and we’re off.

This week was full, where it seemed there were many things to say and simply not enough time to sit down to say them.

It started with our voting mishap, which was a significant disappointment. Otherwise, we were busy with meals with friends and playdates with the neighbor children.

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Stephen & I were both caught up in work in an attempt to finish a few details before we headed out of town. He was up many a night working on videos, completing three. I am hoping they will be open to the public soon so I can boast his work to all of you!

I was updating my curriculum, adding bits and bobs that have been critiqued or found lacking. In the end, I have now compiled a book of 118 pages. This is exciting to me, to see work in written form, being translated and multiplied.

We now have plans for a second curriculum to be researched and written in January & February of next year. This is a little overwhelming, as I see the piles of eight to ten books and countless articles that need to be read and extracted for applicable lessons. But I’m hopeful for the value they can bring to the communities they serve.

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I made my first trip to the dentist in Mae Sot this week for a cleaning.

It was terrifying.

I did get to listen to the Backstreet Boys, which I haven’t heard in years.

The dentist placed a fabric over my whole face, with simply a whole over my mouth. I suppose this is nice because you can close your eyes and pretend you aren’t there; no one is asking questions and implying you can answer with their hands in your mouth.

But I think the fabric does make it easier to forget there is actually a person attached to that mouth, and that person is in great discomfort when you stretch their lip that far to the right or jab the hook tool into their gums repeatedly. But if you can’t see their facial expression of pain, I suppose it’s irrelevant?

There were two people working in my mouth the entire time: one cleaning with a mirror and hook, and the other with the water & sucker constantly being used. It was overwhelming. That is a lot of metal and plastic and hands in one very little mouth.

And again, a lot of jabs into the gums and lips pulled in unnatural positions.

I kept telling myself it was short-lived: I could do anything for thirty minutes, right?

…Or ten; it was fast.

I suppose I got my $12 worth of medical care, but we decided we should work harder to schedule our regular visits in Chiang Mai or elsewhere.

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We did our weekly bicycle ride this weekend: 17 kilometers bicycling out, 690 steps straight up, down again, and 17 kilometers back.

We won’t be able to do this for awhile as we’ll be out of town and then have the holidays, but it seems worth noting that we completed this trek fourteen times in the past three months!

We missed just two weekends: one while my parents were in town; and one when we made it halfway and received a call from friends inviting us to dinner. Not having many opportunities for such, we opted for friendship over exercise, for better or for worse.

Either way, thats over 476 kilometers on a bicycle and 9,660 steps climbed since 31 July.

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Also, it appears to be snake season around Mae Sot, and we encountered a number of snakes this week. The largest was about five feet long and crossing the road in front of our motorbike. I’m sure we received some laughs as we both threw our legs up in the air above the handlebars to zoom by.

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And last, we just left yesterday on the bus, the first leg of our journey out to a village. We had about 10 hours on the bus, shortened a little by a very fast driver. I woke up a number of times feeling that I was falling, though it wasn’t in my dream, but from the significant sway of the top level of our double-decker bus.

Terrifying.

But we survived.

We are missing our neighbors already; they were quite sad as we told them we’d be gone for three or four weeks. We’ve arranged for a friend from work to go by the community weekly to make sure all is well and they don’t need any immediate medical attention.

And we’re off!