bunbury, buddies, boots and office blues

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It's blogging season again. And scarf season -- dropping temperatures have always been a pleasure for traveling geese such as myself -- which makes for chilling morning travel on the bike, but more time for outside time in the afternoons, hence less time for blog time. But, I figure it's about time and so ... news upates for you.

I have a new roommate. Her name is Bunbury and she's a black moor goldfish and she's ruthless and I love her. She killed her tankmate, Darby. But, well, he was a bit of a glutton and a philodox and perhaps he simply had it coming. She's one of those quite lovely for ugly things ... she's fat with buggy eyes and a pug nose ... not particularly photogenic ... but then she has the kind of beauty that moves. And anyway I think she likes me. As far as fish do. We have this routine. Her nickname is Snack, 'cause Bunbury is too hard to coo, so I say "snack want a snack? yes she does, 'cause she's a little black snack" and I say it all fast like and then she swims around. And then I feed her. I miss my dog.

I have a scrabble-mate, too. He's old and wise and Welsh and talks too much. He's one of those Sean Connery in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, world-travelling, shrunken skull-collecting, khaki short and panama hat wearing types. And I can still blow him out of the water and I looooove it. And he'll still play with me anyway 'cause he doesn't mind getting beat 'cause he knows he has a bigger vocabulary anyway 'cause he's old and he fought in vietnam.

There was a swoon-worthy new dinnermate as well, but being the traveling love-minstrel he was, he's off again -- with a trail of girls with their feet in the air and eyes fluttering, I'm sure. It was a lovely little affair. Oh, annnnd I bought a motorbike. And a pink leather helmet with a white racing stripe to match. And I went up to Pai and spent Christmas with this local guy Chang who sewed me knee-high, strap-up green leather moccassins while we did what hippies do. And then I had pizza with an Italian and we drove around on my bike and he wore a leather jacket and I my leather boots and we growled our way through crouching mountain villages. It was a good christmas.

I have so many pictures and stories of sumo wrestling competitions and thumb-puppets and art projects and such ... but pictures are so tough to upload on my sickly old pc -- she walks with a cane and wheezes and runs a fever and faints approx. every 15 minutes. It makes correspondence complicated, too. But so does a draining job and obsessions with crosswords and cruising bunched little lanes and slurping curries and training my fish to swim. It's a life, anyway.

I may be coming home soon. Maybe March. Maybe not.

I'm still loving my job and in the classroom, it's all the more intriguing and satisfying every day, quite literally -- creating science labs for eight year olds is a blast and it's really cool to see how much my students have learned in the last year ... kids speaking English that only mimed their way through an hour class last May. Ya know, all that rewarding spew. It's true. But wow, office politics just downright blow. The male ego is crushing and while I am all for watching grown men squirm taking orders from little old me, the effects are startlingly petty. It's making me really consider this promotion ... managing them now is a pain, if I get any higher, their big ol' heads might explode from screaming with angst. And as entertaining that may be, it sounds awfully messy.

Well, that's that -- I'm going to make one last grand effort to upload something before the old bird blows her wind again.

Sorry it's been so long.

There, I'll say it. I miss you people, okay.

Happy?

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Photos

New Years Krathongs
lighting our good luck lantern

New Years Eve
Thapae Gate Lanterns

lil' buggers
christmas party

Mural
for Bunbury

Pai
my humble huts

The Hunt
one of Darby's last moments ... pretty little belly on Bunbury, though, eh?