And so it goes...

And so it goes, that sometimes, we have to stop pretending. We have to stop pretending if we're happy or if we're sad. We have to stop pretending if we're bad or if we're good. If we're smart or stupid. We have to stop pretending that we have anything in common and accept our differences. Sometimes, I have to stop pretending that I'm not afraid to stop pretending. We all hide behind our masks of somekind, be it religion or sacrifice, be it drugs or clothes, we all wear our masks. Being in Thailand, has been like peeling away mask after mask until I'm bare. I feel fresh and rejuvenated. I feel finally myself. Yet, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that when I leave this country, those masks will reappear. I fear that what was known about me before this wonderful experience will haunt me. That those thoughts and images will follow me when I return.

We all change as we get older. I find myself metamorphasizing. I have to say, I like this new self.

Next year, I will return to Corvallis. Situations have changed. My two younger siblings will be older and taller. My three year old sister will be using "acceptable" in her vocabulary. My dad, of all people, has gotten a dog. I'll be able to use the car and I have a job waiting for me at the lab where I once worked. Many of my good friends will have left for college and many of them will have stayed behind. Corvallis is Pleasantville after all, few ever leave.
I still have six months here, but I feel that time is slipping by me and that it's of the utmost importance that I try and make things as comfortable for me as possible in my hometown before I return. Rotary once told me, that coming back will be the hardest part of my exchange. I have no doubt about that.

P.S. First thing I want to eat...probably a burrito from La Roca. I'll leave my dad in charge of that.

The L word.

If I haven't mentioned before, part of the Rotary Youth Exchange is that each student has at least two host families. I have three. Currently, I am staying with my second family. They are incredibly kind and adore me. I love staying with them and I go to bed smiling almost every night.
This week, my host mother and host grandmother are in Bangkok visiting family and the hospital. I was orginally going to go with them but plans changed. I spent the weekend inKhon kaen for a friend's birthday and then I came right back to Nakhon Phanom.
I'm staying with my host dad and brother and with any other family, it would be a little uncomfortable. It isn't with them. We laugh so much.
Last night, we were in the car and my host father asked me if I really had to change host families. I said I wasn't sure and would need to talk to Rotary. The rest of the night, he and my host brother continued to talk about me staying with them until I left for the U.S.
If I hadn't already met my third host family, I'm sure I would have said yes. I met my third hsot family a few months ago and they are all so excited to host me. I'll have two younger sisters and a little brother. My third host mother is knitting me a sweater and every time I see her, she insists on sending me home with food, bags and bags of food.
I told my host second host father that I would switch to my thrid host family in april, but if I didn't like it, I would move back in with them. I never thought I'd have my host family get so attached to me. I wanted them to, but I never thought it possible. My host parents say they love me. It's weird to think that someday I'll have to leave them and I don't know if I'll ever see them again.

Before I go

So I'll be traveling, yet again. Early tomorrow morning I'm getting on a bus and leaving for Khon Kaen. My canadian friend there has a birthday and I'll get to see a few of my other good friends on exchange.

There's an exercise park near my school and the past few days I've been walking around it with my host dad. The other day he taught me all the rude words for foreigners. I know the word for chinese, arab, european, indian and african. Have I mentioned that skin color matters a lot in this country? It made me laugh a little to myself because of how he said them.
He saw an arab man and started talking to himself under his breath. That's when he started to teach me all the words.
I'm pretty sure they're not words I'd say in polite company. Last night, after we finished our walk, we picked up my host brother for dinner. My brother has been sick for awhile, mainly because of a fish bone he got stuck in his throat. The medicine the doctors gave him makes him sleepy. We went to dinner and after dinner Emma and I went to a rotary meeting.

When we got to the hotel, we were fifteen minutes late and the first people there. The bellhop opened up the room for us and gave us some water. After about five minutes, a man came in, asked us if we could speak thai and then told us the meeting had been cancelled.

This happens all the time. We show up for the meetings and nobody is there. Instead of calling my host father back to pick us up, we went to get some DEEP FRIED ICE CREAM in the hotel restaurant. It's horrible for you but amazing. Our Rotary counselor was there and he insisted on paying for us. And that was our night. Exciting, I know.

