Here I am on wednesday in front of a very large waterfall. It was quite amazing to think of how much water was traveling down the river every second. Wow!

Here is Nathan. That is a fisherman's net hanging from the tree. the bottow has little pieces of chain tied to it to make it sink in the water.(I also had four other students at the office who were not on this trip. Lo, a girl who helped clean the office, and who couldn't really speak English, but paid close attention and tried to best to begin learning. Sone and Toon, two women who attended class, and Tou, a man who didn't come to class very regularly, but was there for some of the time.)

Here are most of my students from the office. Starting on the left: Sith, Sounthone, Ter, and Nui is in the front. Nathan (pronounced Na-Tawn) is taking the picture. Notice the waterfall in the background.

Departure Imminent

Concerning the survey:

The final statistics for the “Is ‘happy as a clam’ a simile? Survey” are in. Out of the MANY who participated in this survey, at total of 75% stated that they thought “happy as a clam” was indeed a simile and 25% did not think it was a simile. Special thanks to Bekah, Micah, Dad, and Christy for their participation in this survey. So there you have it Christy, the majority of my audience agrees with me and says that it is a simile.

Responding to comments:

Heather: I can’t begin to imagine what is like to deal with constantly changing emotions. I have very grateful that under normal conditions I have very steady and reliable emotions. I think I would go insane if they changed more frequently. I have been taking pictures. I sure hope they all turn out. I have been a little nervous about that. I suppose we will see when I get back. If the pictures don’t turn out, I do have a couple CD’s of digital pictures that people have taken while I was here.

Christy: I do feel quite satisfied with my teaching here. That is what I have been feeling the most as I have been getting ready to leave today. Satisfaction that I made it, and I succeeded. I am ready now for the final part of my summer internship.

Official blog entry:

My evening at the Korean Barbeque was quite fun, and I ended up enjoying the food because first of all I decided not to use any of the sauce, (so this time everything tasted more interesting) and second, because they had fried noodles that I was able to fill up on. During the meal we were talking a little about things I should have seen before I left, and then someone said, “Tomorrow, would you like to go tomorrow morning?” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “sure.” So at the last minute, we decided to take the office staff and go on a road trip to a couple provinces where we would see some more of Laos and some beautiful waterfalls. I could spend a lot of time telling you all about it, but I need to use that time to prepare for my departure today. I will just tell you that we left at 7:00 AM and returned at 9:30 PM and I was quite glad I went, and I was also quite tired.

Today I leave Laos around 2:00ish and then go across the river to Mukdahan, Thailand. I will get on a bus at about 7:00 PM and ride through the night and arrive in Bangkok at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. If things go according to plan, I will meet Bethany there, and we will go together to the airport, if we don’t see each other by 7:00 AM we will go to the airport separately and then meet at the gate. At 10:30 AM we depart from Bangkok, and at 4:10 PM we arrive in Beijing, China. At 8:00 PM we will depart from Beijing and fly to Yinchuan. That is where my information ends. I don’t know much more than that. We will teach English teachers in the middle of China, and then return to America—arriving in Minneapolis at 5:27 PM on August 8th.

For this next part of my summer I will not have internet access, so my email will pile up, and I will not be updating my blog. You may want to begin checking my blog for updates after Aug 8th, but I don’t know exactly how much I will write at that time, or if I will write anything the first couple of days back home.

I wish you all well.

-Luke

It Is Finished

Title of Blog Explained: Today was my last day of teaching in Laos.

Responding to comments:

Heather: I enjoyed your “blabbing” a great deal. Thanks for leaving your comments. It has been frustrating, but until yesterday, I didn’t realize the extent of the frustration and now it doesn’t matter any more. (except to learn from this for future reference.)

Christy: Yes, I have been amazed at all the crazy things I have done this trip. I have really experienced Laos a way most who come for a short time will never see. I think part of the reason I have learned so much is that I have been here alone. It has really “stretched” me.

