Read it and weep. Seriously, this makes me cry.
They won't be the only ones getting a knock on the door.

A little reminder over to the left there of the damage we are causing. These are just civilian casualties on their side; it doesn't include deaths to our boys (or theirs). Also, this doesn't count damage we're doing to the priceless historical treasures that Iraq is replete with.

In my last job I worked on military contracts that found me working with US Air Force planners all over the world. One project I worked on involved tracking high-level objectives (like, "win the war") all the way down to individual targets, like bridges or airstrips, so that one could look up why were bombing a particular place. I'm not such a peacenik that I'm ashamed of working on that; it was important, necessary work, that is the logical conclusion of the supposition that we need to have national defense. However, I did not appreciate at all noticing one day that we had high level objectives that were focused on painting rosy scenarios for the press and the people back home. I witnessed it first hand. Our appointed protectors feel that we "can't handle the truth!" about what they are doing.

There's an interesting scene in Graham Greene's The Quiet American where a reporter, after many minutes of wrangling, manages to pin a general into reluctantly giving out an estimate of the enemy losses, in the early days of French/American occupation of Vietnam. Nowadays, the generals just hide behind a veil of self-righteous indignation when asked. Actually, they do more than hide and evade; they attack the reporter who asked, in hopes of discouraging future inquiries. It's funny -- if they're so intent on minimizing civilian losses then you think they wouldn't object to some sort of metric to tell how well they're doing. There's only one reason why they don't answer, regardless of what they say: it makes them look bad.

By the way, our military IS truly intent on minimizing civilian losses, despite what it may seem like I'm implying here. I witnessed that firsthand too. They are probably more intent on it than any other military in history. What I'm objecting to is their refusal to report on it.

Chickening out. We had an invite to go to the American Club last night. In a reverse of our traditional roles, Marjorie was all for it, but I vetoed the idea on cautionary grounds; the war had just started, and the American Club has been talked about as an obvious target here in town. Have the terrorists already won?

Hooray. The War to Encourage Terrorism has begun. Keep your head down everyone.

So where have we been the last few months? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

So where have they found this new killer virus, SARS? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

Are we "Typhoid Mark" and "Typhoid Marjorie"?

I was sent to the Principal's office today: Turns out my tattoo is a school no-no. She hadn't noticed it until today; she was relatively cool about it, but school policy says I have to keep it covered. So, now I have to wear pants everyday, which really sucks because I have some cute skirts and dresses that I only wear to work. Sigh.
Water cooler talk at work sucked today too as the conversation turned to the inevitable war and, as the only American, I was left in the awkward position of trying to defend my countrymen (i.e., we don't all want this war, don't support it, etc.) while agreeing that our president seems to be determined to be a bully without the world's consent.

On the eve of one war, some very gripping reading from the front lines of another. These are emails that Rachel Corrie, the American who was crushed by a bulldozer on the Gaza Strip, sent home. It's only one data point in a vast and complicated situation, but it's definitely worth a read...

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day: I saw a little girl in one of the kindergarten classes wearing a green little shamrock, and it still didn't occur to me that it was St. Patrick's Day. That's either how much of a non-event it is here, or how overwhelmed I am with other stuff at school. Either way, I'm sorry I missed an occasion to drink green beer with friends.

Interesting factoid: Apparently Brunei Ringets are interchangeable with Singapore Dollars. I received a $10 Brunei Ringet as change recently and didn't even notice it because it looked like one of the special edition Singapore dollars. When I found it I started to get miffed thinking someone had passed me a bill of less value, but turns out it's usable/interchangeable here. I'm not sure how that works with the federal banks of both nations, but it's obviously not a problem.

Today was fun. We set out, far too late, for Pulau Ubin, a little island wedged in the canal between Singapore and Malaysia, which is set aside as a recreation area. You get there via a ferry from Changi Village, but some apparent misremembering of the guidebook I checked beforehand led us down near the baggage area of the airport, where we were greeted by concertina wire and signs showing guards shooting trespassers. We tried to get on a bus out, but the bus only took us in, and a policeman came on board and interrogated us, and finally kicked us off. We found a bus back to Changi Village, and were ready to just hang it up and head home. We ended up spending a half hour watching the flock of long-tailed parakeets up in the trees. The ferry, we finally found, was just nearby, so we hopped on (only S$2) and made it out to Ubin. Rented a couple of bikes, and rode around basically looking at birds. There were lots that you don't see in the city; we're getting geeky enough on the whole birding thing that we could just listen for their calls, and immediately tell whether it was a bird we were familiar with. I saw a crimson sunbird, I'm pretty sure; a brahminy kite; and several other small sunbirds that we never could identify. There were some amazing loud, crazy, beautiful calls we heard at one point but never got a visual.

