Saturday, February 14, 2009

Interview!

Last night my mom and I got back from Nebraska (made it out of Omaha while the entire city was being shut down because of a snow storm). My interview at Creighton yesterday went pretty darn well! It was great to see the campus, meet the people, and compare this med school with U of MN Twin Cities and U of MN Duluth. The students at each place seem really similar: cooperative, friendly, happy. I could see myself at each school. In the end, it's up to where I get accepted! Best case scenario, I have choices, worst case scenario, I've got Duluth in the bag! I'm so happy I have that one letter in hand, takes the pressure off. And it also helps that my family has been so supportive (like driving me to the Twin Cities and to Omaha, nice to not have to stress over driving or be bored all the way south on I-35). I should hear from Twin Cities by the end of March and from Creighton within three weeks. Exciting!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Back in the U.S.A.!

So, I've been back for a few days now (being busy + recovering from a nasty voice-sapping cold = no time/energy to write) and it feels good to be home. Many small things are much appreciated following a stint abroad. American plumbing being one of them. It's fun to go through what I brought back, revisit the pictures I took (there are lots, I will put up the best of the best here at some point, it may take a bit to sort through them all since I took over 3000 pictures and videos). Mom and I went to an Asian grocery store in town and it was really fun to see things I recognized, had eaten in Japan and Thailand, and currently crave. We made a fun stir fry using some ingredients from there and the plain old Cash Wise. I now have a few culinary goals for recreating some of my favorites from Japan and Thailand, but since I'm going back to Olaf in few days, those plans will have to be put on hold. I bought a variety pack of spices and two medium sized bags of saffron and curry in Thailand; it'll be fun to play with everything. I'm still on the hunt for green tea powder though.
The next few days promise to be busy, a medical school interview at the Twin Cities, family get-together (the weather had better cooperate this time! :) ), and going back to Olaf for my last semester. It's weird being a senior. Beginnings and endings at the same time. But it's exciting!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Busy!

Hey gang! I don't have long before I have to return to the hotel for a class discussion so unfortunately this will be brief and may contain some typos.
Chiang Mai was amazing! We left there yesterday after a great roughly two weeks there. Yesterday we were on a train for 12 hours. Uggg.
Highlights of Chiang Mai:
Beautiful wats (Buddhist temples) such as the huge Buddha in an open air section of Wat Suan Dok. Wat Chedi Luang was also impressive with an old ruin in the middle and a new hall being built for a recently deceased very famous monk. Wat Doi Suthep on a mountain overlooking smoggy Chiang Mai was beautiful and very packed with worshippers and tourists. Quite beautiful actually, glittering with gold and bits of glass in mosaics everywhere.
The Golden Triangle was very cool. It is called golden because it was one of the biggest areas for growing opium in the world and the farmers only accepted gold in exchange for the opium. But Afghanistan is the biggest area now, more regulation here. We actually went to a village on the other side of the Mekong River in Laos for about 15 minutes, so this whole month will have included time in three countries! hahaha.
Buddhist meditation center. Cool to learn about Buddhism and try meditation, but I would need many more days to figure out meditation. The walking meditation was interesting, especially when you are going so slow and concentrating so hard on what your body is doing that you lose balance sometimes!
Food. Chiang Mai has lots of awesome cheap food. And no, not too spicy. Except for papaya salad which I will avoid for the rest of my life. One tiny tiny bite and I thought my mouth, gums, tongue, all of it was being aimed at directly by a blowtorch. I was sucking on ice cubes and gobbling rice for quite a while. Other food, awesome. Especially pad thai. Yum!
Markets! Woohoo inexpensive awesome stuff! I had to buy a large backpack to help contain everything. Mom, you will be pleased with my silk purchases. The markets in Bangkok seem interesting as well, but I will have to express restraint so I can bring everything home! I absolutely love the textiles here, amazing craftsmanship and I am shocked at the low prices.
We briefly visted Bo Sang, the umbrella making village, as part of a touristy day. I took many pictures of these beautiful paper umbrellas, it's almost appalling how little they charge for these workers of art. I did not get an umbrella, too hard to transport, but I got a very nice wall hanging.
Overnight visit to a Karen village. It was not as primitive as I had thought, but electricity was scant, old oversize satellite dishes not hooked up to a TV at any point in their life where used for drying chilies and herbs, and the buildings were wood slabs, concrete, on slilts, with corrugated steel roofs. A very difficult life farming in the mountains, working so hard for conservation, of both the land and their culture. A very interesting time. Some good stories out of that.
Transportation. We have had adventures. These are best told in person. See lohs, tuk tuks, buses, trains. Any and all, we have had adventures.