Official blog entry:

Eighty-Eight hours of teaching! I have taught for eighty-eight hours since I returned to Laos. This is not counting the time I have spent explaining things outside of class, nor does it include my times with “the girls” (a good portion of which was spent explaining things and correcting pronunciation and grammar—unofficial teaching but teaching none the less)

I taught my class at the school in a classroom today, (but not the normal one—we didn’t have the key for that room today either) and I had four students. After class one of my students came and told me that she also works at the tourism office. She said she needs to be able to speak clearly when she answers foreigners’ questions. I told her that tomorrow I will meet her at the tourism office at two. I do not know how I will be able to help, but I figure if I go, I might be able to get more information and be able to understand what she needs to do. If tomorrow I am just as lost as I was today, I will apologize and say that I don’t know how to help her. It’s just as simple as that.

In the office, our class had normal attendance once again, and went well. In both classes I tired something new. I had them make up a story about how a beggar became a billionaire. It was quite a challenge for them, but I think they enjoyed it. Both classes told me that they thought I was a very good teacher. One student said that I am very clear in my explanations, and I use many different ways to help them understand how to pronounce a word or what it means. Another person said that he is better at pronunciation and reading now. He also said that he is better at using articles (people here like to leave off “a” and “the” example: “I work at Forestry Department.”) One student asked if I had training in psychology because I know how to teach like a professional teacher who has had psychology classes, and all of the students said that I should come back next year and teach for a longer period of time. I told my students that I was very glad they I had taught in Laos, and that I had learned a lot from teaching them. They had been very good students.

What are my feelings right now? Well feelings are very fickle they like to change a lot. If you had asked me on Friday how I felt about teaching, I would have said I have enjoyed it, and I would like to maybe come back and do it again. Today I don’t really feel like that at all. I am VERY glad I am done, and I can hardly wait to leave on Thursday afternoon. I won’t be too surprised if my feelings change their mind again as I float away from Savannakhet. (Luke rolls his eyes at the irrationality of emotions) By that time, I will probably wish that I could stay a lot longer.

Tonight I will be eating a farewell meal with all of my students from the office at the Korean Barbeque. (I think I might have accidentally given these people the idea that the Korean Barbeque is my favorite place to eat… oh well. It will be my last time there, and I think I am going to go home and eat some bread and cheese before we meet here at six.)

-Luke

Low Attendance

Responding to comments:

Erin: Yes, I am always hanging around with “the girls” over here. The reason for that is simple. Ter, the woman who cooks for me, has a group of friends who speak English. It is difficult to spend time with guys when you don’t know any around your age, and the ones you have met can barely speak English. I will make sure to say “Hi” to Bethany from you.

Bekah: Looking forward to seeing you. Take care.

Official blog entry:

The wedding party was like an American wedding reception with a few differences. Some of these differences may be due to the fact that this was not a typical wedding party. This wedding party had about 1000 people, and the bride was 47 and the groom was 51. This was the bride’s first marriage and the groom’s second. Because the wedding was so large, half of the crowd was seated at tables outside the hotel and the other half were inside. (We were outside.)

They made sure those outside could see what was going on by having a video screen showing the couple and the live band, and to make sure that not a single guest would miss a single detail of the evening, they placed several large speakers outside and turned the volume up just loud enough to
1) Distort all sound coming out of the speakers
2) Make it necessary to shout across the table to be heard
3) Cause permanent hearing damage to all present.
(Actually it wasn’t THAT loud, but it WAS just about as loud as a live rock concert—except the sound was distorted from having the sound turned up too loud for the speakers—not because the guitars had special effect peddles to distort the sound.)

The food was good, and displayed in a way that looked fancy and appealing. It was more food than I have ever seen at a wedding reception, and all of it was quite good. We had noodles, a chicken soup (Chinese I think, because it reminded me of soups available at Chinese restaurants), a whole fish, duck, a couple different dishes that were meat mixed with herbs and a sauces (one dish was chicken the other beef) a plate of king prawn, a plate of vegetables (which included some slices of raw tomato) and a tray of fruit.

