I Have a Magic Cell Phone

Every time it rings it brings me good things. For example in the last two hours:
Private tutoring job, helping 4 students prep for SATs, pays very well, one block from my apartment...confirmed.
"Would you like a cello student at the music school two blocks away from your apartment?" "Uh...yes please!"
Text message: 'Wine and cheese party tonight?' Sweet Dionysus, someone is reading my mind. (See previous post on being a cheese pervert.)

Back to Life

After a rough week, I'm glad to be back in the normal swing of things for the most part. If I was a doctor, my self-diagnosis would be a case of Dengue with a side of rash and a rigorous treatment schedule of water, word puzzles and my bed. A word on Dengue: don't ever get it. Really. Wear bug spray like a shield that protects you from eye-socket headaches and muscle aches and endless sleepless nights and exhausting days. I'm one of the lucky ones too; some people take weeks to recover. My consolation prize? A nice rash that is still lingering today to remind me of those itchy chicken pox willpower days. I catch myself itching like a 5 year old in a whiny laughter.

I had to cancel some classes and my students were concerned and sweet. They didn't mind missing a class and they asked how I was feeling today. I consolidated two days worth of lessons into one class period today and realized I only have about three more days of lecturing before they take over with their final presentations and then it's the end of the semester. I can't believe I'm already on the last leg of semester one. I just got here. I swear.

Not much else has happened over the last week besides watching crappy made-for-TV movies in English and Thai soap operas. I did manage to somehow run into someone I know while on every single rare trip out to get food. How is it that I felt too weak to go out and buy food, but not too sick to feel hungry? And how is it that you are always found by people you know when you are sick and don't want to be seen? It's the magic of Chiang Mai. In the course of these run-ins with friends I have an invitation to play tango music for the King's birthday celebration, another possible mountain biking trip, and a new tutoring job that starts next week. Actually kind of productive for doing nothing but sitting around all week.

After being cooped up for so long I am more anxious than ever for a trip out of the city. I might just hop on a bus this weekend and go.... maybe I have an internal clock for American holidays - Happy Labor Day, that bittersweet last weekend of summer. My summer is only getting nicer from here.

Not Funny Anymore

Sometimes I would joke about all the mosquito bites on my legs and ask the little buggers, "Which one of you is going to give me Dengue?"

It's not funny anymore because I just might have Dengue Fever. Perhaps some hospital bed blogging is in my near future? Hopefully not. Cross your fingers for me.

Weird Things

...That aren't weird to me anymore:
1. Drinking cold coffee
2. Eating sticky rice out of a plastic bag with your hands
3. Using a spoon more than a fork, and I haven't used a knife in months
4. Corn for dessert (I have yet to have it with sprinkles and gummy bears, though)
5. Rice or noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
6. Men wearing headbands and carrying man-purses (I adore this, actually)
7. Thai Elvis impersonator performing weekly at the mall cafeteria
8. Drinks and shakes served in plastic bags with a straw
9. Stray dogs, getting to know the mean ones vs. the nice ones in my neighborhood
10. Extra intestines: 5 baht
11. Monks chatting on cell phones
12. Thai girls blocking the sun's rays so they don't get tan
13. Vespa gangs, a rainbow of different colored Vespas speeding by with their sputtering motors
14. Mystery meatballs
15. Motorbikers holding umbrellas while driving in the rain
16. Walking, driving, everything on the left side
17. Badminton and ping pong are America's baseball and football
18. Mullets
19. Inappropriate t-shirts in English
20. No stress, no worries...about anything. Ever.

Some Days You Just Want Your Dog

I found an old memory card in the bottom of a bag and popped in the old camera and there was my dog Willie. This is him mid-doggy-shake. I do wish I could chill out with him on the couch eating crackers and good cheese watching Price is Right (with Bob Barker, of course). Yes, that would be nice. Speaking of cheese, it's hard to find here, and when you do find it, the good stuff costs you an arm and a leg. I caught myself (again, not the first time) staring at the small cheese selection at the grocery store longingly, picking up a few wedges, giving them a good squeeze and sometimes even a sniff. Call me a cheese pervert, I don't care who knows it. I'd have Trader Joe's baby right now for a good chunk of brie.

