I've moved from Blogspot.

And I have begun the Wordpress experience.

anyellday.com

I'm going to leave this blog...

...and use anyellday.com for something better.

Soon.

(Also, screw you, Blogspot, for breaking all of those images I worked on.)

I live in Thailand.

There's a moment that I have every day that sends a shock through my system and makes me feel totally weird, and that's the thought that I live literally on the other side of the world, now, and that things are very very different (in a good way). Now that we've been here for a while and can maneuver our way through our day-to-day activities, the reality of life can begin to sink in.

That being said: our quality of life here is tremendously better. If we need something, it can be acquired. If we want something, it's probably not out of the question. Example: Today I woke up feeling flu-ish. As I work with kindergarteners, it's to be expected that I'll get sick from time to time. However, as I work with kindergarteners, I can't go missing work or dropping the ball, so I need to get better. I have a pretty bad sore throat and a fever, so I can assess that perhaps I need to see a health care professional. Back in the "good ole" USofA, I had to worry about the cost of such things. Since I didn't have (and couldn't afford) health insurance, I had to worry about the 1) cost to see the doctor and 2) cost for medicine. I had pneumonia - or something like it - back in February and could not afford to treat it. I was sick for a month, forcing myself to work through it and generally being miserable because I couldn't shell out $275 (YES, THAT MUCH) to see the doctor at the clinic (AT THE CLINIC) in Tahoe City, and I couldn't even imagine how much antibiotics would be. In Thailand, the pharmacist can assess what your problem is and prescribe the medicine you need. Less than five minutes and the equivalent of $4.35 later, I have a fever-reducer (strong Ibuprofen) and antibiotics....because you shouldn't go broke trying to get better.

My husband and I celebrated a mini-milestone on Wednesday. It was our six-month wedding anniversary. It's not a year milestone or anything, but it's something to celebrate (especially tying it in with my new employment and our new life abroad). We wanted to treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We rode our motorbike up the road a few clicks and settled into a nice restaurant by the river. Our water never dropped halfway down our glass and we both ate like kings. (If you must know, he had a MASSIVE wood-fired calzone and I had an impressive veggie dagwood sandwich with a huge plate of fries...and this place is nice - expensive by local standards.) Our total at the end of the meal, with tip, was the equivalent of $11...and this was a splurge. We usually eat out for about $1.50 for both of us at various stalls around town, but this was a treat. Back in America, a "special dinner" for us would have been a decent fraction of a paycheck.

But, it's not all about money....a lot of it is about smiles and fun. Thai people like to smile. They like to have fun. There's no point in doing something if it's not fun. (Don't think they're lazy, though...Thai people work impressively long hours - 10-12 hours a day for 6-7 days a week.) I can smile at every person I come across and 99.9% of them will crack a grin back. At my school, I wai everyone I can and greet everyone I come across, and I get the same in return. It's a warm feeling and it's inviting.

I could go on and on and on, really.....the sites, the smells, the feelings. I'll just say that this was a good move. It's probably not permanent forever because I miss some of those faces back home too much, but this is good for the soul. This place can make you feel like a person, again.

Computer Emissions

Infographic via: Wordstream

Mad Delicious Tuna Noodle Casserole

After reading through several "tuna noodle casserole" recipes on allrecipes.com and a few other similar popular sites, I decided to "wing it" and put together my own casserole. My entire adult life, I've been mostly vegetarian, so I'm not too familiar with cooking meat of any kind, fish included. That being said, I'm 25 and I have never made a tuna noddle casserole before. It wasn't much of a staple in my house growing up, either, so I was a little nervous attempting such an iconic American dish for my husband and a few roomies.

That being said, I kicked this casserole's ASS. It was DELICIOUS and my husband ate half of the casserole dish! I had a few friends asking for the recipe, so here ye be:

Ingredients:

• 1 12-oz package of egg noodles
• 1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• 3-4 large button mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 3 5-oz cans of tuna, drained
• 2 10.75-oz cans of condensed mushroom soup
• 1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
• 1 cup crushed potato chips (about one small bag of Lays did me fine)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray/oil a 9x13 glass casserole dish. Set aside.