My village

Population: 10,000
It sounds like a lot for a village but you're wrong. My village is small. It's country, it's quiet. The houses are squished together, similar to thai lifestyle. Farmers, teachers, motorcycle repairmen, they all live here. In Thailand, one's little plot of land can be miles away from one's house. It's different from the U.S. or most other places in the West.
We like our space. Westerners do. If we farm, we surround ourselves with solitude. Farmers are often like hermits.
In Thailand, the thought of being so alone is utterly foreign. Thai people ride their motorcycles and bicycles and tractors for miles and miles away from their house to get to their farms. They all clump together in a village.

And so, the houses sit a meter apart. Ramshackles houses, teak lofts, each the same an each different. My house sits back from the rest. Down a long windy road past the half acre banana farm and the community cow grazing feild. It's roof is red.
I love my house.
I have my own bedroom and feel incredibly spoiled. My grandmother and brother sleep in the living room.
We all sleep on mats.
Cooking is done in the back shed. It's also where I wash my clothes by hand in buckets and where my grandmother chews her betel wood. She doesn't chew it very often, neither her gums nor her teeth are black.

I used to think I couldn't live without music. Now, music is rare and normally for special occasions. The silence has become comforting. Mainly, because it isn't silence at all. I finally stopped to listen to my surroundings.
I can hear children playing in the village elementary school next door. There are birds in the coconut trees and wind makes the leaves of the banana stalks whistle.

The house is set up just so. In the morning light fills the living room and enters the kitchen. In the evening the setting sun shines right inside the kitchen. It's taste lingering long after it has set.

I sleep with my window open. It's a habit I brought from the U.S. The fresh air does me good and the sounds of the night help me go to sleep. There's a schedule. Crickets and frogs are in the early evening and I hope to be asleep before the dogs begin their howling at two or three am.

It's strange how westernization works in different ways. I read once about madatory workouts during the day in Japan led by the radio. In thailand it's slightly less mechanized.

Every morning a truck drives through the town blasting orders and jokes out of loudspeakers for an hour. Six am sharp and the whole town is awake.
"Children, tell your parents. It's time to get up now. Wake up wake up. Eat breakfast. Eat breakfast!What are you going to have today? rice? Chinese donuts? Eat healthy! Don't forget! Go now! Go eat!"

Thai is the second language of most people here. They understand it but the older people have forgotten how to speak it. They speak Puthai. It's an indigenous language found only in this province. They speak it in Ban Klang (my village) and in Renu Nakhon another small town nearby.

I've picked up a few phrases but I'm sticking to my guns. I'm learning thai. I'm learning more than I did in my last host family but it's still difficult when your family doesn't speak it with each other.

It'd be the same as being an exchange student to the U.S. and your host family speaks spanish at home but english to you.It's only a little confusing.

het peu? (what are you doing? in puthai)

SMILE!! you just read my blog and you're on hidden camera. Cheers!

Bai Tiow Yuk Yuk leaw (Go traveling alot already...)

Yes I did. I got back late last night from a two week vacation and tour of north eastern and norhtern Thailand. I spent 14 nights in hotels and 15 days on a bus. I visited over ten cities and slept in at least 8 hotels. I made countless friends.
I'll start from the beginning, so whoever is reading this is in for a long ride.
16 days ago, I slept at Emma's house and woke up early the next morning. We got on a bus and rode all the way to Korat, a city over 8 hours away. At 3 pm, I met all the other exchange students. Most were girls named Kate,Kalie, Katie, Caity, Cathren, Kathren or Kat. Most came from the U.S. or Canada. Most were very nice. Most had never met me before and so when I introduced myself they all apologized for not remembering my name. I had to remind them that I was new. For those of you that have been following my blog, remember the trip to the south to a town called Chantaburi that I wasn't allowed to go to? Most exchange students, with the exception of myself and Emma, met there.
A boy named Chris from florida bought me coffee and we spent some time together. He's a nice guy, but after the entire trip was over he had gone after two other girls and is currently dating a girl from france. Hey, if I was a boy on exchange and in the minority,I would make my way through the girls too.

