Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. - Mark Twain

If you were in any of my SIT IE classes then you would recognize the nice "worm" like drawing that Linda and Sora often drew on the board- it represented student's (or people in general) moods and feelings overtime when abroad. When I came across this Mark Twain quote, "time clarifies" resonated...

So much has happened in the past few days ((when blogger refused to let me post)) that I am going to have to give an abreviated version.

To follow up where I left off, I want to post a few pictures from the aquarium. The sound of classical music accompanied by the visual motion of the water led to a most sublime mood.

I continued to stroll through the world of Siam...

The next day, the 29th of June, I took my wonderful rising 8th graders to the movies. We went to see Transformers 3 in 3D- quite the experience. The movie theaters here are so much better that in the states too- the seats are huge leather luxury recliners.

Yesterday, Friday July 1st, I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. I overheard the girls talking about a trip to the US Embassy with the older school kids at Mercy. I had no idea what the trip would entail, but I still asked to come along. Name on the list and we're out the door.

Turns out it was a 4th of July celebration at the US Embassy and was for all of the people who work there and their families. It was targeted towards the kids and it was food food food and games games games.

I took 250 pictures yesterday. I will reserve some of my feelings about the whole thing, like the fact that the Embassy owns two black swans ((read: RARE)) swimming around in their fake pond by the pagoda, and the first thing we did was decorate the kids in red, white and blue... because the most important part is that the kids had fun. They were allowed to be kids and run wild and it was really something special. Even the rain couldn't slow them down. I also made a friend! As I understand it, she is doing a summer internship at the Embassy, just graduated with her Masters in Economic Policy (and is only 24!) and had a US Gov scholarship for her Masters, so now she is on the fast track to becoming an FSO (foreign service officer). She told me she would introduce me to all the right people and told me to call her to hang out whenever. I'm excited at the prospect of meeting new people and she seems like a great person to know.

Here are some of my favorites from yesterday's celebration. Tomorrow is Election Day in Thailand, and more importantly (for me), JAY ARRIVES IN BANGKOK. My day with the boys at Farmhouse has been postponed till next weekend, so today I'll let the wind take me...

Happy Birthday Amerrrrrrica.

A final thought of the day:

This morning during Mass, one of the older girls leaned over to me and said, "You know, when I feel so stressed and overwhelmed at school in the states, I just think about these kids..." and she pointed to about 30 girls and boys, just sitting inches away from us on the white tile floor. They are all young kids, from just a few years old to their teens, with HIV/AIDS. I now knew these faces. Father Joe then said in Thai, "Is there anyone who has died this week?" The girl leaned over again, "We're lucky, not this week, but it's common that every week at least one kid has passed away."

Time definitely clarifies. I looked back at her, "It really puts it into perspective, huh?" She smiled and nodded.