Assumptions

Assumptions can be dangerous. Especially when they are taken to the extreme and we assume things before reality proves assumptions untrue. Like any other warm-blooded human being, I've fallen privy to an assumption or two in my life. It's often normal to assume things, even though it can be detrimental in the long-run. Detrimental because sometimes we hold assumptions for so long and they become so hard to break, that they can essentially become our beliefs.

Then, there's always the possibility that our false assumptions won't be debunked by fact, but assured by false advertising, propaganda, and mis-reporting. Television, word-of-mouth, and advertisements can be so...convincing.

What am I getting at here? Well, taken into context the nature of my existence here in Thailand, as a minority, as a Westerner, as a young female, I've come face to face with assumptions more in the past year than I have my entire life. More specifically, assumption about me. What this experience has taught me is that assumptions, no matter how innocent they may start, more than not cause misunderstandings, hard feelings, and distance between people. Well, one of my life goals is to fill in the gaps, to lessen the distance between myself and others, and share in the common human condition. Which, has challenged me more here than possibly anywhere else before. Because it's one thing to say I can live in harmony, I'm open-minded, I'm patient but, it's quite another thing to practice these mantras.

All this came full circle one day a couple weeks ago. I took a field trip with one of the villages. I'll be honest, the major motivator for me to go on this field trip was that I would spend the whole day on an air-conditioned bus ride. It had been extremely humid and miserable and I was just looking for a little relief. Well, you could say karma was working against me this day because around 1 PM, the bus's air-con broke down and we were stranded for 3 hours in a random town (obviously not on the agenda). In the meantime, I was getting to talk to some villager I had never met before. They asked me the usual... what's the weather like at your home in America? Isn't is really cold? (it's common assumption that it doesn't get as hot where I'm from as it does here) What do you eat there? Bread? Steak? Potatoes? (this is a common assumption that all Westerners subsist on these as staples). Along the conversation, I started to think seriously about patterns of assumptions. Later on, we visited ancient Khmer ruins and there were some German tourists there. While strolling along, one of my Thai friends asks me why I didn't want to talk 'my friends' (in reference to the German tourists). I've gotten this many times before.

It's commonly assumed among some Thai's that Westerner's all speak the same language (thus we're all 'friends'), that we all come from the same common place and background, that we eat the same, look the same, and live with the same cultural practices. Now, this has from time to time tested my own ability to be patient and understanding. Especially when I've been living here for a year and people who have known me for some time now still ask me if I eat white bread for breakfast every morning and why I don't talk to other local foreigners (since we're all foreign, we get lumped into the one homogeneous category). But, I usually play it cool, shrug it off, and laugh about it even.

In fact, it is a laughing matter once you really start to dissect it. Let's be honest, some Americans make strikingly similar assumptions in reverse. Even before I came here, I couldn't hardly distinguish between someone of Thai descent and someone of Chinese descent, Asian languages looked and sounded very similar, and indeed, people from the East seemed to have a common resemblance in demeanor. Of course, once I got here and lived here for a while, I realized the absurdity of my assumptions and just how wrong they were.

I also came to understand the assumptions I had made about rural living in Thailand and 'developing countries'. We came here to help develop the country? To make it more like America? Some people assume that. But, it couldn't be farther from the truth. Can we assume that people are underdeveloped and uneducated because they don't use machines to plant crops? Can we assume because people only have completed education up to an 8th grade level that they are not contributing to the value-creation of their local society? No. I came to seek the truth and that I have found. Planting rice by hand is a part of culture, part of tradition that runs through people's veins which, is not to say they don't know about agricultural technologies that exist. It's not all black and white, wrong or right, superior or inferior. I also learned that people here know far more about the natural environment and live more harmoniously with it than many Westerners. People practice traditional healing rituals through honoring spirits because it's their ancestral custom of which they sincerely believe helps in the healing process. And who am I to say (or assume) that's wrong or nonsensical?!

So, assumptions shmumptions. I want to challenge everyone to stop making them and seriously think about some of the assumptions that may currently occupy the spaces of your mind. Trust me, it will help fill in the gaps between you and others. I'm only one person but, little by little I'm etching away at all those little 'white bread and potatoe' assumptions...and it feels great (to get the story straight for once!)

