Okay, now back to the regularly scheduled program...

Okay, so it has been nearly a month since I last wrote an entry, and I have quite a few topics to cover---not to mention the events and pictures from the past three weeks when Dad was in town.

There are a lot of topics I'd like to cover, and honestly, this whole "Thailand gig" is quite difficult sometimes. There are so many things I want to express and share, and it really is difficult to find the words---or the energy to even express or process the experiences I've been having. My mother warned me that living in a foreign country can be quite isolating at times, and she was right. I will say that it was interesting to see, even in brief bursts, what this place seems like through the eyes of my father. We differed on many topics and interpretations of what we saw---as we haven't agreed in much over the past 15 years or so---and, nonetheless, it was interesting.

So, in light of not knowing where to begin the past month's recap, I'll just jump right in (catch the general theme?), and please forgive the disorganization of this and future entries while I "catch up"---

1) Right after Dad arrived, I found out that I will be starting medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in the Fall. I've worked towards this goal for so many years now, that even though I will be just starting medical school, it feels like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After I called the school because I had not received a letter and I wanted to make sure it didn't get lost (...incidentally, I still have NOT received the actual letter that was sent) and found out that they said YES, I made Chris wait to give me a hug because I had to hug my Dad first. "I knew her first, but you'll have her longer," he told Chris as he gave me a huge hug! Then, I started calling my friends and family in the States, and we were all very excited. Chris started jumping on the bed like it was a trampoline, and then he and Dad encouraged me to do the same.

2) The next day, Dad and I explored the city a bit and went to the series of Museums at one of the hospitals in the old part of town.  I'll probably write more on these later, but the most interesting thing to me in the 6 simple museums was how they displayed the skeletons in the Anatomy Museum.  Just like when they put the pictures of the deceased on the boxes for the Urns in their temples, the skeletons in the cases of the anatomy museum (which was a "stripped down" version of Philadelphia's own Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians), had pictures of the person in life whose skeleton was hanging in the box.  That brought a whole new experience to the Anatomy museum and got me thinking: Why don't we do that in the States (or in Europe), and what is it about Anonymity and Anatomy?  We don't know anything about the cadavers that we'll dissect---we don't know a name let alone see a picture of the person in life.  Coincidentally, I was reading a beautifully written meditation on anatomy, the history of medicine, philosophy, and the experience of the anatomy lab by Christine Montross called Body of Work which is the book that, as Chris read just a few lines and said, "Sounds like you would have written that book!"  Montross goes through some history of body retrieval and early dissections---all of which was a welcomed review of some of the most interesting and poetic (I think of Hamlet and the scene with the Resurrectionists) elements in the history of medicine that illustrate the power struggle between politics, religion, scientific research and process, and of course, medicine.  This, of course, is in my humble opinion! :)  

So, I think it is interesting to wonder how much would knowing the name of the person whose body we're dissecting in class would affect the process.  I think it would be an important step in infusing humanity into the medical school training process.  I just think of the pictures of the people whose skeletons hanged in the boxes---one of them even had a little memorial right in the glass case.  

3) Something I will write about later, but I want to mention here: The Crocodile Farm.  The fact that it is called "Farm" and not "Zoo" should have been my first clue to the oddity of the place where Mookda has wanted to take me since December.  I was deeply troubled by what I saw there---and this is why I'll talk about it later in an entry on the contrasting messages bursting from Thailand.  On these same lines, I continue to think about the Refugee Center.  It is SO HARD for me to be here, sometimes.  To see humans and animals in such conditions.  Dad would see people smiling through it all regardless of the "slum" (they use this word) conditions.  But how many times can you step over the legless guy on the sidewalk without feeling upset?  Or how many times can you walk past an elephant being led by a couple of men trying to make money off the tourists?  How many times can you see older white men with attractive Thai women and not wonder about the circumstances?  Sure, some of the laws are pretty relaxed here---but you can become imprisoned for speaking out against the King.  

Oh geeze, I hate to cut this short---nearly in mid thought---but I will continue.  We have to get to sleep.  I have to continue figuring out what I'm doing here tomorrow.