After a night in Korat, the group got on it's way. Just for clarification, here were the rules we started out with.
No drinking,
No drugs,
No dating,
No boys in girls rooms,
No girls in boys rooms,
No new peircings or tattoos,
No stealing,
No staying out past eleven,
No leaving your room after eleven,
No switching rooms,
No being late,
No skipping an activity,
and most of all,
No pissing off the tour guides, rotarians or chaperones. : )

The second and third nights we staying in the Tohsang resort outside of Ubon Ratchatani. The rooms were beautiful, the pool was beautiful and the food was expensive ($5 for dessert...).
I learned that Freddy (freiderika from germany) also played the violin. She had brought hers along, I asked if I could play it. Turns out she has the music for the bach double concerto and on the next trip, I promised to bring my violin and we'll play together. I can't wait.
I also spent some time with Kate (an older exchange student that already graduated from highschool) and James or Jamie from Salem, Oregon. Kate plays the guitar well and I loved listening to her play.

After Ubon, we spent as night in Nakhon Phanom. I talked to my rotary counselor and he smiled at me for the first time. He even told his grandchild to kiss my cheek. I think he's warmed up to me. I'm so happy about that.
I took the Lena, Nina and Freddy (the german girls) and Chloe (from Washington), Coletter (from hawaii) and a few others that I can't remember right now, to Meringue(my favorite coffee shop in town). The entire group went there later that night for ice cream. I think we had to pull up four or five tables to fit everyone. I felt a bit sorry for the owners of the shop. I think we overwhelmed them.

The brazilian boy that most of the girls gawk over bugs me a little. He once called me a stupid american barbie over the internet before he met me and he was trying to be overly nice to me in person. He would stare at me from across the table and when I turned to look at him and ask why he had been staring, he said "I want to talk to you but I don't know what to say."
This behavior continued through the entire trip. In the end I just avoided him. Maybe I'm not as nice as I think I am.

The next day the trip moved to Udon thani for lunch and the "best vietnamese food" in all of thailand. I beg to differ. The food was okay, but I'll take my vietnamese food from Nakhon Phanom instead.

We slept in a family resort in the Leoi province. I had a conversation with the owner of the hotel. She was worried that the students would buy alcohol and drink and party because her family lived on the grounds and she even went and got her 5 year old daughter to show me. I reassured her that nothing would happen. That night I sat with Chloe, Des (from South africa) and a fe others came and went. Des is a Zulu and I tried to talk to her about south african politics. The current Prime minister is a Costa (said with a tongue click that I can't do) and from what she told me, the Zulus and Costas are enemy tribes but the youth are much more open-minded about it. I made tea from orchids and the whole group sat around on the floor drinking tea, eating chocolate and laughing about a thai TV show. That night Chloe, Emma and I shared a room and our room had a door to the outside. We walked out onto the porch and coul hear the rotarians talking outside so we ran back into our room and closed the door. Something squirted on my arm. I shreiked and it turns out that I had closed the door on a slug. Not appealing at all! The next morning her 16 year old niece or daughter asked for my e-mail and a picture.

The next day we stayed in a hotel in Phrae, a small town in a province that I don't remember. Some of the kids went clubbing. Colette and I really bonded and I slept in her room that night with Lena and Nina. We have a group now, called the PG girls and what PG stands for NOBODY KNOWS! Well, we know but it's hush hush. Don't even try and guess. And no,it is not parental guidance.

The days started to blend together after that. We visited ruins and waterfalls, went shopping and sat on cliffs.
I saw the golden triangle, a sandbank that shares borders with Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. We visited the White Temple, a temple made entirely out of white plaster, mirrors and stone. Inside the temple was a completely different matter, we weren't allowed to take pictures. The walls were murals of demons and sin, people having sex and shooting up heroin, the twin towers were even painted up there. bombs descended from the sky and a two headed demon snake twined around the towers as they collapsed. One was drinking blood dripping down from the clouds while the other cried. The body twisted down and ended in a gas pump labeled with a skull and twined around the horn of another devil. I was so shocked to see such a seen painted in one of the holiest places in Thailand.

Chiang rai had a lovely market. Colette and Josh and I went shopping. The entire group was doing secret santa and Josh was my secret santa. The poor guy had no idea what to get me. At one point Colette and I got seperated and lost. We made jokes about how she was asian and got lost in the crowd. But we somehow always found each other.

The next few nights we stayed in Chiang mai. We rode elephants and watched the elephants play soccer, play harmonicas, and paint pictures of trees, elephants and flowers. We visited an umbrella factory as well as more ruins from the old capital of a country called sukkothai.
We ate lunch at an orchid farm where one could buy orchid necklaces. The orchids were laquered and preserved. They were so beautiful. One of the girls spent over $200 buying necklaces and earrings for every woman in her family.