Happy Son Kran

Son Kran is the Thai New Year. It’s also celebrated to a certain degree in other SE Asian nations. The official holiday was actually April 13-15 so I am a little late on posting about Son Kran. Better late than never. Compared to last year, my Son Kran experience this year was vastly different. I declined the opportunity to meet up in Chiang Mai (aka the epicenter of Son Kran) with a big group of fellow Volunteers and opted for a more low-key local celebration. Timing was everything. One of my good friends from Iowa State who is currently studying in Hong Kong had a window of time to come visit me in Thailand, which just happen to fall during the Son Kran holiday...in addition to culminating red shirt tensions in Bangkok. Weeks before, we had planned for me to meet her at the airport in Bangkok and stay for sight seeing for two days then, head to my village out into the big unknown of Issan for the remainder of the time—leaving enough time for her to get back to Bangkok and fly back to Hong Kong. A couple days before I headed to Bangkok to meet her, the situation in Bangkok turned even more critical and travel to Bangkok became essentially off limits. Since we had everything arranged already and it was such late notice, I sought permission to pick up my friend and proceed with caution through our plans. Our time in Bangkok before heading out to my site was trepidatious and surreal yet, engrossing. I met my friend at the airport on Saturday morning and we went straight into the city. Once she came, we got to catching up and having taken president of talking about what we’d been up to the last few years, the current situation of our immediate surroundings almost all but slipped our minds, only to come falling at light-speed back to the forefront of our attention later on that afternoon. That was April 10, 2010. Follow the link: Bangkok April 10 to read more about these events. Suffice to say, the city was in chaos with the main commerce centers closed and the two opposing sides mounting higher stakes against their adversaries. Even the sky train transit system was ceased by the army. In awe, I explained to my friend this was more action (of such caliber) than I had seen in Bangkok, or Thailand at that, since I had been here. It must have been a lot to take in for her, seeing as how that was her first day here. Despite it all, I’m satisfied that though the first impression may have been dubious, that the rest of her stay was pleasant. We made the most of the situation, obviously taking security precautions for ourselves. Staying away from the danger zones, we got to see some of the city at least—if only capturing what could be seen from the window of a taxi. She got some shopping in and we had some authentic Bangkokian food. Getting out of Bangkok was a little tricky, as I suspected it would be given that everyone and their mother were on an exodus out of the city. The swift descent en mass from the city was not only in light of the chaos but, foremost, because it was Son Kran, which is the biggest holiday in Thailand and everyone tries their hardest to get home. (I’m thinking the likes of “I’ll be home for Christmas” only insert “Son Kran” where Christmas goes and replace the Christian connotation associated with that song wherein one should assume a Buddhist connotation and now, we’ve got it right).

Tricky it was, but not impossible. After all VIP, first, second, and otherwise class buses we’re ruled out, I resorted to the van service. In a way, I’m lucky that I live in an area of Issan where there are a lot of migrant workers because you can almost be guaranteed of some sort of transportation at any time, not matter the circumstance. The catch being, is migrant work the best for the people...? And what does that say about the lack of sustainable work out here? I digress. So, we got to my site via overnight van. It was packed. Not only with people but also with what seemed like many, if not all, of their Earthly belongings. Plus, a cat and an infant (add in 2 foreign young ladies and we’d be a regular circus troupe). It was my second overnight van ride in 4 days time and I was exhausted. But, we made it. Time suddenly slowed to the village-style paced I’ve become accustomed to. My friend, obviously noticing a change in pace, asked how I keep myself occupied in such a quite, mellow atmosphere. One develops her ways =) I guess having her here made me realize how much I’ve gotten used to living in rural Thailand. Things always seem more evident when an outsider can come and shed light on things. Another big hovering nuance was, of course, the heat. I felt bad for my friend because it can get beastly hot in my house and the time she was here was no exception. I’m used to it to an extent. I take frequent showers and I carry a can of prickly heat cooling power with me wherever I go.

