Notes from Southeast Asia: The contents of this blog reflect only my opinions and thoughts and are in no way associated with the U.S. Goverment, the U.S. Peace Corps or the Royal Thai Goverment

Monday, July 23, 2007

So I realize that it has been a while since I have written a blog though I do not exactly apologize as I have legitmate reasons (trainings, camps). I must admit that you will have to wait longer for another reasonably intelligent blog as Harry Potter, the last installment, came out a few days ago. I wasn't able to get to a book store until yesterday which was quite a hilarious adventure. I arrived at the train station (I needed to go to the capital city of the province an hour away) hoping one would be leaving shortly. I asked the worker who told me the next train would be leaving at "bai sam mong krung" (3:30). I looked at my watch and saw that I only had an hour to wait. No problem! I thought. I'll sit in the hot Thailand sun if it means I get Harry Potter in an hour! An hour comes and goes and I wonder why the workers haven't opened the ticket booth. I keep saying bai sam mong krung in my head thinking something must be wrong. And it was. I some how thought 3 meant 2 so when I discovered that the train wasn't coming for another hour I sopped up my sweat and continued waiting. I soon loaded my excited body into the packed train (which ended up arriving at 4:00!) where I fought for one of the few spots on the train where I could actually feel the oscillating fan above. I want to insert here that through this waiting and heat I wasn't even certain whether when I got to the capital they would even have the book in english...boy, what I wouldn't do for Harry Potter :) I finally arrived at my destination and to my utter girlish pleasure they had the book in english for only 850 baht! I, with a smile that I wasn't going to hide despite all the staring eyes, ran to the ATM, withdrew a thousand baht, ran back to the book store, picked up the book, had a very awkward conversation with the cashier (he responded to my questions about whether he was going to read the book with a look like "despite this mandatory witch hat that makes me look like a fan, I'm certainly not crazy enough to read this book". Whatever. I was happy.) and then ran to the bathroom. The bathroom?? Well.....yah. I was so excited but had no one to share it with so I decided I would take pictures for you all to see so we could, strangely, and somehow vicariously, share in the pleasure of this last book. I am currently 200 or so pages in and am taking my sweet sweet time as I know, sigh, this is the last of the great books. In other news, quickly written, I am currently working on the of the biggest projects I have probably ever worked on and am so excited about it. I am going to, with the help of my supervisor, hopefully completely change the way teacher training seminars are held here in Thailand....and, fingers crossed, affect the way teachers teach as well. But I can explain more about that later but for now, I've got Harry Potter on my mind and well, its time to go :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's so awesome that you got a copy so quickly! Missy's 17 year-old sister, Melanie, refused to read the Harry Potter books - "They're all going to be movies eventually, right? What's the point?" She makes me so sad.

J said...

I got mine in the mail on Monday and just couldn't stop reading it for the night. It wasn't quite "can't put it down;" I did pause a few times to do other things. I just couldn't stop halfway through and try to sleep.

Catherine said...

Sadie, your pictures absolutely made my day, especially the second one, but then to make it even better you explained the excited context in which you were in! This what I love and miss so much about you! I still cant stop smiling. Love you!