“Why you guys go worship and make an apology to the water?”



Every year, my uncle in law joins us to Loi Kratong festival.

Yet, not this year.



“She is giving you guys a bloody floody flood. Why you still pray for her?”

He insisted on not joining us today.






On the full moon day of November, it is the day Thai people march up to water place to apologize the spirit of water, Pra Mae Kongka, by floating a small raft which full of flowers called Kratong.





Kratong is originally made from banana leave, contained flowers, candle and incenses.



As being on (e)vac(u)ation, with very little working-on-banana-leave skill, I guess I had too much free time.





I designed my own one and brought the list of materials I could think of to a morning market near the place I am staying.





With a chunk of banana trunk, banana leaves and some flowers, I started working on my hand-made Kratong.





As being greedy, I designed a couple Kratongs and wanted to combine them together.





The combination of two Kratongs



“I don’t have my own one…..,” Pai, my nephew said while staring at mine.

Thus, I split it into two.





My little boy got the bigger one.



And this was the Kratong which was just similar to me,





tiny, simple and plain….






In the evening, we went out to a pond to let go Kratong into the water.

Normally, there should be three incenses and a candle contained in Kratong to worship
Pra Mae Kongka, the spirit of the water, yet, I didn’t put any in mine.





Instead, I put a few of white flowers into my Kratong, tried to make it look different to me,

more than just simple and plain, but also pure which I am not anymore.



When you let go Kratong, you make a wish.



Normally, I always hesitated to make a wish since I thought I was doing Loi Kratong to worship and apologize the spirit of the water, so why I even ask her to make my wish come true.

Yet, I strongly had one today.





I asked the spirit of the water to have a mercy on us Thailand.

I wish she would make the flood gone soon.

And I wish the country be strong and get through the disaster bravely.





Also, I wish not to get to let go the Kratong just right in front of my front door as I could do if I were home now.

Nam Prig Kapi

I always hesitated to make one of my favorite dish when I was in Connecticut.

Why?

Because, once, when my friend came over at my place and brought a dish made from this Thai special paste called "Kapi",

my host lady exclaimed suddenly when my friend opened the food container.


"Fishyyyyyyyy!!!!"


Afterward, I no longer thought about making any dish from this paste.







But, today, there's a chance for me.





To be honest, I was so excited to make this dish since I have not been having any chances to eat it for more than one year.

I'm not gonna explain much about how to make it much since I am too lazy to tell.





Start with mashing garlic and Thai chilli pepper



Then add Kapi or shrimp paste





Coconut sugar





And..... this is what you cannot miss adding in this dish, ground boiled shrimp




then, season the mixture by adding fishsauce, lime juice and salt.





Fianally, this is what I've got.








People on Google call it "Thai Shrimp Paste Chilli Sauce"

Normally, we eat it with rice and fresh vegetable.


I made it a little bit more special by adding ground shrimp and ate it with juicy-yolk boiled egg and my roomate's fresh vegetable.

Relax, and you win!

On the shore of Lake Calhoun, there is an old house called West Winds which became a small museum located there. It is known as Bakken Museum, exhibits history and contents of electricity.


The other day, I went there with my new friends who one of them is a Ph.D. student, major in education in Physics.


I didn't get to take many pictures since my camera picked a good time to die when I really wanted to use it. Thus, I only took several pictures but, luckily, before my camera passed out, I got to catch an interesting activity in the museum.

It is called....

If you wanna know what it is........ I'll try my best to explain to you......


Mindball is a game that two persons have to stand at opposite sides of mindball table. The persons have to put headbands on their foreheads, relax and focus on the ball. As you relax, there is changing in electrical activity in your brain which can be caught by the headband you're wearing and that makes the ball move.


The more you relax, the farther the ball goes.


When your ball moves to another side of the table, you win.

This is how you play the mindball.

Relax and focus

There was a screen showed the electrical activity in your brain.

The lower the graph shows, the more relax you are.

Trying to win, my friend tried to relax himself by singing songs.

(Thank to Mongkol for this picture.)

I have tried to relax too........

