MONKEYS!

I am completely healthy; they hand out antibuiotics like they were CANDY here, so that definitely solved my immediate problems with health (but probably incubating the eventaul killer of the human race).

It's been a few days.... so HIGHLIGHTS:

Awesome monk from THailand who is all about Obama. Teaches kids in the monastery, and showed them Al GOre's 'an icnonveniernt truth' in Thai. ALso had 'The Audacity of Hope', but the Thai version. I would LOVE to visit these awesome cats at their monastery in Thailand. The girl said she would take me to the remote monastery where they have tame tigers you can pet! And show me elephants you can ride/ carry things with! ANd give me Thai food (which I LOVE)! Maybe next trip? At conversation class, really good talks about so many things --- buddhism, buddhism vs. christianity, implications of the karmic concept re: if next generation of chinese will have to be better b/c this generation will not be reborn as human etc..... to basketball sttories, greek myths told in English. Rafting stories. Many things. Translating letters sent to english-speaking friends (by translating, I mean reading a sentence, asking the person what the heck kind of meaning they were trying to get across with gramatically correct but completely incomprehensible ENlgih and then helping do a new one).


I GOT ATTACKED BY A MONKEY TODAY! Well, attacked is rather strong, i guess, but he did NOT take well to having his picture taken. I took his photo, while he was sitting nicely on the side of the road looking very peaceful while chewing on his paw. I guess the paw was NOT enought to chew on because he went for me!!1! He just kind of ran into me, and I sprinted away while screaming. I think the screaqm scared him off (no bites, only running into and hitting). WHat a crazy damn monkey! Honestly. I did nothing to him but make him a celebrity. At least he didn't bite me (RABIES! AYE!) Now I know -- monkeys look like babies, but are really evil. TYhe screaming made the locals laugh, and got me a few new friends. Apparently, none of them have ever been attacked before. Strange. I really wasn't that close, I swear!

Besides that, I j\have met many more nice people. I am writing a few pieces on Volunteer Tibet from Lopsang's magazine, I have been forced into tutoring this one kid in English, I am helping RInzin with her essays for the 'common application' tomorrow', and am flirting with the idea of going to volunteer on an Organic fram in Nepal with a few travelers I have met here. It would mean I would have to skip out a bit earlier than I thought on this volunteer gig but WOW! Organic farming, Nepal, cool kids from a different Washington University to go with (and help me stay out of trouble), etc. If not, there are many other interesting people here. I am tying to learn Hindi (the script is daunting), and plan to go to a yoga class at 9 tomorrow morning.

Lovely!