Back in Changi Village we had some questionable seafood; what I'm eating is the "prawns with oats", which prompted the question, "Do I eat this, or, did I eat this?"

A few photos from our trip to Ko Samui:

Customs at the Ko Samui airport.

Another scene from the Ko Samui airport.

The giant buddha.

A temple.

The airport bar on the way out.

View from the plane on the way out.

Globalization: I've got three more students now. One's moved here from Japan, she speaks Spanish, Japanese, and English (Mom's Mexican, Dad's Japanese). She's five years old and knows where/what the equator is too. The second one's from the States, by way of Jakarta. He's a smart kid, but has a hard time with games.....had a thirty minute crying fit today because he was losing at Candy Land...still, he knows a lot about animals, and he's moved more in his five years than many people move in their entire lives. The third student is also from the States, by way of Russia. Both his parents speak Russian at home, but he speaks English too.
I love the diversity of my students. I'm going to learn so much from them! And they're such bright kids...I'm really not used to "typical" kids. I'm a special ed. teacher by training. These "normal" kids seem totally brilliant to me.
Speaking of kids....Happy Birthday Katie!!!! A few days late, but it's not my fault, Blogger wouldn't let me sign in yesterday. Katie is my niece. She turned 1 on the 12th. It breaks my heart that I won't make it to her first birthday party. Hopefully I'll be able to see her at some point this year. At least she's got squeaky shoes to remind her and her mother of me!! (squeaky shoes are all the rage in S'pore for the 1-2yr old set, they squeak with every step, and I sent a pair to Katie).
Overall, things are going pretty well for us now. I'm happier now that I'm employed.

Interesting cultural tidbit. In Japanese, adding "yo" to the end of the sentence means "I assure you" -- it adds emphasis to the sentence. Just like in Detroit!

I've been running the SETI@home screensaver on my computers for years. This is the distributed program that borrows your spare computer cycles to look for signals of extraterrestrial life. You see, they have a lot more data, collected from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, than they have computers to analyze it all. So volunteers like myself run this screensaver program which does all the number crunching on my computers when I'm not using them.

Now, they're going to point the Arecibo telescope back at some of the most promising signals (none are very likely to be ones my computers discovered, but you never know), to see if there's anything there. Exciting stuff. I think the chances are slim of any kind of discovery, especially at this early stage, but what an extraordinary thing it would be if it happened. In the words of Frank Black,

Give me one little blip
And I'll totally flip
Say it's nothing but sky
And I will be one lonely guy

My friends are back from their yearly snowboard trip, which I missed this year for the first time in six years. In previous years we hit

1998: Summit county, Colorado (Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge...)

1999: Jackson Hole, Wyoming (side trip to Yellowstone)

2000: Summit county again, plus Vale

2001: Whistler/Blackcomb, by way of Vancouver (where I broke a bone in my hand on the second day)

2002: Lake Tahoe (a complete circuit)
A friend and I would try to outdo each other every year. This year he did a faceplant from twelve feet up on some blue ice and ended up splitting open his lip and bleeding from both nostrils. That would've been hard to outdo.

It was so much fun. I was on a beach in Thailand, and I still have regrets.

I'm still alive. Sorry for the lack of updates on my part. I've been rather busy with work/school. I told myself last time I quit teaching that I would never teach again, and I've been remembering why.....Teaching is exhausting. There's so much to plan for, so many details...you're never done. But, so far, this experience has been more rewarding than either of the two years I taught before. Probably in large part because I'm not teaching "special ed", but
"regular" kindergarten. Actually, so far, my students are great, relatively easy going and very bright. I've only got two right now, but five more are scheduled to come in this month and we expect to grow to at least 15-20 before the end of the school year.
The school is great too. It's so diverse. I've only taught in predominantly black inner city schools before, so this is a real switch. I love the make-up of the school. There are student's from all over the world attending there. I keep thinking what an extraordinary experience it is for these students to have such a diverse group of classmates and friends. They really are very privileged in the best sense. And the teaching staff is diverse as well, several are from Australia, and several are from Singapore, but there are only two people on the kindergarten staff from North America (me and a Canadian). The differences in cultures are fascinating. I'm going to learn so much from my students and the other staff members.
And now for something completely different......Thailand was great. We saw a puffer fish when we were snorkeling which was very exciting for me. The trip was very relaxing at a time when I was very stressed out. It was also nice to spend some quality time with Mark. We're both so busy with our respective jobs these days that it was really good to spend some time together away from home/work. Ko Samui was shockingly built up though. This shouldn't have surprised me, because there are direct flights there from Singapore and if there are direct flights then you should expect a highly developed tourist infrastructure. But they had Starbucks and Pizza Hut. And as much as I like Starbucks here in S'pore, I don't want to see it on vacation in supposedly pristine beach towns. Still, Ko Samui was very nice, and very easy which was what we wanted.
I have a week off in April for Spring Break. Hopefully we'll be able to go somewhere a little more off the beaten path then. Maybe the Maldives or Perhentian Islands