Good thing she came during the water-throwing festival (a huge part of Son Kran) From April 12-14, we relished in the festivities and fun of Son Kran. On the 13th, we joined a procession from the school to the temple. It basically consisted of a group of people (mostly older women) walking throughout the village accompanied by a band blasting traditional Thai music through giant speakers. All the while we danced and let onlookers dump water on us and plaster talc powder on our cheeks—a vital part of Son Kran. They shouted gleeful expressions of good luck and happiness in the New Year. In case you didn’t know, the water throwing/pouring signifies purifying oneself of the old year’s events and starting anew clean and fresh. It’s also pure genius since it is a perfect relief for the hottest month of the year. At the end of the procession, we continued to have friendly water fights at the temple while pausing intermittently to watch the monks chant. Inside the temple a special ceremony was unraveling. In fact, the whole procession and ceremony at the temple was not exclusively to celebrate Son Kran. Shortly before Son Kran, it was decided that the temple would be renovated and expanded, thanks to the donation of a former villager who had become a successful businessman. The details are somewhat unclear to me, but what is apparent is that this man gave a very generous donation to fund and oversee the construction and therefore, villagers and monks were giving him a special ceremony. Lucky for my friend, there were many cultural customs that ensued on this particular day. One of which was “Pou Khan”. This is a part of Thai Buddhism, but the ceremony was conducted in Khmer plus the traditional Pali, which made it even more exclusive. A formal Pou Khan ceremony includes a shrine of banana leaf ornaments and offerings that is carried to the temple and people gather ‘round it. Usually a lay leader conducts various chants in Pali (in this case Khmer as well). Each significant part is concluded with the pouring of water (by the lay leader) and everyone being connected through holding the hand or the shirt tail of the other person—signifying a connection to the energy being exerted by the speaker. In this instance, he also sprinkled water on the audience, my friend and I included (reminiscent of sprinkling Holy Water or incense in Christianity) Following, everyone take pre-cut strings dipped in perfume water and one string at a time, they tie them to each other’s wrists. While tying them to the wrist, they offer a blessing of good will, good luck, this that and the other. I’m getting déjà vu because I think I explained this in a previous post. In any event, the tying of the string is like giving someone good, positive energy. A balance if you will. When big events happen like weddings, births, getting well, getting sick, building new houses/offices, moving to or from somewhere, or say... someone giving a large sum of money for renovating a temple, then a Pou Khan Ceremony will likely ensure. We had one for all the new trainees when we first came to Thailand.


During the remainder of my friend’s time at my site, we mostly just hung out with my Thai friends, savored my neighbors delicious cooking, had ‘water wars’, took frequent catnaps, and strolled the neighborhood a couple times. I couldn’t help but notice how everyone was quick to notice my friend and flood her with 20 questions. They were overly enthusiastic to take pictures and tend to her needs. Ahh, I remember those days. It was somehow affirming that my existence here has moved on to another ambiguous realm; because, it’s apparent people don’t treat me that way any longer. One of my co-workers put it as... “we see your face everyday and we know everything about you already, it’s not so exciting anymore.” I recognize have a much more independent existence here than when I first started. On the other hand, my relationships with people are relaxed and for the most part intimate, as I’ve grown to know people. In many instances, we’ve worked past formalities which, is evident in what my friend said. So, that drives the proverbial point home that the second year for a Peace Corps is vastly different than the first year. Mine continues to unfold.

As for my friend, it was so nice to see her, catch up, and share a little of my world here with her. We somehow managed to get her on a bus back to Bangkok in time to catch her flight. The time went by fast but it was well spent. She got a good dose of Thailand, city and country life, harmonious and conflicting circumstances, and a peek into Thai-Khmer culture. I spent the rest of the holiday investing in a new cell phone, hand washing a backload of laundry, reading, and relaxing.



Here’s a video of someone giving and receiving Pou Khan

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day from the future!

For those of you back in Iowa, I'm 12 hours ahead. In the spirit of Earth Day, I would like to pay reverence to this wonderful planet on which we find ourselves. Tomorrow, in my small pocket of the world, colleagues and I will have a timely environmental awareness workshop wherein we will touch on such topics as pollution, pollution reduction, global warming, recycling, and environmental conservation. I will personally present on the 10 solution to pollution reduction. During the weekend, I hope to devote time to planting flowers and making my home more 'green'. Though, I can happily take note that my personal carbon footprint since living in rural Thailand has reduced tenfold.

For those of you interested in increasing awareness of environmental realities during Earth Day, I would suggest checking out the documentary Earthlings which, presents extensively on the populace of the Earth.

I'm also obliged to divuldge 10 solutions to pollution reduction (on which, I will present in Thai tomorrow. They are as follows. Enjoy! By the way, if anyone reading wants to leave a comment, feel free.