After the meal some people danced (all of the guests were invited to join the dancing, but only a small fraction of the 1000 did). Americans would probably think the dancing was pretty hokey. The first type of dance was walking slowly to the music with your partner (not touching) while your elbows were next to your body and your hands extended in front of you. AS you walked, you slowly turned your hands like a Thai dancer (or lack of a better comparison). The other dance I saw was like a slow line dance with people standing in a square (again, no touching).

I learned that night that the wedding ceremony is held at home with relatives in the morning. This wedding party was the time for all the friends to see and congratulate the newly wed couple.

It was a little interesting this morning, at the school; I had only two students and no classroom. (This was because of a mushroom growing training that was happening at the same time) some of the teachers went to that (including the one with the key). So the three of us had class outside, and halfway through another student came and five minutes before class ended a fourth came.

At the office we had a similar situation because of the mushroom training. I had two students, and so we started 15 min. late, and then another couple students were there when we started at 10:15, and then a fifth student showed up at 11:00 for the second hour of class.

Not knowing when and if students will come to class has been a common thing that has happened during my teaching experience in Laos. It has happened because each of my students has different jobs and responsibilities that need to be fulfilled. Sometimes they have to go out to the villages for five days and work with the farmers, other times there is something like this mushroom training. The teachers at the school have classes that they have to attend in other towns, and a couple people have been sick. It has been very understandable why this has happened, but now having dealt with it for 21 days of teaching and having only one day of teaching left, I have decided that it bothers me.

When my students are late or absent, I feel like they do not think the class is important. Of course this is not true, but that is how I feel. It has disrupts my teaching. It is difficult to decide what to teach or how to teach it when you do not know if you will have eight or two students. Sometimes I came to class and had to improvise class because my plans didn’t exactly work with the number of students. It has required flexibility on my part. Also when students are not in class for a week, the miss a whole lot, and everyone knows what is going on except that one person. The same problem exists when someone is late. Do you sum of everything that you taught in the last 15 min. or do you ignore that they were gone and just keep teaching. (I have tried to give the basic information about what we are doing when it has happened to me). It is difficult to build from one day to the next when you don’t know how many people will be in class today, or who they will be, or if they will be there tomorrow. I am not angry (if this section sounds angry to you) I am just observing what has happened and learning that I dislike it. My students all have very good reasons for being late or absent, but that doesn’t make it any less disruptive or frustrating. I now have a new appreciation for TBC’s attendance policy. I can guess how frustrating it is for a professor whose students have inconsistent attendance.

-Luke

Postscript: If you want to learn a little more about Star Wars and its director, George Lucas, here is a really intereting article. http://www.adherents.com/people/pl/George_Lucas.html It is kind of long, and gets more into conflicts Lucas had with other people concerning copyright laws after about the eighth page, but the rest is really good. I would recommend reading though the the quote "That corner of the world falls quiet. An ancient mystery is about to be re-enacted. The audience is listening. " and maybe stop after that. If you want to read about the selfishness of film-makers read the whole ariticle. (about 15 pages) It's a look into human nature.

My Final Weekend

Responding to comments:

Bekah: looking forward to seeing you… I am glad you enjoyed the stories. I have a lot of fun writing them. Yes, I have thought a little about writing children’s stories… that is essentially what I am doing already, these stories are children’s stories… though usually not read by children. I suppose you are specifically referring to getting them published… I have thought about that too. I don’t know yet if there will ever be a chance for that, but I am keeping copies of all of them, and we will see what happens in the future.

Hopacopim: I understood exactly what were saying with the huge game of Charades/Taboo. I especially like the use of Taboo. There are a bunch of words I can’t use either… but for me, it is not because I don’t know them, but because my audience doesn’t know them.

