Lots to write, not much time.

Responding to comments:

Alyse: Not all the food is as spicy as that curry you and Christy made that one time, but you are getting the right idea. That is really awesome about the Ironman competitions. Really amazing. 10:28:59 is really good, and then looking at his placing 85th out of 989… wow. Just now as I was rereading your comment, I thought it said “Ironchef” (crinkle) that would be pretty cool, if Nathaniel’s brother competed in an Ironchef competition. [note to other readers… I like to put expressions and tones of voice in parentheses sometimes to clarify what I am saying… when I type “crinkle” it refers to when I smile real big and I have all these “crinkly” lines on my face… you know, dimples, lines by my eyes, etc. if you don’t know, oh well… Alyse knows what I am talking about]

Kayla: I love dew little sister… Happy Birthday! Enjoy your summer. I am glad mom is going to send you the blogs… it is always a lot of fun to get mail at camp.

Christy: I am glad you are enjoying blog. No I did not know Finnish is related to Hungarian.

On to the official blogging:

Jumping back in time to tell you a little about previous days. The other day we had what is called “Cowsoy” (once again, probably not spelt that way) it was a beef curry on noodles… I enjoyed it quite a lot, (I don’t believe that food was Lao or Thai… more Indian, but not certain) that night we had one of Miku’s favorites… Macaronis! (he always says it plural like that) It was just a typical Lao food… Macaroni and cheese. (sarcasm).

On the evening of the 28th, I was invited to join Sky and Gate (a girl who was visiting from Thailand… her name sounds like the word “gate” but you need to “swallow the T” as Jay described it.) anyhow, we were invited to go over to the school house (it’s a normal house where they have their Finnish school… I think the teachers live there) for a party. The rest of the people were girls (the teachers, Sky’s girl classmates, and some female Lao friends) but I thought it would be nice to do things with other people (instead of just sitting around Jay’s house) So we went and watched an Indian Movie called “Bride and Prejudice” before I watched the movie, Sky asked if I had ever seen an Indian movie. I told her no, and after thinking for a moment about the English word she said. “They are very…. Hyper.” Having now watched one, I would agree with her. It was an interesting movie… to say the least. Really the only thing that made the movie worth watching was that it was based on Pride and Prejudice, and several parts were very much like the real movie… It was interesting looking for the similarities.

In the middle of the movie it started to thunder and there were flashes of lightning outside, and then the power went out. We lit candles and everyone socialized for a while… until the power came back on. The storm was magnificent. It was the very first time it had rained this year. Lots of lightening, and very loud thunder, and strong winds. I enjoyed standing by the window because it was cooler there, and I could watch the lightening light up the yard. It looked like a miniature hurricane outside. That rain marked the beginning of the rainy season. Now it will rain just about every day… but not like it did that day… more of a gentle rain for only a short time. (does that answer your question Alyse?)

Sunday I woke up and the temperature was quite reasonable. The rain had cooled it off quite a lot.

I have officially discovered that the time here is 12 hours forwards from Central Time. I was talking with Matt Lybeck on messenger and found out that it is 11:30 PM on May 30th there, and 11:30 AM on May 31st here. Speaking of messenger, the other day I mentioned I have Yahoo messenger on my computer… well this other computer has MSN messenger and so if I use this computer, I can speak with those of you who have accounts with that messenger. My email is why_john@hotmail.com

I must go, we have lunch at someones house, and then we leave to go to Thailand today. (change of plans… we originally planned to go tomorrow.

Bye,

Luke

Teaching English

I hearby officially dedicate the beginning portion of each entry of my blog to those who comment leave comments on my blog... the few, the pround... the Marines... (Luke makes a face as he realizes his quote doesn't quite fit) thank you one and all.

