catching up

this has been a busy few weeks & a few more will follow.
we just said goodbye to our supervisors who were in for the week to join us in meetings & to check on a language we are working on in chiang rai (the extreme north of thailand)... we are currently working on 2 major media projects (both of which have included major obstacles) & will attend a conference all this week, followed by more guests the next week... all this to say, i hope it's a good excuse to be a lazy blogger!

a few highlights from recent days:

1. we got to see my cousin, alyssa, again when her group came up to chiang mai! bargain shopping in the markets & the new "night safari" (a late night zoo with mostly nocturnal animals) kept us occupied. we had such a great time, we're now scheming on how to get our moms out here together.
2. we really enjoyed time in chiang rai... it included a visit with dan, mam & garuna (see the rutledge family)... i realized how much i am missing friends when mam put her arm around me as we were leaving & said in her broken english, "hope to see you soon... come back again and again and again," and i nearly cried right there.
3. mike went with our supervisors to see the opium museum while we were in the north. it is a sad monument to the hellish world that the opium trade created in the area. thailand has made great strides, by the way, to help its people escape dependence on both the use & trade of this killer.
4. i found one of my favorite movies, amelie, in a local store's sale bin for 29 baht (about 75 cents).... before you get too envious (or go out & rent this title), you should know that this is a french film ( sensitive viewers like me should censor a few scenes :), and that i just popped it into our player only to realize it has been dubbed into thai. i know. duh. every day brings little educational tidbits like this one... most of which include a footnote that asks, "caryn, do you really think the whole world revolves around english speakers?"
5. we learned to say "no msg, please" (ผงชูรส or "phohng chuu roht" for the extremely interested). hopefully this will mean the end of many unnecessary headaches.