I broke into my bottle of olive oil tonight. My three ounce two dollar bottle of olive oil. I was attempting to make pasta and it was necessary. I made my pasta. An assortment of jumbled together ingredients that would not necessarily combine in the real world. Penne noodles (imported from my trip to Thailand because they are expensive here), Green Pepper (called Capsicum here), garlic, and a chopped up tomato sautéed in the olive oil. I cooked the pasta once the water had been boiling for a few minutes and had boiled all of the germs away. I drained the water down our sink which has no garbage disposal (they don’t exist here). I combined my ingredients and seasoned them with a packet of oregano pizza seasoning from our ordered in pizza the other night. Grated cheese for pasta does not exist here either. Pasta sauce does, but is very over priced. And for what it makes in price, it lacks in taste.
I came upstairs and hopped onto our secret internet connection. I began emailing and looking for pictures of a hair cut. I have caved, or rather my hair is the longest it has been since middle school, and I made myself a hair appointment. At a place called “Bounce”. We’ll see how this goes. I decided to use a visual aid since I can assume that verbal aid will be lacking. I also looked for flights to Dubai. I am really wanting to be able to go and visit a friend there in a month or two. The culture and life style here is very oppressive and can be consuming if you don’t give yourself a mental and physical break every few months. The internet connection died. I’m left with two pictures that I found-has anyone ever tried to find hair cut pictures on the internet? Its actually quite difficult.
At some point tonight as I am going to bed or even already asleep, I will be plagued by water dripping onto the tin roof outside my window from a drain a few stories above me. This drain-where ever it is-has become my arch enemy of night time. It claps down onto the tin roof and keeps me awake with its untimely rhythms. I’ve become convinced that Chinese water torture probably is horrible.

in my new profile pic i am drinking some coconut juice(?) milk(?). despite the fact that i look quite pleased, it was not that tasty. the new pic reminded me that i need to post some pics from thailand. so, here are a few:

here we are at the airport. if you can click on the pic, we are pointing to the master card ad that says, "Getting away from the hustle and bustle. Priceless." In a third world city of 8 million that statement could not be true. I think for my own health I will need to leave once more before my time here is over. It is a tough place to live.

Our first real day in Thailand we went on an elephant ride. To keep people occupied while they waited for their elephant ride, the place had a monkey. It was really sad that he was chained up, but he was so cool to interact with.

We were pals.

Here is a pic of Virginia behind us. It is a bit difficult to try and take a picture of yourself while riding an elephant. The place took pictures for you, but in typical tourist trap fashion charged an outrageous amount. Volunteer budget does not equal outrageous amount items.

this was the best that i could do as far as documentation. here are nicollette and i's feet and our guide with the elephants ears included to prove that yes, we really were riding an elephant.

okay. that is all for now, i will post more at some point.

Last weekend i had the opportunity to see Blood Diamonds. I realize this movie has probably been out for a while in the U.S., but the rest of the world tends to have a delayed uptake. Anyways, I would highly recommend that all blog readers go out and see it. The movie is well done and brings to light a problem not often addressed by the first world. Beyond that, I think that it can offer you a greater insight into what I am doing dragging myself half way around the world for ten months.

In other news we are having some people changes at the office here soon. Five of our office members are having their time here come to an end or are shifting to a different office. Please pray for that as the people that you live and work with when overseas are essentially your family.

we have found a random three foot space of wireless network at our apartment that occasionally works, hence the more frequent updating. well, there was december and now january. i had a birthday, there was also christmas, new year's, and a trip to thailand. so, here are some pictures mostly because i'm finding that lately i'm not doing well with articulating and detailing all of the events. the day to day becomes the day to day no matter where you are in the world i suppose. so, on with the pictures.

here i am happy as can be about going to the beach for my birthday.

then we went out to dinner:

next, was christmas. this was our christmas morning spread:

nothing even comparable to home, but not too bad for three girls living off of volunteer budgets in south asia.

we had all of our young people friends over for brunch. we made fruit salad, scrambled eggs, pancakes, crepes, toast, and banana bread.
we also had a mandatory rule that you had to wear your pajamas just like you would if you were at home with your family on christmas morning. it was great.

later in the afternoon we went over to one of our boss' house for dinner and a gift exchange with thirty or so other ex-pats. we did manage to get in a fight with our auto driver along the way. no, i'm not kidding, my roommate punched him in the shoulder! he was trying to do some serious swindling and just being sketchy in general. in the end it was more humorous than anything..but still quite surreal! i got to hang out with my boss' daughter, Adelaide, who is rivaling my old babysitting girl, Abbie, for being my favorite child in the world.

okay. it takes ages to load pictures here because the internet connections are so slow/bad. so i will do pictures of thailand another time. i've been told that people often are asking for updates, maybe an easier way to fill in the gap would be to get on my mass email list which i send updates out to. if you want to be added to that, just leave a comment on any of my posts with your email address, and i will add you! :)

good press.

thailand was amazing. exactly the fresh breath of air that i needed. pictures to come in time.