First of all to answer Alyse, the food is spicy. Is it as spicy as I thought? I don't know... I don't really know how spicy I thought it would be. Let me see... Unlike in America where only certain foods are spicy, here many things are spicy... almost to the point where I would like to say everything is spicy... except the rice... the rice isn't spicy, but the stuff you put on the rice is spicy. And almost all of the food is more spicy than food is in America. In America, people make spicy food at a medium level of spicyness so that just about everyone will be able to eat it. Here, most of the food is what at what Americans would call a high level of spicyness, and some of it is higher than that. I have found that I mostly enjoy the spicy food, but I eat less of it than people here do. For example, when I put a sauce on my rice, I have a larger amount of rice (to absorb the spicy food) with the sauce than do local people. The rice here is white... They prefer it that way, and what that means, is that they put the rice through a machine that polishes it so that it takes off the bran... the same thing we do to make white bread. and no, you never did tell me that Nathaniel has been where they filmed Mount Doom... that is awesome! Is that in New Zealand too? What was he doing there? And to answer about the rain, I will tell you about that a little later... I think tomorrow, when I have my journal

Second, Elise. I am so glad to hear to are reading my blog to your family! That is so much fun. (big smile) It makes me feel very special. So, "hello" to all the of the Glanzer family I hope you are having a wonderful summer. Oh, a bit of information that I thought everyone out there might like to know, I believe the time difference is exactly 12 hours. So right now, when I am writting this, it is 10:04 AM here, and 10:04 PM there... the only problem is I don't know exactly which way that goes... is it 10:04 PM yesterday (aka Sunday) where you are , or is it 10:04 PM today (aka monday)? Let me know if you figure it out.

Third, It is good to here from you Dr. Larson, I am having a very good time, and I am glad you and Dr. Baker are able to read about everything.

Now on to other things... I guess I should have brought my journal over to the office. I have quite a few things to write about, but I want to make sure I don't forget anything. Oh well, I might have to go back tomorrow and cover a few other things.

So far, I have spent the majority of my time here with Jay's family. It has been a time of just getting used to everything that is new... the culture, and the way things work around here. I have enjoyed getting to know my aunt and uncle and cousins better. They are such fun people. It is too bad that I won't be able to spend the whole summer with them, but one of the good things is that now that I know them better, it will be easier to write them emails and talk with them on messenger when I am home in America because I will know what to talk to them about.

Speaking of messenger. I do have yahoo messenger on this computer my name on it is "lopuke" (pronounced law pook to those who do not know horse latin) And I will try to sign on to the computer with it, so that if anyone happens to be online when I am , we can talk.

On Wed. I will be going with Jay, Milka, Sky, and Miku to Bangkok. Jay and Milka have some meetings, I believe, and we will be doing some tourism things too. I thinkwe will go to the beach. When they leave to go to Finland, I will drive on of their cars back (following on of the Lao workers who is driving the other car.) I will drive this manual transmition car back to Sawannakhet, and then on June 11th I will actully begin teaching English. So, from from the first of June to the tenth, I will probably not have access to internet, so do not expect me to do email or update this blog.

As for teaching, I will teach speaking skills from 10-12 and then from 2-3 I will teach writting. I will do this monday through friday from June 11th until July 8th or 13th. Jay has given me some ideas for how to do this, and so I am not too worried about it. (meaning I am a little nervous) It sounds like in the morning I do whatever I can do to get them to talk. There is a book that is about the kind of stuff these people work with here (agriculture and development) and I can go through that with them if I like, or I can get them to talk about themselves and their families, or I can find articles online. The idea is to get them to speak English... It doesn't really matter what they talk about as long as they are speaking. In the afternoon, I can get them to write about different things... short paragraphs... and then after they have written, We can make photocopies and go through fixing errors in word order and tense, etc. Again, I am to be creative, just getting them to write. I think I can do this. I have occasionally been known to be creative. maybe this won't be so difficult... Jay says it will be a lot of fun.

All of my students already know the basics of English, so I will be working with them to improve what they already have. I will teach five people from the project staff, and one person from the government agriculture office (or something like that) I will teach until July 8 or 13 (depending on how long they want to keep going with this) and then I will leave here on July 14. I will go across the river and jump on a bus going to banbgkok. I will sleep on the bus and arrive at the airport early on the morning of the 15th (5:00 AM I think) Then I will wait for Bethany Moos to show up, and our plane leaves for China at 10:30 AM. Then I will begin the second part of my summer. Which should be a piece of cake after this, becuase I won't have to make up lesson plans, they will give us one that we just have to follow.

