Gimme some old fashioned Morphine....

...---...

I've given up. I'm coming home. 4th of May at 7:30am. Now all I have to do is last until then.

Well  I finished school, possibly forever yesterday. I'M FREEE! I'M FREE!!!!!!!11!!!!! lol. My school took us for a meal at this Seafood restaurant in Muang Thong Thani, which was quite hilarious really as the one thing I don't eat is Seafood. But the kind staff managed to rustle up some chicken dishes so it was all quite lovely really.

They had karaoke though. Karaoke at 12pm is not great. Especially when they're trying to force you to sing Carpenters songs and assume because they are english language you obviously know the words. They totally didnt believe me when I said that I had no idea who the Carpenters were. I'm 22! And British! Why the hell would I know who they are?

So now I have a lot of free time on my hands. And where do people with loads of time on their hands end up? Yup, Khaosan. Although I might be off to Kanchanaburi to visit the River Kwai on Saturday. That is if I text Adam about it and he actually texts back.I'm quite tempted just to lie on a beach for 2 months. Though the shootings at Pattaya have kinda put me off beaching it up by myself a bit.

Hmmm.... I dunno. I have all this time ahead of me to do stuff and I really can't be bothered.

Does anyone actually know the words to that song?

I think not.

But yes, as the two month holiday edges closer and closer I'm getting more excited by the prospect of May. I'm definitely coming home now I think.

I'm just so excited as the prospect of coming home. I went for dinner with my friend Bec last night and we were talking about things we miss from home - T4 Hollyoaks omnibus hungover on a Sunday, just sitting on a sofa watching telly. Toast! Omg toast! And cheese! The Sunday Times. Topshop. So many things.

That then morphed into a conversation about how priviledged we are to be British, and some may scoff but its totally true.

We are so lucky to have free healthcare and free schooling and a decent welfare system for those without employment. We are so lucky to live in a country where getting a job is not difficult and there is affordable quality housing. People might laugh, but my apartment in Thailand is literally a box with a bed and a bathroom attached. No kitchen, no hot water. You're unable to drink the water that comes out of the tap because its unclean. Along my corridor all the rooms are filled - the same apartment that I have - with whole families. 4 or 5 people sleeping in a room with one bed - there's not enough space to have another bed in the room.

We are lucky enough to be the holders of a British passport  which lets us into any country in the world that we could possibly wish to travel to. it's not that easy for people of other nations. We don't need sponsorship, we don't need to go through mountains of paperwork, we don't need to enter the country illegally. We are let in simply because we're British.

It's not something that i've ever thought about until I got here - I guess you wouldn't think about it because you don't realise just how good you've got it at home. Yes there's poverty - but nowhere near on the scale that there is in Thailand. Yes there's racism - but Jesus Christ Thailand is a racist country, possibly one of the most racist countries that i've ever encountered. White is right, the whiter you are the higher you're percieved. People walk around with Nazi tshirts, wear swastikas (and not the Hindu kind) and wear replica WW2 Nazi army helmets as they drive around on their motorbikes. It's a little frightening to be honest.

Basically Britain is ace - and its taken me 4 months away from home to realise how good I had it there. And now I really miss it. And I can't wait to come home and take a hot bath, and drink water straight from the tap because I can, and cook myself something in an actual kitchen in an actual house, and walk the streets and not think that people are percieving me as a walking ATM purely because of the colour of my skin.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of amazing things about Thailand and there's hundreds of things I'll miss - the people, who will go out of their way to do things for you, the school kids yelling 'Hello Teetcher' at you and being genuinely excited to see you. The crazy crazy driving skills. Khao Phat Gai for 25 baht, thai coffee, the stunning islands and incredible beaches, the ornate temples, the slow free and easy pace of life - even in Bangkok, the incredible and ridiculously cheap public transport system, incredibly cheap taxis, Siam Gardens off Khaosan, geckos and huge ass butterflies, seeing elephants randomly meandering down the road, the excitement of living in a foreign country, palm trees, Thai silk, feeding the fish and turtles at Chatuchak park, seeing ornates shrines to the king in the most random places, the Thai barbecue place on Tiwanon road, people enthusiastically practicing their english on you, the cute uniforms of both the school kids and uni students, the massive and delicious array of fruit for like 5 baht, Svensens, seeing a whole family balanced on the back of a motorbike, frogwomen on Khaosan, window shopping at Siam Paragon, then buying ice cream from the beautiful ice cream place downstairs, mad crazy fluro lights on every available surface, Sangsom whiskey, Karaoke!!!!, riding in the back of pick up trucks, white sand, blue sea, having enough money to live a pretty great life and tuk tuks to name but a few.

There's just no place like home though, is there?

I got attacked on Sunday - a thai guy jumped off the back of a moped and tried to snatch my bag, when I wouldn't give him it he pushed me into the road and I fell and nearly got my head ran over by another motorbike. He didn't get my bag though. Fucker. I've totally crucified my shoulder too, and I can't lift it abovw belly button level really because i've badly bruised the bone. I've been mugged before but this time it's really taken it out of me. I;ve reacted a lot worse to this one than the last time I was mugged. Maybe because its the second time. Maybe because I'm in a foreign country. I was going to go travelling round Thailand by myself for two months but now.... now i'm not sure if I can do it. I'm too scared after what has happened.

I don't think i'm going to be going back to school either after the break because the incident has kinda killed Thailand for me a bit. I really want to see a bit of Thailand before I go home but I'm terrified now of going by myself. There may not be people to travel with as loads of my friends have friends or boyfriends coming out to stay and I don't think it would be fair to tag along with them.

