you have to do is log in (or make one, you know you have always wanted to) and then you will be a follower. If it does not work ask a friend. 

Day 149- Christmas day

Highlight: Christmas is full of Highlights it is hard to just pick one. This year our churches Thai Christmas calibration landed on Christmas day. Every year the thai church has there Christmas celebration and lets just say it would have not always landed in the highlight section of my day. This years calibration seemed different from other years. Wither that was because I had change, I was farther removed from it all, or it in and of it self had change I don’t know. I think it was a combination of the three. It was enjoyable. The service started 30min lat and ended 2 and a half hour late. That part had not changedJ.

Lowlight: My low light this Christmas was when I stuck one of our china mugs in the microwaves to heat my water up. When I went in to take it out I burnt my fingers and almost broke the mug. After this happened it donned on me, growing up I was always told never to stick those mugs in the microwaves. This must have been why.

Day 150- Christmas Eve

Highlight: It was a good day of family bonding. In stead of trying to summarize one thing to write about I will let these videos do the work for me.

Lowlight: In order to avoid the notorious Bangkok Trafic my family decided to park our car at one end of the sky train and take it into the center of town. We were headed to one of  Thailands hug mails, Siam Paragon the mail of America does not even come close. we were headed there to eat and then back on the sky train to go to a chrismas eve servis at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok. after that we were back on the sky train to head to our car. I am sorry to say but one of the biggest lessons i learned this Christmas eve had little to do with baby Jesus but more to do with my feet. I learned to never put beauty over comfort. the cute shoes I choice to ware gave me 4 painful blisters. Never ever again will i ware cute shoes again. 

Day 151- Down town

Highlight: In the evening I got to go out with some of my girl friends for a little meal and night on the town. It was fun to have a laddies night and chat it up with old friends. we went to Coyotes and I had the best chicken nacho and cheese I have ever had in my life. It was a fun night!

Lowlight: Before i went out with friends. My family chose to go family Christmas shopping. in my opinion shopping in and of its self is not all its cracked up to be but family Christmas shopping, who ever came up with such a concept. we set out at 11 and was shopping till 4. In the words of my youngest brother "it was a lot of waiting". And in the words of my father, "that's what advent is all about, come thou LONG expected....". Thats what you get for going family Christmas shopping with a 10 year old and a paster. 

Day 152- Christmas cookies

Highlight: I got to decorate Christmas cookies/ my brothers face. We had the servant partner team (the team my dad works with) over to bake all kinds of goodies. the night ended with the traditional decorating of cookies and when that got boring i started decorating Lukas's face. it was a fun day of Christmas celebrations

Lowlight: My eyes have been stinging and dry all day because I did not bring contact solution into the country. I was also to lassy to go to the store and buy new stuff or even say something to my parents about it who i knew would help me do something about it. hopefully i can figure something out because stinging eyes i have found are not the most ideal.

Day 153- pages in my passport

Highlights: I got to go to the U.S. embisy and get pages in my passport today. Now i wont have to worry about being arrested in South Africa. We also got to meet and talk to some very interesting people while we waited. the was one man there who was very very friendly and tried really hard to make small talk with me my mom, end everyone ells waiting in line. we also talked with a husband and wife who were trying to get there papers finalized. They to had a big story as well that they were egger to share with everyone in the waiting room. I experienced the eagerness of the mouth and the vulnerableness of the ears. a waiting room can be a very vulnerable place.

Lowlights: I had to go to the U.S. embisy and get pages in my passport today. it took up much time, was hot, and full of talking people. :)

The good things and bad things in a day are relative. it is all in how you decided to proceve it and live in it. It was a good day :)

Day 157 - On The Plane

Highlights: on my flight out of MN I got to sit nixed to a little 2 year old boy and his father. he was the highlight of my trip. we read books and he even sat on my lap wile we looked out the window. his name was leef and he was very well behaved. i truly enjoyed sitting with him and talking to his father who was a stay at home dad but graduated from law school and who's wife was a Doctor and was flying out when she was off work.

Lowlights: after about 45min into my trip we they came on and told me that the windshield wiper broke off and we had to turn back. It seemed like bad news at first and was defiantly a lot more flying then i wanted. although when we landed they did give us a meal vulture and $25 off our nixed flyed. on top of that i had such a long layover in Tokyo that i did not even miss my flit. Leef was a little distributed by the anounsment and keept saying, "plain broken, broken, fix it, tap fix it: he wanted to fix it with tap like he does his books. It was a little bit of a set back but all in all not that big of a deal