Official blog entry:

Really there is nothing too new to write about. Saturday I did play badminton (and had quite a lot of fun) and that evening I ate supper with the girls.

Today is Sunday, so I relaxed, and just enjoyed my day of rest. I talked to my favorite father on messenger.(Yes, he is my only father, but that doesn’t make him any less my favorite.) Tonight I go to the wedding party.

-Luke

Grilled Rice in a Leaf

Responding to comments:

(sigh) I am going to need a couple more people to respond to my little survey in order to make this survey a survey… so I am going to extend this survey until Monday or Tuesday and see if more people respond to my poll. You don’t need to leave a long explanation, you can just write, “Yes, Simile” or “Not Simile” in a comment. When you leave the comment for the survey, try to remember to leave it on the entry “Survey Concerning Similes” thank you.

George: I am still conducting the survey, as you have noted by now. We will see what else people have to say.

Micah: glad you made it all the way through. I will be curious to see how long this thing is at the end of the summer. You know, copy it into a word document and see how many pages it takes up. I have written a small book, and when you get behind, that is a lot of reading to do.

Thanks for your comments concerning similes. I agree with you.

Official blog entry:

On the way over here I passed the little… what do you call it… a restaurant? not really. It’s a little building without walls made with a table and some chairs for eating at and another little area where food is prepared. It is directly next door to the office. So I walk past it every day. As I walked past it, today two of my students from the office were sitting there. I said hello, and they invited me over to try some of what they were eating. It was a Lao desert. Sticky rice with coconut milk wrapped into some leaves, and then grilled over some coals. You take off the leaves, and you eat the rice (when you unwrap the rice it is all stuck together and is dry enough for you to hold in your hands and eat it like a soft candy bar without getting your hands all messy). It was quite good, but nothing absolutely spectacular either.

Today is Saturday, and I have just been enjoying my day off, relaxing, listening to music as I do little odds and ends in my room. At 5:30 I will join “the girls” for badminton, and on Sunday, they invited me to come with them to some sort of wedding party. From what I understand this is the party after the wedding. We will go, eat food, and congratulate the newly weds. It should be an interesting experience.

This afternoon I had a fun and interesting experience, the man who takes care of Jay’s house came and knocked on my door and when I answered it he said, “speak English” I didn’t really understand what he meant at first, then I realized he wanted to practice speaking English. He can’t make sentences, but he knows a few words or short phrases in English.
He first started with numbers—holding up his fingers, “one, two, four.”
“three” I corrected
“tree”
“th-ree”
He contorted his face, “thuree”
we continued, “four, fi.”
“FiVe” I said emphasizing the “v”
“Fi-Va”
“no just five”
“fiva, fiva, fi, fiva” he said, either trying to stop saying the “a” at the end, or not noticing the difference between what I said and what he said. I don’t’ know which one it was.
”close”
We continued with numbers, and tried to communicate some other things. It was like playing a game of charades.
Drink, water, eat, rain, America, twenty-one, forty-eight, etc.
I didn’t look at my watch when he came in, so I have no certain idea of how long we sat there working on words, but I would guess it was somewhere between forty minutes and an hour. It was kind of fun, and a different style than teaching a class, but I used some of the same techniques, such as writing the word and underlining the part he didn’t pronounce correctly. After a while we ran out of things to say, so he got up and left.

Have a nice weekend.

-Luke

Survey Concerning Similes

Responding to comments:

George: I am a bit confused, are you saying that the two sentences I asked about where not similes, or were you saying that my statement "as happy as a clam" is not a simile, or were you saying all of the above were not similes.

If you are commenting about the two sentences in "the official blog entry" I agree, but if you were talking about my title of my blog. I say you are very wrong indeed. I will attempt to take a survey to see if the rest of my blog-reading world agrees with me.

Attention all blog readers! I would like to know if you think "as happy as a clam" is a simile or not. Please take the time to leave a comment with the words "Yes, Simile" or "Not Simile" expressing your opinion. After I collect the results, I will post the information in my next blog entry for all to see. Remember, the more people vote, the more accurate this survey will be. Thank you one and all for your time.