Reunited

...and it feels so good. One of the hardest goodbyes I had to say when I left the states was to my cello. I braced myself for a long period of time not being able to play. Turns out the stars aligned just right because the wait is over. People living in Chiang Mai tend to agree that this whole "coincidences" or "things happening for a reason" seems to occur at a strangely high rate here. It's almost as if you make a wish to yourself and then the next day someone comes up to you and grants you your wish. Happens all the time. It almost doesn't surprise me anymore.

I was walking to work one morning last week after a long night of listening to cello music and wishing I could play. (You think I'm making that last part up when you hear the rest of the story, but I swear to you I was in the midst of a cello withdrawal). My coworker (whom I've talked to for maybe 30 seconds three weeks prior) honks his motorbike at me and waves me over for a ride. I take a moment to even recognize him and accept the offer. We start talking and grab a coffee on campus and then he tells me the other schools he teaches at. I don't recognize any of them, and I assume he teaches English, but I ask what he teaches anyway. "Guitar and cello," he says. I stopped dead in my tracks and say "I play the cello!" He stops dead in his tracks and says, "I'm just a beginner teaching other beginners and I need a teacher!" The conversation continued as we kept topping each other with excitement and other good news. I say I've taught lessons before and I could teach him, but I don't have a cello. "I just bought a cello and you can use it anytime you want! AND I can introduce you to the music schools who are in desperate need of a cello teacher." I kid you not, it just gets better and better. Turns out his roommate plays the piano and has also been looking for a cellist to play with. All of my wishes were just handed to me on a silver platter. Moral of the story: all good things will come when you hop on the back of a stranger's motorbike. Ok maybe not something that you'd write a children's book about, but it's pretty neat how things like this happen.

What makes this so extraordinary is the sheer lack of cellists and orchestras in Chiang Mai. I feel like I won the lottery. So today I went to his house, got to play his cello (it was a load off my shoulders the instant I had it in my arms) and gave him his first lesson. I also met his roommate and we just hung out on the floor listening to pieces in his extensive music library. Classical music has not been a conversation piece of mine for what feels like an eternity, so in a strange way I felt like I was home.

We (the pianist and I) have our first concert date set, I have my first private student, a practice space and cello to use whenever I want, I am meeting the director of a music school for lunch this week, and I will hopefully have more students soon. Does it get any better? Probably not.

Blog Updates (Part Deux)

Speaking of technology, I've added a search bar that will not only search my blog, but also my favorite Chiang Mai websites. So if you're planning on traveling through Chiang Mai, living in Chiang Mai, or just want to learn something new today, have a go. The whole purpose of this blog is to not only share my crazy adventures, but hopefully be a resource for those who are interested in visiting, living, or teaching in Thailand. At best, I hope it's a place that might inspire or awaken the traveler and explorer in you, whether it's half-way across the world or in your own backyard.

Techonology

There are too many things that I love about this computer store. The missing letter? The bundle of power lines? Or the array of technology (circa 1980) connected across the globe? Can't decide, but I bet the helpdesk people that came to fix my internet a couple of months ago work at this place. Without a doubt.

Tai Chi

I just completed a Tai Chi class here in Chiang Mai, and according to my calculations, I'm now a ninja. It was a series of one-hour lessons, just about every day for two weeks. I learned the 24 form, and I plan on continuing to practice. I'm finding that all these different activities I've been getting into really seem to compliment each other: yoga, meditation, tai chi...

The three other people in the class didn't get through all 24 forms, so I think we're going to meet to practice a couple times per week and the instructor appointed me to teach them the rest. Kind of a cool feeling. They were all really encouraging and supportive, and the instructor was amazing. Her name is "gai" which is the same word for chicken, and she would always remind us of that. "Gai, like chicken," she'd say. She has an incredible presence and balance about her, and her eyes will peer directly into your soul. Even in the picture she manages to have a perfect halo around her...? That's just how she works. To watch her practice Tai Chi is probably the closest that I've ever been to being hypnotized. Some of my favorite moments in Chiang Mai have been in her studio over the last two weeks. The area where we practice is outdoors under a tin roof on a concrete floor surrounded by a small garden and fountains. The first class was at night and there was an incredible storm and the floor ended up flooding, so we were practicing barefoot in a pool of water under the rain crashing on the roof. The last class was this morning and it was the most beautiful morning in weeks; the temperature was cool and the sun was out. Kind of symbolic, I guess. When she asked me to go through the full 24 forms right next to her, it was a feeling of synchrony like I've never felt before. We were all a bit sad to leave our last class, but I'm definitely taking everything I've learned to heart, ninja style.