Back from Thailand. Not sure why we came back, but we're back.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend. The snorkel/kayak trip was fantastic, though the water was a little cloudy due to an algae bloom or something. Saw giant clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, parrotfish, and a puffer fish. We also spotted some birds that looked like snowy egrets, except that they were black; Marjorie didn't appreciate my suggestion that we call them "negrets". That night we had an amazing dinner at Samui Seafood; I had the hot and spicy white snapper, which was outstanding, and Marjorie had the sweet and sour red snapper, which was jaw-dropping.

The hotel for our package deal was fabulous (except for dozen or so mosquitos in our room when we first arrived -- and this is a malaria and dengue fever zone). We had Thai massages side-by-side out by the pool this morning, which was vera vera nice. It was pretty much the masseuses' whole body (hands, feet, elbows, knees) versus ours, and we never stood a chance.

Much relaxed, we went out for some last minute shopping. While we were loading up on DVDs of questionable origin, a drama was playing itself out across the street; a motorcycle-slash-street vendor cooking station caught fire. We could see flames licking at the gas tank and the cooker's propane tank, so we high-tailed it out of there. Luckily they were able to extinguish it without much fanfare.

Favorite restaurant name spotted on Ko Samui: Cow Pat Poo.

Greetings from Thailand! We've been on Ko Samui island for a day now. Today we snorkeled a bit, then rented a motorbike and did a trip around the whole island, which took most of the day. Stopped at waterfalls, scenic views, temples, and a giant Buddha -- in fact, we stopped right where these folk did. Tomorrow we take a boat out to the national marine park where The Beach was filmed, for snorkeling and sea kayaking (Mike, you'd be proud, I boycotted the elephant safari part of the package).

News McNuggets.

I'm in better shape than I've been in ten years or so.

I wrote my first check yesterday, and deposited my first one today. They do it all weird here. You have to draw slashes up in the corner for some reason, and some other strange rules.

I've gotten used to spelling my last name with a "zed" instead of a "zee".

I visited the American Club for the first time last night (Marjorie's second visit). They have guys with machine guns out front. I don't think I want to hang out there too much.

The first business trip for me is shaping up to be Tasmania. We saw a documentary on it the other day, and it looks really awesome.

Saw "Catch Me If You Can" the other day. Good mindless entertainment. It's Spielberg, so I guess that was to be expected.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Not much new, other than Marjorie starting her new job (which seems to be going pretty good, but I'll let her tell you). Oh, and I picked up our tickets for Ko Samui today. Woop!

I've noticed one very backward thing about this country. It seems the civil servants, especially at the post office, are enthusiastic and committed at their jobs, often bending over backwards to serve you. You have to look to the private sector to encounter laziness and bad attitudes, for the most part. There are of course exceptions, but it seems to be a general rule. This is in direct contrast to America -- I'm reminded of the Simpsons quote, where Patty and Selma describe their job at the Department of Motor Vehicles: (Patty) "Some days, we don't let the line move AT ALL." (Selma) "Yeah, we call those WEEKdays!"

Another interesting cultural tidbit: when a Chinese person is, say, pouring your tea, the way to thank them is to tap the table lightly with your middle finger. The story about how this tradition got started is that the Chinese emperor went undercover for something, and his henchmen couldn't kowtow to him without blowing his cover, so they started doing that.

Another tidbit: the Chinese alphabet symbol for America is the combination of the symbols for "beautiful" and "country". That's what they tell me, anyway; it could be saying "infidel pigs" for all I know. Many Chinese were apparently told as children that there was gold just lying around everywhere you look in the US, hence "beautiful country".

Japanese lessons are going slow but steady. I'm taking the class with my cow orker, and we've been going out after class for "Japanese practice" at a small out-of-the-way Japanese-style bar where he knows the Japanese bartender, who gives us tips. The fact that she makes the best martinis in town is a nice bonus.