The Fires of Hell

An hour or so ago, I ate the single hottest food that I've ever had the misfortune of eating in my entire life. I ordered what was listed on the menu as lemon marinade roasted pork. Sounds nice enough - I was expecting pork with a citrusy flavor. Not so. It was lemongrass marinated pork. Lemongrass has a nice enough flavor, but man, they loaded the pepper sauce on this baby. My lips were burning a half an hour after eating it. One of my colleagues suggested asking for sugar, as that would neutralize the spice. I tried this, and it worked well enough at first, as my lips were no longer burning. However, I quickly discovered that the sugar disolved by the time it reached the back of my mouth, which meant my throat was burning for a half an hour instead. I only had about four bites. Quite possibly the most miserable food experience I've had since the chicken in Japan gave me salmonilla.
So I've not blogged in a while, as I've been working and trying to prep lessons and all of that. Classes have been going pretty well. The Thai students all look so young and wear uniforms, so in many ways it feels more like I'm teaching high school than at a University. But I enjoy it, and I think the students are enjoying me. My policy is firm but friendly, and I've grilled a few chronic latecomers already and made it clear that such things will not stand, but I've done it with a smile. I had an interesting interaction with a girl who has been late for the third time in three classes today. I caved to her yesterday and didn't mark her late (even though she was 20 minutes late) as she was whining and begging. Today, she tried the same tactic, but I said that for the third time, I wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. She told me she was busy right before the class. I told her I thought that was curious, since there is a half an hour before the class for everyone at the university. She knew she'd been beaten then. And so it goes.
Made another follow up with my doctor, but this time dealing with Hypertension issues. She told me to lay off of fried food (hence my trying of the above food) and do some exercise. I haven't been able to get out and run at all, but I no longer take the elevator. Considering I live on the 13th floor, this may not exactly be sufficient, but it's definitely having an impact.

According to the scale at her office, I've dropped 15 kilos (33 lbs.) now since my first visit to her office two Saturdays ago. I find this hard to believe, as one would think that clothes would be falling off of me. Things are a bit looser, but not THAT much. But I sweat my brains out every day and the food is in rather small portions, so undoubtedly I've dropped some.

I killed a cockroach in my room with my umbrella the other day. There was also a gecko running around. I like geckos, but can do without papa roach.

Last Saturday I took one of the canal taxis to downtown. It was awesome - 14 baht (just under 40 cents) for the fastest ride to downtown Bangkok other than a helicopter. The only problem is that the canals, or klongs as they are known in the local parlance, hold what may be some of the nastiest water in the world. So you have to be careful to not be splashed by the water, which is mostly averted by the tarps along side the craft, but a bit does splash over from time to time, particularly when another boat is passing the other way. But the klong boats are the truest form of Bangkok transport there is, so it was cool.
On the way back from the trip downtown, one of my colleages was so drunk that he vomited inside of the cab. That was pleasant, and made the driver rather happy as you can imagine. Thankfully, it didn't hit me at all.

Hail progress!