Cook egg noodles according to package direction. While noodles are boiling, saute the onion, garlic, and mushrooms with a little oil in a saucepan over medium heat, until the onions are translucent.

Meanwhile, mix together the tuna, milk, peas, one cup of shredded cheese, and condensed soup (no water added). Once the noodles are cooked, add them to the mix. Stir in the sauteed veggies. Mix well.

Transfer the mix to the greased casserole dish. Sprinkle half of your crushed potato chips on top, then sprinkle half a cup of shredded cheese, then the rest of your chips and the rest of your cheese (layering a few times on top of the dish).

Bake dish uncovered for 25 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Moving to the Land of Smiles

(Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai - photo taken personally in March 2010)

Well, we've decided to move to Thailand. This was an idea we casually mentioned to each other every now and then since our return from a month-long vacation there last February-March. We've been restless since then, with an underlying tension driving us to do something a little different from what is the standard here. (Honestly, it was between this and getting a small travel trailer to live in near the coast. Ironically, moving to Asia is the cheaper option.)

I made the commitment about a week before Christmas, booking a month-long TEFL course with SEE TEFL in Chiang Mai. I chose SEE TEFL after searching for schools in Chiang Mai (Bangkok did not appeal to us) and noticing their re-appearance with every different search I managed. I've also yet to find anything negative about the school at all, and they seem to have reasonable connections for job placement. Since I've booked the course, I've exchanged several e-mails with the owner, John, and his patience and ability to respond promptly leaves me excited to arrive and begin my course. My classes start on April 25, and Shawn put down his deposit for the same dates just yesterday. We chose these dates as it's at the end of the Thai summer and this is when schools will be hiring the most during the year.

Our next move was to determine where we would be living for the duration of the course and during our job hunts upon graduation. We wanted something within walking distance of SEE TEFL. We also desired something with a kitchen (such a loose term in Thailand - a kitchen simply has a sink, 'fridge, and two hot plates....no oven ::sad face::). Searching from America, the only places I could find seemed rather expensive - service apartments in luxury hotels, around $750 a month at the cheapest. At the other end of the spectrum, I found a lot of guest houses for around 5k BAHT a month (~$160), but these lacked kitchens of any sort and were very basic hotels. (They also required that we pay for utilities, and I have no experience with that in Thailand so I have no idea how much electricity a "unit" is!) I pressed on, determined to find something more in our budget (we wanted to spend no more than 10k BAHT - around $300 - a month). After several Google searches and TripAdvisor reviews, I found a vacation rental agent in Chiang Mai. His website didn't advertise prices, which made me a little hesitant to even bother (the apartments looked nicer than some of the serviced places I saw advertised for nearly $1k) but I e-mailed him and we began the process of finding just what we needed. Luckily, Richard, the owner of the company, is another patient farang in the LOS (Land of Smiles) and he directed me to exactly the studio apartment we needed....and for a mere $400 a month, with maid service and all utilities paid. There's even a pool to relax in, which will be nice as we'll be arriving in the middle of the Thailand summer. The best part is the distance to the school: a short ten-minute walk. Finally, it seemed as if the pieces were falling together.

Our final major step in preparing was to book airfare. I was shocked to see that airfare basically doubled from the same time last year. In February-March of 2010, we got roundtrip airfare from San Francisco to Bangkok for $700 each. After a lot of searching and trying different methods and booking at different times of day, we settled at $709 each one-way from Reno to Chiang Mai. We could have gone San Francisco to Bangkok, again, but it was only $50 cheaper, and then we'd have to find transport to SFO and book a train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. That'd be tacking on another day of travel for no reason. At least we'll be flying out from a local airport and flying directly to our destination in Thailand (last time, we were a hot mess trying to find our way). The vacation rental agent in Chiang Mai even has a driver pick us up upon arrival, delivering us home immediately!

