So as I normally do before writing these blogs, I went through my pictures to see what I did the past few weeks. The answer: not too much.

To be honest my free time has been piled high with personal errands. I've been on a sort of "Let's make sure I'm good medically" kind of spree lately, doing a series of checkups and vaccinations. Because hey, it's really cheap over here. (and sometimes free!) Not to mention visa issues, which have always been a giant pain in the ass for Thailand.

But probably the biggest occupier of my time lately is my school. Not my work school, but school school. I decided to go back to get my Masters degree, and managed to find a university in America that has a degree specifically in ESL. I had to do a lot of searching to find a university that I could afford, was able to fit my unique requirements, and a program that would benefit me. Then after all that, tracking down a paperwork trail that began 15 years ago, tax forms for grants/scholarships, you name it. Anyway that fun starts next week and should be a major part of my life for the next 1 to 1.5 years, which I'm not exactly looking forward to. But, I think a MA in ESL would look pretty good on a CV, and probably open up a lot of opportunities in Europe and other ESL markets generally off-limits to the "Do it for a year" backpacker crowd.

Speaking of jobs, I haven't spoken about my new one yet. It's an unusual sort of thing, a blend of webmaster and English teacher. Basically I have 250 or so students that maintain blogs, I give them subjects to write about, and then grade them on it. While this does mean I have to read 250 blogs a week, it's an interesting conduit into an average Thai teenager's mind. Or at least a female one, since it's an all girls school. While I really appreciated most of my students at my last job, this one really takes it up a notch. They're all extremely well behaved, and the average level of English is much higher. I've learned their opinion on government, women's rights, and GMO foods, which is something I don't even know Ella's opinions on. Plus the management is much improved, communicative, and a pleasure to work with, which is always a good thing.

So, as far as travel, I don't know how this occurred, but Ella has not been to a few places around Bangkok that I have been many times, most within my first day of arriving. For example Wat Saket, aka The Golden Mount. It was the first place I visited in Bangkok, and yet somehow she missed it. Also Wat Rakhangkhositraram Woramahavihan, because brevity is for chumps. It's a local curiosity, a wat along the river that a ton of pigeons hang out at. Which is usually a reason to avoid a place, but it's seriously a lot of godamn pigeons. So, here we are. We also managed to take a day trip up to Ayutthaya, to go around and see all those old ruins from the comfort of a motor scooter. One which I am driving legally now, thanks to renewing my American Driver's License. Anyway I've written about Ayutthaya many times, and those 700 year old ruins haven't changed in the past few months.

Maybe more interesting is that on the 5th floor of a mall in the Japanese district, Bangkok has winter. Supposedly it's meant to be a village from Hokkaido, they spread around fake snow to make a play area surrounded by cafes. It's not too large, and the snow has a snowcone sort of consistency, but it's still an amusing sort of thing that's pretty unique. Other than that we've just been being social. It seems in this past month or so, my circle of friends has really expanded in size. Saturday has been "the night" to go out and do stuff, and pretty much every Saturday has involved some sort of drinking nonsense. It's really refreshing to have a close group of friends, and I am starting to really cherish those Saturdays. In particular this most recent Saturday, was a language exchange meetup that I thoroughly enjoyed. Everyone there was super friendly and awesome, at a really cool bar, and just a pleasure to talk to.

And now you're pretty much caught up on my life. Unfortunately I think photos from travels abroad are going to be hard to come by for a while. The Thai school schedule and American one don't really line up, so getting time off from both is going to be difficult. Assuming it does happen, the two things on the list are going back to Vietnam (to do it properly), and visiting Ella's hometown in southern China. Both are quite appealing to me, and I really hope it can happen at some point. Hopefully during Songkran (April), because I do not want to be anywhere near this country when that rolls around again. Last year I ran away to Myanmar, which was a pretty great decision. Although really anywhere you can walk around without being water raped has one up on Thailand during that time.