Official blog entry:

So today is my last Friday in Savannakhet, Laos. I teach on Monday and Tuesday, and then I leave Laos on Thursday afternoon. When I get to Mukdahan, (on the other side of the river) I will board a bus going to Bangkok. I will travel overnight and arrive early in the morning (I assume about 6:00 AM) I think I will be meeting Bethany at the bus station and then we will go to the airport together, get on the plane, and fly to China. Then it is three weeks teaching there and a flight home on Aug. 8th.

Tonight for supper I ate rice and a fried egg and some dried meat (aka jerky) a very good meal. I just thought I might mention that Ter fried the dried meat before serving it to me. Have you ever thought of frying up jerky. It was very good.

THE ROAD
A short story by Luke Storer
Dedicated to Kayla Storer

Once upon a time there was a road. This road was located in a kingdom not so far away, but still too far to go by tuk tuk or even by bus. It was not a nice paved road, but a half-eroded (okay actually three quarters would be more accurate) road that was very uneven and full of potholes. Every day it rained and the water formed rivers that flowed down the road and lakes inside the large potholes. All the water added to the road's problem. Also, every day a large, heavy truck (weighing at least the weight of three medium-sized elephants) would drive down the road and this made the road fall apart even more.

Fortunately, little magic gnomes would come and fill in all the holes with gravel while no one was looking. Somehow they managed to do this in broad daylight instead of waiting for night. The way they decided when to put gravel on the road was based on a complicated equation based on the square root of PI times the quadratic equation of the month of January. (It was all very complicated and several buildings full of math-gnomes worked for hours on end figuring out a calendar for when the road-gnomes were supposed to work next… but that is not part of this story) The gravel made the road look nice, but was not very helpful for the poor common peasants who rode motorbikes around the kingdom. The gravel was temporarily helpful for stable vehicles on four wheels, but for two wheeled motorbikes, all the gravel did was make it more dangerous to drive. Their wheels would catch in the loose gravel and they would nearly be thrown onto the ground. Most often, despite the dangerous conditions there were no accidents, but every once in a while someone would get hurt.

After the old king died, his cousin, (twice removed on his mother's side and five times removed on his father's side) was made king because several decades ago when they were both in elementary school the king (at that time prince) pinky swore that if his cousin could climb to the top of the castle and tie a red ribbon to the weather vane on the highest point, he would make a decree that his cousin would become king after him. His cousin succeeded, and to this day there is a red ribbon on top of the castle because no one has been brave enough to go and remove it.

This cousin, became a very wise and kind king. He used his wealth and power to give all of his peasants flying carpets for trasportation. As a result, they no longer used their motorbikes and didn't need to worry about loose gravel, potholes, erosion, or even being sept away in the river when it rained. Everyone was happy and lived long happy lives because they didn't receive horrible injuries from the dangerous road.

~The End~

As Happy as a Clam

Title explanation: a simile describing how I am doing.

Responding to comments:

Christy: Thanks for the further information on the space capable airplane. and the shortcut for putting an umlaut over a letter. ö

Ringo: I am currently sitting here trying to think of an appropriate comment to give you a hard time about shamelessly taking over my blog to “wave” at Christy. (smile) I suppose I could give you a warning… (the following quote is to be read with a deep authoritative voice) “Ringo, that is quite enough from you… consider this your first warning… if these actions continue I will be forced to…” oh great now I have to think of a threat… hmm… “I will be forced to use a quote from ‘A Hard Days Night’ (is that the name of the Beatles movie?… not “Help”) that is actually directed at me but will be directed toward you. If you do not cease these actions you will find out what I am talking about. (beacuse this whole message is probably really silly and confusing right now)

Official blog entry:

I was teaching one of my class at the school about similes and metaphors. One of my students made a couple sentences that I don’t think contain similes.