But...... obviously............

this is how my brain worked........

No wonder why I have stomachache.....

And....... according to how to play it, "Relax and Win,"

I no longer wonder why I always lose in almost everything,



It is because I never relax!

Monday, March 21, 2011

The Ring and I

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Huh?"

"I see you're wearing a ring."




I answered my friend, Yabing, who has asked me the question and asked her how the ring related to having a boyfriend.




"If the ring is on the forth finger, it means you're married."

I nodded to what she has told me since it is the same for my culture.

"If the ring is on the middle finger, like how you are wearing now," she continued.

"It means you have a boyfriend and you're expecting to marry him."




She then tried to take the ring out of my finger.

"If you don't have boyfriend, you should take it off."

"I should? Why??"

"Because people will misunderstand you and they would not dare to flirt with you."




That is interesting for me.




The reason why I wear the ring is just because I don't want to lose it.

Knowing my self best, I don't want to keep it in my jewelry box (I don't have one, actually,) or my drawyer or whatever. I know how organized I am and also know how easy I can forget where I keep it due to my clumsiness and my bad memory.

So I just let it stay on my finger without caring whatever the meaning of it is.




But since I saw the seriousness in my girl friend's eyes, I let her take the ring off easily.

"Which finger you want it on?" She looked to me through the ring and asked.

"Any," I giggly replied.

"Hmmm, you are single. Maybe this finger is the best." She said and put the ring on my first finger.

"So," one of my guy friend seemed to say something to me.

"Huh?"

"Here," he pointed to my finger which there's my ring on.

"You are single." He said.

"Is that a question? Yes, I'm single." I laughed.

"Can I see it?"

I took the ring off and put it on his hand."




I saw him stared at my ring, turned it and saw inside of the ring.

The he grabbed my hand and put the ring back on my first finger.




"Do you know the meaning of the ring on the first finger?"

"Yabing told me about the middle and the forth finger, but not the first one." I was thinking if there are meaning on every fingers.... If it's not the meaning I want to hear this time, I would switch the ring to my foot toe.

"It tells two thing you are expecting."




I laughed after I have heard him told me what the things I was expecting are.

Well, actually, he's right. But he's right just a half of it.



Why?

Because I'm not expecting a relationship or a man, but it is the second thing he told me,



Money!!

Friday, February 25, 2011

A gift for my new life

Trying to fill my blog, somehow I should update my new life here in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

After I have finished my aupair year in Darien, Connecticut, I found myself not ready to back home since I have not really lived my life the way I want yet.

After 6 weeks of moving here, I am happy with my life so far.

Actually, I have to thank a guy who makes me not to feel lonesome.





My life at the moment is busy in the morning and nothing to do much in the afternoon.

Although, I don't want to waste my time by getting back home and laying in bed which worth nothing but gaining weight. I know I have to do something since I realize that if I have nothing to do, my mind goes nonsense and crazy easily.




It is not that I am not doing anything.

Besides looking for a job, I always try to find something to do to make my brain focus on something else but being nonsense.





Yesterday, after I have finished my classes in the morning, I spent hours wandering back and forth from Saint Paul to Minneapolis and back to Saint Paul, trying to get myself a gift for my new life here.

Five hours of traveling to places called Asian Supermarket or grocery store or whatever,

finally, I found it.





It is the thing that original Thai cannot live without.

It is multi-purpose equipment.

It is grinder, crusher, pounder, knocker, powderer, sharpener and etc....

It is the thing I had been looking for for months.





Proudly present my gift.............

pretty heavy gift..........

After living without my favorite food for over 1 year...........,

with these two strong and heavy guys,

I will see you pretty soon, Nam Prig Kapi (Thai shrimp paste chilli sauce)!!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Opportunity

On the third year in my college, in seminar class, my teacher talked about "Opportunity."



"Is there anyone ever see Opportunity?" she asked in the class.

"Isn't it abstract?" One of my friend asked.

"No, it's not," replied her.



She then described us how the Opportunity looked like.



It has long hair on the front.

The back of its head is bald.

It has wings and always stand on only one leg on its tiptoe.



