So, as you all should now, I've been on break for a week now.

And I've done next to nothing.

But I'm quite okay with that. It's been nice to have some down time to work things over, relax, read, on and on.

But here's what I've done:

I spent nearly every day last week bumming around, trying to stretch "going to get something to eat" into something significant enough to make me feel like I didn't waste a day. All in all, I'd say I did a pretty good job. Sorry, but there's really not a whole lot else to say on that front.

I did see some movies, though. First, the good ones (which we rented): Batman (original, by Tim Burton) and Lost in Translation. I don't really need to talk about Batman do I? I liked it a lot, enough said. Moving on::::::: Lost in Translation was amazing. It was my second time seeing it, though the first time was a few years ago, and, well, in the States. Seeing it in Asia was completely different, and so much more meaningful. The movie expressed so well what it's like being in an Asian country -- how weird, alienating, confusing, and irritating it can be, and usually is. Not to mention the fact that the movie was just beautiful. It really inspired me to try to use the rest of my time on this break working on some sort of creative project, focusing on what it's like for me here and try to express some element (or all) of my relationship with this place. Well, I saw that movie last Wednesday, I think it was, and Thursday I went out and bought a notebook, because you need a new notebook for things such as this, and went to the hip hip cafe next door and set to writing. I wrote for an hour or so, the first time I had done any sort of creative writing in a while. And then, as I was walking home and then on into my night, I was just overcome with disgust for what I had written. It was garbage, sheer garbage, and I wanted nothing to do with it. A start like that has made it nearly impossible to return to the project, though I did spend a little time today taking pictures and writing. But I'll keep it at that.

Yikes.

So back to those movies, the bad ones: Deja Vu and The Holiday. Unfortunately, these were the ones we payed the big bucks to go see in the theaters. The fact that they were in the theaters also brought the plus/minus of popcorn: delicious, but ensuring the fact that I indeed would not luck out and die of starvation in the middle of one of these painful, atrocious movies. Deja Vu clearly was the unfortunate result of Jerry Bruckheimer reading, a little to quickly, a Wikipedia article on theoretical astrophysics. The Holiday was just plain unwatchable. Suffocatingly stupid. Ghha. I can't even bear to think about it. But it did provide some very very very (unintentionally) hilarious moments. Still though, hardly worth it.

And then there was the time that I went to my host family's house and made spaghetti with pesto and baguette and mozzarella and tomato for dinner. Of course they didn't like it. But that's just the kind of subtle revenge I was looking for, payback for eating the horrible food that made me think I hated Thai food for the first five weeks I was here (when now I realize that I really like it, when it's good). This ties in with a major point, here, if you'll bear with me. I might have talked about how we've learned in Thai culture classes how a major element of Thai culture is being kreng jai -- we don't have a word for it, but it's basically the act of saving face. So, if someone asks your opinion, and you don't want to hurt their feelings, you lie, and everyone benefits... some how. We basically do the same thing in the States, except I've found we do it in completely opposite ways: we just lie about different things, and are painfully blunt about others. We're not really taught this at ISDSI though, rather, they just stress how Thais are kreng jai kreng jai kreng jai kreng jai. One of the limits I've found is gifts. If you give someone a gift, or in this case make them dinner, and they don't like it, they will make little to no effort to pretend they do. Even if they get to the point of lying to say they like it, it's still so obvious that they don't. The same goes for conversation. And maybe it's just because I'm not very good at Thai, but it seems that whenever I'm talking about something, even if I'm trying to engage them in a conversation about it, if they're not interested, they just won't have any of it. That's it. Conversation over, not gonna listen. It's really frustrating, actually.

And that is the mini culture lesson.

And that is week one of winter break in Thailand.