Sawati Khrap

Wow. Friggin wow. Its amazing here. I dont know where to start. The plane was ok. taking off was the best part. No delays. thats a blessing because of that storm that raged its way through. I'm hearing right now that it struck pretty hard.
2nd Impression. The billboards. They are Huge. Its hot. getting out of the air conditioned taxi for the first time (Onto the middle of the road. Its pretty insane if you see what driving is like over here. EVERYONE is trying to get past each other at the same time.) my glasses totally fog up. I was like "WOA! IM BLIND." Not to bad though. I have no real problems with it. Oh yea, Coke lost the war in Thailand. Pepsi rules. Even the run down little street venders have pepsi imblaizoned all over it.
Its hard to say all the different things that have happened to many. So many stories. Ill have to just select my favourites to tell.
Me and Zac getting ripped off by a tazi driver. Second day in Bangkok. Me and zac have to take a taxi by ourselves back to china town because ema-lees sick. We jump in and tell him where were going. we tell him to turn the meter on because we have been warned about the dodgy things they can do sometimes. (We also noticed that his licence on the dash board was NOT him.) He was driving for a little bit and he says to zac "100 baht?" Zac agrees, just to shut him up. We pull up to the hotel and were idling by the door and the taxi guy says "100 baht!" Zacs says "No I dont think so, meter says only 65 baht." "100 baht!" "65." he says, smiling and tapping the meter. The driver turns off the meter and locks the doors. me and zac both instantly go "WOOOOOOOAAH What EVER!" and im laughing my head off at how dodgy he is. "100 baht!" "Nope. 65 baht. Mai chi!" we hand over a hundred baht note. And the driver gives us a twenty. We decide thats an ok compromise and get out. laughing about it.
Oh yea. there are bottles of cola that are 3.1 litres. They are MASSIVE. i wont ever bother with them since a glass bottle of Pepsi is about 50 cents. I got a nice pair of Sandals For 5 dollars today. Honestly, you girls would love it here. There was a alley dedicated to shoes and bags. They also have these crazy gold necklace stores. they're everywhere. I call them fast food gold stores. Cause I can almost imagine people ordering at a drive through for Gold chains.
I was really dearing today and pet a monkey. those things don't like being touched. It freaked out. I think if I hung around much longer it would wanted to give me a rabby infested bite. A couple were climbing all over Jo. It was rather amusing how the girls would react. I have my camera, crouched down filming it. It completely ignores me walking past and around, while all the girls are screaming and jumping up. I think it liked their reactions. XD. cars stopped at the lights would be investigated by the cheeky little things.
today at the markets I found a rack of frogs cut open upside down. One of their hearts was still beating. lololololol.

This week we are doing Thai lessons so we can comunicate a bit more than we have. Its aight, Im finding it a bit tough. I got numbers down pretty good. 1 to 5 is simple. nung, sung, see, cip, Haa.

Well I cant think of much more to write other than sorry for no pics. Im in a net cafe.

Love ya'll lots (Except for you, you and you.)

tomorrows the big day

By the time most of you read this (Unless your an eager beaver and check this blog like every night or something) Ill probably be in the sky for Thailand. Ill probably buy a simcard over there so I could still text. But Ill probably check the net every chance I get to make sure your all right, right?

Man, im freakin out inside. I bet im gonna forget something. I bet Im gonna screw up the first english lesson I haven't even bothered with preparing.

I was just watching the news and apparently theres a storm headed our way to. So we might not even get off the ground! aaaaaah, I dont know anymore!

Yours freaking out truly,
IFM.

P.s. If I die dig up under the old willow tree. You'l find my childhood piggy bank with my highly prized collection of lint.

final study block and beyond

Ok I lie, Its not the FINAL study block, but the ones after will be totally overshadowed by the awesome experience in Thailand. Yay! I havent forgotten you all. (Sorry I haven't texted in a while either guys. Out of reception and out of battery juice stuff.)

Ok, Im gonna try and type about the last.... 6 weeks?

Finlay Park.