Why it's like that?



My teacher said because the Opportunity doesn't stay for long.

It will fly at any second.

If we want to catch it, we have to grab its front hair.

It'd be too late if you want to catch it from the back.











I then thought about what she has said.

If the Opportunity really exist, I'd be hesitate to grab it since it'd be too ugly for me to want one.



Actually, in my life, I got to grab the Opportunity many times.

Some Opportunities were small, while a few ones were big.

Some of them, I got to grab them, held them just for seconds and then I let them go.

While, some of them, I just saw them simply flew pass me.











"Are you sick?" I asked my best friend while we were chatting through a chatting program.

"I catch a cold," she said.

"Is it bad? Are you ok?"

"I have sore throat and don't have voice."



We have talked a little more before I sulked her for something and excused myself to back to my work.

"I'll call you soon." I have told her before I left.

"But I can't talk much, I can only listen. Why don't you call me when I recover?"



For some reason.....

I saw one very rare Opportunity's walking to me when I heard her said that.

It kept its wings on the back and poked its front head with very long hair to me as if it's tempting me to grab it.



And I knew at that second....... I could not let it go this time......



"It's ok if you can't talk," I heard myself answered her.

'Just listening to me talk is quite fine,' I told her in my mind.

"I think it would not be better within a few days and it's usually worse at night," she still complained.



"I'll call you tonight then!"

Monday, January 10, 2011

The Guy In Tuxedo

The firt time I was amazed by guy was about 4 years ago.



I remember... It was my friend's wedding.



I was walking through a door when I saw a guy in formal suit walking down from stairs. He shyly looked at me.



I was silent. My jaw dropped.


Then I felt hot on my face and could tell that it turned red. I was blush just to see him.



"Khwan?" His voice woke me up.

"You're...." I was speechless....

"Huh?"

"You're handsome..." I shyly told him.

"Does that mean normally I'm not?" said him and laughed.



I walked into the kitchen to greet his mom.

"Mother," I called her. "Can I borrow your son to date for awhile" I teased her.

"Oh, just take him away!" she laughly replied me.



While he was holding my hand and we were walking to his car to drive to the hotel where the wedding was,

It felt like I once again fall in love with him.












Today is the second time for me, I think.



I know that it is annoying for guy to try on clothes. They don't enjoy putting clothes on, taking them off and checking in the mirror over and over like girls, especially the guy I am about to mention.

It is very hard to convince him to do that even though I told him how handsome the clothes can make him to be.



After I have tried one hundred and six times, I succeeded.

The guy was in tuxedo with red bowtie stood still and shyly looked at me.



"Jee.... you... are...." I couldn't find words to say.

"Khwan? Why you look at me like that?" Asked him.

"You.... are....." I still didn't know what to say.

"Khwan!"

"Well, you are unbelievely handsome." I finally found words to say.



I almost fell in love with him when I had him turn around to check the outfit and to see how handsome he was.



Sundenly, he step hardly on my right foot and punched my stomach.

"I don't like this!!!!!!" He screamed.



Due to the pain from his punch, I sat down and saw him ran away.




Luckily, it was "almost," I told myself.

Luckily that I didn't fall for him yet....

Friday, January 7, 2011

Got Cut

"I'm bleeding......." I cried to mom.

"What happened?"

"That knife cut me." I pointed to a knife and blamed it.

"Knife is sharp, right?" asked her.

"Yes...."

"Can the knife cut you itself?"

"No...."




"So how did you get cut?"

"I was careles...."

"It is not the knife that cut you," she said.




"But you cut yourself."




"Be careful next time you use the knife, ok?"

Instead of giving her answer, I nodded my head.

She put a bandage on my finger and finally said,




"You should learn to know how to protect yourself."

Saturday, January 1, 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thank you for across-the-continents calling.

Thank you for Auld Lang Syne singing.

Thank you for smiling and laughing even though it's just through the phone.

Thank you for counting down to New Year second with me

(although you did it already in the past 12 hours.)

And

Thank you for all of your blessing.

Wish all of those return to all of you as well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR KA

:)

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