I totally don't know what to do. To be brave and just do it, or chicken out. It's totally keeping me awake at night because in a week today I start my holiday. I don't particularly have a lot of time to think about things really. Im so fucked off because this has totally killed all my plans and made me not want to do the very thing that I came out here for in the first place.

I'm so angry, both with myself and the fucking Thai idiot who tried to steal my bag.

ARGH.

Two weeks today and I will officially be on holiday. Yay!

I can't wait, i'm exhausted at the moment and just can't wait to get to a beach or summat and just lol about, relax and get a tan. I'm so tired, I just need to chill and sleep and prob get horribly burnt.

Only two days of teaching left to go until exams. And after exams we just need to come into school and sign in and then do nothing much really. Gutted about saying goodbye to the kiddies though.... especially 2/3 who I love love love because they're all so cute and intelligent and are such characters.

Plus the kids gave me sweets and heart stickers and roses yesterday because of V day. So that was cool. Ack just remembered I need to go tear up paper for 2/1 ! bugger.

Maybe i'm not coming home in May after all.

i'm thinking of the pros and cons of staying at the school for maybe another month after the holiday.

I can't think of one single pro. Not one little pro reason that would make me stick it out in this place until June. Yet the cons grow day by day.

Funny that.

Today me and Anna got told we don't work hard enough, that we should work harder and longer because we are young and can supposedly handle it. And that we're projecting a bad image of England.

It's things like this that make me just love staying here. It makes me just want to reach for the 'pro' section of my notebook and add another reason to the oh so massive list. Just stick it out till March 1st. Just stick it out till March 1st.

Matt got his bag stolen last night on the evil road that is Khaosan. We think it was one of the staff at this bar - it couldn't be anyone else really, the only one who could get behind was the staff. So it seems a bit dodgy really. Had my hair cut and got a facial yesterday and my eyebrows waxed. The whole lot cost 7 quid. I love Thailand. On a serious budget atm cos now i've decided i'm not teaching after March I want to get as much money as possible in order to travel for as long as possible. I wanna buy another guide book though. I also need to find someone to travel with.

so much to do.

Only one more month of teaching yay!

Had to go to immigration yesterday to extend my visa. OMG the boredom. It took forever and there wasn't even that many fat farang to be disgusted at as they try to stay in the Kingdom so they can pork more young nubile thai girls. Eurgh. Had two hours sleep the night before as I was in extreme pain. Went on a duck (it was yellow) pedalo at Chatuchak park and crippled my foot. So now i'm loaded up to the eyeballs with painkillers and that weird deep heat cream stuff to stop it hurting - and i'm still in pain so yeah not good.

We were at immigration for like 4 hours... it got sorted but jesus. To be sat in pain with no sleep on uncomfortable chairs is not fun.

Back at school today though :( Was off Tuesday as well because it was Teacher's Day. Best thing about today though is that my Matayom 1 classes are all off to scout camp so I have two lessons a day on thursday and friday. Which pleases me immensely. So i'm doing directions with Matayom 2 which is pretty easy. Supposed to be getting evaluated today but they haven't turned up yet. I only have 2/1 left which is my best class so I hope they do come today.

I did have actual interesting stuff to talk about but I can't remember what it was. Typical.

Oh yeah. I remember now.

A reason why I totally love Thailand.

We were in the park on Tuesday - me, Ev, Matt and Gary - and we wanted something to drink. There was this woman going round with mats to hire and bread and seed to feed the birds and fish, so we asked her if she had anything to drink. She blatently didn't, but we asked anyway. She obviously didn't have anything but she asked us what we wanted, we told her and she went off. Ten minutes later she came back with a carrier bag full of water and coke and stuff. She'd been to the shop for us.  So we gave her some money and off she trotted again to keep selling her mats. It didn't occur to us that this was weird. It was only later that we realised that this wasn't normal behaviour. It totally is in thailand though - you're in a restaurant and you want cigarettes, if they don't have any someone will run out and get you some. On Jason's birthday we were in a bar and when they found out it was his birthday they ran out and bought him a little cake and sang happy birthday to him. Thai people totally go beyond the call of duty at every eventuality and i love it about them. I can totally see me in a bar when I go back to England:

'Can I get two cokes, three beers and a pack of cigarettes?'

'We don't do cigarettes'

'I know, but you can go out and get me some yeah?'

I'm sure the staff would totally react the same as in Thailand.

Oh. And here's one 'OMG' story and one 'I almost died' story. Both involve buses.

Me and Anna were on a bus coming back from Bangkok, when the bus did a u-turn and went too far, blocking off an entire section of motorway. the bus is trying to move forward as there's a massive blockage of traffic behind us. It can't move back cos of the traffic, so it has to scrape itself up the kerb in order to turn. Yeah. that was fun.

And the best one: In a bus yesterday on the way to Immigration. The bus goes up the wrong road, a tiny little soi on the side of a huge motorway, it then realises that it can't go forward any more cos its a dead end, so it tries to reverse blind back into the motorway, as about 1000 cars rush by at great speed. I totally thought we were going to crash, or worse kill someone.

A few weeks ago I read in a guidebook a stub called '10 ways you know you're a SE Asia veteran'. One of them was 'you crave rice for breakfast' - yup. Another was 'you can walk past a group of stray dogs without flinching' - used to, not since i got bitten. The most memorable was 'you've had at least one 'i almost died' experience. I thought 'one? I have one every time I step onto Thai public transport'. Now maybe people can understand why i thought that.  

omg... its 2007. I remember when it was like 1993, I was 9 and so so so blissfully ignorant of the world.

I'm now 22. I'm a school teacher.

What the hell happened????