Favorite Student Award

I could never choose a favorite student, just like a mother could never choose her favorite child. Right. My mom told me I was her favorite and she doesn't care who knows it. It was in a dream I had last week but it's probably true. I have about 130 students total, and I do have it narrowed down to a top five, just based on silly mannerisms they have in class.

Fifth place award: Ok, so it's not just one student, but a group of them. Today I was so fed up with the boring curriculum so I came up with an activity where they get to map out notes on a big piece of poster paper as a group. I gave each of the groups a poster and a marker to go to town. As I should have expected, about half of the students were already armed with their own pouch of markers in every color imaginable. Thai students will never hesitate to make homework more colorful. So this award goes to them and their hello kitty pouches and markers. Honorable mention to the student who drew two zit-faced cartoon characters on the poster (the article topic was 'acne treatment').

Fourth place award: I have a freshman dentistry student in my sophomore/junior English class. He is more advanced than the rest by far. The older kids use him by saying their question to him in Thai and then he asks me in English. He translates my answer back in to Thai for them. It's a nice system we have going. Anyway, he is the only one who laughs at my jokes, and this catches me off-guard because every once in awhile I say stupid things just to amuse myself and assume no one will catch my sarcasm. In my afternoon class, the last class of the day, no one was responding and I'm basically talking to myself up there and as I'm writing on the board I half sing to myself, "I would kill for a nap right now..." and I hear, "me too" from behind me. Whoops.

Third place award: I like to make eye contact with as many students as possible when talking. I sometimes play a game to see how long I can hold someone's gaze and then move to the next person. I would think it would hold their attention because it seems like I'm talking to each individual with actual intention. Maybe it just freaks them out; either way I don't care. This female student smiles a big braces smile and nods furiously when I make eye contact with her. I will look away and she stops, I look back and nodding. She wants me to see that she's listening. I love it. I try and keep my eyes on her and the nodding keeps going in intervals, nodding, nodding, then it almost seems like she nods harder as if to say, "I get it! Stop staring at me!" It's sweet, really.

Second place award: A boy that sits in the back corner of the class everyday would come off as a student who couldn't care less to be there, but he does this odd thing where he sits on the edge of his seat and stares at me with big eyes and a big smile. I wonder if he's playing my game with the third place winner. I wonder if he's making fun of me or if he's genuinely interested in the lectures. I will not let it freak me out... (it does a little). If he's really interested, then he gets the award for most enthusiastic. If he's mocking me, then he gets the award for beating me at my own game. A winner, nonetheless.

First place award: I love this student for one reason, and he keeps enforcing this every class. Any and every time I explain the next activity or the next in-class assignment, he does the same thing. He gives a big groan from the gut and it turns into a sigh that rivals a Napoleon Dynamite while shaking his head, and sometimes for extra dramatic effect lets his head fall into his hands in despair. If I didn't know any better, I would think that a voice in his head told him the world was about to end. Now it's not that these activities and assignments are awful. I used to get annoyed by his reaction, but now I just see that he's doing this to let everyone in the class and myself know that he understands the words I am saying, while my words go over the heads of most others. This once-irritating-response is now a source of some sick sort of joy I get out of assigning work. I even catch myself giving instructions to the class and then looking over to him, anxious for his reaction. Love it.

Chiang Mai Restaurants, Too Clever

Restaurants and bars in Chiang Mai just seem to have the best names: Not sure which one gets first place so far, Thaitanic or this one:

Moat

Possibly the one word I get my chops busted the most for because of my Minnesotan accent: Moat. The moat and Doi Suthep are the two things that have given me my geographical bearings in Chiang Mai since I arrived here. You can see Doi Suthep mountain from just about anywhere in the city, and it helps me know where West is. The moat circles, or squares rather, the old city. It has four walls, making a nice square mile of a city. There are five gates around the moat. The gates tend to be great meeting places, or good locations to use for taxi destinations. Each gate is in it's own distinct neighborhood, and usually has a market nearby. The moat itself is really quite beautiful. Especially at night. During the day, the water is pretty murky brown, but all the trees around make up for that. A note about the trees: someone has stapled little orchid plants to just about every tree surrounding the moat, and they all seem to be surviving just fine. It's always nice to be walking along and have orchids staring back at you at eye-level. Inside the moat are endless guest houses, temples, restaurants, bars, shops, etc. All jam packed with little soi's (alleys connected to a main road).