SEE TEFL sponsors all students' residency in Thailand for one year with a non-immigrant B visa. I have received the letter from SEE TEFL in the mail and I will have to submit my visa application, along with $175 and two photos of myself. This is the next major expense, but it is cheaper than going on visa runs to Burma or Laos every sixty days - which seems to be the norm in Thailand. I am lucky to get the one-year visa option, for sure. Shawn will get the same, as we are at the same school.

A lot of people who know me are wondering why in the heck I would want to teach English. I have a few responses. First, I'm tired of working in the service industry, whoring myself out for the odd dollar tip here and there. Also, I've done the office-gig corporate thing and that wasn't for me. Teaching is something that appealed to me when I was younger, but I opted out when I saw how little teachers got paid. (Not that they're millionaires in Thailand, but we can expect to have a combined income of ~60k BAHT over there...totally livable in Chiang Mai.) It's time to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone, and I think this is an excellent way to do that. Also, with the experience I'll gain with the TEFL certification and a year or two of teaching in Thailand, I'll be able to do the same in other countries. (Indonesia or Japan, anyone?) This is also good for Shawn, who has a degree that's just been collecting dust. He'll make more than me monthly, doing the same job, because he has that Bachelors. Benefits all around.

It's also good to note that you can't really find any other legal work in Thailand. Thais are very protective of their jobs, and teaching English is the only thing they allow farangs to do, for the most part. If you see a farang working any other job in Thailand, chances are they are being paid under the table and they have to make those pain-in-the-ass visa runs every two months. That, or they work online for an employer in another country and they discovered the BAHT to dollar or BAHT to pound ratio was in their favor to live like a king in the Land of Smiles.

And so, the journey begins. After all of these deposits and tickets and forms, we're pretty broke right now. Luckily, the big expenses are out of the way, and now all we have to do is save, save, save.

Alcohol vs. Marijuana

Henry Rollins Disses Techno (& gets remixed with the Techno Viking!)

Venturing out of color, and into cut.

New 'do. I think this is the start of something...fun :)

Reishi Mushrooms in Missouri!

It's true - Reishi mushrooms can be found in Missouri! My fiance and I went hunting in the woods near Castlewood State Park last Monday, and we found the MOTHERLOAD of Reishi mushrooms near the Meramec River. I was unaware that these mushrooms grew outside of Asia, but upon internet searching, it's proven that they grow in the Southeastern USA late-Summer to early-Fall.

(our tree!)

Why is this exciting? These particular Reishi mushrooms may enhance the immune system to improve overall health. Also, this article claims that Reishi mushrooms are useful in other ways!

Table - Pharmacological effects of whole Reishi extracts in vivo and in vitro

• Analgesic
• Anti-allergic activity
• Bronchitis-preventative effect, inducing regeneration of bronchial epithelium
• Anti-inflammatory
• Antibacterial, against Staphylococci, Streptococci, and Bacillus pneumoniae (perhaps due to increased immune system activity)
• Antioxidant, by eliminating hydroxyl free radicals
• Antitumor activity
• Antiviral effect, by inducing interferon production
• Lowers blood pressure
• Enhances bone marrow nucleated cell proliferation
• Cardiotonic action, lowering serum cholesterol levels with no effect on triglycerides, enhancingcardial metabolism of hypoxic animals, and improving coronary artery hemodynamics
• Central depressant and peripheral anticholinergic actions on the autonomic nervous sytem reduce the effects of caffeine and relax muscles
• Enhanced natural killer cell (NK) activity in vitro in mice
• Expectorant and antitussive properties demonstrated in mice studies
• General immunopotentiation
• Anti-HIV activity in vitro and in vivo
• Improved adrenocortical function
• Increased production of Interleukin-1 by murine peritoneal macrophages in vitro
• Increased production of Interleukin-2 by murine splenocytes in vitro

We whipped up a tea once we got home and confirmed our all-too-lucky findings. The tea is delicious and a nice reward for the time spent tromping around the woods.

We also found a small amount of oyster mushrooms (used in a wild mushroom risotto at home that night), as well as various non-edibles that took pretty pictures.

(Oytster Mushrooms were part of dinner!)