When Dreams Feel Like Vague Memories

I have eight planets, with one cover, and two more to follow once all the planets are done.
Mercury is still up in the air for I have mixed feelings about what to do for him.

Venus is not yet even outlined in sharpie for I feel she is still missing something and I don't know what.

Earth was revamped and without anyone's saying I fully carved her out, add just a few small things and she will be ready for printing.

 Mars has been done, has been run through the press for a blind embossing and will be printed next.

Jupiter has come a long way, but his planet is just too...flat (as how Professor Hill said). Something must be done to give it a little bit more of a complex...something to make it jump out more, but I fear I may be too late.

Saturn has been designed, outlined and now has begun to be carved. His rings will be thickened slightly for a more fuller feel but other than that.

Uranus is the most recent design but I am holding off on carving him cause I'm not sure if he's too close to the cover pose, if so I will backtrack and tried to think of something else, but I do like him.

Neptune is in limbo like Venus. I kind of like it, but I don't think it's strong enough to be outlined, plus I'm struggling with the horse's ears.

Pluto was the first to be designed only for his original to be scrapped. He has the planet and two smaller sections to be carved out before he is ready to be printed.

 Sol and Luna will come next. After doing all of these I thought it would only be right to have Sol and Luna apart of the bunch considering they are the two key planets on the cover. And if no one as already guessed, this batch of animals will become a book. Otterbein's copy center has the ability to bind books, but I'm beginning to wonder on possibly taking this further and binding it myself, but adding a few things in between. But I want to discuss this with Professor Hill before I go too far and possibly burn out the flame that is, as of the moment, flickering with the wind as I try to relax from the overwhelming emotional spill I had yesterday. That took a lot out of me that I feel asleep at eight last night and woke up to my noon alarm. Lack of sleep to me with an emotional spill can cause a lot of exhaustion on the mind of a senior.
My ceramics project had to be scrapped and then revamped with the possibly fear of maybe having to scrap the revamp due to my hasty ways of wanting things to move in my way. I think I have decided to take 20-minute intervals of building and five minutes of just wondering to calm my mind down. But one thing as been successfully built.
The mouse of the piece

And what better way to let the air out but by the butthole? Lols, yes, it's actual hole to let the air out when it's being fired is actually the butt hole. I didn't want it to be the eyes or the nose and I thought it would be more discreet once it's been placed on the final piece. But who knows exactly if the main piece of this project will actually be what I want it to be. I'm building way too fast for it to compensate for what I want it to do and clay is quite fragile if you try to bend it too quickly. I think coil building it would be better, but thus, this os a slab creation (so I might add another mouse and then just coil the main form cause I'm getting slightly irritated with have to slab this massive piece into the form I want it to become).

When Worlds Collide

In the beginning, there was a younger girl who went to school. She tried many extracurricular activities during her young years of life until at the age of eight she found one and stuck with it. For years she danced in the style the Irish had created. She kept up with it and even started to try some more things even though the dance was her second life. Soon she learned that she had a strong love towards animals and things shifted to partake in both, until one day she found herself mounted on a horse on her way to competing. But then problems arose, these three activities, school, dance, and riding, all clashed and ended up overlapping. In an attempt to keep a hold of all three, she talked to four separate people, two teachers, and two instructors. But none were very lenient. Until one day only recent, she found herself cut from one of these extracurricular activities and yet the world still collided.
Yep. So dance went from Tuesday/Thursday later in the day for me to Tuesday/Wednesday overlapping class time. With a class that gets out a 5.15 and dance starting at 5.30 and with a class that gets out at 6.45 and dance starting at 6.15. To make it harder, horseback riding for beginners was 6-8 and I had the same class that ended at 6.45 and was not allowed to miss any of the classes for thirty minutes went to saddling up and mounted. So obviously irritation is kind of seeping from everywhere at the moment. With no permission to leave earlier than 6.30 on Mondays, I had no way of being able to ride and I'm not allowed to leave until 6 on Wednesdays, I am seriously cutting it close on both Tuesday and Wednesday for dance. I really wish I had a time turner right now. I wouldn't have to panic AT ALL.
So I feel like I have A LOT more time on my hands because things are cut even closer than they were before. I know a lot of this could go towards practice, but not be a theater or dance major I don't have access to the dance studios.