The moat is interesting because of the way traffic works around it. There is a road on the outer moat and a road on the inner moat; both of these roads are one way traffic. There are no stoplights. The outer moat traffic runs clockwise, and the inner moat runs counterclockwise. There are only a handful of places where you can bridge between the inner and outer moat, including the five gates. So depending where you are, you might have to drive around a corner of the moat away from your destination just to be able to turn around and go in your desired direction. I'd love to see it from a birds eye view, but you can probably imagine how traffic runs like a river. It seems to work quite nicely, except when you want to cross the street.

The moat is going to be a key reason why Songkran will be such a riot in April. Songkran is the water festival, celebrating the coming of the hot season. Basically it's a week-long water fight. People splash each other with buckets of water, people get splashed. Kids on the back of motorbikes spray waterguns at other traffic or pedestrians. Chiang Mai is the perfect place for this festival because of the moat. Other places you have to find a source of water, but here, people literally jump in to get their ammo. Can't wait to see that.

I have a little moat that I get to enjoy right outside my apartment. The thing I love most about it is that the chubby girl statue actually has water shooting out of her rear end. Not sure what that's about, but it makes me smile when they have the fountain running, that's for sure.

Blog Updates

I wanted to let you know about a few little changes and updates to the blog. First of all, the video of my students is posted and you can view that in the video archive below. The video is pretty poor quality, especially the sound, so sorry about that. I hope you can see what I meant in my post about my student's presentations when I said they are pretty hard to understand, but still entertaining. Please notice the second half of the video; the students are dancing to a cell phone ring tone and how the music stops and they stop dancing and it is oh-so-awkward. Personally, my favorite part of the video.

I've shortened the list of links in the Photo Archive, just to the six most recent. I continuously update the "Out with Friends" and the "Chiang Mai in B&W" albums, which is why they are still on the list. The rest of the albums are not gone forever, you can still view the older ones by clicking on the "All Photo Albums" link. Hey, I understand if you want to spend your workday looking at hundreds of photos because you miss my pretty face. I don't judge.

Finally, I've added a list of blogs that I enjoy, and I think you will too. Gaelle's blog is in French, so if you want to brush up on your francais, or just look at some great pictures, have a look. She is living in Chiang Mai as well, and we are now friends because she found my blog a couple months ago and then we went on a blind date for lunch and it's been magical ever since. The Brigg is a blog by my friend Brigham who is basically traveling the world, living in India at the moment, and sharing his adventures with only the humor and charm that he can. Finally, Eli Ratner is a good friend and local (Twin Cities) band you should definitely check out. You could spend your workday listening to good music and browsing my photos. What a deal!

Last note of today, I walked by a restaurant this morning called.... Thaitanic. It even had a giant poster of the ship (pre-iceberg) out front. How brilliant.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in Thailand. It's a national holiday so there is no school, the banks are closed, (most places are closed) and mothers with their children are running around the city together. They have tributes to mother's on TV (for hours and hours) and there are restaurants and retailers all over the place that have specials for moms. I even saw a fancy restaurant where moms get to eat for free today.

It was kind of like being Jewish on Christmas (not that I don't celebrate mother's day, just that I can't right now), so I went to go see a movie with all the other Jewish people (just kidding). Last time I went to the movie I was totally blown away because first of all, you have assigned seats. When you buy your ticket, you choose on a screen where you want to sit. Now I was one of a dozen people who went to see this movie, so she shows me a screen of hundreds of empty seats and asked me where I would like to sit...? Uh, anywhere is fine...and she asks me to point to one. Ok. So I go in and sit down at my seat and just as a couple of women are trotting through my row (I thought I chose an empty row), I start to gather my things so they can scoot past me. Nope. They sit down in the seat right next to me. This boggles my mind. There are a million empty seats and you want the one that shares my armrest? Why? I kid you not, there were 12 people in the theater, and there we were, an awkward group of three sitting together. I will never understand this.

Needless to say, I learned my lesson and today I bought my ticket right as the movie was starting and chose an empty row toward the front. Hey, I'm an American and I need space to enjoy my movie. Ha.

Happy second Mother's Day, mom. I truly wish you were here to celebrate. Seeing all these moms and daughters around makes me miss you even more than I already do. Two Mother's Days in a year isn't enough.

