Graduation Weekend

Last week was a bit of a blur.

Monday was a Thai holiday, so Monte spent much of the day at home, although he had to go over and write a test to give on Tuesday.

Tuesday I went to market -- I think I only bought tofu, a kilo of sticky rice, and 6 kilos of huge mangos. Quite an accomplishment, I think (buying so few items, that is). One thing I saw but didn't buy was frogs. One lady near the entrance had two buckets full of small wiggling, "wronking" frogs. Ugly little things. There is no way I'd eat something like that!

When I got back from market I tried to eat a whole mango with some of the sticky rice and I couldn't finish it. The mango was too big! When I finally went into our bedroom, I found Monte nearly dressed but with 14 pages for 58 tests that needed collating for a test that was to be given in a half-hour. I'd left him photocopying them when I went to the market. I got to help him collate. I did the last 6 pages, and he did the first ones, and in the end we collated those two sets of pages and he did the stapling. I drove him over to campus so that he could be there as soon as possible, and he actually made it to his test on time. You'll have to have him tell you about the process they use here for giving final exams :).



The kids and I went to Paradise Resort again on Wednesday to swim. We're needing to get some diving rings and other toys to use in the pool when we continue this habit after our visit to the States for the summer. They're starting to get bored of being in the pool a lot quicker than they used to. I don't stay in the pool the whole time, but somehow they find the pool more interesting when I'm swimming laps. While I swam laps, we observed an interesting phenomena. Large black ants running on the water! I saw one and helped him surf over to where one of the boys was hanging on the pool edge so he could see it. Then Kelsie and Nate or Colin each found another ant doing the same thing. Weird!

Julie had some projects she needed to finish, so she couldn't come swimming with us. She leaves for the States next Wednesday, so we're planning to all go swimming on Monday for "old times sake". Monte and I will miss her, but I think the missing will show the most in the kids, Ryan especially, since he's the most openly affectionate with her. We're planning to stop by her home in Redding on our way down to LA in June, visit her, and finally meet her mom.

Colin and Nate (and Ryan, too) are going to miss Del. He's a young man from Singapore/Malaysia who they've gotten to be friends with. He says he's never been good with kids, but he's wonderful with them. He lets them hang on him, listen to his iPod, and he even took Colin with him and let him experience Choir practice one evening. He's a sophomore, but next year he's planning to go to Avondale for school. We'll miss him, his piano and violin playing, and his singing. Sabbath after lunch, where the boys had hung around and on Del the whole time, I asked him if he'd ever had so many devoted followers before. That's when he told me that he'd never been good with kids. On the drive home from "potluck", Colin informed me that he didn't want to be Del's follower -- he was his FRIEND.

The boys also like to hang out with Abednego, one of Del's friends who's from Malaysia. Fortunately he's planning to be here for several more years. They won't have to miss him -- yet :).




Thursday Monte drove us down to Bangkok. Elizabeth and Laura rode down with us. Elizabeth had an OB appointment, and they planned to do some shopping and eat at a favorite Lebanese restaurant. We dropped them off when we reached Mission Hospital and they took taxis around town and eventually caught a public van back to Muak Lek since they wanted to stay in Bangkok longer than we planned to.


The doctor at the hospital in Saraburi had put forth the idea that Nate might have to have his big toenail taken off if he wasn't careful, and since we didn't like that idea at all, we decided to go see Dr. Nick Walters in Bangkok for Nate's re-check from his window-injuries. On top of that, we discovered a second, much smaller plantars wart on Nate's foot after we got back home from having the first one removed, and we wanted it removed while it was still small. Dr. Nick kindly let both Kelsie AND Colin watch him remove this wart. He did at times have to make the comment, "I need to see, too"! But he was patient with them and their comments and questions. Nate handled this "surgery" much more calmly than the first wart-removal. He didn't think so, but it was obvious to both Dr Nick and to me that he did much better!

Besides Nate's medical issues, I needed to finally seek medical counsel about my "potential" depression. Thailand does not require prescriptions for medications from a pharmacy, so I'd tried Monte's Celexa. The problem was that I couldn't seem to remember to take it. I think I took it two or three days and finally gave up trying. Monte discovered about the same time that the manufacturer in Denmark(?) was no longer going to be exporting it to Thailand. He needed the supply for himself until we could discover a replacement! The two SSRI medications that are available in Thailand are Lexapro and Prozac. The Prozac is locally produced, so it is much less expensive. Monte already knew that Lexapro works for him (he used it until our COCC insurance specified that they would pay 80% only if he took Celexa), so he had Dr. Nick order some Lexapro for him. (We would have been getting it before if we'd known it was available!)