But art has picked up and things are now moving more quickly. I have begun my new set of animal prints on photography by taking photos of people from around the world, many students of Otterbein. I have a girl from Iran, a girl from South Africa and a girl from Brazil. I have a guy from South Korea, a girl, I think from China, a girl that is from somewhere in Africa, and a girl from Australia lined up. I also have a friend who has a Germany exchange student at the moment and hope to get their photo taken and I keep going back and forth of asking my dance teacher from England if he would come in. I know I'm pretty Irish, but I don't think I would cut it, unlike my father who is four percent short of being full. I wish I had my brother-in-law's mom for Japan or one of his grandparents and I wish I knew where the person from Canada that was at Otterbein went. The nice thing about all of this is that there are so many endangered species that I can have people from repeating countries, but each gets their own animal. I normally let them pick from the endagnered list from World Wildlife Fund because....err well I talk about that later on when time gets closer to...yeah. Cliffhanger, sorry dudes.

I have begun to contemplant about my final artist statement and I know it is going to talk about animals and the passion I have for them. It probably also is going to talk about how we treat these animals within their environment and such. This makes me think of the painting that goes from heaven down to hell and includes the level of species as well. You know one of these, but with the animals shoved into it as the dominate species.

In high school, my history teacher showed us the image and our homework assignment that night was to design our own levels. I didn't include heaven and hell, I don't really remember why...it may have been because I had just started working on my creed for the coming of age at church and I wasn't quite sure how those two fit in just yet, if they did at all, but I remember very clearly that instead of humans on top and trees and plants on the bottom, I flipped it. Humans on the bottom, then animals, and then trees and plants and the what nots. I know the Earth can sustain human life all the way up to 10 billion in population, but that's with cutting down more trees and trying to find area to plant food but also keep the animals we eat alive. That's humans, that is not animals or plants or anything. We have our mind so set on trying to keep up the human race that we sometimes forget that the plants and animals that are all around us started off the same way we did, evolution. This is probably way too scientific for an artist statement but for me, it is very very true. Plus I would like to keep my artist statement short and frankly not have to use the word I in it at all. I know it's about me, but sometimes I feel like that sayin I within an artist statement just makes it way too self-centered on yourself and not on the artwork. There are those days where I really would like to just have my artist statement as:

'Like my dad says, the hell with it.' or 'Might as well.'

Never needing to answer the question, why, and say just cause I can. Heehee. I do hate it when people ask you how or why you did it and it does end up with a shrug cause there are sometimes it just kind of happens...I know my recent series is because of my recent add-on of the fascination of space (blame star trek for that and I think the world of hipster and that bringing up) but still I really don't know how the idea really formed beside listening to a song that had an album cover of a dear head. They kind of just shoved together after that.

So now it's just chugging along. I changed my Earth and before I got the yes or no from people I carved it out so that I wouldn't doubt myself. Plus I think the new pose makes her stronger and has placed Venus as the weakest planet now.

I have a final pose for Pluto and, with some hope that I can still keep it the crazy look, one for Saturn (cause Saturn in Greek Mythology is Cronos and he is known to be a little crazy and he did eat his children sooo....). So know I'm just down to Uranus, Mercury, and Neptune. I learned that Uranus is known to be the god of the Universe, so that kind of sucks cause my dear head ended up being that but with a little help from my friend Lyndsey she helped me pick out an animal that would more represent the sky that he is in his Roman form. So just a pose idea and we're clear. Mercury is still kind of up in the air. I want to do something along the lines of him laughing, but how to you make a rooster laugh? Posiden is going to have a horse head, but the pose is at a stand still manly because I took his pose and gave it to Earth (sort of). So who knows. I don't surely don't until further along when I'm done with all the others and really have to start working on the last three.

So I'm writing this, waiting for my car to be fixed and keeping warm by carving on the chair as I tune into Star Trek. The stares you get as an artist.

