The Latest.

It stopped raining! Of course, you wouldn't know that because I'm a horrible blogger and have left you out of the loop for the past few weeks. So I apologize. But the truth is that my schedule has become more routine, so me telling you about my days, with variations only in the breakfast menu and nightly TV schedule, could get quite monotonous. But I have gathered up a few stories that I thought you might enjoy.


The Rain.
It poured for three days straight. And now it's stopped. This actually disappoints me, since I really started to love the rain once I learned that it dropped the temperatures for three days straight and provided great excuses to do "TV work" (assignments given to me that are done best in front of the TV, such as cutting out thousands of felt pieces for Bible lessons). The only problem with the rain is that it causes flooding, so tons of fields and houses are now destroyed. But I'm going to be self-centered right now and say that I miss the rain because I hate the heat. Here in Thailand we have two seasons: the rainy season and the hot-as-hell season. They often mix, since after a short 20 minute rain the sun normally decides to make a grand appearance and scorch the land (and anyone who happens to be on the land). I don't mind hot, and I don't mind humid, but when you mix them together, they form a toxic potion that literally makes me and my soul melt into the ground. I hate heat and humidity when combined. Remember that when I wind up in a tropical, humid rain forest in the future.


Let's Make a Toast.
We've all seen those movies where the toaster pops the toasted bread five feet into the air and the perfect housewife in the checked apron catches the toast on a perfect plate and sets it down in front of her two patient children (a girl and a boy, no doubt), who then thank their mother sweetly and proceed to butter their fresh toast. Well, my toaster here does that, but I don't catch it. For a while I didn't even know it popped my toast all over the kitchen. You see, some days I eat one piece of toast and other days I eat two. So I didn't notice the disappearing pieces of toast that popped their way to track behind the microwave until I cleaned behind the microwave. And sure enough, I found 9 pieces of lonely toast being enjoyed by the insect critters that share my kitchen with me. I now eat oatmeal for breakfast.


Hmong.
We had a Hmong team come! Hmong is a type of village people from Northern Thailand and Laos who speak, you guessed it, Hmong. During the Vietnam War many Laos Hmong people helped the US and then couldn't go back home to Laos, so the US lovingly took them in and gave them new lives. They all live in communities in Kansas, Minnesota, and other states, and they speak Hmong! And English, of course. There's a Hmong church in Minnesota that sends a team to minister to the Hmong people in Thailand every year, so 17 Hmong teenagers invaded our compound last week, using my toilet paper and eating my bread and messing up my kitchen. Needless to say, we weren't the best of friends, but they did some good work and they're gone now. Life can go on :)


Tennis... in real life.
I've never played tennis in my life, nor have I considered playing tennis. But Jo, a PE teacher from an International School in Chiang Mai has been here for the past few weeks, and has pulled me into tennis. Let me say this: it is WAY harder in real life than it is on the Wii. I have no idea how people do it. Those stupid yellow balls fly all over our compound. I've also taken up watching tennis on ESPN, since the Wimbledon is currently going on (or it was yesterday). This also means that I watch a lot of Badminton tournaments, like the Thailand Open, which is also going on this week. Let me explain the difference between my sport and other sports: I run. This means someone tells me where to start, when to start, and I try to beat everyone else to wherever I'm told to stop. That's it. The same goes for biking and swimming, which I've started participating in for triathlons. But other sports, like tennis, badminton, basketball, baseball, football, and everything else involving a moving sphere, mess with my mind. Watching them is tolerable, and even enjoyable. But playing them confuses me, especially when the rulebooks are heavier than the latest edition of Webster's Dictionary. Objects flying back and forth in between specific boundaries and kept track of by crazy scoring methods don't exactly float my boat. So I'll keep running, and those hunky model-like guys can keep sweating it out on the tennis court. No problem.


P90X
I don't run when it's raining because there are no sidewalks or groomed trails around here. This means I run on the road, where cars drive. And, just like every other third world country, drivers are insane. So heavy rain + dark + insane drivers + Gabbie running on the road= something not good. So I've been borrowing Cheri's P90X DVDs to keep me in shape in the rain. Have you ever tried P90X? It hurt me more than skiing hurt my pride, and skiing was pretty brutal to my soul. I suppose I could tell you that if you wanted to get in shape, you should order P90X, but I'm not going to because it's abusive. End of story.


Weekend English.
We have an English class on Saturdays and Sundays for young adults, most of whom are Buddhist. And guess what? Last week some of them came to church! Obviously, a ton of teenagers who have never, ever been to church (not even for Easter or Christmas!), coming to church is a pretty amazing thing. We just have to pray that they keep coming.


So other than that, there's not tons of new exciting stuff going on. Except that in the time it's taken me to write this it's started raining again!  I am happy :) 
I'll let you know when something headline-worthy happens.