John is as tall as his father.

The dog is as friendly as she.

Do those count as similes? I tried to look for an answer online, but didn’t really find what I was looking for. Then yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with my father on Yahoo Messenger (I love you Dad!) and we came to the conclusion that they were not similes based on the dictionary’s definition: “a figure of speech that compares on thing to another of a different kind.” What do you think?

The class at the office was a lot of fun Yesterday On Tuesday, my students mentioned something called “Deep Impact” they tried to explain, but I didn’t really understand what it was, so I went online and read the news and an article on How Stuff Works (http://science.howstuffworks.com/deep-impact.htm) and then today we talked a little about it. Conversation flowed, and we were able to talk about the origin of the universe, evolution, cloning, and abortion and contraception. I don’t think these people have been challenged to think about these sort of things before (to question why they believe what they believe). I helped them see a little bit of both sides of the arguments. I love explaining things, so it was a lot of fun. I would like to show special appreciation to Mr. Schlecht who has taught me so much about everything. (Especially science) Because of Mr. Schlecht’s biology class, I was able to explain things to my students, answer questions, and give information for both sides of each issue.

The last two nights I went to the park to watch the sun set again. (or should it be sunset? I was watching the process of it setting, not just the moment it set… the while thing… well you get the idea either way). Tuesday I was by myself, and then last night. “the girls” were there. Afterward, we went and ate Korean Barbeque (this is now the third time I have had it, but it was at a different restaurant this time.) This restaurant had little building things built around the yard—instead of just a room with tables. The buildings were completely open (they didn’t have any walls) and you took off your shoes before you stepped upward onto the platform. There was a short table with little stools and a dim light hanging from the ceiling. It was fun eating at a short table, only my legs are a little longer than some people, and so they got tired of being bent after about an hour.

I think I have decided that I need to eat carbohydrates to feel full. The Korean Barbeque is good, but it is only vegetables, meat, and glass noodles. I have to eat a lot of this kind of food before I feel full, and I get tired of the taste of the food a long time before that happens. (There is this sauce that you dip everything in, and so everything ends up having that same flavor). The first time I ate at a Korean Barbeque I was able to fill up on fried rice, (a complex carbohydrate) and eat the meat and vegetables just to eat them… not to fill my empty stomach. So I ate until I was sufficiently tired of the food, and then when I got back to the house I ate some bread and cheese to supplement my supper.

-Luke

Comma and Decimal Confusion

Responding to comments:

Dad: That is really interesting about the Badminton shaped shuttlecraft. I don’t have time to read about it now, but I will take a look later.

Erin: Nice to hear from you. I am having a great time, but look forward to coming back home to America about Aug. 8th.

Official blog entry:

Yesterday I went to the local park at 6:00 PM. It is a very nice clean park, and it is full of people at that time. Many of them are doing aerobics to the music blaring out of speakers nearby, and others are jogging, or just walking around the park. Some people stand by the river to talk with their friends and others kick around a football (aka soccer) with their children.

I went to get some pictures of a sunset on the Mekong. Unfortunately the clouds were not cooperating, so I think I will try again tonight. I did stay and enjoy the park though, before I left, I saw my favorite “star” Earendil (did I spell that correctly Christy) a beautiful silver pinprick of light shining out in the evening sky before any of the other stars come out.

I have found that I have used my spelling skills a whole lot this summer. It is a good thing they improved from when I was in elementary and high school, or I would be in trouble. (I used to spell atrociously) When talking with people, they will sometimes ask me to spell a word that they don’t recognize, and in class, I often have to write words on the board for them to see. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well I am doing with this spelling thing. There are occasions when I don’t know how to spell a word, but I have a dictionary right in front of me in class, and I can check that pretty quickly. (sometimes, I even find that I DID spell it correctly, and I don’t have to make any changes)

An interesting thing I learned the other day is that the commas and periods used in numbers mean different things here. I had thought that numbers were exactly the same everywhere in the world, but that is not true.