But all I end up doing is either bleeding or dancing or giving an odd response back:

Gotta love that~

-Claire

Tripping Flat Footed

*Warning...political things will most likely be brought up within this text

Three weeks in and I know that the infamous senioritis has already kicked in. Thus, of course, I think it actually kicked in way before this semester started, and started back in November. As I had to shift into high gear that last few weeks prepping for my portfolio to be turned in and with only four of the ten pieces needed to be finalized and the scramble of trying to find and create the other six with as much spare time that I could muster. It was those days of either: Wake up, class, eat, art, eat, art, sleep, repeat or Wake up, class, eat, art, dance, eat, art, sleep, repeat with little to no time in between to really do anything else. It was not the first time to experience over production drowning (as what I call when you have more than one creative class at once) and receiving no sympathy what-so-ever from the teachers that had me during those time periods. I know it isn't something to expect and something that I should no complain about, but I do hate it when teachers think they are the only class that you have and apparently don't have an outside life and there is also that famous post that sometimes makes it way around in the interwebs of, "Why Didn't You Study?"

It was during that time period that I really wanted to use this to actually put forth to my teachers but cross out the study and replace it with "Next time your teacher asks you why you didn't art, say this:" and just stay silent as they read it slowly. I know I would get laughed at or shunned or whatever a teacher would do when they received this but trust me when I say I would try and get away with this as much as possible.

But let us back peddle a little and begin by answering, why is this blog started up again? Many of you already know that this is my last semester as an undergraduate. Scary, exciting, and filled to the brim with the worry of the infinite amount of things that could happen during and after all of this is over. In one of my four classes, there is a requirement to create a journal or blog in which we are supposed to help us create an artist statement for our senior show. There is another class where you're supposed to journal anyway about practically anything, so I decided to combined the two, er...killing to birds with one stone, really, and kind of do both. Though for the artist statement I am quite stumped and am not surprised at all. I'm stilling working on art and probably won't know what to say until all pieces have been decided upon. If there is a due date before that I might just kind of throw something together and give it to my teacher (Sorry Janice!) until I actually know what's going in.

I could use or go off of what I said for my portfolio that I created for last semester cause many (and most of the pieces in it) may end up being in my show. Which can be found here. I am probably not the only person that thinks it's weird when you hear your own voice recorded and then played back to you and I can't help but wonder how many people think it's me speaking versus someone else speaking and not my own voice. A study for another day. But this doesn't quite work now for the many creations I have made just at the start of this semester.

Well....pushing further back to week one of school.

St. Louis=driving to school=half-way mark=super cold=new car can't handle cold=causes some things to freeze=car won't start. Yeah, my car didn't start on the Sunday we were supposed to arrive for my last semester of college. Blame the could, my dad and I irritated that the battery the hotel had didn't work and were worried that our car was screwed up and we had just bought it only a few weeks before. We got it to work the next day, that Monday that classes started, and arrived late on that Monday, where I dropped my father off at the hotel next to the airport and learned that a penny was stuck in the cigar lighter. (I do wonder if I really do have bad luck with cars sometimes). Cause Ringo was bought with some problems we were not told about until afterward when we learned of these things, and there ends up being a penny in the cigar lighter that we weren't told about. I had no skill at getting it out.

Only to learn that that Tuesday that my car was supposed to have a normal five-month cheek up and when we took it into CarMax in St. Louis they didn't bother on doing that even though the dashboard was saying Service! 12/2016? I've got mixed feelings about CarMax now... 😑

So that kind of screwed up my brain on having to start functioning again and getting the gears going until I had my wonderfully first mental breakdown on that Wednesday cause I couldn't think of drop s*** on what to do for my advanced printmaking class. Seriously I was irritated as....Yeah. Eventually, I broke that art block and I have a whole new series happening right now so, yay no art block (for now).

(Political rant begin) Then that next Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. day and we had no school! That still didn't help with my brain trying to figure out what was happening. And then Friday just....no. I wore full black, didn't watch TV and instead arted and watched The Hunger Games Series in the purpose to study for the future for just in case purposes, cause this country is screwed and I know we are on the brink of WWIII there is no doubt. Though I think as of now our so-called 'President' is burying his head into the boobs of the new Miss Universe as I write this. (End rant). This threw me into a frenzy of worry and fear, and I found myself in the gutter grove trying to climb about in the mud of it all through the weekend. I learned that Monday after my wonderful friend Donovan, that my dance teachers had sensed this the day before and had wondered what was up when they asked him. Sadly, the two of us haven't really seen each other much this semester for our dance days are now different than they were before.

But it was also that Monday was the day my head was like 'Oh...you started school.'