At one point we visited the hill tribes and the longnecked villages. Old women in traditional dress smoking opium grabbed at my arms to buy things and young girls sat weaving scarves. The place disturbed me. It was entirely for tourists. We were their lively hood. I couldn't wait to leave and I felt horrible for feeling that way.

Chiang Mai is famous for its night bazarre. It was truly amazing. Most amazing of all was the amount of foreigners. At the night bazarre, I heard some thai teenagers playing the violin. I asked if I could join them. They asked if I could play pachabell's cannon. I nodded and one of them lent me a violin. We started to play, but halfway through the song I got lost. At the end I asked what had happened. The boy conducting the group told me that they couldn't play the second half so they had just repeated the first half and hadn't told me. SO much for communication.

Later that night I noticed 5 gorgeous young men getting foot massages at the edge of the market. I must have walked past them every 5 minutes so I could glance at them again. When I was just about to leave for real, one of the asked if I could take a picture of them. Another girl on exchange appeared from nowhere and stole the camera from my hand and took the picture of them for me. I was a little disappointed. Turns out, all those cute boys were from New Zealand. They had just graduated from college and were here on a vacation in between school and real life (so they said). Four of them had dark hair and blue eyes and the one on the end was blond. They pointed to him and told me it was his birthday the next day. I did not pick up on the invitation. Instead I started the age conversation.... They were twenty two. Of course they wanted to know how old I was and honest me, I told them I was too young for them, 16 years old and then I walked away. My exchange student friends weren't very happy with me. "They were going to invite us to party with them!!!"

The next day we went to a Khan Toke dinner., It's a traditional northern Thai meal with a show. The food was delicious. Probably the best we had on the trip. The dancing was amazing. Some was slow and graceful, others were strange and fanciful. I saw men dance with 16 knives in their teeth and children play a type of double dutch jump rope with bamboo sticks.

After the show, Nina, Chloe and I went downstairs to dance in the hotel and made our way through each floor pretending we were bond girls. When we reached the tenth floor, Colette came out of her room, stared at us and I sheepishly went with her into the room.

The last night in Chiang Mai, Colette and I spent more time together. Truth be told, I spent most of the trip with her. We just connected.
Anyway, we were walking around one of the night bazarres and saw some gorgeous korean boys. More and more kept showing up. A shop keeper noticed our interest in them and after finding out that I could speak thai insisted on trying to set me up with one of them. I had the strangest conversation with that shopkeeper.
"Where are you from?"
"America."
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No"
"Why not? Are you lesbian?"
"No ,I'm not lesbian, I just don't have a boyfriend."
"Do you want a boyfriend?"
"Not really. I travel a lot."
"So you like to have boys for one or two nights and then move on. no?"
I wasn't sure how to answer this question, so just to see his reaction, I agreed.
"Yes, that's it."
The shopkeepers within a 20 ft radius all burst into laughter.
The shopkeeper than asked me if I liked thai men and I said, "No, Old thai men stare at me and I don't like it."
He got the hint. Colette finished negotiating with a nearby stall and we made our way to the food plaza. We ran into the japanese girls and asked them if they thought the koreans were handsome. They grimaced and pretended to puke. Different cultures have different tastes, I guess.

In the end I went to talk to one of them, but it turns out he couldn't speak thai or english so we said goodbye and walked away.
Colette and I hopped into a TukTuk and made it back to the hotel. On the way back, a falang on a motorbike saw us and shouted. "YEEE HAW!"
I do get a lot of attention in this country....

Christmas eve was spent in a resort that Khun Prapart (the rotary chairman) had said was the most beautiful resort in all of Thailand. When we arrived the entire group realized that it was the prettiest for thai people because it was entirely western. All the flowers were western, the rooms were western. It looked like a ski lodge. Prapart made a huge deal about some tulips. "THE ONLY TULIPS IN THAILAND!!"
I tried to explain that tulips weren't a big deal for me, we have so many tulips in oregon and washington. I felt a little bad that his prized tulips seemed a little pathetic to me. I guess he'd feel the same way if he saw orchids in the U.S.
Christmas eve, we set off fireworks and played on the cutest little playground.
I had Jan ride a bicycle back to my room with me on the back. When we first started to ride, we fell off because the chain had fallen off. I sat down on the grass and starting to put the chain back on the gears and a female rotary chaperone came over to tell me that girls couldn't fix bikes.
"Boys are better. Girls can't fix bikes, only boys can."
When I told that I could, I stopped listening to her, finished putting the chain back on the girls. I stood up, looked her in the eye and told her that foreigner girls were better and that we were perfectly capable of fixing bicycles. Sometimes living in such a conservative patriarchal society can really get on my nerves.

