Love, Life and Loss...

As always, its been too long since I wrote a blog entry. I will try to write more often, but its most likely an empty promise. I felt the need to write because the past month has been strange and I am at the computer for the first time in quite awhile to do anything other than pay bills. Patty Talisman passed away on my 30th birthday. I knew her for as long as I can remember and she has always been someone that I loved and admired. She was the one who encouraged me to go to law school while her husband (Richard Hersch) told me to become a pilot. I went to lawschool and worked at her law firm part-time throughout. Needlessto say, I was both shocked and devastated and immediately booked a flight to Miami, arrriving in time for the memorial service on the 28th. I stayed for a week, spending time with her daughters who are like little sisters to me. I would’ve stayed longer, but Kami had plans to fly to Bangkok for a weeklong Thailand trip, so I rushed back to meet her to embark on the ourney we had planned nearly a year before. We both flew in from the US at the same time and arrived in Bangkok airport within an hour of each other on different flights. This trip was really important to me because Kam is the first of my family to meet Ran, my boyfriend of almost 2 years. The three of us went traveling in my province to a national park with ancient cave paintings and stayed in a nice resort on the Mekong River, with a view of Laos. After Kam left, I worked for 2 days and then wenton a 3 day teacher field trip in Southeastern Thailand with all of the teachers from the elementary school that I teach at. This involved approximately 24 hours on a karaoke bus. No sleep for the weary. However, after 8 hours of sleeplessness, I joined in and have to admit that bus karaoke is both enjoyable and addictive, which in turn meant that I was too busy at the microphone to get off of the bus at rest stops and had to pee in the bus toilet, not my favorite option. On a different note, I am back in the game of the Foreign Service hiring process, passed the written exam and am moving along. Hopefully, this time will be the one! Meanwhile, HELP! had our first volunteer, Louis from New Zealand, and he was great. Hopefully we can keep em coming to help at HELP!. We were closed this weekend because of Swine Flu, so we had a big cleaning day and disinfected all of the toys and books. Hope all is well wherever you are!