Three weeks, three weeks for my brain to learn that it was in school. I think if it had known that earlier I wouldn't have nicked my thumb like I did that first Friday back. Only one person saw the effects of this and was surprisingly calm about it as she helped me clean my thumb and bandaged it. A wonderful scar is now forming on my thumb, but at least I have a functional thumb. I didn't really feel any pain, and when I put pressure on it now I don't feel anything in that area, dead nerves?

So what art have I done as of now? Several actually!

Advanced printmaking?

Space!!!!!

We Have The Cover

You guys have no idea how proud I am of this

We Have Venus

A few things were fixed, but she's not my favorite

We Have Earth

Another one with a few things added on after.
I think Earth is the weakest one so far.

We Have Mars

He's probably the strongest planet so far.
He has been full carved out since this image.

 And the most recent, 

Jupiter

I like him too, but he's not as strong as Mars.

From Beginning Ceramics:

Who is from Spirited Away during the Boat Scene:

I have another class that has to do with art, and our past assignments include a full sheet of doodling and paper dolls. I have to laugh cause OMG I made this:

Wait I don't know what this is.......

Waiiiitttt whaaaaaattttttt??????? Claire got a new dress? Oh hell yeah I did!!!!!

When did this happen? I got fitted the week before, and then the night before I danced at Oireachtas Daithi showed up at the practice with the new dresses and I got to try it on to make sure it fit. I could seriously drool over the whole thing for weeks on end if I wanted to.....I peer at it sometimes when I need a booster of hope and inspiration. Can't you just see that joy in my face?????

It's a wonderful maroon color that fits my body perfectly, it's got cute little wings that can't be seen very well (kind of fits my fascination with wings and drawing them) and totally fits my personality as an artist and what I like to call myself, very Bohemian 😍 I thought my Book of Kells dress was spot on amazing, but this dress....oh drool this dress.

Back to art:

What have I gotten myself into? I don't know just yet, but I know that I have gotten myself into a nice wonderful mess of arting, yet again. Haha....😖

And not just arting. This is news for everyone besides my parental units...

The mayor of Westerville approached a teacher from the engineering department about students of the department creating and making trophies for awards in leadership to local places within Westerville. It was taken by the teacher and passed around to the engineering students as well as the art students so that five students from each department would pair up and create the five trophies for the leadership awards, I was quite interested and responded when I received the email from the engineering teacher. A week passed and I get an email saying this:

Claire,

I have not received any interest from other art students, but I do have 5 engineering students interested.  So here is my idea -

You will be the 'design supervisor' for all 5 projects, assisting each individual engineer with their overall design.  We want to make them all different, and the plan would be to use your expertise to help each engineering student make a great design.  Does this sound like it would work?

You hear that? Yes, that is me internally screaming. Design supervisor....

Design supervisor.

Oh, I could go on and on saying that. A wonderful pair of words....

Anyhoo, I took my chances and have gotten the ball rolling on three of the five. Woot woot to this and that!

So I have been able to pick myself up and found a stairway out of the gutter and hope to have a little bit of smooth sailing for now. I know that the sea will get rough but as of now, I'm pretty solid.

Well that was a decent ramble....

-Claire

Reverse Culture Shock and the Effects it has on the Sleepless Mind

Monday May 23rd

This was long, though if I add everything together correctly, we were in the are for a less amount of time than we were on the way there. I think it was about twenty hours in the sky.

Bangkok - Tokyo = 6 1/2 hours
Tokyo - JFK = 12 hours
JFK - Columbus = 1 1/2

We got up at about three fifteen in the morning. Wayyy before the sun wanted to rise here in Thailand (due to the fact that days are shorter there cause we were closer to the equator). I think the sun was finally reaching it's fingers over the horizon as we took off three hours later. But anyhoo we take the van to the airport and slowly start going through everything. There were two different security checks. The normal 'take out your liquids, lap tops, shoes' blah blah blah but the second one was much more intense.