In America, we would write 1,000 days and 3.14 = PI but here they would be confused by that because they would write 1.000 days and 3,14 = PI. Isn’t that funny? This difference has caused some confusion a number of times in class.

-Luke

Postscript: http://www.webmath.com/k8metric.html This is a really useful web page for calculating conversions of metric and US systems of measurment.

Badminton

Responding to comments:

Heather: Thanks for your encouraging words

Official blog entry:

Last night I played badminton with “the girls” and one of their brothers. (“Guy” – probably not spelt that way) I had a very enjoyable time. Out of the four games five games that we played, Ad and I won three and lost one (we didn’t play in the last game at all.) I think I like playing badminton. Either I am pretty good at it, or the people I am playing with are not very good. Either way, I feel pretty good about playing it.

Afterwards, we had supper and talked for a while. One of the girls was asking me all sorts of words for things: dimples, mustache, goatee, sideburns, eyelashes, ghost, scared, scary. It was fun. (like what I do in class, but less structured.)

Sometimes spending time with these girls can be kind of exhausting since I don't always know what is going on, and it can be hard work to communicate. Sometimes I would rather just stay at home, but last night I had an excellent time.

-Luke

Luke's Journal: Volume II

Responding to comments:

Christy: Yes, the Van der Waals thing was pretty cool. I was going to write something about suction cupped feet in the story, and I decided to read about the animal to make sure I was writing something accurate, and I found out about the force. I really want some of that tape. I really would like to climb on walls.

Mrs. K: Thanks for reading the blog. I am happy to hear that it has been fascinating. I will be teaching on Monday the Fourth of July, because unfortunately (for some strange reason) they don’t celebrate it here in Laos… oh well (laugh)

Heather: glad you liked the story. I love writing those things!

Official blog entry:

I have now begun the second volume of my summer journal. At the beginning of the summer, I purchased a small notebook to write about everything that happens. While I was in Thailand it became apparent that that notebook would not be enough (at that time I had already filled half of it) While we were in Hua Hin, (I think that is how you spell it… I wrote about this town earlier in my blog. We went there for part of a day, and I think I went to an internet café.) My cousin, Sky, and my Aunt, Milka bought me another notebook for when I filled up the first one. Well that day has come. (actually on it happened on the evening of July First) I wonder if it will last me the rest of the summer. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Saturday I traveled with Ter and five other girls to Ter’s hometown. I have found that I often really have no idea what is going on when I spend time with them. This may be because at the very most, they only speak English 50% of the time. We left at about 9:00 AM. I drove the Prado and we headed east of Savannakhet. After we left the main road, the road because a very bumpy dirt road, and we had to stop several times for directions. (this was greatly confusing to me for a while… didn’t Ter know where her hometown was?) We had to stop and trun around a couple of times because we passed wherever we were going, and we were trying to find our way. I enjoyed seeing the beautiful landscape of Laos, and I got to listen to a CD of my favorite songs as we drove in the comfortable air conditioned car so I didn’t really mind. The girls also seemed to be enjoying themselves chatter to each other in Lao and laughing quite often. After I while, I stopped trying to figure out if we were returning the way we came or taking a new road or which way was north, and I lelt the girls just give me directions. At one point, the road stopped having fields on both sides, instead it was a rather narrow road cut out between trees. At the next turn we came to a path that was like a tunnel cut into the jungle. It was just big enough for the Toyota to drive inside. It looked like something from a movie. It was pretty cool. Before we traveled 200 ft. onto this path everyone figured that this probably was not the right way. It took a while, but I skillfully maneuvered the Toyota around at a wider point were the path split into two parts. We decided to stop and take some pictures here. Speaking of maneuvering the Toyota, I think I am getting pretty good at driving stick-shift now. After some more back-tracking and driving around we got to a part of the road that had huge puddles, that looked like miniature lakes. We decided that it might be too deep for the Toyota, so we decided to turn around and just go to Ter’s house. (somewhere in the conversations I found that we had been trying to get to a lake that Ter hadn’t been to for 10 years… and that is why we had been getting lost.) We arrived at Ter’s parent’s house about noon. This town was like Savannakhet only a little less developed. The houses here were bigger than some of the raised huts we passed along the way, but they were raised on poles like those had been. Ter’s house was a nice big house, and we spent most of the day downstairs in the open area below it, but before we left we got to see the upstairs. The upstairs was very clean and had a lto of area. It had a few rugs and a couple pieces of furniture on one wall a few pictures on the opposite wall, but the rest of the house was pretty much open and empty. The walls, ceiling and floor were all beautiful wood. There were also a few bedrooms upstairs, and those were similar. (empty except for a few essential pieces of furniture.) I liked the house a lot. It felt like it was the loft of a barn that had been turned into a house. Or maybe a giant tree house. (like from The Swiss Family Robinson) The majority of the days was spent just “hanging out” an American phrase that explained to the girls. In the afternoon we went to a lake that seemed to be a sort of Animal Preserve or something. we fed some turtles from a dock, and we got to see them pretty well. They had pointed snouts, and some were about the size of a toaster while others were large enough so that their shell was bigger than a kitchen sink. At the end of the dock was a little building that was some sort of shrine or something the girls stopped and shook a little jar with some sticks in it, and then took apiece of paper and stuck it in a box. After supper we returned to Savannakhet and got there about 8:30 PM. I was quite glad that we had chosen not to spend the night. I was happy to be alone and glad to be able to enjoy my Sunday of rest. Tonight I will play badminton with them, and probably have supper with them afterwards, but I have had all of my morning and afternoon to myself.