Christmas day we had a small celebration and the secret santa gifts were handed out. Josh got me a very nice black clutch bag and some hair chopsticks. It was so sweet.
Remember those orchid necklaces? Colette knew I really wanted one, but wouldn't buy one for myself and so she bought one for me. I put the orchid pendant on the necklace that I never take off. It's actually Madeleine's necklace.

Colette's secret santa's present was left on the boys bus which had broken down on a mountain side and was going to come the next day.

After christmas, the group had come full circle. We went back to Korat and everyone split up immediately. It was so sad.
Emma and I were forced to stay an extra night in korat (yay!) and we had fun with the girls and boys on exchange that live in that city.
Colette would have stayed too, but one of the girls in her town wanted to go home early even though she would arrive in the bus station at 2 am. The rotarians didn't want her to go alone and they didn't want to fight with her so they sent all of the girls living in that town home.

Yesterday,
Emma and I had the longest day of traveling yet. We were told to go with a man who lives in Sakhon Nakhon, a town near ours. He had to go to Udon, a town in farther north. I wish I could draw a map and show everyone how ridiculous this trip was, but in the end, I'll just say, that because the thai people didn't want to send us on the bus earlier in the day, they added an extra 5 hours to our trip. I was not happy about it.

So now I'm home in Nakhon Phanom and it feels like the trip was just a very long dream. Now I'm back in reality and life goes on. I'll miss those kids a lot.
More happened in those two weeks than what happens in two months in corvallis. I've been so many places, talked to so many people and had so many expereinces. Each day felt like a week.
Rotary tells us that christmas is the turning point. When you stop counting up the days, weeks, months you've been in the country to when you start counting down the months, weeks days until you go home. Time is supposed to fly by. Time has already flown by me. I'm grasping at every day here. Next month and next year, I will have to book my flight home. I have to start thinking about dates and times and events. Should I spend my birthday in Thailand? Should I make it home for my birthday? Should I try and make it to Oregon for the Oregon Country fair? Are there any festivals that I don't want to miss in Thailand?
The rebounds I've talked to have all said that they wish they could have spent even an extra week in Thailand.
I feel like this year is a break in time. Life is put on pause and I can be who I want to be. I don't have to worry about the future or my family or even myself. I'm relaxed. But when I get back to the U.S. everything will come at me in a big wave. High school, college, family, and it scares me.
More will come later, but I don't know when. I'm not expecting anything big to happen in the next few days.
Love,
Suzanne

Heatstroke

geeleesee (Colorsport competition) day. Or rather three days. Yesterday was the opening day of four fun filled, no study days. I take that back. Classes have been cancelled for the whole week.
The students have been preparing for months. Cheerleading practices and designing T-shirts, building floats and having basketball and soccer practices everyday. I'm part of the yellow group (ce looung).
Since girls don't really play sports here and I'm too tall to be a cheerleader (so says the short girl) I was the "drum major" in the parade. I held a baton and wore gold platform boots, a short poofy dress with a giant,puffy sleeved jacket and a feather headress. Hells yes! Everything was yellow. The girls in my class took me to get my hair and makeup done at a salon and once again, I found out that I had to pay for this. The day before they had told me that my dress was rented and cost 800฿ out of my pocket. The hair and makeup was another 200฿. When the hair and makeup were finished, I was a little disappointed. Thai people love rosy red cheeks, so they loaded my face with blush, dark brown eyeshadow up to my eyebrows and bright red lips. Yes, I had to pay for this. I felt like a transvestite, but this wasn't the first time I'd had my makeup done this way. In Thailand, that's what they think is beautiful. It's very 80's.

According to Fashion magazines, asia is on the cutting edge. Everything travels from east to west. So I guess I'm giving all my friends a head's up. In two or three years, 80's will be back, FULL BLOWN. I'm not talking tame legwarmers or big sweaters. I'm talking mullets (very popular here), frizzy, frizzy hair, blue eyeshadow, oddly shaped shirts, giant bows and weird colors.

