To sum up the last two weeks or so, I will say that right now, seated in my room on my bed, I am as close as I have really come in some time to again being lord and master of my particular circumstances. The allied insurgents of a large-scale technological failure, a brief trip out of town to visit a friend, the foreign and rebellious contraption in the corner of my room, and my own mild ineptitude at surviving on this side of the Pacific have all made fair bids at the overthrow of my kingdom, and while unsuccessful, have caused a great deal of strife amongst the baronies. Even now, my computer has an entirely new and entirely empty hard drive, my guitar is adjusting to some new strings that have yet to be broken in, and my stomach is shuddering through aftershocks. It's been a long two weeks.
The communists began their muttering last Wednesday, when I awoke to find that my computer had stopped responding to all commands. I rebooted it, attempting to negotiate, but all it showed me was a blinking icon of a folder with a question mark inside of it. The fact that nothing was coming onto the screen certainly irritated me, but in hindsight I think it was the question mark which really provoked my wrath. When it comes to my appliances, I can tolerate some idiosyncrasy, and in fact can even turn a blind eye to a certain amount of inconsistency or sloth, but I will not brook insolence in a computer. In the end, I placed the contraption under arrest, found it guilty of taunting me with the question of whether or not it had a hard drive, and turned it over to a repair shop in town for sentencing. Some days later, they informed me that sadly, it had shown no remorse for its actions, and would have to be lobotomized. Unfortunately, my Empire can show no mercy to insurgents.
The procedure took several days, but now my computer has been returned with an entirely new mind. I was actually charged no small amount for this service, and the attendant at the shop gave me her best Nurse Ratchett smile as she said that in fact the storage space had been upgraded, though no data was able to be transferred from the previous incarnation. Fortunately (and somewhat morbidly), she also gave me the old hard drive in case I could find someone able to extract the data once I return home.
In the intervening days between the computer's trial and execution, I was fortunately able to occupy myself in pursuits other than the contemplation of my 80 gigabytes of treachery by taking a trip to Bangkok. As at least a few readers of this are aware, a good friend of mine named Rachel DeCuir has recently arrived in this country, and has begun a much more extended stay for the purpose of teaching English in a rural school as part of the Fulbright program. Previous to their diffusion amongst their various provinces, however, the Fulbright scholars are all staying in Bangkok for a short orientation program so that they can have some help learning the language and customs. Remembering my own feelings of isolation and discouragement upon my arrival in this distant land, I thought that perhaps a friendly face would be welcome.
I took the bus to Bangkok, and we departed on Friday evening. This being the second time that I had traveled to the city in this manner, I was somewhat better prepared for all the small irritations that accompany the 13-hour ride, and I did my best to pass most of the night in comfortable oblivion. I arrived at the Bangkok bus station around 7:00 AM, with the sun only timidly occupying the Eastern horizon, still balking at the dense clouds of smog with their leather jackets, slicked-back hair, and hard, greasy knuckles that promised a long fight for dominance of the Bangkok sky.
I took a taxi to what has become my preferred place of lodging in that otherwise unfortunate metropolis, and stayed just long enough to drop off my backpack and brush my teeth. Slinging my guitar-case over my shoulder, I strode out of the hotel and, following the directions given over the phone by Rachel's roommate, I was soon facing the recessed front of Suksitnives International House.
I know that Rachel was glad to see an old friend in what is otherwise so callous and disheartening a place, and the feeling was mutual. We spent the next couple of days in general exploration of Bangkok, and actually covered a significant amount of relevant ground, traveling by canal, seeing the area of the Royal Palace and many surrounding monuments, becoming proficient in the Skytrain transit system, and having several small adventures along the way. Though I still possess a strong general distaste for Bangkok, I will say that my perception of it did improve through our wanderings, and all the while it was extremely refreshing to converse with a personality that would never be found amongst the juiced-up muscles and peacock struts of the students at Tiger Muay Thai.
In fact, being with Rachel, and going out as we did one night with the other Fulbright scholars, made me again very conscious of the particular strain of narcissism which infests the camp like a fungus. Unfortunately, I see it almost everywhere, and, like most fungi which adheres to humans, it is rather contagious. Every time I step out of my door, I see it mouldering the biceps and battered chins of most of the Westerners here, and I smell it's dank odor in the breath of people who actually begin sentences (not an exaggeration) with the phrase, "Yeah, you know, that's the awesome thing about me..."