Everyone would have their bags searched and have a body pat down, but throughout these people being filtered through they would choose, at random, people for, what I called the "Mega Pat Down", I so happened to be one of those people. So out of the sixteen people traveling from Otterbein it ends up being Amber and I. Her search was very quick not even three minutes really. But then they called me in. I had to take my shoes off, stand on a platform and all the men were changed out to women. So I was mega pat downed, seriously. They also took everything and I mean everything out of my two bags I had. Even better is that they broke the seals on things that had been tapped shut to see what was inside (though they were nice and re-taped them afterwards). They swabbed all my electronics and made me turn all of them on. My laptop, my camera, my nook, and my phone. I was asked three times to turn on my laptop. And they even sent Doppellump through a scanner. I mean seriously? He's flat as a board really, I doubt anyone could get away with anything in him cause it was just make a bulge in that area. This time around though, they took their dang time checking everything for me. By then the plane was pretty much ready to take off. I felt horrible because Janice and Shannon were waiting for me after that. I was kind of annoyed, I apparently just look like the sketchiest person out of us all.

The flight from Bangkok to Tokyo is kind of a blur. I know I didn't really sleep, I was trying to stay up the entire time to get my body back on schedule (that didn't work). We landed and had a good twenty minutes before our next plane would start to board, but I had seen several things that I wanted to get on the way back that I had seen the first time around. We were released to do what we please and I raced to the store and grabbed what I got. I then met up with the group at our gate and left my things with people to use the restroom only to see that the store next to the bathrooms had the one and only Japanese Glass Bell Wind Chime. For the longest time, practically since I saw my first anime, I have always wanted one because the sound they make is just so pretty and ahhh! So I tried peeing as fast as I could and raced to the store next door. I couldn't reach them what-so-ever and one of the women who worked there helped me only to say the one I wanted was the last one. She showed me others but I had fallen in love with the one I wanted. So she graciously pulled out a stepping stool and took it down and boxed it up for me. OMG I can't wait to hang it! I want to hang it outside my window at Otterbein, but I fear that someone will take it, like it needs a good amount of space on all sides so that it can ring but it's glass so it also needs to withstand the weather. Luckily, Oklahoma is very similar to Japanese weather. Though...I don't quite now how the paper will withstand water, and most of the time when I see them they're hung in an area that gives it enough room to jingle, but not get wet....sigh. When we were getting on the plane to JFK, it was the first time that it really hit me that we were returning home and I would never know when I would return to Thailand. I totally blanked out because I only remember waking up on the plane a while after.

I know on the flight from Tokyo to JFK I watch Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove, Inception, and a very weird, but funny Japanese Movie called Assassination Classroom, which apparently is a manga...but this was a live action version. I had seen scene from a screen in front of me while I was watching Strangelove and was really confused but also intrigued by what the guy was watching. Throughout this entire trip though from the moment I noticed we would be having movies on these flights I really wanted to watch Rear Window, but alas they did not have it.

We arrived in JFK when we should've been asleep and went through customs, baggage claim, and then security again. We had a decent time before our flight to Columbus so we were given free time to wander around our terminal where I traveled further into the terminal found our gate before I backtracked to a pizza place and called my mom.

The flight back to Columbus is really the only time I actually slept. I felt the plane take off, and then I woke up to empty cups of beverages the next minute. We didn't have a party bus on the way back to campus, thank the gods. I was not up for it, but it was the same driver. I lugged back to my apartment, sat down and talked for quite sometime with Caylin before we both went to bed.

Tuesday May 24th

It was our first class back and I don't think anyone was up to being there. We went over our exhibit images before being released. I called my mom for a few things before deciding to take a nap, only to wake up at nine. I did not go back to sleep that night. I couldn't, my schedule was so off that I was more awake at night then I was during the day.

Wednesday May 25th (Today)

So considering I didn't sleep I got up at about seven-ish and decided to go to Target and Kroger's for a few things that I would need while I was gone. So I got tea and a nice lotion to help my molting skin. Before I hung out in my room until class. I had a meeting with a teacher about a project for next year before attempting to waste time before dance.

This is when I had my first real big reverse culture shock. I walked into dance, gave my presents to Ed and Byron, put my hard shoes on and dance began. Yeah I still remember everything, but just to be back felt so weird, almost foreign after missing three weeks of dance. Like when I go home, I practice, but this was completely different. I had no time or really anywhere to practice while I was in Thailand. I did dance about when we were standing around and things but not like actual dance practice. I gave the Kit-Kats to the dancers and second reverse culture shock when I went through the window of Wendy's. I know my stomach has shrunk in size, due to the smaller serving portions that they have in Thailand. Though the small looks like they have grown from small to medium.

My parents arrive Friday and we leave Saturday for home.