Change of Subject-I have officially decided that it is very frustrating to try to build a web page on slow internet. The internet here is supposed to be fast, but there is something wrong with it or something. As a result it sometimes tries my patience. I am very used to the school's instant internet, and this is quite different (although Jay tells me that it used to be much worse.) So I have been trying to build a web page for pictures that I want to show all of you, but it is taking quite a lot of time... I hope to get it done soon.

-Luke

Finnish Culture

Thank you to all those who comment on the blog. It is very much appreciated, and it lets me know there are people out there listening to me. Let me repeat again that any of you can tell others about this web page. You can tell professors at Trinity, people in your community, fellow classmates, coworkers, third counsins twice removed, people you meet at the airport... etc. I just want to give everyone who might be interested an opportunity to visit this page.

So to answer a few comments, Christy, did you see what my parent's wrote? they responded in their comment: "Jay grew up as a scientific wizard reading the World Book Encyclopedia for fun and pleasure all the while absorbing a great deal of foundational insight by living/working on the family farm." I guess that is as good an answer as any to how he ended up doing this sort of stuff.It is good to here from my family. I am glad you enjoy reading the blog. It's great to hear about your job with UPS. Elise, thank you for the information on American Idol. I don't care much about the show, but it was interesting to know.

I had an opportunity to experience Finnish culture last evening. Jay and Milka are not the only people who work here. There are Lao people (whom I will be teaching English later), and other Finnish families. The Finnish families have a small school with six students and two teachers (sounds a little like your school Alyse). Since the children are all Finnish, it makes sense that the school is all in Finnish. (My first day here, I visited the school for a little while.) Yesterday (Friday) was their last day of school, and Finnish tradition is to have a "party" where the students sing, do skits, and present projects they did during the school year. Everything was spoken in English, so Jay translated for me. It was a nice expereince. Looking at the Finnish language, it is interesting, they have some extremly long words. For example eläinlääkäriluettelo -a directory of veteranarians (pardon my spelling...speaking of which, I don't think I have made an official disclaimer about spelling in general.) *Official disclaimer of Spelling and Gramer* Please note, that Luke is not typing this blog on Microsoft word, he has no spell-checker, and does not care too much about spelling mistakes or grammer errors. I am aware that my spelling abilities are not the best. After the students performed, we had food and fellowship (mainly deserts)

Today we went to the Tennis courts, and I attempted to learn a little about playing tennis. In order to play well, you need to get te swing down. Jay spent some time trying to help me get that right. IT went ok, but Jay said you need to get about 10 hours of practice on just the basics before you can really play tennis at all. So we just hit the ball around-not keeping score. Then afterwards Jay, Milka, Miku and Mikko (one of the Finnish workers here... who by the way, I think looks like a character from Hunt for the Red October... I don't remember the name, but the Russian Captain's second in command) all played some real games. These people love Tennis. (these people being all the Finnish families) They quite enjoy the sport, and talk about it a moderate amount. Mikko enjoys challenging people to Tennis. (The other night at the school party, he chllenged Jay, and then they played today, and Jay won)

I ate dried squid today. It was good. (Kind of like jerky, only it was squid flavored, and they and put something on it to make it a little spicy)

You may have tried the web site I created, well it is still under construction, I will let you know
when it works.

-Luke

postsript: did you know Finnish has two n's... I found that out after I typed up this whole entry... i had to use "find" to fix the problem... oops

I promised to tell you more about yesterday

Just a little information about this district. It is called Savannakhet, (correct spelling... pronounced... sa wan a get... it is difficult to give pronunciation, because they have sounds here that we don't make in english) The district is called Savannakhet, and the city I am living in is called Savannakhet. When I first came here, I flew from Bangkok to some city that I don't know the name of, and then I rode bus to a city directly across the river frm Savannakhet, and then I rode a little ferry across to Savannakhet. Yesterday we left Savannakhet (the city) to visit some of the villages that Jay works with. In these villages, he helps them improve life there. I think he said he works with 25 villages, and will be workign with 13 more soon. (that is a lot of villages.) He helps them with agriculture, getting jobs, getting water, toilets, etc. most of the villages are small... only a couple hundred people. The first village we went to there was a meeting or convention of some kind. Jay and Milka were there, but they just sat at a head table. Other peple did the talking. I was informed that they are educating farmers about use of compost and bacteria and use of natural fertilizer. We left after the meeting got started a little.

