elbow sweat

Well, I've survived another week of bicycling to the office. I'm pretty sure that cycling 80 miles/week is the reason I slept 11 hours last night. Much needed sleep... mmmmm....

I've had quite the eventful week in regards to my bike. One could say my bike is "off the chain," quite literally -- the chain came off twice this week. The first time was on my Tuesday morning bike ride to the office, so I walked it back home (it wasn't that far) and got it fixed at a local motorbike repair shop. The guy even did it for free! It took him like a minute, maybe that's why. The second time was on my bike ride back home on Wednesday, so I hopped on a songthaew. But I didn't even have to take the songthaew all the way home, because the Thai people on it with me fixed it on the way! How awesome is that?! I love Thai people. (Most of the time, anyway.) I'm pretty sure the chain coming off was directly correlated with me standing up on the bike, so now I have to actually rely on my leg muscle. We'll see how that works out.

Today (Saturday) I went to a coffee shop with my roommate Marisa to take advantage of the free air con and wifi. We were there for HOURS. On the way there, on Marisa's motorbike, I actually felt my ELBOW sweat. That's how you know it's really hot--the elbow sweat. So it was lovely to cool down inside. From there, we headed over to the art gallery owned by Marisa's friend Nance, who's lived in Burma since 1999 and just moved to Thailand last year. She is incredibly interesting--she speaks fluent Burmese and occasionally teaches free classes, so I hope to take advantage of that.

This weekend is the actual day of Loy Krathong, so I have off work on Monday. I am definitely excited for the 3-day weekend. I can tell you what I definitely will NOT be doing for the next 3 days: bicycling. My butt needs the break. Seriously, on Friday when I hopped on my bike in the morning, I involuntarily blurted, "HOLY MOTHER" because my bum was so sore from the week of riding. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but for now, I'm going to have to curse my way through the pain.

I also had my first stomach illness experience this week. Ironically, while I've been eating food from street vendors this whole time, the first time I got sick was from a real restaurant. Hahaha. I actually wasn't that sick--I've definitely experienced worse--but something was definitely messing with my intestines. My stomach is happy now, though, thank goodness.

Frankly, I don't have much else to report. Work weeks aren't terribly interesting. One of my roommates, Laura, will be moving back to Bali this weekend :( But we'll be getting a new roommate, Hannah, in about two weeks, so that's exciting. Ironically, Hannah was actually hired to fill the position that Maggie, the girl whose place I took in the house, left. So Hannah is also a "Burma person," which is nice. Now we can maintain our "Burma house" status. Hannah is also American, so we will now be an all-American house once more (Laura is Spanish).

That's all I have to report. Thinking of all of you!