I am not really tired, and should take a shower. I'll probably read to help my brain calm before I try to go back to sleep. Tomorrow will be last little bit of image uploading and editing. Tomorrow will probably be a blog of more images like the Elephant Nature Park Mash.

My blog after that will tackle a few things, but for now

Good-night

-Claire McGeehan

Koh Chang's Bangkok Side And the Horror It Holds

Friday May 20th

We woke up to the sound of drying clothes indicating that the night before it had rained. Though my clothes had fully dried by then and I brought them in, what I wore for this day would be the last time I would ever wear a piece of article, one that I had worn only three times before and bought in Chiang Mai the second time around at the market. We first went to the Jungle, something I wasn't quite interested in doing which came from the fact of possibly getting ticks, which I think that came from that one time I was getting ready to take a bath and mom found a tick on me and we had to get the neighbor to come over cause he knew how to take it out completely without leaving the head in. So I was really nervous about that entire fact, that and that Olivier would stop every few seconds to talk about one of the plants and I just wanted to trot along in silence to listen to the sounds. But then it started to rain. I like rain, in fact I love it. Thunderstorms I just adore and could never live without, but when I'm caught in the rain, thats a whole other side of things. I don't mind if I'm running through it, or if I have a hoodie on because then I am not getting wet, the hoodie is. But I was getting drenched wearing only a t-shirt and my elephant pants and my elephant bag that luckily didn't have any electronics in and I slipped my phone into a dry bag one of the girls had brought. That just changed my entire mood of annoyed that we were taking forever on one plant and not silently taking it all in to the most sour person ever who felt incredibly stiff and wet. We trudged back to the trucks for the people with cameras but then ended up heading to a coconut shop before heading to Mangrove and then finally, the rain had lightened up and we went to lunch. My mood changed as I got some good prawn omelet and rainbow ice cream into me. But then the worst happened, as we were loading up to head back to the hotel, my elephant pants ripped, right at the crotch too. I am completely devastated at the fact that those pants ripped. I am hoping that my mom can possibly fix them or my aunt but they may already be too far gone D: I really like them and the only way I can get these pants with the patterns again is if I probably go back to the Sunday Market in Chiang Mai... ~sigh~ I was happy to get out of wet, ripped pants and change into something dry (that didn't last quite long). As we headed to an 'abandoned' island. It was abandoned when Shannon, Janice, and Johnathon went last year, but since then it has picked up and been being cleaned and people are now living on the island again. Two other girls and myself did find some abandoned places that were out of the eyes of the caretaker of the island and I took some photos before we got back onto the boat and went into the middle of nowhere for one last plunge into the Gulf of Thailand. At first, I didn't want to do anything with it, I was comfy, hiding from the sun, trying to catch some sleep and not get into the water. Plus I didn't wear a bathing suit. But after quite along time of every other student being called into the water, and even Janice it ended up for me taking my shirt and pants off and jumping from the second story of the boat in my bra and underwear, which you can find the image somewhere on my FB, thus of course I am in the water so it's actually not that obvious.

We returned for our final night of Koh Chang where we were given the best meal of them all, crab. Well there was more, but I really enjoyed the crab. Though my body quickly rejected it the next day. And a nice glass of wine, where I once again learned, no to white or red wine, but I could do rosé. Bed.

Saturday May 21st

Carli and I were woken up at about 3-45-ish to the sound of a very wonderful thunderstorm and the really weird sounding frogs outside. Though I think I actually just woke up to use the restroom. We talked a little before falling back asleep and waking up for breakfast before leaving Mangrove Hideaway to the tourist side of Koh Chang. There we stopped at an elephant trekking camp where we watched the elephants sway and...this is what Shannon wrote, I just can't....

"Before leaving Kog Chang, we went to one of the least seven elephant camps on the tourist-industry-devastated west coast of the island to learn the painful practice of witnessing as activism."

"We know now that the swinging head is a clear sign of derangement, that those are likely urine puddles on the floor (she had taken a video), that they only escape the stalls with metal seats on their backs, that the chunks missing from their ears are pulled out by hooks while training, that the buckets of water (when available) are not adequate, that the chains serves only to remind the elephants of the trauma of the crush (Look up elephant crushing/ or elephant training crush, it's horrifying). And unfortunately it can get much, much worse than this."

