Alright. I still haven't had time to sit in the internet cafe for 2 hours to upload my most recent pictures.

I started back with a fresh new semester of school just this monday and it was really refreshing to get back into the groove of things with all the kids from the half day school. I hadn't seen a lot of these guys in over a month and it was almost like going back to dwight englewood after not seeing some friends or good acquintances for a summer. ah, school.

For the last four days I've been meaning to go to my landlady to pay my rent but I can never remember long enough to get on my bike and just GO there. In fact, yesterday, I even got on my motorbike specifically to go to my landlady's place, but I forgot halfway there and just stopped at 7-11 to get a coke, then went home again instead.

So anyway, this afternoon, when it occurred to me yet again that I still hadn't paid this month's rent and fearing that my belongings might soon be thrown out onto the street, I tried stepping out of the office for 20 minutes to visit my landlady. That was, until I got stopped by a secretary on site who asked me, "Where are you goin?" And I told I was going to pay my rent. She asked me out of the blue how much I paid for it.

And this is the part of the story where I just make a series of poor judgement calls. I'd like to say in defense of myself, that for the most part, I just kindof got lost in the progression of events. Not a word of this dialogue was spoken in English.

Mistake number one: telling her how much I pay for rent: 3000 baht ($75 US a month). Of course, I will NEVER pay this little to live in a HOUSE ever ever EVER again in my entire life. However, it is also a fact that I am being ripped off by Thai people's standards. My house, however, is fully furnished with a bed, wardrobe and refrigerator. So to be frank: I don't care that this is, in theory, a complete scam.

Chulai (her name is Chulai) is APPAULED that my rent is so high and tells me that she has a house that she's renting out for 1000 baht a month ($25 US). She sortof insists that I should take a look at it. While I have no interest in moving, I decide to tag along, forgetting about the potential repercusions of my actions.

So I follow Chulai on my motorbike...for fifteen minutes (my house is less than 5 minutes from the site). And she turns around and asks me, "Is this far?" and only because I don't want to sound whiney I tell her, "no! not at all." And then we drive on for another 5 minutes. So it's a 20 minute commute. If I wasn't already uninterested in renting this place, I REALLY had no interest in renting this place now. She shows me the place: modest in size and a lot more holes between the planks of wood than in my house. The bathroom, like a standard Thai bathroom, has a squat toilet. Nonetheless, because this was her house, I didn't want to offend her. And so I was complimenting the place in a way to suggest that SOMEONE would surely want to rent it.

But apparently I said "yes," to something I completely misunderstood because the next thing I understood out of her mouth was, "So, when do you want to move in?" and then I felt like a deer in headlights. I have no recollection of ever agreeing to move in there during this conversation and so I tried to walk around it by being like, "Uhhhh...ya know, Garry was kindof unhapppy with his rent situation, maybe HE'D be interested in checking this place out." but then she sortof brought it right back to ME.

So I danced around this for a while. And I know that ultimately, my problem was that I never flat out told her "NO, I'm not interested in moving in," though I swear, I also can't remember where I sounded like, "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LEMME STAY HERE!" But in any case, I ended up going back to the site without giving her a clear answer. I just didn't know how to gracefully decline her offer politely and in Thai. We're used to dealing with street vendors and beggars pulling on our sleeves to whom we can just say, "no, no thanks", "I don't want that," "please stop," or for more drastic situations, "Go away!"

And remembering how much I appreciated my own living space, much closer to the site and stocked with my package of western conveniences, I finally went to my landlady's house to pay up for the month.

That's my long winded and pinballed story for the day.