This was a great place. For one reason and one reason only.Own. Personal. SKATE PARK! I got myself a sweet deck to use here. The mornings were freezing, so it was always a bit of a run to breakfast. At night we watched the Band Of Brothers series. Everyone got into it. Even the girls funnily enough. Goes to show that Blood, guts and violence isn't just a guy thing. Its a human thing.

Heh heh. I also made a mini series with an unfortunate jenny doll, which (In chronilogical order) got its hair set on fire, drowned, frozen, dropped down a water slide, smashed, ripped in half, put back together, decapitated, and then recapitated with her head upside down. It started off as a rediculious look at how people dont take responsibility for their actions and blame it on the media. Then it went off on a tangent cause everyone liked it so much. Oh yea, on the finaly day I got my hair slashed by Aimee, Beth, Jess and Emalee. Sorry for the emotional trauma Jess. You did good. =D Its like an emo cut now, but lopsided at the back. ha ha. I did it for the opshop ball. Lt. Funk played. They were so groovy, and I knew how to dance to every song because it was all ska/funk/reggae styles. ha ha.
We got our visa applications ready as well, in little old cambridge again.

Huia Lodge

West Auckland! yea ya! Huia lodge is this little place way up in the waitakeres. The community spirit of headspace got rekindeled here in my opinion. Probably because we had two places to go. our little rooms, or our little hall with a nice fire roaring in the corner. So a lot of munchkin playing went on here. Heh heh. I made a bunch of the guys even more nerdier when I made them partake in my own homemade RPG. It was hilarious to see how animated they get freaked out when I make a Resident Weevil burst out of a box at them. ha ha. Good times... Your all looking very lost. I'm sorry. I should keep the nerdishness out of this. Oh yea, The designs for headspace are trundeling along. I designed our Tshirts. Everyone went into the mall and got their own Tshirts from hallenstines.
The actual design for headspace itself though is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Ema is very particular. Which is great, it stretches my talent muscles somewhat. And I would rather not do a bogus design for the figurehead of headspace.
During this time we were going to my church for thai lessons and more perspectives.

Finlay Park II

KIDS CAMP! It was totally rad. I got a cabin of kids to look after. I have to say its right up there with Coopers Beach camp. Its so relaxed its great. I was mostly on Skate Park Duty. But I pretty much sucked cause I never did a good job of keeping kids in helmets. And one of the little maori Boys kept nicking the Decks -_-. Funny story though, On the last night We caught him and his mate sneaking out to go pranking. We chased them down, one of them slipped on the concrete then got owned by Ian our camp director, and the maori boy got jumped by the other leaders. He stayed in the leaders cabin so we could keep an eye on him. But obviously not a very good eye because he stole two Ipods. We almost didn't get them back. Ian was planning to do a bag search, but everything pointed to this kid, so he was grilled or something (Don't know exact details so I won't exaggerate it) and finally gave them back. Franks Ipods backlight doesnt work anymore though, saddly. But at least he got it back. Cloie, one of the chick leaders got baptised there this morning in fact. It was great. I was beaming =) I was so happy for her. Also last night All the Big Names came and played. and hey hey, I could dance to all their music because it was Ska. Yay, such luck. =D
Ian was a great camp director. One night us leaders werent getting into bed fast enough so he came in with a mini baseball bat and gave a bunch of us a bit of a wack to speed us onward. I was laughing my head off. Hmmm, Other stories.. Their all quit painful. I owned myself heaps trying to do grinds on the skate park. oh yea, and theres this kid Adam, I'm sure he's gonna win the darwin awards one day.
a bunch of my campers were sitting behind another leader in chapel. and as he was sitting down they tried pulling his pew out from behind him, it didn't really work, so as the leader was pulling back the pew, Adam put his head between the gap where the two pews in front met. He got his head caught and his ears squashed. It looked rather comical. He had been asking for it all morning though. He's the sorta kid that doesnt understand that "If you touch my hat,My oh so gorgeous hat,) one more time, or if you punch me a few more times, I WILL poke you harder than you ever could little man." So what does he do -_-. So I poke him and he crumples and cries for a few seconds, then decides that the best way to deal with the situation is to hit me again. So I sit there for a bit waiting for him to stop, then tell him again "Don't touch me or it will hurt on your part.".....AdampunchsImegaPoke and he's down for the count! The crowd roars! I feel Strong because I can beat up kids half my size. -_-

and now I'm home, Waiting to go over seas and do what I have always dreamt of doing....

