Swimming

Woke up this morning thinking "I'm not sure I want to stay and do 10 weeks of this course, maybe I should finish at 5 like most other people and then come back some other time and to the rest" I then thought "I can spend the additional 5 weeks before Sarah gets here travelling around and generally relaxing" .....

By lunchtime I was back on track and ready to commit to the 10 weeks. I think I suffer from perfection issues. I want to know now everything that I need to learn and am frustrated that I am not getting 100% all the time! Deep down I know I need to chill out a bit and just enjoy it for what it is and not be so hard on myself.

If I knew everything I wouldn't be here learning! Simple really.

Tonight I went swimming which was lovely as there was no one else in the pool! I looked in on Alison, Louisa and Karen taking a salsa class that looked good fun.

I need to learn about the Four Elements of Life tonight for a test tomorrow,  known as  the theory of anatomy according to Traditional Thai Medicine. The four elements are Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. Earth is called  'Patthawi Tad' , Water 'Apo Tad', Wind 'Wago Tad' and Fire 'Decho Tad' by understanding how these elements work together and against each other I should be able to understand the basis of Thai Medicine. Obviously, that's in a nutshell and there are years and years of learning that a real practitioner would undergo.

I am not doing too well on picking up the language, I've been listening to the lingaphone lessons that I downloaded onto my iphone but its a very tricky language. Why use one word when several that can potentially all mean the same will do.

When I had a massage yesterday - I said 'ou ou' when it hurt - this apparently in Thai translates to 'more more' no wonder it hurt so much!

Had nice lunch from the market today opposite school, am now used to the flies everywhere and as I haven't been ill I guess it doesn't hurt!  Typical lunch is a small bag of sticky rice and a small bag of some kind of stir fry - normally vegetarian. Though you can get, boiled eggs soaked in pork broth, seabass looking fish covered in a thick coating of salt grilled that are stuffed with lemongrass and all kinds of amazing herbs and spices. Deep fried grubs! Roasted pork in palm sugar, any kind of thai curry you can imagine along with all kinds of soups! The food is just amazing! Though getting it in small plastic bags is a novelty!

Right must do some studying!