Pronounciation is Key

It actually rained for the first time here eventhough it's supposed to be the "rainy season". When I say "rained" I mean that it was a downpour that lasted about three hours. Luckily, it was in the morning so i could still go to tennis. When I was about to leave i looked over my racquet to gauge when the string was going to break. I usually only carry one to make it easier. So I looked it over and decided, "yeah, it should be good for one more class and then i'll bring two until it breaks." Nope, it broke during warm-up and i had to borrow another one for the rest of practice. Other than that it went well. Afterwards, somebody came to talk to me to make sure i would be alright getting home. I thought i was good but they wanted to make sure. On the way home i have to tell somebody my destination and they wanted to make sure i had the pronounciation right. I was going to say "uno-sub-marie" apparently that's completely off. They would have absolutely no idea what i was talking about unless i said "anoo-sow-varee". Completely different. Thai is such a finnicky language with all the pitches and tones. You got the rising tone, falling tone, up-down tone, down-up tone, up-down-up tone, and the down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up tone. It's all very confusing. The good ending to the day was that i got some street meat on the way home. Or should i say questionable street meat of indeterminate origins on a stick.

Tired

This one is going to have to cover two days cause i was too lazy to do it yesterday. Yesterday, I met Pa' Dat and Pa'Dii and they drove me over to the tennis courts. I had my first practice there and it didn't go well. I hadn't played in like a week and i showed up late because of traffic so i missed the warm-up. I played really badly that day. More about tennis in a little bit. After that I stayed overnight at Lung Dej's house and said hello to everybody. P' Tui had surgery on his foot for a torn ligament so he was on crutches and couldn't walk around. I met P' Thae's wife for the first time. She's awesome. She's very nice and was very welcoming. The next day Pa' Dii took me to the tennis courts because you have to take a van over there but there were many of them and i couldn't remember which one it was exactly. In order to get there she talked with about ten different people, took a different van that went to a different place, and then had to give directions to a driver to go the rest of the way. That's really not all that helpful for me because I can't speak thai and I wouldn't be able to recreate that on the way there, let alone do it backwards. Luckily I remembered the way back and it dropped me off at the place that i needed to leave from so i'm good now. At tennis I was put in the lower group this time and I was better than all the other kids. The good thing about this was that their warm-up was just feeding balls to them so i got my stroke back and started playing normally again. Next they did a drill where you rallied with the instructor and when you messed up you moved to the next court and then back again. I did so much better than everyone else that I was just rallying for so long that everybody else was lined up behind me waiting. They kept having to move the kids back over and the instructor's were messing up before me half the time. When we got to real points and I just dominated everyone else they moved me back up to the other group. Even after that I was still doing really well and when we did king of the court i was king for most of the time. I was very happy at the end of it and very tired. I sweated so much during the class. Normally when i see other people with the entire upper half of their shirt soaked i'm a little confused. I always wondered how they got that because you sweat in certain areas more like parts of your back and armpits and you wipe your face on your shirt but it shouldn't be completely soaked. My shirt was literally soaked everywhere except the little half-inch of double layered fabric at the bottom. It was ridiculous. I feel sorry for the people in the van on the way home. The way it works is that they cram as many people as possible into it to make the most amount of money. You have to be in that three-person-car mode the whole time. You should know what i'm talking about. When you need to have three people in the back seat of a small car and you have to hunch your shoulders together awkwardly and try not to touch the other people. It's also very quite in the van because you don't really want to strike up a conversation with the person who is invading your personal space. The vans scare me though. I'm afraid they're gonna fall apart or crash any minute. You have the option of sitting in the front seat which, while more comfortable, also affords you a view of just how screwed up the van actually is. One of the ones from last year had a broken park gear. He just left it in neutral and relied on the parking brake. This one today had a broken dashboard. The speedometer, rev thingy, engine temperature, and gas guage were all broken. The only working thing was the odometer and i kinda wished it wasn't. So I finally made it home in time to miss dinner and now i have to work up the strength to walk up three flights of stairs.

Liverpool

Dear god, this dog is still here. I've seen him every summer for the last 3 years hanging out in the same spots every time. AND he's still fat and never stands up. He is always laying down whenever we see him. While this was the highlight of my day I will also say that i went to two hours of AUA class to show people that i am diligently working at the tasks set upon me by my ever-caring, watchful parents.

Lunch

This is a picture of the lunch that i had today. The drink included it cost a little less than $2. I'd say that's a pretty good deal. A little sidenote: i'm probably not going to have nearly as many pictures as last year because i'm going to be by myself most of the time and it's a lot harder and more awkward to do that.