I think that the worst thing about it is that it creates an environment in which competition is so omnipresent that it's hard not to start thinking that you're better than everyone because you aren't as competitive as they are. The whole thing is paradoxical and painfully ridiculous, but even spending a couple of days away from it helped me to be able to laugh about it more than just getting exasperated. What's more, it was nice to be around people who were actually interested in the cultural roots that I'm trying to trace, people who read books without the words "EXPLOSION," "ULTIMATE," or "POWERHOUSE" in the title, people who are looking to learn more in Thailand than how to fight during the days and separate the ladyboys from "the good ones" in the evenings. Good to get out of camp I guess, and just play some music for a while.
On that note, I did bring my guitar with me to Bangkok this time, and I was glad that I did. This was the first time since I've put any significant effort into learning that instrument that I've carried it with me on any serious venture, and it makes the whole experience much more picturesque, charming and generally enjoyable.
In the past two months or so, I have come to consider my guitar to be a sort of court-jester in my Kingdom of Comfortable Circumstances, though perhaps one that was selected by one of my more adventurous secretaries after a several day drinking binge. My court jester, you will understand, is unfortunately a terribly fresh arrival from the distant land of Ibanez, and as of yet he (for somehow I've gained the impression that it is male) shares a language with no one in the realm, least of all me. Nonetheless, every day we meet, sit down to peer over some strange scratchings and tablature from his homeland, and I shake his hand and he does his best to be entertaining. So far, we have both been generally well-meaning and studious, and we had been making some progress on basic grammar (to be, to have, subject-verb inversion to form a question, contractions, etc.), but a great deal of our conversation remains halting and broken, the pauses marked by strange buzzing noises. Recently, however, he seems to be harboring some distinctly Soviet tendencies, and has rather stopped cooperating. Personally, I suspect some sedition by the Laptop before its sentence was carried out, but unfortunately I have no proof.
Whatever the cause, many of the strings have been refusing to stay in tune, and sometimes it just sounds a bit off, particularly when trying to play new songs. I've spoken to it about this, quite sternly I might add, but as I possess only a failing electronic tuner, the translation equipment is as limited as my ability to make sense of it. I'm sure that there is an answer here, and that soon enough my jester and I will be conversational in our awkward, discordant way, but at the moment it feels as if we were discussing present tense conjugations of "to be" and I am suddenly asked to understand the subjunctive. Yesterday I sat down to inquire about a talk I had with Glen Hansard, and my jester practically spit in my face. That evening, I changed his strings out of spite.
Finally, after I returned from Bangkok, I gained yet another reason to detest that city and almost everything that comes from it. For part of my last day there, and for the four days immediately following my return, I experienced physical discomfort unrivaled by anything to which the trainers here have yet subjected me. I had a fever, joint pain, skin sensitivity, nauseousness, and serious bowel complications that do not need to be detailed. Needless to say, I did no training in that interval, and spent it mostly cooped up in my room, sleeping, watching movies, grumbling at my blankly complacent and empty-headed computer, and arguing with my court-jester.
The causes of that terrible illness are still unknown to me for certain, but I have two primary suspects. The first is actually the more shocking of the two, and one that I never saw coming. Both of the full days that I spent in Bangkok were dappled with rain, and on one day, I was actually caught out in a light drizzle for a short time. I have since been informed that the pollution in that accursed city is so abominable that if one is rained on, then, having the characteristically weak immune system of an American, it is important to shower immediately, or risk becoming ill. The second culprit (pictured below) is perhaps less shocking, and is simply my own fault for being a bit too adventurous with my meals in a questionable market setting.
For those of you wondering, that is, in fact, grilled squid on a stick, though the inside was sadly and dangerously undercooked.
Anyhow, I recovered by the beginning of last weekend, and was able to go to class on Saturday. I have resumed training on my normal schedule, and in fact have taken a major step in my martial arts career. I don't mean to be dramatic by leaving this as a cliffhanger at the end of the post, and so I will furnish all basic details now, and go into a more extended explanation soon.
As of today, I have officially signed up and weighed in to compete in a full-contact Muay Thai fight this Saturday. Both combatants must wear 16oz. gloves and a mouthpiece; all punches, kicks, and knee strikes are legal, though points will only be given for recognized Muay Thai techniques. These fights are very short, and meant only to be a centerpiece to a barbecue and party that will last the whole evening, so each fight will be three rounds, each round lasting two or three minutes (TBA). I weighed in at 86 kilos (about 189 lbs.), and I will find out who my opponent is on Thursday, though I know that it will be another fighter from the camp. Think well of me that night my friends; I wish that so many of you were here.
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