Cops in Thailand

They don't do much. That's in no way an insult to their character, it's just the nature of their job. They don't need to do much. I have never seen a situation where a police officer had to intervene. I have seen no violence here, and the only people who are raising their voices and creating a scene and getting angry are tourists, sadly. I think the cops are pretty bored. I also think that they think that they are kind of a big deal. I can tell that because they drive wicked motorcycles. These motorcycles are so bitchin' that the cops could be wearing pink lace uniforms and still look like badasses. Speaking of uniforms, they wear tight dark green pants and a military top with pins and buttons (pins and buttons make you a big deal, naturally) and knee-high combat boots with their pants tucked in.

I was walking home from work today and I was crossing an intersection that I've crossed a hundred times, I know when and how the lights change. A cop rides his bike over to where I'm waiting on the curb, parks it, and says something to me in Thai. Then he walks into the street and holds his hand up for traffic to stop. I can't believe he's going to stop traffic so I can cross the street! How nice, but I'm a patient person. I can wait another half a minute. I then had to try and not laugh because it was nothing more than a sad attempt to try and control traffic. He held his hand out to stop them. No one stopped. They whizzed by like a herd of bats out of hell. The cop realized no one was obeying him, so he changed his hand gesture to say "ok...you can pass, and you, and you..." Then when the light changed and I was able to cross, the cop graciously gave me permission to go. Thanks, guy. He had good intentions either way.

I heard that traffic cops go home at 7pm. I am starting to notice a difference in traffic at 6:55pm and 7:05pm. Traffic in general is very different from the states. Red lights are a suggestion, "No U-turn" signs are just a joke, pedestrians have no right-of-way. Ever. The white lines separating the lanes might as well not exist. 90 percent of the time, a vehicle with 4 wheels will have two wheels on either side of the white dashes. They say traffic runs like a river here, and you can definitely see that. You can't think about it too much, never get aggravated, just go with the flow.

Back to the cops. The only beef I have with this one in particular is the guy who works at the weekend market near my apartment. I noticed him a few weeks ago, and he now literally drives me crazy. One day I was minding my own business, strolling around the market, sitting down to eat some food. I keep hearing this screaming whistle. It was blown every 5 seconds, and 5 consecutive screams. Wait 5 seconds, whistle again. It never stopped. Then I looked at the source of this awful noise and saw a cop in uniform, just strolling around like I was. Only he had a whistle. He was blowing it for no apparent reason. I think he just wanted people to know he was there. He was not directing traffic. He was not addressing any problems. Look at me! I'm a big deal and I'm here to let you know it! Why. Why. Why. Every night, the same thing. I should buy a whistle and blow it like a madwoman and pretending like it's just a normal thing to do at the market and see if he thinks I'm a big deal too.

Why I Love My Students

They absolutely crack me up. The last couple of days the students had to do role-plays of their own TV show. They had to choose real characters (most students were either Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, or Brittany Spears) and perform a six-minute skit. I loved every second of it. I was completely surprised at how outspoken they became in these performances. Thai students are known to be incredibly shy.

Granted, I could not understand most of what was being said, but I didn't care. They were totally into it and I can tell they spent a lot of time practicing and preparing. I think my students were a little nervous for me when I was laughing to the point of wheezing and tears. I was even sweating from laughing so hard. I took pictures of my class this morning and they were positively delightful even at 8am.

Most groups incorporated some sort of song or dance into their skit. They had someone in the audience call a cell phone just so the hip hop ring tone could blast and they would lip sync and dance to the cell phone ring as part of their performance. Brilliant. I also accumulated lots of gifts yesterday once they were done with the props for their performances, including a bouquet of flowers, a tuna sandwich, and a small carton of warm milk. I felt utterly special.

I also took video of a few performances, just so you can see how difficult it can be to decipher some of the things they say, and also see how entertaining they are nonetheless. I will try to get those posted soon. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures on the link to the left. You might notice in some of the pictures, the students wear signs around their neck. Now some of these signs are for the performance, noting what character they are playing, but the other signs they actually wear all year-round. The freshman wear these signs to signify what major they are, as well as their dorm and first and last name, I believe. The last time I wore a sign around my neck for school was when I was about 5 years old and it had my pre-school teacher's name and bus number on it, and that was only for the first week of school. It's amazing that all of these freshmen comply with the signage. They even wear their signs out in public at night and on the weekends...something I will never understand.