We went to three other villages. In these villages, Jay and Milka have already helped them by putting up these message boards where the cheif can leave messages for the people. They also helped introduce toilets to these people. Jay also showed me how he has helped them get new jobs, for example he taught them how to grow these mushroms in straw huts. The villagers collect these mushrooms and sell them for income. Now they can pay for things like electricity.
Now Jay and Milka are helping with water... the visits that we made were checking to see how the wells that were dug are working. In another village I saw women weaving cotton. It was really interesting to see it done, and to have the process explained to me. The villagers buy the cotton. They fluff it up or something, and then they take a little wooden dowl rod thing and roll the cotton into pencil shaped sticks or cotton. That is spun on a spining wheel into thread. Then it can be dyed different colors. Then the thread is used to make the woven cotton. The woven cotton is really neat stuff. I might buy a shirt or two made out of the stuff. My mom has some of this matterial. She made a shirt out of it I think. The matterial only costs about $2 a meter.

We ate food in the third village we visited. The served us sticky rice. It is a completly different variety than the stuff you eat in America. IT is very sticky and you eat it with your hands and dip it in different types of sauce. (I think I mentioned that in the blog yesterday) On the drive home, I learned to drive manual transmition. (I also mentioned that yesterday.) WE stopped at a little market by the side of the road and Jay bought some fried banannas and fried bugs. HE bought these little flat yellow "stink bugs" some queen ants, and crickets. Jay, Milka, Sky, and Miku all enjoy them quite a lot. Jay has been trying to convince me to try them for the last couple days. They are a little expensive here, because they are quite a special food. He says it is no different than eatting a shrimp... shrimp are little bug things. It made my skin crawl to think about eatting them. I have enough trouble just touching bugs, let alone eatting them. I am making a web page for this whole experience. http://members.lycos.co.uk/lopuke/ Oh by the way, the fried bananna was good.

It is interesting, which is more technologically advanced, Laos or North Dakota. In the villages, people live in elevated houses with straw roofs. They have just recently gotten Electricity and a well, and toilets (which are not inside houses... instead they are built in little sheds outside.) Yet, There are SELDOM villiages where you do not get a signal for your cell phone... In North Dakota it is very common for you not to have a singnal for your cell phone. The only places where you are almost guaranteed cell phone service are the bigger cities of North Dakota: Bismark, Mandan, Grand Forks, Fargo, etc. Which place is more technologically advanced?
Last night, I showed Sky and Miku how to make a t-shirt by folding a Lao Kip (pronounced Keep). After I showed them, Sky made a paper crane, and Miku made a paper airplane. we made three more airplanes, and throwing our planes to test how far they can fly turned into a paper airplane war. it was a lot of fun. I hope I never grow up so much that I can't do silly things like that.

Random piece of information: The Electricity is down at the house today, but it is working fine over here at the office. Another random piece of information: during the vietnam war, lots of bombs were secretly dropped on Laos. Laos has the most amount of bombs dropped per capita: about 1 ton per person!

People do not wear shoes in houses here. They take them off at the door. It is inconvienent and hot to wear shoes, but the flip flops I brought are not very good. I tried to wear them the other day and I got a blister. (in the past I have only used them for the shower, so I didn't know they were bad) so today I went to the market and bought new flip flops. They cost me a little over three dollars. If sticky rice is the staple food here, flip flops are the staple shoe... nearly everyone wheres them in this hot climate.

I have learned very little of the Lao language, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing. I know how to greet somone, and I am mostly larning how to pronounce names of people and places. Their language has different sounds than ours, and so that is difficult enough.

If you would like to know more about Laos, check out this web page:http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/la.html It was updated only one week ago, so the numbers on this page shouold be very accurate.

Yesterday I mentioned how America is so very different from the rest of the world. Talking with my uncle and his family, we came up with something that America does that same as nearly everyone else (except places like Thailand and Britain) It may have even originated in America... driving on the Right side of the road.

