....and Sometimes Plans Change

I haven't written in a while. I've had a bit of a hard time.

The plans I had to come to work this summer with an old friend/lover fell through in a heartbreaking way. So I've been mending my heart and figuring out new directions to walk.

I was warmly welcomed back into my Dad and Stepmom's home which made all the difference. I had gone up to the place where I was to work and it became clear that it was not where I was supposed to be for the summer. So I came back to Guelph.

One month goes along and some ups and downs, but generally I am doing well these days. I am volunteering with an organization that turns unused urban backyards into organic vegetables for a CSA. I am working food prep at a raw food cafe.

My home hosts a musical jam every Tuesday and I am remembering my singing voice and my drumming hands... as well as exploring the other creative avenues artsy Guelph has to offer, making some new friends and reconnecting with old ones.

A friend reminded me that while I was in Thailand, one of the biggest draws to come back to Canada was the summer produce. Fresh spring greens, first strawberries, tart rhubarb, fat raspberries, late-summer peaches...whatever else has happened, in this I have not been disappointed.

Harvesting Honey

While I was in Florida, I got to join my good friend Ethan at his parents' house for a honey harvest. His mom and a few of her friends keep bees in his parents' backyard and the whole neighborhood comes over to help/watch. 

First they smoke the bees to calm them down and make them go away so they don't get squished while the racks full of honeycomb get moved around.

Then you take a special hot knife and slice off the wax that holds the honey in...

and then the honey comes oozing out and you lose all self-control.

Once you've gorged yourself on honey-filled beeswax, you put two racks in the centrifuge and crank away

then the honey comes pouring out the bottom 

Oh. My. God. Delicious. 

Somebody's learning the Future Perfect...

I got an e-mail from a past student asking what courses I was teaching this semester (I feel so loved), and when I replied saying I was no longer in Thailand I got this:

Dear teacher

 I don't know when you come back your country.
you will come back to thailand?
I hope you will have been a success everything.
I will have missed you.Thank you for everytime.

Or perhaps we could say "learning" the future perfect...

which brings me to my new favorite blog that made me laugh so hard I cried last week:

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks - check it out

I supposed this outs me as a grammar snob. Well, then I might as well share this too, from The Economy Isn't Happening: a rant about the over(and incorrect)use of the word literally. 

Enjoy!

Going Home

It's always a sad moment when you realize that the only thing you and old friends have in common is your past. All you have to talk about is memories.

I was glad to find out that was generally not the case with friends in Gainesville. Of course there was reminiscing, and laughter about old jokes, but we also still had lots to talk about: sharing new interests, books, recipes, and resources. 

I lived in Gainesville for a greater portion of my time in Florida than in Vero Beach, and so going there feels like going home. 

I made a list of all my favorite restaurants and things to do and was excited to go back. (A friend in Chiang Mai warned me about doing this too much - "you can't go home" he said, "nothing ever tastes the same").

I realized, however (with the help of 55 degree weather and never-ending rain), that most of the things I like to do in Gainesville require sunshine to actually be enjoyable, and so I spent much of my time in a great new coffeeshop, Volta. 

While part of me objected ("Ali, I can't believe you came all the way to Gainesville and you're not eating/doing/seeing/going to _______!!!") part of me knew that:

a) This is what I needed:

I did a whole lot of nothing, just reading articles and writing e-mails and journaling, but it gave my mind a chance to catch up with my body and I left Gainesville with a lot more clarity and a lot less culture shock than I had had in Vero.

b) My Chiang Mai friend was right:

If I tried to force my old experiences, they wouldn't have been the same, because it's not really the thing you do or the taste of the food, it's the people you're with and the circumstances under which you experience them that make them that good. 

I allowed myself to have a new, organic experience and enjoyed myself all the more for it. 

Culture Shock - with Odd Timing

My first week back was totally fine. I did all sorts of fun things, enjoyed myself and even though that maybe... miraculously... I had evaded culture shock?

Well, not quite. Week 2 (pretty much to the day), I started to feel quite miserable, out of sorts and out of place. All the normal things I do to make myself happy when I'm at home (yoga, writing, reading, cooking, eating, watching movies, listening to music) weren't working.  I still felt a vague restlessness and underlying anxiety. I didn't know what I wanted - just not this. 

I finally went to beach for some quiet time - no books, no music, no other people.

I walked, I ran, I did yoga, I swam in the ocean and the pool, did handstands, and sat on the beach... and I finally started to feel okay.

Nothing like the vastness of the ocean to make your problems seem small. 

I started to feel like I was at home - at least in myself if not my surroundings. 

A little Perspective:

I decided looking at the ocean, that I needed some perspective on things. Two ways I know how to do that are:

 

1) Get outside

2) Go to Wal-mart (let me explain)

When I go to Wal-mart, I invariably see many of the things I hate about this culture: overweight, unhappy looking people (often being mean/rude to their spouse/kids) all sorts of junk you don't need, and obnoxious leering men/boys. 

By going to Wal-mart, I am reminded to be grateful for all that I have (I don't have to work there, or shop there) all that I am (not those fat ladies smacking their kids around while they load cheez-its into the cart) and all the wonderful people I have in my life .

(If I'm really lucky, I even remember to have compassion for people who do shop there!)

Getting outside always works to make me feel better about life, so I went to a nearby state park with marshes and prairies, and was joined by gators, birds, foxes, raccoons, deer and bunnies. 

this little guy was prancing along until he saw me and got low!

Not Quite There Yet:

While it's getting better, it's not over yet. 

