The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): While She Sleeps by Billy McLaughlin

(I was in charge of the mural painted at the orphanage. I did not paint all of it (heaven's no). The idea was mine and I made sure it got finished. But I did draw the elephant). :)

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): Shine by Vienna Teng.


Thailand is an amazing, wonderful place. It was so incredible to have the chance to have my eyes opened in so many ways. Not only in culture and climate, but also how blessed I am. Granted, on first glance it doesn't seem like I have much. Jobless, having no luck finding a job, in the midst of a slew of personal situations. But I am here in America (and that has never struck me so profoundly as when I left this place to come back and realize how blessed we are), and I am able to be here, writing this to you. That is something amazing in and of itself.

So to share with you some of my experiences of my most amazing adventure there, I thought I'd kick this off with an "interesting list" post. :)

-We were lucky enough to have running water where we were staying, but even that came with a catch. The waste processing plants in Thailand are not able to deal with paper products of any kind. That includes toilet paper. So instead of the toilet, we had to put it in the waste basket. That took some getting used to. :) But at the orphanage, where I spent most of my time, they had no running water for the bathrooms, and you had to use a bucket filled with water next to the toilet to "flush." That was a humbling experience.

-It is humid there. Like, I would be surprised if it ever dipped below 65 degrees at the coldest part of night. Living in a desert, I never quite got used to that. If I had stayed at my internship at the Smithsonian through the summer, I might have been a little more prepared.

-I also lost most of my appetite while over there. I think a lot of it had to do with the heat and humidity. Rice became my best friend ever. I love rice. ^_^

-I had a coconut about as fresh as you can possibly have it. A beautiful woman from the jungle invited us to her home. She had a coconut tree growing right next to her house (not a far stretch in the middle of the jungle, and we were, literally, in the middle of the jungle). She pulls out this twenty foot stick with a hook on it and pulled us down a coconut. A butcher knife and four strokes later (she was amazing) we were drinking the freshest coconut milk you can have. We also scraped out the inside and sprinkled it with a very rough sugar. It was slimy, but very good (and you so know, coconuts are ripe green, not brown like we get them).

-I rode an elephant. A real live elephant. On it's neck. It. Was. Awesome.

-I saw a spindly black and neon green spider larger than my face. That was not awesome.

-The place we were staying was next to the ocean, perhaps my favorite place to be in the world. That was very awesome. It made me so happy to hear it every time we came "home," every time we ate, and basically every time we were outside.

-A lot of my friends jumped off a waterfall in a National Park, along with the kids in the orphanage. I was the happy photographer. ^_^

-I grew to have a greater appreciation for seafood while over there. For anyone who knows me, that is huge. I may actually even try and seek it out more now.

-Coconut milk soup is fantastic. Especially with chicken and wild herbs.

-Thai people do love their karaoke. And we grew to love it too. And some of us even became tolerable to listen to, considering the language barrier ;) (I have video of it too. I'm hoping I can upload some up here).

-I had an amazing time serving the people of Thailand. It is so cool to be WriterGirl, but every once in a while, it is even cooler to be a real hero in someone's life. That was the best part, by far.

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor (I couldn't help myself).


Just had to come on and tell you that I'm on the mend. Can't tell you how happy I am. Not completely better, but I'm on the upswing. At least I'm not sleeping like a lion anymore. (Here's a picture of me on my deathbed):(And if you can't tell, that little box next to my hand is tissues). :)


And as I look back on it, I realize that this was no ordinary virus. This was a direct attack against my superpowers as WriterGirl. How, you may ask? Easy - my kryptonite. Yeah, that's right. Books. At first I was telling myself "wait, I didn't buy any books! I wasn't even near any books in Thailand!" But that's not exactly true.

You see, I have a strange little habit of mine. I love collecting books from all over the world. It started when my twin went over to Switzerland for a study abroad during our birthday and I told her to bring me back a book from there as my present. She brought back Don Quixote. Very cool, right? It has some awesome illustrations too. So now I'm trying to do that wherever I go. But in Thailand, I ran into a problem. The only bookstores I could find had books only in English. Now, don't get me wrong. I like Twilight as much as the next girl, but I can buy that in English in the US (but a Thai Twilight would have been awesome).

I even looked in the Foreign Language section. No dice. They had French, and German, and Italian, but no Thai (I found supreme irony in that last part). But I at last found a small collection of books in Thai. Where, you may ask? 7-Eleven. Yep. The slurpee place.

Do I know what they say? Nope.

Do I care? Double nope.

Here they are, don't they look cool? (and look at the writing, it is so so cool. I also bought a CD of Thai pop music that I have no idea what they're saying, but it is so much fun to dance to.) :)






So yes, I've concluded that buying those books is really what weakened my super human defenses and made me sick. But now I'm stronger than ever. No kryptonite book can keep me down. See you all Monday!

Current Theme Song (aka what's currently playing on my ipod): Junigenmukyoku (full version) by Hari Kunihiko (Twelve Kingdoms soundtrack).


Sorry for the lack of posts. My uber-determination to stay healthy in Thailand seems to have caught up with me. And I seem to be on perma-jet lag, which isn't helping matters. I've come down with something really bad, and so I've ordered myself to bed rest until I'm better. This is the first time I've been up today, and I'm going back to bed as soon as I finish this. So wish me luck, and I'll be back soon. I promise. But the good news is - I totally kicked my Google Reader's butt. Boo-ya. Who read all 791 blog posts? Oh yeah baby. Methinks a snoopy happy dance is in order.

Pictures, stories, reviews and interviews are coming! :) Now kindly excuse me while I pass out with a jug of orange juice.

Current Theme Song (aka what's currently playing on my ipod right now): It's the end of the world as we know it by R.E.M (wow- oddly appropriate).

586 left to go. I can make it if I close my eyes really hard. I WILL read all these posts (or at least glance at all of them)! Luckily for me, I have a box full of chocolate that was sent to me for my birthday. It has enough chocolate in it to hold out Fort Henry for a month. Which makes me happy. ^_^ So, I'm off again. Wish me luck *straps on my army gear* Heather, over and out.