There are millions of stars, and millions of cars.

A holiday light display in Bangkok. This is at Victory Monument, which is an obelisk-shaped structure. I haven't been able to find out exactly what victory is being commemorated here, but I'm sure it was a doozy.

The picture in the center is of the King.

The monument sits in the middle of a circular roadway that serves as the end of the line for many of the Bangkok city buses. There is also a BTS Skytrain stop here, and between the cars, buses, tuk-tuks, and pedestrians it's always a little chaotic.

kindergarten schmindergarten

In graduate school I learned....

...to love the prefix meta-.

...to hate microfiche. What exactly am I supposed to do with a musical score on microfiche, anyway?

...to keep copies of all official letters in order to brandish them at the appropriate administrators when they confront me with new, contradictory official letters.

...how to make whiz-bang charts in Microsoft Word.

...that, sadly, "skipping to the good part" often means turning eagerly to the bibliography.

...that in the eyes of the Phuds I don't have a "real" doctorate.

...that I don't actually care (see above).

does this count as a 2000 word essay?

More outdoor music today. This time it's a dangerous hybrid of Thai traditional music and Muzak.

I'm going to get adventurous now and post a picture or two. Let's see how far my technological prowess will take me.

Yes! I am the queen of computers. Not really. If that were true I'd hardly need to advertise it. I'd probably be too busy riding in the backs of cars and waving at my loyal subjects.

This first picture is from the outdoor market in Bangkok. Unfortunately I didn't actually see this astonishing sight, but Husband did (I was sick that day).

As for the second, well, what could be more comforting than knowing the public parks of Thailand are protected from buglers?

it's beginning to look a lot like...

Bangkok is definitely visible from outer space these recent nights. Since just after Thanksgiving the whole city has been lit up like a...well, like a Christmas tree (it got to be a cliche for a reason, right?). But what's interesting is that, while they definitely enjoy the decorations, the people here aren't really celebrating Christmas, or not primarily, anyway. Sure, there are Christmas trees (and until you've seen a PURPLE fake Christmas tree, or fake-Christmas-tree-guts twisted into the shape of an Astroturf puppy, you haven't seen Christmas trees!) and Santas, and a few stockings here and there, but the two major reasons for all this wattage are the King's birthday (which was a couple of weeks ago) and New Year's Day.

It makes me think about winter holidays and light. To what degree are all these celebrations (and so many traditions have them at this time of year), or at least the decorations we choose for them, reducible to some pre-religious lust for the sun that everybody feels around the time of the winter solstice? Not a new idea, I know, but if every idea I had was required to be brand-new I'd spend a lot of time waiting around and drooling.

This is the result of graduate school: to make me consider everything within the paradigm of original research. "Mothers, tell your children / Not to do what I have done..."

How does this thing work again?

I'm still a little shocked that a person as technophobic as I am is doing something as computery as blogging. I comfort myself with the certainty that if I can do it, it is definitely not very technological and can't possibly be hip.

Husband gave me my holiday gift early today. I am amazed--he wrote a piece for me to play! It's the first movement of a Prelude and Fugue (that would make it the....you guessed it....prelude). I'm very excited about learning it but the disgusting cold I'm still nursing is preventing me from doing much practicing today.

There's also the fact that I'm sort of hiding from my students. They have been asking me for weeks to continue to teach my full schedule through the holiday break: "But we're not going anywhere! We'll still be here!"

And sure enough, when I snuck into my office today to try to practice Husband's piece, there were two of them. Lying in wait.

Of course I feel guilty about not teaching this week; but whenever I give them opportunities for extra lessons they don't take me up. We're making up this time at the end of the term, so they will all get extra lessons then, and there's always jury week.

I guess it's another one of those things about Thailand that I don't understand yet. They are so eager to study with me and always say that they want things like extra lessons, but when I ask them to choose a time they get noncommittal and say they'll have to check their schedules. Or they'll name two or three possible times, which I take to mean I should leave those hours clear, and then they won't come at all. I honestly don't know what's expected of me--I'll sit in my office for hours, available for them to come, play for me, talk to me, work on reeds, etc. Nothing. But then we come to something like holiday break, or a weekend, or the day of my recital, and all of a sudden everybody's got to have a lesson/important conversation/reed tutorial RIGHT NOW.

Sawasdee ka.

Mai kao jai is Thai for "I don't understand." It's a fitting phrase to describe my experience here as an expat. The more I learn about the Thai culture and language, the more layers of misunderstanding I uncover. Thailand is a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a vest.

Despite my lack of fluency with the language and the customs, I'm having a wonderful time and learning a lot.

Today Thai music is being broadcast from the outdoor speakers in town. We can hear it from our condo. The speakers are necessary because every day at 8 am and 6 pm, the national anthem is played for everyone to hear. It's these other, serendipitous (to me--I'm sure there is some kind of method to it) occurrences of public music that I enjoy.

Last week I was a judge in a national competition for young musicians that included performers of both Western and Thai music. I have rarely felt so unqualified for my job. I tried to judge all of the candidates on what I thought were universal criteria--staying together as an ensemble, showing the motion of phrases, keeping a steady tempo, playing with clean technique--but who knows? Perhaps I was missing the point. I do know that the Thai music I've heard since coming here has been very interesting and always pleasant to hear, and when it comes over the speakers like this morning, it's an unexpected and happy addition to the day.