"We rejected the welcome, did not pay any money, did not touch the elephants. We looked until we saw, took photos to raise awareness back home, and somehow found the strength to walk away."

I lasted a good two solid minutes before I couldn't hold it in and turned my back wanting to leave as I wept. I seriously wept. To have worked at Elephant Nature Park the week before and to see those free elephants and then see what some may have done...I...mmmmmm....

We went to a view point afterwards, have some recovery food, cinnamon roll for me, talked a little, had a group photo taken, said good-bye to Olivier and Jean-Luc before getting on the Ferry to return to Bangkok.

Ten hours, ten freaking hours in those vans. I lucked out again on getting into the one with less people and read Hollow City the second book of Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children, and got pretty far in it. We stopped three times, twice for bathrooms, once for lunch where it was supposed to be only fifteen to twenty minutes that slowly turned into forty-five minutes. So haha...Arrived at seven at night to the hotel. So from nine-thirty to seven-thirty we were in those dang vans, getting in and out and getting caught in traffic due to several things.

Sunday May 22nd

A full day in Bangkok. We took a van to the airport, then a train to the city subway, city subway to a mall. Where we had lunch, and I bought a few more souvenirs for some people before we went to an itty-bitty Hard Rock Café Bangkok, where I got my pin and a pin for a friend before we headed back to the mall (all of this was walking) before we took a Subway to a stop and got off and walked to where we would have dinner. We had one last group chat of how we felt about leaving.

Like I said before I'm "Ehh" I could stay probably much longer but I could also go. I am very glad to have gone on such an amazing trip that I truly feel like I may have found my calling of working at Elephant Nature Park, or one similar to it somewhere else. It was amazing, peaceful, and I still can't get over the fact that I was there. I fell the urge to return and sometimes do wish that I had just not gotten on that van to return to Chiang Mai and waved good-bye to all the Otterbein students as I turned to return to working there.

Things have been running through my head and my weird dream from Friday to Saturday I think was a very big worry dream that had to do with the possibility of returning with diseases. Thank you anxiety...

We took a large van back to the hotel and now here I am, showered pretty much packed besides the last few things I will use today and tomorrow...making sure everything is charged.

I am not able to transfer the last of my images to the interwebs so that will have to wait until Tuesday until then I will be in no contact until I am sure we have fully entered the US area to turn my data back on before landing in JFK. So this time around it's:

Bangkok -Tokyo = 6 1/2 hours

Tokyo-JFK = 13 1/2 hours

JFK- Columbus = 2 hours and 10 minutes

-Claire

P.S. I will post when I have landed safely in Columbus :3

Cooked Claire! Nice and red! Only 20 Baht!

I didn't post for yesterday due to the fact that I only did two things.

This first was actually pretty cool, but also very challenging. We visited a local school. We were with the oldest students who ranged from thirteen to fifteen. We all lined up at the front and introduced ourselves before we let of the Thai students pick us to talk. We then did like a musical chair thing where we would get up and go to a different Thai student. In the end we grouped together and got a tour with the last group of Thai students of their school. During this entire time it started to downpour, which Koh Chang needed but it also made it kind of hard going around the grounds because unlike the schools in American their school rooms led directly to the outside. There really was no indoor inclosed room unless you closed all the doors and windows, but considering Thailand is always so hot, I doubt they ever do that. So they were all very opened spaced.

It was very challenging for both the Thai students and us. Their English was very minimal, which is why where were there. To help them with their English. But it was also hard for us because we had to slow down and really pronounce what we were saying. There were times where they students didn't understand our questions and we would have to try and use a different word to change things up. I had to go back to when I was learning French to get kind of the feeling of what they might have felt and to remember what I learned first. So the age and colors were the easiest thing to ask, but then the questions that we could have asked like, 'What does your parents do?' 'Do you have any pets?' etc, were a little harder. We were supposed to be there for another reason but it ended up just being their trying to figure out how to get words across this language gap that we both had. All together though, these students were very good at their English for how little they had. There was one boy who obviously had a little bit more English experience than some of the others for he could go on and on about a few things. He was also the one that really told us what things were around the school.

After that we had a group photo and released the students to lunch and we headed out to get food as well somewhere nearby. We then returned to the hotel and were given a few options of visiting a temple, or the Mangrove, or even kayaking. Me? I slept for five hours and got up thirty minutes before dinner. The funniest out of that though? I slept through the night.