One last thing before I finish this post... I have a question for all my friends who pay attention to American Idol. (aka, Elise, Heather, Craig, and anyone else who pays attnetion to that show) How is it going? has anyone won? what is your opinion of the outcome. leave a comment on this page, or email me with your answer

Ok, maybe one more thing. I do not pay very good attention to the news when I am home, and even less when I am in another country. If anyone out there hears any important or interesting news, please tell me about it. both now, and throughout the summer. Thank you.

-Luke

FIxed Settings

Ok, I think I fixed the problems, now anyone should be able to comment, and the time at the bottom of each entry should be correct

For Lack of a Better Heading, I Will Call this entry "Food"

*Warning* THe following blog entry is quite long. You may want to pace yoruself when reading this... take your time... eat a snack once or twice in the middle so that you don't starve as you read. You may even choose to read this over a couple of days.

Although the title of this entry in my blog is called "Food" that is not where I will begin. Instead I will tell you about an Idea I had on the plane. Three movies were shown during the flight, and I thought It would be great to watch all three Extendended LOTR (that's an abreviation for Lord of the Rings by the way) movies on a long flight. THen I thought it would be excellent to watch these movies on a flight to New Zealand (where they were filmed) along with a plane full of other LOTR fans. When you got to New Zealand you could have maybe 10 days of tourist type travel to important locations where they filmed the movies. On the flight back you could watch either the extended features on the DVDs, or watch the movies with the commentary. I think it is a great idea... maybe I should sell it to PJ (Peter Jackson), of course, now that it is on the internet anyone could use it.

Let me see. What can I tell you about food. It is all very good. My first Thai meal was the morning after my flight. we had breakfast at the hotel, and I ordered some sort of rice soup with shrimp. It was excellent, and I added chillies, fish sauce, and vinger (which they provided) It was quite spicy, but I enjoy spicy food. Rice is the main food here, but noodles are also common. There are a variety of different things that are served to be eatten with the rice: meat, different sauce things, soy sauce, chillies, fish sauce, etc. So far I have like just about everything I have eatten (I am sure that is difficult for you to imagine... Luke NOT being picky about food! *sarcasam in Luke's voice*) I have also had noodles with little octopus or squid, and steemed chicken (you just pick it off with yoru hands) and pickled ginger root (which was very strong in flavor... for those of you who know what eating ginger is like, just imagine a cross-section-slice of ginger that has been pickled... kind of looks like a slice of pickled beet... but VERY strong in flavor. I had sticky rice for the first time. It is a different variety of rice, and you eat it with your hands, squeeze it into a ball, and dip it in different sauces. The other day I had fried frogs legs... they were quite good, but not al that much meat.

Fruit here is much more interesting than in America... more than just apples and oranges. One fruit looks like a big spiky melon... The Lao people call it the king of the fruit. It is called Durian (note: all spelling of foreign words on this blog will be incorrect. Any correct spelling is pure coincidence and not intended. Spelling is based on how the word sounds to Luke) I tried it, but didn't think it was too special... after Jay tasted it, he said it wasn't the best Durian he has ever had. It had a bit of an onion taste which is not normally supposed to be there... I assume I will get another chance to taste it later. I also had Mango, and another fruit called Mangosteen. This one, The queen of fruit, is round and smaller than an orange. you cut the outside shell around the middle and pop off the top, and inside is the fruit. It looks kind of like aclove of garlic. you scoop out the middle and eat it... there is one pit inside. This fruit is delisious. I like it very much. it is very sweet. Another fruit that I had last night was red with green spiky hairs all over it. you cut it open and eat it the same way as the mangosteen... very good.

Driving here in Laos is interesting. The rules of the road are not very strict at all. you drive however fast you want, and can drive on either side, although generally people stay to the right. THere are lots of bikes and motercycles, and tuk tuks (pronounced took took... like the oo in boo) The tuk tuk is a motercycle that has three wheels and has a space in the back for passangers... a type of taxi. There are old trucks and cars, and new very new trucks and cars... it doesn't seem like there are many "in-between" cars. like from the 90's... either old or new. veicals are all over the road, for example there may be two motorcylces and a car coming toward you, and the car comes into your lane as it passes the motorcycles, and you need to pull over to the cide and not bump the motorcycle to your right. Oh, I am learning to drive Manual Transmition... not having to much trouble really.