Immigration Office

The most ironic thing I saw today was the sign in front of the Immigration Office that said, "One Stop Shop." I arrived at the office at about 10 am, not sure what to expect. I know I needed to renew my visa and get a re-entry permit, not sure what the process was but I was expecting something about as fun as the DMV. It was oh-so-much worse. First of all, you don't even take a number. You wait in a line to write your name in a book. This is the queue. Then I waited. Waited. Waaaited. Keep in mind the waiting "room" is a series of chairs outside and it's about 95 degrees. Fun, I know.

Now it's 11:30 and the queue had moved forward about 5 people. I had 5 more people in front of me. Then this is where the humor kicks in, as it always seems to do without fail in this beautiful country. There is an announcement over the loudspeaker that the staff is breaking for lunch, so please come back at 1:00pm. Really? An hour and a half for lunch and you brilliant folks didn't come up with a schedule where maybe some people could continue working while some people go eat lunch? Such a Thai thing to do, I love it to death. So I grab some food and return to wait some more at 1:00pm. My name is called about a half hour later and I bring my papers to the counter. The woman then tells me to fill out (another) form and then take a seat. I very easily could have done this over the three and a half hours, but what can you do? I return the completed form and she takes my paperwork and has me take a seat. They are so good at saying that phrase...take a seat.

I wait another hour and they call my name to come into the office. I literally sit down at a desk and watch a woman in a uniform sift through my papers. I don't sign anything and she doesn't say anything to me. Then she collects my money and hands my papers to someone else behind her. Now I'm not sure where to go or what to do, so I stand there and she says, of course, "take a seat." At least this time the seat was in the indoor waiting room. Movin' on up. So I'm taking my seat and these two girls who work in the office are CMU students (I can tell by the school uniform they are wearing.) They were just handed my paperwork by the third person who checked it and one of them is copying my information in a giant book. I kid you not. I did not see a single computer in this place. The other girl was writing doodles on a napkin and blotting her lipstick. Nice.

Then the girl hands my papers to another man in a uniform at a different desk. He calls me over and I sit down while he sifts through my papers. Once again I don't sign anything and he doesn't say anything to me but he was the manly man who put that all-important stamp in my passport. I ask him about the re-entry visa (because everyone I've asked about that at this point kept saying "after, after") and he directs me to a window where I went through the process again. I filled out a new form, waited some more, and finally got that other all-important stamp. I was home by 4pm.

One-stop shop.

Fun With Middle-Schoolers

Last weekend I was asked to come and help out with a project that one of the Thai Ajaans at CMU put together for young students from marginal schools around Chiang Mai. This was by far one of my favorite experiences as a teacher thus far. The project was a two-day seminar for English students learning the language through poetry and story-telling. It was such a fabulous idea and the students were incredibly enthusiastic. I was the only non-Thai native English speaker in the room. I was there to offer my input on grammar and pronunciation, help with activities, and just talk to the students. I loved talking to them and they loved talking to me. One girl wanted my help with something she was writing but she couldn't spit out her question because she was giggling so hard. A Thai teacher came up behind her and told me that she was very nervous to be talking to me and then told her, "Ask her nicely, 'Can you please help me?'" She did and just kept giggling. It was infectious, actually.

The first activity was interpreting a poem. First of all, I was amazed at the poem of choice. Keep in mind these are middle school students and the poem was called "Homage to my Hips." I think I was the only one who realized how funny this was. The last lines of the poem were "These hips are magic hips. I have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top." So what do you think this means, children? I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh. I then worked with a small group of girls on pronunciation and reading with emphasis and expression. It felt a little uncomfortable to tell these girls to really put gusto into the lines "these hips are big hips, they need space to move around in..." They loved it. All the small groups eventually read the poem for the rest of the class, and I admit, the group that I worked with sounded the most Minnesotan. They said "arrrre" and "top" like a Minnesotan would, while the other groups say "ah" and "tup." I was impressed and proud of my girls.

I felt a little strange being singled out when asked to correct grammar for the students' (and teachers') poetry in front of the group. I was sitting in the back of the room of about 50 people and the lecturer would stop several times to ask me, "this phrase is ok, no?" Well, for one thing, who am I to correct student's poetry? If a student wants to write a poem that says "dreams boil rainbows and freedom," then I say give the kid a beret and snap my fingers in applause.