Reduce Pollution! It’s up to you to save the environment for the future so your children and grandchildren can enjoy the Earth.


How to reduce pollution: REDUCE REPAIR REUSE RECYCLE

1. Try to not use plastic bags. Buy a cloth bag to buy groceries and household items. Cloth Bags are inexpensive and can be used over and over again.

2. Do not throw trash on the ground including plastic wrappers, straws, cans, or bottles. These items should be put in a trash container or bag. Trash on the ground pollutes grass and trees, spreads disease, and harms animals. It’s ugly too!

3. Travel together with friends or use public transportation when traveling far to reduce the use of air pollution caused by vehicles.

4. If traveling nearby (a kilometer or two), walk or ride a bike! It is unnecessary to use a motorcycle or car to travel a short distance. Walking and biking are also good exercise and will make you feel good.

5. Help clean up your community! If you see trash on the ground, pick it up and put it in a trash container. Make sure to be careful to not touch it with your hand because it could have harmful bacteria on it.

6. Recycle! Clean and separate recyclable trash. Once you are done using something, clean out the container it was in and put it in a designated recycleable container. For example, if you are drinking a coke in a glass bottle, rinse the bottle out with water and put it in the recycle container for glass. Separate if from plastics, and tin and cardboard.

7. Try not to burn everything. Try not to burn often either. If trash can’t be recycled and it must be burned, try to burn it in a designated area away from houses and people. Choose an open area and contain the burning by placing the trash in a stone container.

8. Repair & reuse. Try not to buy new things all the time but think of how you can repair old things and reuse them. Think creatively. Use old, warn clothes to make new clothes. Use old plastic containers to hold things or to make toys for children. Use old tire rubber as flowerpots. Keep things in good condition by taking care regularly.

9. Use natural household products. Reduce the use of harmful chemicals in your daily life. Often times popular brands of laundry detergent and fabric softener, dish soap, shampoo, conditioner, and perfume can be harmful to your body and to the environment. Try to buy or make products that are chemical free and made from natural ingredients such as herbs, flowers, fruits, roots, and plants.

10. Compost and use natural fertilizer! Compost is very easy and good for the environment. Save your raw left over food that has not been cooked in oil such as fruit rinds and skins, vegetable skins, pits, nuts, pulp, and shells. Put it in a container together with leaves, grass, rice bran, dirt, and branches. Gather animal feces from buffalo, cows, or pigs and mix it. Continue to gather these ingredients for two months and stir it regularly. This will make excellent fertilizer for crop so chemical are not necessary.


Educate and tell your neighbors! Get involved and clean up the community, plant flowers and trees, plant vegetables, recycle, repair, make organic fertilizer, use organic household products, reduce burning trash, and try to avoid using plastic.

Kinetic Energy

Dancing with the Village Headwoman (as opposed to Headman) of village 1.

First of all, I need to make a shout out to my mom for the wonderful package she sent that I just received today. Thanks mom! Especially for a little Easter love =)

So, where to begin? A lot has been happening in the last couple weeks in the country and for myself personally. I've been thinking for days now how am I going to approach all the things I want to talk about. I guess I just have to start from a couple weeks ago and work my way up to the present. Subsequently, I hope to devote additional posts which elaborate on certain events that continue to build kinetic energy (ie: the Thai New Year, Drama in Bangkok, and Community Development Planning) A synopsis of recent events is as follows:

March 15-19: Went on a week-long expedition throughout the sub-district ( 11 villages) with my SAO staff to conduct community development planning session. This is done annually and gives villagers the opportunity to address issues and strategically plan to resolve and improve circumstances. Unbeknownst to me, the community planning sessions would also provide a resurrection for my long-lost-buried-and-forgotten environmental awareness projects and recycle bank. More on this later.

March 28-31: Was out of site for 4 days visiting my host family in Lop Buri, celebrating my birthday, visiting the soon-to-be-volunteers at their training site, and dr. appointment. My Dr.'s appointment was a culmination of my headaches. Discussing the headaches, we came to the realization that the headaches, which I've had since August were probably resultant of hyperactive allergies, stress, the heat, and diet (ie: white rice every day, saturated fats via cooking oils, refined sugars, and MSG) This was an awakening conversation and has since, made me scrutinize my daily life and try to weed out the things that cause my headaches, opting for a healthier lifestyle and ultimately, more proactive approach to work, etc.