I did talk to Dr. Nick, and he agreed that I exhibit symptoms of depression. Apathy, lack of pleasure in favorite activities, difficulty thinking, wanting to sleep too much... It sounds strange to say I'm now taking Prozac, but if it can help me get over this hump and have the strength and motivation to make the changes I need to make to be sustainably depression-free, it will be worth it. (I'm encouraged because I haven't forgotten to take it once since we got the medication on Thursday! and I haven't experienced any side effects yet that I can tell.) I'm supposed to take it at this level for two weeks and then increase the dose 10 mg more if there's not enough of a change. It's a more encouraging amount of time than when I tried an antidepressant when Ryan was little. Then I tried ______ and had to take it for a month or more and couldn't really tell if it had helped at all. I was a "bad" patient and didn't persist until we found something that worked.

A partial explanation for my being a disobedient patient is that I've thought sometimes that my lack of motivation and other depression symptoms were perhaps a spiritual problem. That if I spent enough time "with God" studying my Bible and prayer journalling, He would change my heart and fix the trouble. Looking back, I wonder how many years of misery and unsuccessful trying I thought I had to experience before I could finally admit to myself that this was a problem separate from any spiritual growth I needed to do! I also think I doubted that I was depressed because the symptoms would come and go, even within a few minutes time, and I felt NOTHING rather than feeling very very sad.



Friday we took it easy. Monte had to go to a graduation practice in the morning. The kids played, and I think Kelsie and Nate did some math. I made Macaroni and "Cheese" and cooked some frozen peas for lunch, but I didn't do any major cooking projects. I did sit and cross-stitch for quite a while. We focused on simple for supper -- banana-pineapple-mango-coconut smoothies, popcorn, and bread.

Instead of going to the Friday night Graduation service Monte, the boys, and I stayed home. Monte read Bible stories to the boys, and I relaxed by working on my peacock cross-stitch project. Kelsie did try to go to the service with Ruchi, but they found it so boring that they left and went walking around campus together. I don't blame her. When services are full of formalities and introductions, I find them unbearably boring myself. We've let the two of them go alone to vespers a number of times, and this is the first time they haven't stayed for the whole program. I'm proud of her for that track record -- she's only 10, anyway!



My favorite activity yesterday (Sabbath) was the sacred concert the college choir put on in the afternoon. Del and Abednego are in it. A lot of the songs were familiar -- ones that I'd sung when I was in choir, but they sang a song in Latin, one in Swahili and English, one in Arabic, and one in Japanese. The soloists for the Arabic song were a brother and sister from Iraq (I wish you could see them -- they are two of the most stunning people on campus looks-wise :) ). The soloist who sang in Swahili is a black fellow from Trinidad. I really love the multi-cultural environment here at Mission College -- the times when programs revel in our differentness and yet praise God at the same time are my favorites.

Monte spent this morning over at the church in his academic "regalia". The kids played outside with their friends, and I rested and journalled, responded to the Lara's blog, and worked on this letter. The kitchen is an absolute disaster even though I only cooked beans and made chili for this weekend. The dishes have piled up to the point that we have no clean spoons or bowls or glasses... I need to at least organize the dirty dishes so that it's not too bad for Pitah on Monday!

The Princess Soamsawalee (?) is supposed to arrive sometime this afternoon to present the diplomas to the graduates. Students and Staff and Faculty are supposed to line the round-about down below the Sala in preparation to greet her. I'm not up to standing around waiting this year. Maybe next year. Muak Lek (and Mission College) have been busily preparing for this yearly event. There are flags with the royal seal and purple flags alternating along the left side of the road from the highway that comes from Bangkok all the way to Mission College. Someone even week-whacked the roadside around the flags and carted the cut grass away. It appears that the honor of having royalty visit Mission College has even done a lot to motivate the Muak Lek community to improve itself. I understand that they have done a lot of beautifying in the past few years.


Monte has submitted grades for two of his classes already. Last night he graded his Statistics final and part of his 58-student Survey of Math final exam. This evening he'll finish up the grading and get his grades ready for the grade-setting meeting on Monday at 11. Then he'll be done until August!!! We're all looking forward to having Daddy with us all day every day for three months!