...On the Road..

Hello Everyone!
Sorry it has been a while! I hope this email finds you all doing well! It is about 9pm on a rainy Wednesday night. We did not have school today (Buddhist Holiday) Seedy (another international student from The Gambia) and I ran errands and did some shopping on our bikes. It was a warm day and now we are huddled up @ PIH (the dorms) keeping dry from the storm ( crazy weather) and trying to do homework between the power outages! 555+ O and the “555+” I should explain… in America and else where I suppose we use “ha ha ha” to express laughter while in the virtual land… right. So in Thailand the number 5 is said “ha” which leads to the expression of laughter as "555" the "+" just if it is really funny! So I am well. I am volunteering with an organization called B.E.A.M (http://www.beamedu.org/) giving sewing and knitting lessons twice a week to Burmese immigrants. (Suzanna Thank you so much for the pictures!!) It is really weird being called teacher! It’s a lot of fun and the men and women are amazing people, who have been through more than I can imagine. School is going well, I have a lot due this week…Thai Language and Culture projects and tests… but that is typical for us students! I am enjoying my classes and keeping my grades up some how??? 5555+ I find my self out on the bike with the Don Jai crew a lot…. till the wee hours, but I suppose that is the same back home only with the VFIXII. Love you guys! I really love it here. The streets are becoming more familiar, I have short cuts to getting around; the traffic is becoming a little less of a chaotic mess and my close calls to death is declining daily. I speak in Thai for all my ordering and shopping with the occasional missed tone, which ends up making some one laugh. There are many words that are spelled the same, but have a different tone. Once I was ordering an “ice coffee” and some how ordered a “cold man with milk”!!! 555+ The miss communications are challenging, and humorous to say the least!! However, things are getting easier and more familiar! The other day heading to my friends May and Tong’s place my buddy New yelled Hello or Sa wat dee krap from across the street. It is becoming just like home seeing familiar friends on your way out for an evening of fun!!! Sunshine and Greg’s visit was awesome! It was so good to see you sis!!! Doi Inthanon was a lot of fun. Even with the rain and how cold it was~! We saw some beautiful birds and it was so refreshing getting out of the city for a few days! So a list of super crazy things I have seen. *Dogs balancing on the back, front, in baskets, ect. on motor scooters ! No leashes nothing! *Dogs can cross the street better and quicker than me! I tend to follow their lead to get across…. to be perfectly honest! *Bunnies sitting on the back of a pick-up trucks, tool box. No cage, nothing, while the truck is speeding down the super high way! *The food! Need I say more? I tried buffalo skin the other night... umm yeah about that….. a little strange! *Entire families on 1 scooter! Most US families own SUV’s and rarely do you see the whole family in them. *A tuk tuk driver ran over an old mans toe! Look out for these drivers! They are the rebels of the city! Things I LOVE! *Rottee and sticky rice w/ mango (maybe too much!) *being in a foreign country for this long… it is such a growing, learning process! I feel so blessed to have this opportunity! *Reese delivered from my big sis, and those melted ones I got in a care package! Thank you! *Trying to beat the Don Jai boys when we do our sprint down Taopea Gate road! *Doing tricks at the stadium! *Fish Spa... please try this before you die! *P Muy... the security guard here at PIH, I am in a gift giving battle with her! And she is winning! *Not understanding what is going on around me! It is like having headphones on! 555+ *every time I hear a Gecko… counting how many times they crook… because if they get to 7 I will have Super Good Luck! “Chad Dee” *the friends I have made, and loving the ones I miss! (You knew it was coming!) *My family! Thank you for all your support! Super THANK YOU to Poo for looking after Mr. Raven and Auto Bee Bop!! Love you all! Thus far the experiences here have been ranging from amazing to needing medication from the hospital! 