Beginnings

So here I am sitting in my small room in a random guesthouse in Chiang Mai called the Green Tulip, with a fan cooling me off and the curtains drawn on my 'window' to the hall. With a shared bathroom, its simple, clean, cheap and great mostly for one reason: wifi. Okay, so travelling around the world isn't supposed to be about hiding out in a room staying connected to this sucking-the-life-out-of-people space called the internet, but i've found that when doing research abroad, trying to make contacts, trying to finish assignments for school,and overall attempting to be semi-serious about life and all its often crappy responsibilities, internet is okay. The key i guess is to ditch it when no longer needed (something i really do plan to do).
Anyways, moving on. Having arrived here a little less than a week ago, after a long trip from Amsterdam, thru Zurich, and then Bangkok, I'm still getting into the swing of things. But I am REALLY loving being away from school, cold weather, and what I like to call 'my average life'. Warm weather, good food, and relaxed atmosphere is def more my thing!
Picking up Thai has not been very successful thus far, with me only get so far as kawp koon ka, sawatdee ka, kaw thot, and an occasional name of food or places i need to go. this i find rather frustrating when i can usually understand and pick up more than 3 WORDS when i am somewhere.
In my attempt to get started on my research on the Shan displaced children, as I so naively dubbed it before l left Amsterdam, I have found that my topic is as dynamic and complicated as i feared it was back in my lil bubble in A'dam, as well as underresearched by any kind of young foreign students. So most reactions I've gotten are, so what exactly do you want to research again? and what's your plan of action to actually reach these hard-to-reach people? basically, i'm seen as either quite naive or a little odd.
given that chiang mai is popping with tourists and farang (foreign) students that want to study buddhism, thai massage and thai cooking at the gazillion wats (buddhist temples) and schools here, i guess my interests are a little unusual.
overall though, i am finding that this adventure is much more enriching than the life of an average student in NL. this is what i hoped for before i started my master's in Children's Rights in Int'l Dev (don't ask exactly what that means), to get out there and see what life is all about. too bad there happens to be research involved ;-).
my only pitfall: making contacts with diff. organizations, interviewing, etc. is one thing, but i really don't like doing 'fun' things alone. ahh well, this too shall be resolved shortly!
well, that's about all the inspiration i have to write about now.
till next time in the adventures (not quite perhaps) of a pseudo-researcher.