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What is up with February?! Problems with work, problems with people, problems with monkeys, friends not talking, assistants not working, no internet access, monsoon rain in the middle of the dry season, no running, flat tires, rats are back!! ... Complete chaos everywhere.... I think it was about mid-week when the weekly mantra changed from "What do you want from me!!" to "Just don't give up..."

This morning I was standing in my living room wondering what to make for breakfast when this happened...

On Thursday 17th February 2011, @pstriathlon (Paulo Sousa) said: "Move forward into a place where you believe more in yourself, where you surprise yourself with what you can accomplish, where you do things you never did before."

Not surprisingly I recently received some anonymous feedback on my "What sexy is all about" post criticizing me for being weak and insecure for posting such drivel. As with most bad stuff, my natural reaction was to disregard and move on, so I deleted the comment without much consideration. But then after a while I started thinking: I have a strong tendency to just “look the other way” when bad stuff comes up and I have a whole elaborate internal avoidance system in place (as I think most people do in North American culture) to deal with all the negativity we are bombarded with on a daily basis in order to pretend bad stuff isn’t real, or at least, "it isn’t happening to me." Lately, however, I’ve been questioning this avoidance system; avoiding just doesn’t seem to be working for me anymore. Since the point of the original post was specifically to challenge myself not to look the other way about something that irritated me and find a better way to make sense of

ha ha. This is why learning another language and living somewhere far away is fantastic: cause you get to see how people are people no matter where they live, no matter what their culture. Chaleam went on vacation for a long weekend to Pattaya with his family and some friends. Talking about the trip upon his return, I asked: "So was it fun? What did you do?" To which he replied: "It was alright, we ate a lot of seafood, we swam in the ocean a bit... we pretty much just people watched, then came home." Yup, I hear that.

Quite possibly the best book I have ever read, though Mindsight by Daniel Siegel ranks equally high, so I guess there are two best books I have ever read. Excerpts from my favourite chapters: That We Risk Growth Over Security & That We Accept at Last that Our Home Is Our Journey "Our moral, intellectual, and emotional development embodies a series of deaths, followed by enlargements of soul often painfully acquired.... Through analysis I learned that something in me had to die before the rest of me, the larger part, could live.... In choosing security over growth, we all outrage the soul, and the soul, outraged, manifests in symptoms-depression, anxiety disorders, envy and jealousy of others, dependencies, and so many more.... We all set off expecting the achievement of our goals to bring lasting satisfaction. It is not that the goals are unworthy, as such, but that they so often become tempting stopping places for the soul, places where we decline the invitation to trade

Today is my friend Bahn’s birthday. She works at the restaurant on the campsite near my house with my other friend Boom. I visit them almost everyday. Bahn has two daughters in high school but, similar to Jambee, Bahn’s kids live in other towns while they go to school. Bahn’s husband lives and works in Bangkok, so it’s just her here. Bahn moved to Khao Yai two years ago because her older brother found work for her in the park. When I met her, a year ago now, she didn’t know most people around Khao Yai and people didn’t know her when I spoke of her with others. “Oh, that’s the girl with the big face, right?” is how they would reference her. Four days every month, Bahn has vacation days and on those days she travels around to visit with her family. When Bahn first arrived at Khao Yai she lived with her brother’s family on the other side of the park, but it was too crowded with 6 people jammed into a one-room townhouse. All the houses in the park for the staff who live and work here are