200 baht of pain

Hello everyone,

I apologise for writing in English but it would take me so much longer to write in Italian. I'm also a bit shy about sticking my Italian next to Michael's. I know you'll all be fine...

Both Michael and my father say I'm the one responsible for dragging them to Thailand and to this crazy course we are all doing. But actually the two of them are doing extremely well. We're actually having a good time together when we're not collapsing with fatigue. I think this is one of the rare moments in my life when I have had absolutely no free time and passed out of exhaustion at 9 or 10 o'clock. Michael is much more resistant than I am and always seems much more calm. But who knows how stressed he actually is inside. Here's a little description of him on a teaching day:

Mr Mike is wearing black trousers, an immaculate white shirt and black tie. He will sometimes wear his black rimmed glasses for an extra professional look. But coolness is not underrated; nothing and no one would make him lose his black stan smiths and growing goaty. In order to have the perfect teacher handwriting he practised for days on his notepad to change his writing from capital letters to small ones. His 'a' is at times still a bit funny but not to worry, all in good time. Michael is obviously the best grammarian amongst the wannabe teachers. He can explain things they never imagined existed. But to be fair most grammar terms are totally unknown to them. No one knows what a conditional is or even worse a subjunctive.

The grammar bit is actually what Michael and I enjoy best. I like putting together the terminology with its precise examples. I discovered the names of English tenses which I sincerely think I never came across before. The best is obviously perfect continuous, it has a nice ring to it! But I don't want you guys to think that we never do anything else than studying. Today for example, we went for a thai massage. I got lucky and had the 70 year old expert lady. The woman did the craziest things to me. You have to basically imagine that a little woman of 1.50 (she's slightly taller than my leg) twists every bit of your body in the strangest of ways. It's more or less like someone inflicting a yoga session onto you. It's painful at times, especially when she kneads your stomach or twistes your legs at an unnatural angle. Her hands almost never slide on you, it's all about pressure points (pressure being the key word). She uses elbows, knees and hands to apply pressure depending on where she massages you. You come out feeling slightly nauseous but also like your head is disconnected from your spine. Not too bad then I guess. I just wanted to go to bed after it and sleep, sleep, sleep. Michael felt it wasn't worth paying 200 baht (4 euros) to have someone inflict pain on you. I don't agree with him (he needs to be massaged more often I say) but will wait a bit until my next thai massage. Maybe I'll go for the more relaxed oil massage next.

baci,
shanti (also known as Shampoo in thailand)