555+ !!! perhaps that is not the best way to describe Thailand. It is “same same… but different!” this is a phrase you will often hear from both the “Foran” and the Thai’s! it is so much the same, but so very different! We had our last school trip! We lived on a bus for 5 days traveling from Chiang Mai, to Sukhothai, were we saw the oldest ruins and temples in Thailand! Sadly I have not one picture! I left my charger at the dorm and did not realize it till it was too late! So maybe when Amreena comes to visit (wink wink) we can make a trip out there! So Sukhothai to Pinsaaloou, more amazing temples and Buddha’s and ended in Auttyahaya from a walk around the Summer Palace of the King. Then a lovely 9 hour bus ride back! The last night we had dinner on a boat coasting along the Ping River! Some amazing food and some really strange soft core Karaoke!??!!! Bizarre!! Prior to that trip we were at a Lisu Village in the northern part of Thailand! We had a host family who feed us so well and had us drinking the moonshine with breakfast, lunch, dinner and into the night! I had a really great experience there! It is a really special experience to see an indigenous community of people living life just as the have for years! It was awesome to be a part of that! And I saw the biggest pig “Moo” ever! Check out the Lisu pictures of that mama! And prior to that our first trip was to Mae Cheam. Also in the Northern part of Thailand! We got to do a lot of hiking and farming there! Our host family was so awesome and our Pa tried to marry me off! 555 !!!! So that brings the last 3 months (wow it’s been that long!) up to speed! I am currently preparing for Songkran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songkran ) which is a huge water festival that happens all through out Southeast Asia. Basically it is the world’s biggest water fight! I hear it is just absolutely CRAZY!!! That begins this coming Monday! As for the rest of the week, I have class on Friday, heading to Burma on sat to renew my Thai visa, and I might be going to Bangkok next week to start the process for my travel visa to go and travel in Burma. It is a confusing and tricky process, so keep your fingers crossed I hope my token gets chosen! And to put your mind at ease... the boarder issue with Cambodia is about a 15 hour travel south of here and the floods are all in the south as well. The earthquake that hit Burma was felt here in Chiang Mai, but it was not anything a Angelino would be scared about. As far as political stability, issues between the red and yellow shirts has been pretty quite. There are elections coming up and there has been a number of rallies but all has been relatively calm. I hope the best for the areas that are experiencing natural disasters, the world has been a crazy place as of late. I hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all terribly… but I am really enjoying myself here! O and I have extended my stay till late August! So if you have some vacation time you want to use… I’ll have a place for you to stay starting next month!!! Think about it… My Thai should be a lot better by then! Thank you so much for all the emails, phone calls, and package ( Mr. Ian!)! I would not be able to do this with out you all! And with that…I want to hear from YOU!!! Much Love!!! Joop Joop xoxoxoxo Nun la fun dee ka! Sweet Dreams Sa Wat dee Ka! Hello and Good bye! Love jen

There has been a lot of talk about this on campus. I think you need to ask yourself, if ... ever... when people have power, can, would, or could they abuse it? For me the answer to that question is YES! My prof... it all lies in History, on the News, in the paper, pretty much any and ever where one can look. Sadly! Is it the human complex to abuse power? Are we inherently evil? i think these are questions that one must ask them self. I feel that it is very important, and can be defining of the kind of person you are, or want to be. Anyways...
December 5th.
There are a group of students @ Pitzer that do acknowledge that power abuse and injustices do exist, along with City Council Carrizosa, and other students from Cal Poly, and Mtn. SAC; and we protest against it. The Pomona Police department seems to be notorious for the marginalization of the poor, and immigrants. On that Friday night the Pomona Police department set up a check point on Holt Ave. between Indian Hill and Reservoir. We had signs to trying to detour traffic from running into the trap, and police began to pull over, who ever we detoured. At one point a sqaud car even pulled us over while riding our bikes, trying to scary us. They also, wrongfully ticketed city council woman Carrizosa. I have to say my personal highlight from the night was when Corp. Samueles yelled at me from across the street, "I'm about ready to come over there and rip that sign out of your hands!" To which i replied, "You would get arrested if you did that." Then he called me a "LOSER!"
I have to say i was mostly disgusted to see all the tow trucks and taxi's that were benefitting the night. it was very interesting seeing the money trickle down. The check point closed @ 1:30am, just before the bars (that were no where in sight) closed, letting all the drunk drivers free to drive home safely.
More Pictures @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/waketravels/sets/72157610730115811/show/