Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:32:02 GMT

Okay, posting from an internet cafe. News of late:

I lost my debit card, put a hold on it, and called home finally. The first three weeks of our 4 week "foundations" course are over, and I know a workabble amount of Thai at this point (I can almost right legibly, I just need to memorize the several variations of letters that sound somewhat like "d" "s" "g" and and "kh."

I finally know what my first expedition course will be, and who is coming along for the ride. The program here has 18 students (including 3 environmental studies majors from University of Denver), so we're splitting into two groups of 9 for our tromps out to the villages near the Burmese border. My first class, on Agroecology (translation: agriculture that works within the finite limits of a given ecology) will take me to a town called Fang, far north in Thailand, and then to a town further south called Mae Ta. The group is as follows (for those of you from K who may know some of them):

Keegan O'Connor
Erin Agee
Mike Glista
Morgan Hague
Hilary Lake
Gavin Mooney
TiIffany Tononi
Veronica (sorry Veronica, I don't jknow your last name)
and Tracy Vlnicka (UoD student, who is mighty awesome)

For this I need to find a fleece in a city where nobody weatrs them because it's always too hot. Off to the mall I shall go.

And now an amusing story:

I've heard people say they don't eat anything "with eyes." NOt only have I had food with eyes, but I've seen many an eye while eating (most notably with the fried shrimp, a veritable mass of shrimp fried into patties with eyes and tendrils sticking out everywhere). Last night I had pig brain, seasoned with lemongrass, ginger, garlic and salt, which was delicious. Also on the list of foods I didn't expect to eat while in Thailand: blood cubes (I knew about them, but didn't realize I had eaten one until I had decided they aren't so bad after all), bee eggs, seafood pizza, and a corn/butter/lots of sugar fast-food-type dessert.

And now this is getting excessively long, so I'll stop.

Sun, 22 Aug 2004 13:12:41 GMT

I am leaving for an extremely roundabout trip to Thailand, in 55 hours. I still have a few things to purchase, pack up my room, pack my life for the next 6 months, move everything into storage and print/copy a few important documents. I'm not getting increasingly excited or anxious, like I expected. It's reached a peak, and I'm kind of hovering there. The dominating feeling right now is a sense of obliviousness to the magnitude of this whole thing. I will not see the people I most value for half a year, I can see myself growing in ways that I can't possibly predict--and I expect my friends will do the same. I haven't quite grasped how different these relationships will be when we all return from our respective countries. I'm going to go do something productive now, but check in for updates.

Keegan's Study Abroad Journal