Bangkok 29 October

When we arrived back home it had been raining, The street had puddles that were half way up your calves, the klong was well over it's banks, and the paddocks we see from our balcony window now have little canoes that gently navigate amongst the reeds, though what the folk in them are doing I have yet to ascertain. Now the puddles have thankfully subsided and I am once again in the made panic of writing a million lesson plans, before school starts.

I have been offered a gig training the TEYL course for spencer, which considering I was only a student on it six months ago seems like tremendously rapid promotion, but I figure it will look good on my resume if nothing else.

Went to a drama course on Friday, the lunch was fabulous, real cheese plates and smoked salmon and other delectable and delicious morsels, the course was ok but not terribly relevant for us as English and not drama teachers, a least Kevin and Ian were there to keep me entertained and I went and stayed at Taz's place in Thonburi after.

Went to the forensic museum today, fabulous, weird, spooky, it's full of pallid human organs floating in glass blocks of formaldehyde. I will never eat, smoke, drink, get on a motorbike, in a car or go near a bullet or knife again, it's amazing. The head sliced in half, each in its own block, the two slabs separated down the bullets trajectory (forehead to rear base of the skull) leading me to assume the victim must have been on his knees, the brain tissue in the groove feathered and fringed amongst the normal tight coils of brain. The many little foetus, with chicken skin and tight little fists, some with screwed up little screaming faces, others like astronauts in gravity free, free fall umbilical cords still in place, others still in utero, twins one in free fall the other still tucked in the womb, the cover peeled back like a sleeping bag with the corner unzipped. A small infant who drowned sits in a cross legged pose looking serenely like a little buddha a row of jagged stitches all the way up his torso where the autopsy was carried out. In the Thai tradition many of these exhibits have coins, sweets and toys scattered about for the little ones to take into the after life. There are three naked mahogany coloured mumified adults, 1 naturally so and two executed rapist/murders who stand in nasty metal drip trays, that remind one of Hanibal Lecters sunday roast. There is a whole section devoted to the horrors of the 2004 Tsunami disaster and the logistical and forensic nightmare that it posed for all involved.

The museum is part of a museum trifecta, the anatomy museum (unfortunately currently closed for renovations ). The forensic described above and the parasite museum, the horror stories of all the different kinds of insect borne diseases, worms and other nasties was squirm inducing, the photo's of bums in the air with great stringy mountains of worms being unceremoniously hauled out was nasty, something I never had to deal with while nursing, my ghoulish nature in conflict with my squeamish inner self. I feel inspired to rush to the nearest hospital and make sure all my shots are up to date, in fact I'm sure it's time I had boosters for everything and perhaps one of those hygenic plastic bubbles to walk round in might be nice too. Thankfully one of my girlfriends called and I had to drag myself away before I could sink into complete paranoia.

Anyway I must away and teach before the school works out I only come here to connect to the Internet and write lesson plan