It is interesting talking with Jay. We have noted how America is quite an odd country. It is the only country that does so many things. For example there is the metric system. America is the only one who won't adopt it. America is also unique when it comes to elecicity. Everywhere else has 210 Volts. but america has 110. So electric machines work everywhere except crossing from America to other countries and other coutnries to America. Here is another thing... Automatic Transmition. Jay says that most countries use manual transmition because it is less expensive and uses less fuel (but automatic transmitions are more durable) We just mentioned another one: carpet. Jay says it is very dirty. All sorts of bacteria, dust mites, mold etc. it is hard to keep clean. I imaine especially so in hot humid climates. So the floor is tile and wood here. I guess in some of these things Canada and Australia might be the same.

A note about what I do with free time... some of it is spent journaling, and some of it reading the Coune of Monte Cristo (wshich so far is only about 10% like the movie... of course I am only in the third chapter)

I think I have adjusted to the time mostly. On the plane I switched my watch to the new time and pretended like it was 7:00 in the morning instead of 7:00 at night... so I stayed awake for a long time, and when I got to Thailand is was tired because I had been up so long, even though back home it was noon back home. So I have been sleeping quite well. Going to bed around 10:00 PM and getting up at about 7:00 AM. So I am doing very well, although in the afternoon I get a bit sleepy... maybe because I just ate, and it is so very hot. (today about 40 Celcius... i think that is 100 Farenhite. (how do you spell that word?) or maybe because it is 2:00 AM back home.

I think I have written quite enough for now... I will write some more about today's events tomorrow.

-Luke

Postscript: For those of you who pay attention to the time at the bottom of these entries, It is not correct... i have yet to figure out how to get it to the correct time... right now it is 4:20 PM my time.

I missed the e

I would like to just write a quick thank you to my awesome brother Troy, who not only noticed that I typed my web address without an e, but also resolved the problem and saved me a lot of work by simply clicking "reply all" and informing the world of the mistake. I would also like to thank Alyse, Julie, and Micah along with everyone else who noticed the problem and let me know about it.

So, just so everyone knows, my address is lukestorer.blogspot.com not lukstorer.blogspot.com There now everyone should have it figured out now. Of course, if you have not recognized my error, you have no way of reading this, so you are probably still wondering where my blog is... maybe you can find it using google. (smile)

-luk

Laos PDR

Here I am. After two more days of travel I have arrived in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos. The weather is very hot and humid. I constantly have this hot-sticky feeling.

I arrived at the airport at midnight on Sunday night/Monday Morning. We drove to a hotel in a taxi, and then we slept. The next day we went back to the airport, had a 50 min. flight, a three hour bus ride, and then stopped at a village right on the border of Laos. My uncle Jay has a house there that we spent the night in. Today we went to the river took a boat across to Laos. I am doing very well. I have so many things I could write, but I don't have the time. I think I will write some more later... copy some things from my journal.

For those of you who have heard that I tend to get motion sick on planes. It is true. My first flight ended with an unpleasent use of one of the bags they provide "for motion discomort" the bag leaked, and I had to change clothing after I got off. The rest of the flight was much better. I was told that Mentos help, and so I ate one of those every time we took off or landed or experienced turbulance. I didn't have to use any of the bags after that, but I have officially decided I dislike flying. It is convienit to be able to travel for hours instead of months, but I do not enjoy the flights.

-Luke

Leaving the country

Well, the time has come. Tomorrow my parents drive me to St. Louis, MO where I will board a plane at approximatly 11:50 AM. I will then fly to Minneapolis, and then to Tokyo, and finally Bangkok. Arriving at 11:50 PM on Monday the 23rd. My uncle Jay will meet me at the airport. If all goes well, I will not get motion sick on the planes, and I will have no trouble finding my way around the airports... we will see what really happens. Fare well USA!

Welcome

Hello one and all. I just finished reading about weblogs on www.howstuffworks.com (a very useful website). After I finished reading about them, I thought it might be useful to create one for this summer. I have no idea how much I will actually do this, but here is my first entry. I guess you can post your own comments to what I write, and I can decide to post them or not. If you would like to know more about "blogging" check out the following link. http://people.howstuffworks.com/blog.htm

-Luke