....Buying pepsi in a bag.

Didn't get a haircut & got a real job

More ball photos! This time with Brialee.

So I have been putting off writing this since I have had a lot of fun messing around on newgrounds and a billion other websites which I find a lot more interesting than this blog. I think thats a good thing because it means I don't find accomplishment in reading about myself.

So lets start with wednesday(or some day) last week. Things went extreme at our host families. Pranks were flying everywhere. Alarm clocks woke people. Gloves failed to explode on exhaust pipes, condoms were strategically placed in peoples wallets and YES. I did find that one in my CD wallet thankyou Steven. It went to good use protecting Peakies Wallet, Phone and Ipod.

Cerelia took us around town on a random adventure. If you want to see what she did to our room (Which we were MEANT to have tidied up that night have a look here) and if you wanna know a little bit about the random adventure have a looksy here.

Saves me the trouble of having to write it myself =D.

Thanks a lot family, you rocked our cotton socks.

We then moved to camp Sladin. Its freezing, but thankfully we have our own Spa, which is massive, and more specifically I have my own private skate park to ride around on. I got a new deck specialy for it. it looks niiice. No more Warehouse junk for me. Man, Im far to lax with this blog entry, its bordering on commercialised mediocreness. I better tell a story quickly. So I'm at the skate ramps right. And the boys come down to check me out. Really they came just to see me fall over. Which they got. J's videos of me flipping over made even me lol. Eddies like "Flash, Drop in off the big ones!" knowing this would be the surest way of making me cane myself. Especially since I cant even ride up and down one yet without falling over (While people are looking.)
So I Give him a swift "Neoow! screw you. I can't even drop in off the little ones. see... Ok. So I could drop in off that. But I can't drop off this slightly bigger one..... Alright so I just prooved myself wrong again. But this one for sure I wont be able to do.... Well I did it but that doesn't mean I'll do the huge one I'll kill myself." I clambered up and put my board on the edge. Freaking out at the height I am above the concrete. And if you know me I don't usually freak out at stuff like that, because Im generally hurling myself down it.
There are two videos of the even which follows. One shows me saying "NO I CAN"T DO THIS." Then immediatly leaning forwards and skating down.... then go plowing straight into the concrete which was so patiently awaiting my palm, face, and predominantly my knee. Which was giving me hell for three days. The second is a high shot of me rolling after impact, then continueing to rive in pain saying "I told you! I told you I would kill myself.

Oh yea, I came home on thrusday. Surprise. While at home I got a new Video camera to. Yay, Now I can get down to making my own version of Lord of the Rings, since they missed a bit last time it was made. Peter, you fool. Kidding. XD

So to sum up. I have finished work. Got enough money for overseas, and in general everythings turning out nicely. Now were going onto our next learning block! Time to get back into that bible.

MUCKOLE!!!

The Ball

I have been putting off all week posting about this since Its been difficult getting photos off girls.

Itsa me and Lianna!

But I went with Brialee right, some of you may remember her from HM Rage from last year. Oh yea, sorry I couldn't come, far to expensive, even though Headspace is apparently a sponser of rage. Ah well. Have fun guys.

So I was talking to Brialee via MSN a while back and she was like, dude, you should come to the ball. Later on I found out Lianna was going to it as well with a bunch of her friends. YES! A free ride there and back. lol.

So we left work early so I could sit around waiting for Mum(Lianna) to get ready. During the week I scored Dads old suit. My host brothers shirt, and Jasons shoes and Tie. It was a complete throw together. It look rather decent though, apart from the shoes not fitting with the time period at ALL.

It was groovy seeing Brialee again after all this time.

So we went to the ball. I'm going to assume that balls are pretty much the boring bit before the afterball. So I'm just gonna say we danced around to a lot of Oldschool stuff from the rock 'n roll 50s and then a whole lot of mainstream yuck stuff.