April 7: Went on a field trip gone horribly wrong and had my first, near breaking point where I had visions of home blurred by soft bubbly tears...definitely more on this later!

April 7-April 12: Did extensive research on pollution/pollution reduction, environmental awareness, and recycling to prepare for the tentative enviromental awareness training to take place at the temple on April 23--definitely had my doubts about this even really happening but I was assured it was to be. So, I did and continue to do the leg work necessary to pull of the training by the end of this week.

April 9-11: Met my friend visiting from Hong Kong in Bangkok and bore witness (albeit at a distance) to red-shirt and army clashes, which, was relatively unavoidable to a certain extent throughout the city.

April 12-15: The official Son Kran (Thai New Year) holiday followed suit April 13-15. I was able to give my friend, Ashley, the full experience of Son Kran and other cultural/local Khmer traditions in my villages. We dumped and threw water on each other per the traditional water throwing customs of Son Kran, joined a Son Kran procession to the temple, and sat in on a 'pou kahn' ceremony (more later) and monks chanting. Otherwise, we were trying to avoid the heat like the plague, eating delicious Thai food, and hanging out with my neighbors and friends. It was a whirlwind going from Bangkok to the village and then only after a few days putting her on a bus back to Bangkok to catch her flight. But, it was a great time and I was so happy to have a visitor.

April 15-16: To my chagrin, I found my phone did not make it through the rip-roaring-water-throwing-funfest and it died. RIP Nokia 260. On the up side, I invested a bit more in my new Samsung E250i and now I have way better reception, Internet, and Bluetooth. It was bound to happen sooner or later!

April 19-20 & Beyond: Back to work. Preparing fervently for the upcoming environmental awareness training on Friday...scrambling to translate things into Thai, access powerpoints,and activities to engage participants.

April 23: If all goes to plan, the environmental awareness training will take place and all my planning will not have been in vain...fingers crossed.

Ongoing: Working on a project and grant proposal for the PHA (person's having HIV/AIDS) Hope group with a fellow volunteer. We're looking at our first of three business training's and product development workshops to take place in early May.


That pretty much brings everything up to speed. I will admit, I've been completely engrossed in this trilogy of books by the Swedish author, Stieg Larsson which, has undoubtedly take up a lot of my free time. It's still outrageously hotter than a brick kiln here, the fields are brown and dry (hough, planting season should start next month), humid, and the mozzies are providing no mercy to their wrath. Otherwise, business as usual.

Expect more in-depth posts soon!






A preview of the Son Kran procession and festivities

Back from Hiatus, More to Come

Hi Friends,

I wanted to drop a quick line to say, yes, I'm still alive and a lot has been going on. All last week, we celebrated the Thai New Year (SonKran) with the traditional water throwing festival, processions, trips to the temple, etc. I'll have more on that. I also have a backlog of vignettes I want to post but I haven't had time or a good Internet connection. The good news is that I got a new cell phone and I can now access the Internet via my low-bandwidth bluetooth device on my phone. I'm evolving =)

More to come soon!

Heidi

It's Mango Season Again!

'Mangoes and Sticky Rice' aka Heaven on Earth



'Green Mangoes with Chilli Paste'

It's officially the hottest hot season now. People say there are 3 seasons in Thailand, the hot season, the rainy season, and the 'cool' season. I beg to differ. More accurately, the seasons seem to follow a hot, hotter, and hottest pattern. And thus we enter the hottest season. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it gets pretty miserable. Especially when you live in a house like mine that is concrete with wooden windows and virtually no ventilation. Air conditioning, forget it. It just pains one to think of it. Even the simplest tasks become daunting and riding my bike past 4 km requires ample energy. Showing 3-4 times a day is a must, if not a given for courtesy to others and for alleviation of the hot pressure.

