My week in review
Here are the highlights from my week, presented in no particular order…
1. Got the best $2.75 haircut ever – OK so it’s too short and a little wonky but hey I’ve paid a lot more for a lot worse.
2. Enjoyed the springtime weather – All twelve hours of it, to be precise. That’s about how much of a shoulder we got between being freezing cold despite three layers of wool clothing and so hot the mosquitoes stick to your sweaty skin.
3. Re-read a compilation of the four books of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy – This was one of those books that gives me a very strong urge to scratch out the name of the author on the cover and write my own in its place.
4. Read a Bill Bryson travelogue – And this was one of those books that gives me a very strong urge to rant about how bad it is to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in my general vicinity. Do not under any circumstances read anything written by this man. Please. I only say this because I love you and I want you to be happy.
5. Found myself engaging on more than one occasion in the Thai habit of picking my nose in public (often done while staring blankly at foreigners in a distressingly ostrich-like “you can’t see me if I have my finger up my nose” fashion) – Quickly realized that if I don’t get a hold on these things, I run the very real risk of being unfit for polite society on return to the States.
6. Started a new journal – This is always exciting in a fresh start way but it was double good this time because I burned my old journal. Fire is so nervewracking but it seemed the best way to completely obliterate everything that’s happened in the past six months. Remembering is for squares.
7. Lived in the olden days for 48 hours – It really must have sucked before there was electricity. When mine went out, I tried to tell myself it was romantic and hey look!, I get to use candles. Screw that. After a number of Julian-sponsored field trips (to the electric company, the landlord, etc) and the dispatching of an electrician, I am once again lord and master of turning things off and back on.
8. Re-read the two issues of US Weekly that Charlotte sent me – You know you’re desperately bored when you re-read celebrity tabloids with no small interest.
9. Rifled through Mut Mee’s travel guidebook reference library – I’ve been really mentally stuck in the Thailand-Laos-Cambodia-Vietnam rut. Then out of nowhere I realized – and I’m not sure why this didn’t occur to me before – that I can go anywhere. I have no commitments or responsibilities, no deadline, no return ticket, and no one with a vested interest in my itinerary. While this was making me feel a little bit stranded before, now it’s giving me an incredible sense of freedom.
10. Started on all the silly little things one has to do before traveling – Luckily I am an errand aficionado and also an old hand at stocking up on toiletries, buying travel insurance policies, washing this and getting rid of that. All the while thinking “oh my god I’m leaving in a week!” every fifteen minutes or so. Speaking of which – oh my god I’m leaving in a week!
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
sandra_101
In my defense, I just want you and everyone else to know that I was GIVEN those US Weekly’s. I would never pay to read them. In fact, I should be paid to the read them as they are shrinking my brain every week and someone should pay for that other than…me.
Oh you don’t have to play that game with me Charlotte. It’s time to embrace your secret love for celebrity tabloids!