We went back, got changed into regular clothes then headed to the afterparty, everyone had to meet outside the Popo station, where we would get picked up by a bus. We only just missed the first (Out of three) buses by like 6 people. So we were content to wait for the second, by the time it came the bulk of the munters had arrived. So theres a mad paniced rush for the doors, beers in hand. Everyone got smooshed together, I was pinned in the middle somewhere. None of our crew made it on so we decided to wait for the LAST bus. Jeeze.

We made it on thank goodness. The Afterparty was aight, it doesnt matter how you dance when there strobes going, ANYTHING looks cool. just wave your hand in front of your face and youl be amused for ages till you either have a sezure or just get tired. Once again not much to say other than drunk people are fun to spin. "its like a rollercoaster... But not.."

We got home at 4:30 and crashed. I was out like a bad batsman.

On another note, I lost my wallet, Im assuming it got stolen along with Both Hannas phones and other misc items of value at the packhouse. We have a thief in our midst. =(

Fortunatly other than my Eftpos card the only thing of value in my wallet was the little picture of me on my ID. lol. Hopefully they wont go to henderson, check out all the books in the library with my card and then dump them in the Creek. I would NOT want to be responsible for that.

Nice little sticker done by Noodle.

Like The Background? The Queen was designed by Component of the Cut Collective. and I have smashed my NZ Music month circles into the mix.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS. and rock on our monarch!

Skate Or Die

Were Leaving End Of July. Really Scary, they gave us a sheet with all the dates and times for everywhere were going as a team, it only filled an a5 sheet of paper, thats the rest of our year! It Doesnt feel like long to go at all! =(
Bex, if you take up drinking, buying alcohol, and buying fireworks Ill have to come and give you a sound beating.. Apart from the fireworks thing, thats cool. I like celebrating an attempt at blowing up the Government.
On sunday we went and had a picnic on top of a hill overlooking cambridge, It was a real nice day, and a vintage aircraft was doing stunts out there in the clear blue sky.
Zac wasn't there with us though because his folks came down from auckland to give him a birthday hug etc. He's no longer a minor! As of 2am this morning.
We got the video camera back and ended up making a new episode of peake. We stayed up real late editing it, in the end I told him to "GO HOME." lol
After the picnic Me and Jman went to the skate park to check out the local skills. Steven from work showed up and lent me his board. I found out how embarassingly bad I am at skating. lol. got to fall down some stairs though trying to do a grind.
When I got home I realized I had left my glasses behind somewhere on the way home. I was like, oh crud. So Steven (My host dad) Drove me and zac down to have a look. We hunted for ages, and then WOOT. Found em. Thank goodness. I was so sure someone would have nicked them. The same thing happened with Zacs eftpos card. I dropped it somewhere between home and countdown. I spent the entire walk home looking in the pitch black for the friggin card. I found a yugioh card to replace it (Thank goodness), when I got home I found the eftpos card on the floor. -_-
At work a bunch of the guys cornered Zac and gave him a birthday Wedgy. He managed to fend them off by getting Steven in a headlock and Peaky by the throat.

So yea, in a little bit everyones coming over to enjoy pizzaaaaaaaaaaa to celebrate Zacs Birthday.

To...Hungry....Must... Publish. *click*

The other team

Yea Sarah, their splitting us up. Much to the "AAAH" of the girls. I did want to go to Thailand so phew. The other teams heading over to phillipeans. Theyl be staying about a week with us in Thailand, and then another week at the end. We'll be teaching english in Thailand, and they will be doing more practical blatant outreach in phili. We got together as our teams tonight and prayed about all of this. I have to say I have the good looking team. =P

We started learning a tad of Thai. I remember that Cowputt is thai for rice. So just remember cowpat. And something like "Wutda clrap" is hello or something. So yea, 'What the crap."

We finished work early today due to the box machine breaking down, ah, glorious box machine. We may not have work tomorrow, which isnt really a good thing since we need all the money we can get :-|.

Oh yea, Special SHOUT OOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUT To Bexy. Its her birthday! Congrats on completing another circut around the sun huh? I wanted to do you a pic. But it looks like it'l have to wait.

Oh yea, heres Zacs cuts from the fall. They looked way cooler in RL.

P.s. Ema has said I am now her "official" Graphic design person. At some point she's gonna get me hooked up or something to use my skillz.