Ode to Mangoes
And from this unimaginable heat come the mangoes. My memories flash back from a year ago when the weather was unbearable but the food was so fresh and so good. I start to see mangoes surfacing around every corner. It's hard to explain the wonderfulness that are Thai Mangoes. Or many other Thai fruits to that matter. There are so many mangoes here and they are all equally scrumptious and splendid. Small mangoes, large mangoes, sour mangoes, sweet mangoes. Once the mangoes start flooding in, the possibilities are limitless as to how they can be eaten. One of the easiest way to enjoy them is eaten when they are green (sour or sweet depending on the variety) with chili paste or alone. Then, there's one of my person favorites, mangoes and sticky rice--the very ripe, luscious yellowish mangoes sliced with a side of sticky rice and a sweet white sauce. The little mangoes can be eaten outright, with slight peeling of the skins. There's also mango salad (a rendition of papaya salad) and mango sauce. When the village becomes overloaded with ripe mangoes, villagers boil them to a thick paste and lay them flat on wax paper in the sun to dry, producing a sort of dried mango fruit role.

It's during the unyielding heat of the day and when I'm almost at my wits end when someone suddenly appears with some fresh mangoes and my spirits are once again revived. Thank goodness for mangoes.




Villager Preparing Mango Snack



Mangoes ready for Pickin

Reaching a Quarter-Century in Thailand

March 30, 2009 With some Thai family and my Volunteer friend who shared the same host family as I.


For me, turning 25 in Thailand was a lot like turning 24 in Thailand. And maybe the same as any other geographic location for that matter. Time hold no prejudice to location. Only, I feel older. Older in the sense that I know so much more than I did before and of what I do not know, I am acutely aware. I took a trip down memory lane and visited my old host family in Lop Buri Province from Pre-Service Training to celebrate my birthday. To refresh everyone's memory, I lived in Lop Buri with all the other volunteers (trainees at the time) my first 9 weeks in Thaland while I went through language, cultural, and technical training. Last year, they threw a wonderful party for me and for almost a year now, I have been promising them a return so we could do it again. Three splendid days and two nights I spend in Lop Buri. In a sense, it was like going home. Right away, I was greeted warmly and insisted on being taken care of and dispering all kinds of stories from my site in Sisaket Province. When I was tired, I rested and they let me rest. We ate great meals and had a good many laughs. My mom insisted on doing my laundry and taking me to the market to pick out goodies for dessert. In the afternoon, we took a picnic lunch to the waterfall we visited over a year ago and took to wading in the water, just as we had the year before. Later, we sifted through albums of my host brother’s wedding that had taken place the month before. They too, had met many changes throughout the year.

Needless to say, my family in Lop Buri is full of exceptional people in personality and hospitality. My father, a village headman and farmer, is a predominant leader in the local community and has friends all over. When I came back, many people gathered for dinner and reminiscing. We had birthday cake and sang karaoke. They all commented on how well I could speak Thai and how much I had improved in a year. To such an extent that I finally took a hard look at the past year and realized how much I had, indeed, gained in the Thai language. We could finally communicate with an extent of fluency and ease. This from when I first came to live with them and was able to say only a handful of words. Baffling to think, it was a struggle to complete a simple conversation like asking for a towel to take a shower! I marveled. Lately, I'd been working on my writing skills and they were impressed to see that I could write my address in Thai... even if that was all I could write.

It was so nice to go ‘home’. Also, because the weather in Lop Buri is quite different and much more conducive than my site in Sisaket. Granted, it gets hot just the same but there is more variance there by way of cool winds and thunderstorms and overcast skies. The landscape is more exciting with rolling hills, small mountains, fields of corn, groves of palm trees, and shallow valleys. Somehow, it reminds me of Iowa. The soil is a rich midnight black favorable to growing corn, sugarcane, cassava, and tobacco. Whereas, in Sisaket, scarcely is there any relief to the unbearable burning sun and humidity. The land is dry and arid with silt-like soil good for growing rice. I would also venture to say that there may be less prosperity where I live. All these distinctions I had never noticed before. Perhaps to an extent, but I think once you live somewhere for a while (like I have in Sisaket) you forget how different other place are. Everything just looks the same for so long and eventually fades into the background.

My short trip to Lop Buri was over before no time and I found myself sucked back into the world of my current reality. Being able to go back gave me perspective of how I was in the beginning and how much I had changed and grown—-not to mention what the future would bring. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve been here for several years after all the changes and adaptations and surprises and blunders that have occurred in the past year. A lot of RPCV’s (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) say that the second year goes a lot faster, especially since you aren’t enduring so many drastic changes all the time. I guess I’ll just have to go through it to see if that’s true for me. I’ll turn 26 before this is all said and done.