So anyway, I looked like a "tart" and after walking with a baton for three miles in the heat, having hundreds of people take pictures of and with me, I was told to stand in a field with all the other students as the directors of the schools gave speeches. I'm not sure what happened, but I started to feel woozy. I got a headache and soon felt like I was going to throw up. The other girls looked fine so I tried to hold out, but it became too much for me. Just as I turned around to tell the girl behind me I was feeling sick, my vision closed off. I can't describe it any other way. Darkness closed in on everything and my hearing changed. What little I could hear, sounded so far away. The thai people were shouting "she's going to fall!" and instantly I lost control of my legs. I felt a two girls supporting me, on eon each side as they carried me behind the parade float.
A few minutes later, some water and a piece of gum and I felt fine, but I spent the rest of the day trying to rest. At around 6 pm, Emma called me up to go out for namneuang. If I haven't mentioned it before, I'll descirbe it now. A vietnamese salad roll with a sausage type thing, lettuce, garlic, chili pepper, sour starfruit, green banana, lettuce, mint and rice paper. You make the roll yourself. Nakhon Phanom has a ton of vietnamese immigrants so vietnamese food is really common. As common as getting chinese take out in the U.S.
I asked Pooh for a ride and pooh decided to com with us. Emma, Pooh and I all crammed onto the back of Pooh's motorcycle and we drove to Meringue. Meringue is a bakery/coffee shop/restaurant/ice cream shop that Emma and I go to for almost everything. It's not as cheap as street food, but dinner for the two of us still comes to under $4. While we were finishing up (Emma eating her three ice cream scoop sundae as an appetizer to cake...) my third host mother and host sister walked in. I ran up to say hello and the next thing I know, my host mother is buying me two loaves of hearty whole wheat bread, ice cream cake and rolls for my current host family. She would have bought more if I let her. Emma and I just looked at each other.
Pooh: "She must really like you."
Today, is another colorsport day. I went to cheer the yellow basketball team and I'm going back out there when I finish this. Maybe. It's hot and I'm wary of heat stroke. Anyway, Love to all.
More on the way.

So, yeah

So, I had a whole blod written out about how I switched host families and how the political situation doesn't affect me at all... BUT, it got deleted by accident and wouldn't save due to a computer glitch. Basically, I'm too lazy to type it all up again. Instead, here is a brief overview.

Tuesday night I switched host families. Emma came with my old and new host families out to dinner and we had korean barbeque. A korean barbeque is both a barbeque and a soup and my parents probably have pictures of one from my friend Aom's birthday party (remember that? WAY back in august?). My host parents decided to take the group there because it's the only all you can eat buffet in town, that and something very similar called suki (but emma had eaten suki the night before).

Emma and I ended the dinner in fits of giggles and I don't think either of us even know why.
There were lots of jokes about getting fat and eating ice cream. My first host mother thinks I should eat lots of icecream (I've gained 6 pounds... OH the horror). So I had a final farewell scoop of icecream with her and Emma. Emma and I tried to talk to my host brothers but they are both so shy.

The whole group drove out to Ban Klang, the village that I now live at. It's nice and has lots of mango trees. Every morning at 6 o clock a truck drives through the village blasting advertisements and the news, there are also many, many roosters. I've started sleeping with earplugs. This means that I can't hear my alarm though, and my second host mother comes and wakes me up every morning.

It's a twenty minute drive to school every morning and half the time I fall asleep in the car. Today, we left the house at 7 am. I haven't had coffee in three days. We'll see if I lose my coffee addiction.

Yesterday, Mae Thorn (my first host mother) brought me my tea that I had forgotten at her house. She was worried that I wouldn't have my morning and afternoon rooibus. It was sweet.
(yes mom, this is the rooibus you sent me... you think I can find loose leaf tea in Thailand?)

Life is pretty good. I go to school, I take my classes, I go home and I write in my diary, re read a book, maybe watch a movie, and then after dinner, I sleep.

My second host brother (Ping Pong) wants to be a singer. He has requested to hear me play violin.... I might get roped into playing at graduation. Which is fine, as long as I don't have to play pomp and circumstance.

Love to all,
Suzanne