Random Observations

1. The other day, sarah's boyfriend Kevin was sharing his perplexity over backpackers/tourists. "Why do they always dress like a cross between a pirate and a magician?" he queried. After being surrounded by backpackers in New Zealand, I nearly cried with laughter at this very accurate description. Now we all have a game. Every time we see a backpacker we ask ourselves "pirate? or magician?"

2. During another conversation about the weirdness of Thailand, Ozzie christened it "the island of misfit toys." Once again, so very accurate. His point was that many of the foreigners who end up in Thailand are really misfits in their own countries. I'm inclined to agree. All you have to do is take a look at my Thai class. It makes for an interesting social atmosphere. Everybody sing together "we're a couple of misfits, why don't we fit in!" I think that movie is also the origin of one of my favorite quotes. "We can be independent together!" Okay I'm done with that.

3. Payap is hosting a film festival this weekend featuring films from southeast asia. As someone who loved Dr. smucker's international film class at Whitworth, I'm in heaven. Except instead of a Whitworth faculty member leading the discussion afterwards, as wonderful as that was, we get to have Q&A sessions, often with the director. Unfortunately I'm missing tomorrow because I have to help with the senior retreat. But I will say that my favorite film thus far has been "In the Middle of the Bridge," which is basically a documentary featuring interviews with various Burmese monks involved in the 2007 anti-government protests, aka the "saffron revolution." The Q&A session afterwards was with a Burmese monk who is involved with the fight for political freedom in Burma. It was soooo interesting.

4. I've learned that my name has a meaning in Thai. That is, the sounds "hi" and "di" are Thai words. They mean "give" and "good" respectively. so apparently it sounds like my name is "to give good." Now I understand why sometimes people giggle when I introduce myself. When you think about it, it's
 a bit awkward, but I guess there are worse names to have.

5. I've made my sound recording debut. The Christian Communications Institute, right next door, is putting together a presentation on Thailand and needed a male and female narrator. Everyone else was busy so I got the job. They'll actually be coming to Washington, and probably to Whitworth, sometime this spring I think. so you can go to their performance and also hear my first professional voice recording. It took me about five takes to get it at the right speed without sounding like a robot. It's actually quite a bit harder than you'd think.