Believe it or not, a lot has happened since my last update. On a national scale, Thailand had the PM election on Sunday. There were 2 main parties (1 and 10), though technically about 40 parties were running. Interestingly, when a PM is elected, his whole party is elected along with him, which cuts down on the filibustering, I would imagine. Party 1 was the red shirt party, and their leader, Mr. Thaksin, won. This is the leader who was exiled much to the anger of many Thai. By winning the election, he is able to return to Thailand. If he had lost, he would not have been able to return. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be completely dependent on your countrymen deciding whether or not you could return home after a few years. I don't know the details, but it would have to create a bit of anxiety. So far, things are pretty quiet, but we will see what the next few months hold.

On a personal basis, I am back from Laos. The trip was quite frustrating for various reasons. I ended up missing one of my documentations that the school was supposed to have sent with me, so I could not apply for the non-B visa that I need to work in Thailand (kind of like a green card). I had the school fax what I thought was needed, but it wasn't, so I paid 100 baht for an unnecessary fax. Finally, after getting a tourist visa so that I could at least get back home, we got to the hotel.

Now, I had been riding in a bus from 10pm to 6am where I immediately stood in line at the Thai border, then the Laos border, and then again at the embassy until 3pm. During this time, I didn't eat, so I was pretty hungry by the time dinner was served. It was actually pretty good. Then again, almost anything would have tasted great at that point! During dinner, I was able to talk to a few people. Somehow, the conversation was turned to God and I was able to talk to them about salvation, prayer, and Heaven and Hell. The lady said that I was the first person to talk to them about God in the 3 years they'd been in Thailand. She then asked me to pray for Collin, her partner. She actually kept asking me about every time she saw me over the next 24 hours. I said that I would, and have been trying to pray for all 3 of the people I talked to ever since. This was the highlight of the trip, and just about the only bright spot other than the fact that God was able to help me keep a fairly good attitude about it all. Yes, it was frustrating, but at least I had faith that somehow it would all work out. By the end of the embassy run, I was nearly okay with anything.

So, the next day, we left to go back to Thailand. At the Thai border, I ran into some more trouble when the border officer could not find my stamp from leaving Laos. He said I had to go back to the border, wait in line there, get a stamp, then come back to the Thai border, get a stamp, and then I'd be able to leave. Ugh. I went to the lady who handled our passports, and she pointed out the Laos stamp that did in fact exist in my passport, just on a different page. I can't say I blame the guy, though, as it really did blend in with the background on my pages. By the way, can I just say that the new passports are pretty, but very annoying when it comes to finding stamps. Most border stamps are blue or red or a combo. The pages are perfectly tinted that they are really hard to see them. It is very annoying. I miss the old passport look. Anyway, I showed him the stamp and I was able to get across. Just in time to wait some more.

So, after leaving the border, we continued on our merry way back to Bangkok. One thing that was nice was that 2 people did not come back with us (not sure the story) so it was less crowded. Also, one of the guys bought a few movies, so we watched them on our drive. About halfway there, we stopped at one of the gas stations, only to be told that the station was out of gas. The driver than told us that we'd just have to wait until the truck came in the morning. Praise the Lord he was joking. Though to be honest, my thought process at that point was: sure, why not! We drove on and stopped at another station, and it was fine.

We finally pulled in at Bangkok around midnight. I asked him to drop me off where I had met them at the BTS station (sky train), thinking I could take it to the other end and then try to catch a taxi as it would probably be cheaper. It probably would have been, if the trains had still been running. So, I had to get a taxi after all. It wasn't too bad--about 200 baht. I got home around 1am, and I was pretty tired. My roommate was asleep in my room. I think she was planning on welcoming me home, but I'm glad she slept instead as it was so late. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep before getting up to teach in the morning. I can tell you one thing though, coffee never tasted so good as it did that morning.

Friday was a teacher workday, so I had a break from teaching. They were spraying for mosquitoes, so I had to flee the campus for a few hours. We ended up wandering around a mall for a few hours. The original intent was to watch a movie, but no good ones were playing at the mall we went to. They just had Transformers 3 (already saw), Green Lantern (saw and didn't like) and a Thai movie that I had absolutely no interest in.

So, I had a nice long weekend to rest and catch up, and next weekend is a long holiday, so I'll have even more time. A few of us were thinking of heading out to the beach, but we'll see if it happens. Somehow, I ended up being the only planner in the group, which is ridiculous because I'm really not a planner, just in comparison. So, we'll see if we can get a place to stay, as a lot of people are heading out that weekend. Honestly, I'd love to go to the beach, but I hate planning and packing to such an extent that I'd be okay just hanging out in Bangkok. We shall see.

This up coming week, we have Open House, so I'm trying to get my room ready. It looks pretty good, and will look even better once I get some kid work up. Ah the joys of having a TA!