What's in your head?

This week I discovered that it's possibly a bad idea for a couple of girls to go kayaking at night. There are rocks in the ocean. We had to carry the kayak across the beach for a bit but made it back safely. Back on the beach I came the closest I had yet to singing "Zombie" in Thailand, but the guitarist didn't know the whole song and neither did I.

Rocks, by the cold light of morning:


The next day I got to skip class to go on a fruitless field trip to the labor department. The staff of my school took the opportunity (being in the Big City of Rayong and all) to get the tires changed on the van, so I had a couple of hours at the mall to kill with Autumn. I've written before about this mall, where all the clothes are too small and quite expensive. What I discovered last time I went there, though, are the little glass karaoke rooms on the top floor. Autumn and I copied the Thai staff and rented one. It took awhile to figure out how to show actual karaoke instead of a music video with no lyrics, but once we got it down we got it down!



It was in this small glass room that I came even closer to singing "Zombie" than I had the previous night. The song in the catalogue was called "Zomble" which was apparently not a typo, and it was a crazy dance version of the song...with no lyrics on the screen. Foiled again!

The following day was New Years Eve which was fantastic! I have no pictures of the evening, but a group of us went to dinner at Christies and then moved to the Tawan Inn for karaoke! This time, Autumn and I requested "Zombie" right off the bat. We didn't want someone else to sing it before us, since it is probably the most popular English-language karaoke song in Thailand. I think we rocked it. Other karaoke highlights not sung by me include "My Heart Will Go On," "La Bamba," and "Looking Out My Back Door."

New Years Eve was great for other reasons, too. I've made sweeping changes in my life and it feels like a great opportunity to recognize that. I also got to see the fantastic Alan (who taught me to teach and now works in Singapore.) All the company was great, actually. There was dancing on the lawn! There were fireworks at midnight! We kept going until about 3:30 in the morning, but I felt plenty refreshed this morning. I only dislike the unfortunate pattern of singing karaoke at the Tawan Inn with awesome people who will shortly leave the country.

I hope that your 2010 or 2553 is fantastic!

It is perhaps worthy of note that almost every adjective in the preceding tale was going to be "fantastic" until I made a conscious effort to change most of them. I think "fantastic" might be the word of 2553.