Shouzer

Since I came back from Thailand, most of my time has been consumed by my upcoming move to Detroit. Last weekend, I went up there with my parents to find a place to live. I ended up going with a place called Tree Tops apartments in Northville, MI. I have a 1 bedroom loft, which just means the the bedroom is upstairs and overlooks the living room downstairs. I have a nice view of a quite little stream, and a nice “historic” downtown area is about a 10 minute walk away. All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with it so far.

I’m not going to be doing a photographic tour like Jared did because I lack the camera equipment. So you’ll have to come visit me if you want to see it.

It turns out though, moving domestically is actually more of a hassle than moving internationally, at least for me. In Bangkok, I showed up, picked an apartment, and moved in over a weekend. It’s taken a lot more effort than that here. There was organizing the moving truck, connecting utilities, etc.

The rest of the time I’ve spent visiting my family. It’s pretty nice to catch up with them after being gone for so long. We had a big family dinner last night, and my mom cooked a traditional Christmas-style dinner since I missed that event this year. It was a nice time, even though I didn’t get any presents. The food was really good, better than I remember it usually being. I might have to cook turkey dinners every once in a while up in Detroit.

It’s been said that I enjoy the same restaurants that tend to attract an “older” population. A population in which the most popular job title is likely to be “Retired”. A population that might just contain an inordinate number of grandmas and grandpas. A population of senior citizens, if you will.

My friends, the old folks and I share a common interest in places like Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel. I know why I like them–breakfast at any time of the day. It’s absolutely glorious. Anybody who disagrees just dropped a rank on my list of friends.

Now, this is all well and good in most parts of the country. But in Washington? In Washington there just aren’t any Bob Evans. How weak is that? All I want at the end of the day is a delicious Sunshine Skillet. But where am I supposed to get one now? It was a sad realization that my days of Sunshine Skillets and Pot Roast Hash have all but come to an end.

None of my Fruity Pebbles would fetch nearly this much.

For my birthday recently, my parents got me an awesome present. It’s called Henrietta Hen. Basically, it makes boiling eggs ridiculously easy. Pour some water in the thing, put the eggs in there, and plug it in. That’s all there is to it, and it beeps when it’s done.

Of course, I happened to get a broken one. It doesn’t beep. It just keeps on cooking and cooking. Honestly it’s not that big a problem–I’ve got like three timers in the kitchen right around the thing, so it’s still easy. But, I mean honestly… Come on. Mine had to be broken?

Anyway, I love me some hard-boiled eggs, so Henrietta has a full-time job these days.

I got paid this week, and I decided to go purchase a new toy. As I was really struggling with the lack of variety in my diet, I decided to buy an electric griddle. Basically, I ended up with this thing that is about a 20 inch circle that gets hot. You can cook food directly on it or put a pot in the middle for boiling things. The box says you can bake things with it as well, but I don’t see how that is possible. I’m not bothered by that though because I rarely feel the need to bake anything. It would be nice to be able to cook a pizza, but I wouldn’t be able to find the ingredients anyway.

I christened it this morning by cooking a lovely breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and sausages. The circle in the middle that holds the pot is also perfect for cooking eggs in. I’ve never had a fried egg come out in such an exact shape. I can’t explain how good it was to be able to cook again. Cooking is not only my hobby, but it sustains my need for food. I can order 4 things from the Thai street vendors, and it nice to be able to create some variety again. Plus, now I can cook western food whenever I want. This week, pasta and tacos, not on the same night obviously.

I got a letter today from my grandparents, one from my grandma and one from my grandpa. According to my grandpa’s letter, it was the first time he has written anything since he retired in 1990. I had never thought about it before, but it was the first time I had ever seen his handwriting. It was kind of cool to be the recipient of a letter from someone who hasn’t seen a need to write in 17 years.

In other news, I’m watching the Seinfeld now where Kramer has the idea to start a pizza place where you can cook your own ‘pizza pie’. Jerry claims that there is no one in an walk of life, under any circumstances, would want to cook their own pizza. Well, I disagree. I would love to cook my own pizza right now. I don’t have a kitchen here in Thailand, and I miss cooking a lot. It used to be very relaxing for me, and I really enjoy creating delicious meals. If I found a restaurant in Thailand that let you cook your own food, I’d be all over that action. There are cooking courses, but I’m get so much Thai cuisine that it’s not really worth learning to cook it at this point. Maybe I’ll take one in the last month I’m here so I can bring the goodness home.

My final tidbit is the slightly interesting fact that it is 29 C (84 F) in my apartment right now, and I’m getting cold. I guess I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to the heat here. I’m going to turn the A/C off now.

Ronald McDonald performing the Thai Wai, used to show respect as a greeting. I do it all the time as well when I go to the schools to teach. I just thought it was really funny to see an American icon in the pose.

The work is actually getting better this week. I am on standby on Mondays, which honestly kinda sucks, but I’m looking at it as a wild-card day. It’s also nice that I won’t have to do student reports for those five classes. Tuesday was really good. I work at a kindergarten all day, and it is a great school. The kids are adorable, and they are really smart. They have gotten used to me and my TT, so now they know our signals, even the K1s who are only 2-3. We we tell them to hush, they actually do it.

Today was a pretty good day as well. It used to be a totally crap day for me, but I laid the smack down on my bad classes last week. This week, they were quite well behaved. It was really nice to see the discipline being effective. There were three other teaching teams from Fun Language at that school today as well, and one of them was threatening to send naughty students to my TT if they were bad. Apparently, it worked. She is pretty feisty.

Food was really good today as well. I had this garlic chicken thing at lunch which was really nice. I was getting tired of eating fried rice so I got some of the Thai teachers to recommend me something. This is surprisingly hard to do. Every time I’m out with them, I ask them what to order. They almost always say fried rice or basil chicken. Both are good, but I like a little variety. The restaurants don’t have menus, and when you ask a Thai person what they have, they generally say, “They have everything.” I tell them I want a burger. I had some Greek food in my apartment this afternoon which was a welcome change as well. It was just feta cheese with olives, tomatoes, onions, and bread, but it was quite nice to eat something besides rice. I went to a Japanese place with some friends at the night, and that was one of the most amazing meals I have had in a long time. We shared pot stickers, fried pork, and some sushi. It was amazing.

Tomorrow I’m heading to a new school. For some weird reasons I haven’t been to this one yet. It’s another day of all kindergarten, and I’m teaching phonics the whole day. Hopefully, it will go alright. Friday is my super fantastic day. I have four classes; I’m done before lunch. It is magnificent.