Okay, Bangkok. We got in late last night (aroun 10 or so to the hotel). This morning we did a sightseeing tour and saw Chinatown (crazy busy with people buying stuff for the Chinese New Year in a few days), a small Chinese style wat, the tallest building in Thailand, 309 meters tall if I remember correctly, drove by the palace where the king currently lives, saw another palace built by Rama V to prove that Thailand is a developed country (1800's).
Bangkok is busy. So much activity, so much traffic, so much smog, so many foreigners. Chiang Mai was calm by comparison! It's very warm here too, hot actually, and humid. The smog gave me a mild sore throat already, yay for cough drops. But it's not as bad as I had thought here actually, smog-wise. Our hotel is very nice, not the character and nooks that Suan Doi House had, this one is pretty Westernized, but it's nice. And it has a breakfast buffet! Methinks I have gained weight here in Thailand. So much good food, I have become eternally hungry, and I'm always snacking on some tasty morsel that someone in the group has purchased and shared. Our group is great!
Tomorrow we will visit Bangkok University.
Day after, free day, I plan to visit Jim Thompson's House perhaps the National Museum, river boat cruise, we'll see about other things.
We have a lot packed into our Bangkok days, so I do not know how often I can write. I'm safe, having fun, and learning lots! And I can't wait to breathe in fresh cold air again in Minnesota. Ahhhh, refreshing to just think about it!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Alive and well!

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written since I left, I have been very busy and haven't had much access. First things first: Japan was absolutely incredible!!! There were a good number of times when I could almost feel heart palpitations because I was so overwhelmed and in awe. The gardens, temples, shrines, onsens, markets, restaurants, everything was great. I could go on and on but here are the highlights:
Hakone: seeing Mount Fuji!! Plus, that evening the friends of Jack's I went with took me to an onsen (bath-house, think spa). Ahhhh.
Kamakura: Fun shopping (I got a cool looking kimono for VERY cheap) and an absolutely gorgeous temple. Also, a very cool garden where we saw the sun set over the ocean. Breathtaking.
Making pumpkin pies with cute kids! And meeting Jack's crazy fun friends.
New Year's Eve! Went to Kawasaki deishi for midnight. Hoards of people. As in thousands to hundreds of thousands. The cauldron of burning incense, the beating of a massive drum, and the throngs of people gathering to pray and to try the various foods was very impressive.
All day hike across Tokyo! (Or at least almost all the way across Tokyo). Ginza, Tokyo Station, the Imperial Palace (we saw the Emperor and the Imperial family!!!), more crazy shopping streets (especially crazy was the one for teens, stores called AC/DC with pink frilly things, methinks the band would not be pleased), and Meiji Shrine. Beautiful mysterious garden in the twilight filled with more New Year's revelers.
Sushi! All kinds of seafood. Crab brain, tuna, squid, etc. And it was good. Very very good. I promise to post pictures.
Shopping in Asakusa. Lots of people and lots of really cool stores to poke around in!
Hanging out in Kawasaki (Jack's neighborhood). Re-visited the shrine, still tons of people, explored the backstreets.
There were plenty of other awesome moments (including our many viewings of Dr. Horrible's Sing A Long Blog) but there are too many to tell and my time is short. Story time when I get back home! :D