Today we did island hopping. I can say that I have never really been on a beach so this was really a cool experience. We even saw a coral reef where I got to break in my Dicapac Waterproof camera bag and snorkel! I saw so many things that I thought I wouldn't see. Like a sea cucumber and even an octopus! There were even a few fish that I had seen from the Newport Aquarium in their natural habitat! There was two of us that really kept on snorkeling after everyone else was done because we kept seeing things and I kept taking pictures. We then visited a second beach on the way there is when everyone started to notice that we were all horribly burned. I am horribly burned all down my back, like seriously all of my back side is burned, none of the front cause that was always in the water, but everything that wasn't covered while snorkeling was burned and even the top of my head. I am in so much pain, I was one of the worst burned I think, but I'm not quite sure cause I'm assuming that there can be worse. But I feel like I have never been this burned before, I'm kind of grateful that I'm a stomach sleeper and not a back sleeper! Everyone was pretty badly burned though, so I'm not along in the agony of pain.

Tomorrow we will travel through the mangrove jungle and then in the afternoon we will explore an abandoned resort where I will act like a vampire the entire time trying to hide from the sun as best as possible for I doubt this burn will turn into a tan. Send me good vibes and hope that my burn will go away with the help of the Aloe cream and your good vibes!

-Claire

That Fishy Mosquito Swirl

So today was the day of travel. We got up at around 6-ish, me running a little late, but I had a quick breakfast before the van and two cars came to pick us up and headed to the airport. The flight was short, almost like flying from Tulsa to Dallas, maybe a little longer, but shorter than flying from Tulsa to Chicago. We landed and wander/waited for a good solid hour getting food and just waiting for the men who were driving us to get the vans and pick us up.

From there we road and stopped with a total travel time of six and a half hours. Stopping five times along the way, twice for food and bathroom, once to a pharmacy, once to refile, and once for bathroom that turned into getting food for a few, including me. I read, slept, and listened to music before we all kind of got ready for the ferry ride as we speed our way around cars, sometimes on non-passing areas on a two lane street, yikes!

The ferry ride was actually kind of cool even though it scared me to death. I think I have decided I can probably only do a cruise cause they are major on safety. And the few boats I have been on have either had really tangled, no way to get them untangled life jackets, or really old jackets you don't understand how they would work in the first place. Though the ferry on the other hand (on the top deck where we hung out) didn't have any at all! Yay!

We arrived not that long after where we drove off the boat and took a windy road to the hotel. It is probably the best hotel yet. It is gorgeous and the staff here is great! Sadly, though, we learned that we will be the last guest ever to stay at this hotel due to some issues. There are two cats here, but the best part is that it is run by two French men, Oliver (Olivi-eh) and Jean-Luke. Oliver actually says his name is All-i-ver, instead of the French probably due to the fact that we are American, or that his actual name and we didn't know that. The staff that works for these two men are fantastic and we learned that when they opened this morning they were very emotional due to the fact that the time has come where the last guests have arrived. It was very touching.

We had about an hour to relax before dinner and while everyone was raving about the fact that the food was wonderful, I couldn't do it. Too spicy, really weird tastes, or foods that I just don't like in general like squid and clams. Though it freaked me out a little that it was the full clam, the tongue and everything besides the shell. ~shutters~ Desert came and I got the pumpkin ice cream with ginger on top and still didn't like it...so I kind of let it melt into liquid form as I sat listening to Oliver speak. I feel kind of bad about that, but I do hope that breakfast will be better (which it should be, but I'm still going to avoid the banana bread) and lunch is on us to get.

Tomorrow is kind of exciting cause it will be our first day with the kids. Though they're more like teens. I think Oliver said they were 13-15. We're going more to help them with their English than anything else, but what we need to wear and say must be kept in mind. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be talking about but whatever the topic, I'm kind of excited to meet these kids.

(My phone doesn't want to connect to Google drive so it looks like it'll be another week without images. It took me a good hour to just get this gif downloaded and the loaded onto here).

I don't remember what our afternoon thing is, I think it's the jungle walk and the waterfall but I'm tired and my brain is shutting down.

-Claire

P.S. We're staying in a fishing village and they have those cool mosquito swirls that keep the mosquitos away.