This morning I pulled out of the driveway and saw someone in the oncoming lane! I said out loud to myself "What the fuck is he doing?!" and my automatic reaction was to get further to the left of him - but there was no more road over there... 

I then realized that everyone else coming towards me was in that lane too, and swerved back over to the right...

After 2 weeks of safe driving, I thought this was odd timing, but I guess culture shock affects us in unpredictable ways.

Oh well, coming back - slowly but surely!

Mainland Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Penang

Dated: March 18th - 25th

After Bali, I spent about 2 weeks traveling around Malaysia. Overall, not my favorite country; nothing really stood out (food, natural beauty, culture, activities, etc.) it was all okay, and interesting to see, but for me, I wouldn't go back. 

Kuala Lumpur: 

I'm not a big city person, so I didn't spend much time in KL, just long enough to see a few things, try the food and catch my bus to Melaka. 

I don't even know why I bother going to big cities, the first thing I always do is find a green space and chill out there. 

I went to the botanical gardens, and got a nice view of the tower

Next day I went to Melaka, a cute town on the west coast, with a nice Chinatown and (supposedly) good food. 

I rented a bike and meandered around the old town. It seems that all Malaysian towns follow the same pattern: Chinatown, Little India, and a shopping district with strip malls and western stores. 

Chinatown was cute and I tried the local specialty, Laksa, a coconut milk curry with noodles, fish and seafood. Good, but not spectacular. 

Found some nice deity statues and good flowers for my altar 

and Melaka does have the most pimped out rikshaws

The coolest park of Melaka was the guesthouse I stayed in: Emily Traveler's Home

sitting area

jungle shower

garden

It had a very homey, community feel (I was introduced to everyone staying there within 5 minutes of arriving) and my first night we had a barbeque all together using the (amazing) table/barbeque that the owners (two cool brothers) had made. 

It's a stone and wood table that turns into a grill! so cool!

Penang:

Penang is famous for it's fusion cuisine and culture, mixing Chinese, Indian, and local Malay flavors.

I found this not to be the case. I found that the cultures (and food) were very segregated; each had it's own area of town, very separate from the others. 

I think the segregation leads to a feeling of disharmony in the country. Overall, I felt a bit ill at ease in Malaysia; it distinctly lacked the feeling of community and harmony that I felt in Bali and Thailand. 

There's a lot to be said for multiculturalism, and I grew up thinking that was the best way for a country to be (this is sort of assumed in Canada) but I'm beginning to appreciate the peaceful sense of calm that seems to come from having a single cohesive culture/religion in a country.

As elsewhere in Malaysia, there was a "modern" part of town, where I felt like I could have been in suburban Miami: big boulevards, half-hearted landscaping with palm trees, lots of concrete, subdivisions, and strip malls with western stores (Starbucks, Borders, Toys'R'Us, etc.) - lame.

I stayed in Chinatown at this dingy (but so cheap!) guesthouse where the (very large) Indian owner decided he loved me (buying me food, flowers, tea...) and that he needed to bless me (by touching my face and hugging me and massaging my shoulders) several times a day... awkward? yes. 

I thought Penang was pretty ugly, concrete-y, and uninteresting , and the food not so great. I ate Indian most of the time, and it was okay.

Oh well. There was a cool temple (whoa, haven't seen one of those before...) 

and a big hill you could take a funicular up and was supposed to be "nature" but was totally paved and boring though it had a nice view

and a cool Hindu temple

There were two cool "touristy" things about the Penang area:

Butterfly Garden (outside of Penang):

feeding on a vanilla plant

mirror image

for my mom

and Batu Ferringhi, a beach (also not in Penang..haha)

Maybe I was just spoiled by Bali... ;)

The Updated Plan

Posts about travels in Malaysia and Southern Thailand will be forthcoming, not to mention lots of juicy thoughts and analyzations of things, but for now I just wanted to let y'all know where I'm at (now was that good grammar or what?).

So it turns out, that in order to travel, you need time, and you need money, and I don't have much left of either.

So I've decided to go home! On May 3rd (wow that's soon!) :)/:(

My mom hooked me when she said there was jasmine & gardenias blooming outside my bedroom window and that I could cook whatever I wanted when I got home. 

It didn't hurt that my visa runs out on the 1st, and every day I overstay costs me about $15... or that it's getting really freaking hot here... or that I have very little money to sustain myself, and living with family is free (even if America is stupidly expensive compared to Asia).

On the subject of not having money, you'll notice that the updated plan differs from the original in that I am not longer going to Laos or Cambodia. Yes, that would cost money... haha but also it is already April 20th, and I realized through my Malaysian travels, that I tend to go too fast, try to fit too many things in (in life and in travel), and I keep getting messages from the universe to slow down. I'll get to those countries another sunny day.

So I have decided to just really spend some good time in Florida adjusting back to life in the West, spend time with people in Gainesville (I'll be there around the 14thish, get ready for some serious dinner parties!) and then make my leisurely way up to Guelph and then Muskoka (with a pitstop in Toronto - Padg, and maybe even Monteal - Sandy!).

So there you have it. I am sad to be leaving Thailand, and as I just made the decision and bought the ticket today (ahh!) it feels very soon, but at the same time it feels right. 

I have taken advantage of so much here, and done an admirable job at not taking my life here for granted, so I leave with no regrets, just lots of lessons and memories and love for the people and places here. 

Can't wait to reconnect with those of you I'll be seeing soon! Get ready for stories, pictures and food sharing.