On to Thailand! This is a very interesting, complex, and fun country. Our class has given me a good amount of knowledge and depth into the culture of this country. So far, here are the highlights:
Not falling of out any "see loh" (red truck) taxis. We crammed all 18 of us into one a couple of times. Oh togetherness.
Seeing the markets and older parts of Chiang Mai. There are ruins of walls and temples everywhere. You can hardly go 5 minutes, or not even, down a street and not see some ruin.
Our guesthouse. Garden paradise. I LOVE the library. Open air, wood, floor cushions, with a view of the gardens. Spectacular.
Visiting high schools and Chiang Mai University. One high school was an international school and was like any American high school. The other was public and was very Thai. 30 or more students crammed into a classroom, desks squeezed in up to the blackboard. The teacher using a "chalk and talk" teaching style of writing on the board and going over it word by word, almost all rote memorization. Yikes. Very enthusiastic kids though, very eager to meet us, and say a few words of English. Many calling out "hello!" as we walked by. The university was very interesting (30,000 plus students) and our guides were very nice and helpful. We saw some dorms, the gym, and some commons areas. Everything is a bit rough around the edges, but still pretty. We have dubbed walking on the sometimes-existent, often-not sidewalks "street hiking" because you have to always watch where you are stepping so you don't fall off or end up in a hole.
Muay thai boxing! We went to a dingy gym one evening to see 5 fights. It was very interesting, fun, and not bloody whatsoever. A very different way of fight, lots of "clinches" and knees and elbows. I have pictures and video.
The Golden Triangle! We were there all day yesterday, seeing a bridge to the Burma border, visiting tribal vilages (a mix of very depressing, unsettling, and interesting). If you buy something from the sad old women in traditional dress, you feel like you are promoting their self-exploitation. If you don't buy, you feel like a guilty miser who is not supporting their way of life. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I even felt bad for taking pictures. We took a speedboat to see the spot of the Golden Triangle where Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet before going to the Lao side and buying some beautiful textiles at the tourist-oriented village there. I did not try the snake-in-the-bottle whisky. Too scary looking and it smelled really bad. I managed to take a picture before running away, I'll post that later. As we drove back on the bus, we saw the sun set over dry rice paddies and rough looking shacks. Somewhat picturesque but rather sad.
Today was our free day, so 7 of us went to an elephant camp! It was fantastic! I got ridiculously excited to see, feed, and ride on elephants. They are so dextrous with the trunks, it is remarkable. The ride was slow and relaxing as we went through forested hills, up a stream, and into the river. Elephants are amazing animals.
Tonight, I'll be going to the Sunday Walking Street Market. More genuine and cheaper than the touristy markets (especially the Night Bazaar). In the next week, we'll be spending more time in Chiang Mai and the surrounding area including spending a overnight in a tribal village, seeing an agricultural site, and spending an overnight in a Buddhist meditation center.
I hope to write when I can, but I have no idea how often that will be. I'm having a great time here, staying with a group at all times (but I feel pretty safe here generally), and really enjoying the food (except when it is so spicy that my nose runs and my mouth feels like a blowtorch is being aimed at the back of my throat (must avoid the payapa salad)). I hope you all are doing well, and I miss you! Feel free to write me notes here or email me: pladson@stolaf.edu. Sawadee ka!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Itinerary

Here's what my schedule looks like for the next month:
December 26-28: Fly from Minnesota to Tokyo (I lose a day somewhere over the Pacific...)
December 28-January 6: Sightseeing in Tokyo including Hakone, the Imperial Palace, Kamakura, the Ginza shopping district, Ueno Park, the National Museum, and more, thanks to my guide and host, Jack Hathway!
January 6-7: Fly to Thailand, arrive in Chiang Mai at 1235 AM local time.
Jan 7: Orientation in Chiang Mai
Jan 8: Chiang Mai University, speaker on education
Jan 9: More education
Jan 10: Day trip to the Golden Triangle, meeting point of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar
Jan 11: Free day
Jan 12: Tribal Museum, guest speaker on tribes in Thailand
Jan 13-14: Overnight visit to one or two tribes
Jan 15: Guest speaker, visit wats (Buddhist temples) in Chiang Mai
Jan 16-17: Overnight stay at a Buddhist meditation center
Jan 18: Visit markets and agriculture sites
Jan 19: Visit industry/tourism sites
Jan 20: Visit Wat Doi Suthep, take the night train to Bangkok
Jan 21: Arrive in Bangkok, orientation
Jan 22: Tour Bangkok
Jan 23: Guest speaker, visit boys' school
Jan 24: Free day
Jan 25: Day trip to visit Ayutthaya with tour guide
Jan 26: Visit wats in Bangkok
Jan 27: Day trip tour to Kanchanaburi and River Kwai
Jan 28: Visit markets in Bangkok
Jan 29: Last day, visit tourism sites, have group dinner, go to airport (late in the evening)
Jan 29-30: Fly from Thailand to Minnesota via Seoul, South Korea, Los Angeles, and Denver, arriving in the evening.

All throughout our study abroad in Thailand, we will be analyzing the education system, Thai economics, and Buddhism. Within those general categories, we'll observe Thai behavior both on an individual level and on a general, entire population level, drawing conclusions about the impact and interplay of cultural institutions and beliefs on group and individual behavior. In short, field ethnography, or people watching! It should be great!
I'll update when I can, internet access will be somewhat common, but I expect to be pretty busy out there experiencing Thai culture and doing class work. Feel free to post comments or send me emails at pladson@stolaf.edu. I'll miss you, and I hope you have a good New Year's, and great January. I'll see you when I return, eager to swap stories!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Foreign happenings hotspot

For anyone who still reads my blog, I'm planning on using this as my go-to spot for keeping everyone updated while I am in Japan and Thailand. I'm leaving right after Christmas and will return at the end of January. After finals time here at Olaf, I'll put up my itinerary so you can follow along where I'll be day to day, even when I can't give you all the details. I'm really looking forward to this trip! Happy Holidays everyone!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Medical School Portrait


Creighton and Medical College of Wisconsin both would like a picture of me. Opinions as to which picture one is better?