Exciting news, I got info about my trip to China, and I have a list of the names of everyone I will be working with as well as a short description of who each person is. With this list, I will be able to begin to get to know each person and think of them before I ever meet them at the Airport. The team is about 21 people, and they will all arrive in Beijing at different times July 14th and 15th The cool part is that Bethany and I will be the last people to arrive, and everyone on the team will be at the Airport to welcome us.

-Luke

Randy: The Gecko Who Loathed His Name

A short story, by Luke Storer. Dedicated to Kayla Storer.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away there lived a gecko by the name of Randy. Randy would have been a happy little gecko—eating bugs all day long crawling around on walls, hanging out with his friends, but there was a problem. The problem was his name. Randy loathed his name. All the other geckos and normal names like Gnam, Nuixay, Floon, and Huantone, but not Randy. At school all the other geckos made fun of Randy and teased him because it.

One day Randy found genie bottle in a pile of stuff at someone’s house. He tried to rub it, but his little hands stuck to the side of bottle instead of rubbing it. (due to what is called the Van der Waals force) Randy quickly darted around the room looking for a piece of cloth. He then held the cloth in his hand and rubbed the genie bottle. out of the bottle came a big powerful genie. He was quite grateful for being let out of the bottle (he had been in there for approximately 5,672,807 days, 13 hours, and 2.395 minutes—not that anyone was keeping track) to the thank Randy he asked said he would give Randy three wishes.
Randy immediately knew what to ask. “I would like you to change my name.”
“Change your name?!,” the genie asked in disbelief. “Why would you want to do that? I think the name, ‘Randy’ is totally wicked.”
“Really?” asked Randy.
“I sure do,” said the genie.
From that day Randy the gecko liked his name, and he and his new friend the genie became best friends.

~The End~

If you would like to read about Van der Waals force, you visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_force

If you would like to read about an invention using this force, check out this web page http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3785 I wonder where I could get some of this stuff. It sounds like it is at least as good as duct tape.

Responding to Comments:

Christy: glad you are enjoying the descriptions

Heather: great idea… I think I will ask Mr. Schelcht (but I will probably wait until school starts so that I can ask him in person. Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog… I do feel very loved.
-Luke