Rockstars

A couple of nights ago, Ana and I ventured to a karaoke place with Ming, Party, Bell, Nok and one of their other friends. Karaoke-ing is always a blast in my book. I remember being at a resort on the beach in the Philippines for my grandparents' 50th anniversary celebration and belting out a duet with my brother-- "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles, accompanied by the live band. We were totally off key. I couldn't hear myself over all that alcohol. But you know... No one cares! Good company... uninhibited singing... And some people surprise you when you hand them a mic!

This was definitely the case with our friend Bell. He's one of the interns at Isara. The other intern is his girlfriend, Party. I know that internships provide important work experience, but sometimes I feel like "interning" is also another word for... "doing the work that no one else wants to do, including really random assignments."

Am I wrong? I had a handful of internships during and after college, and definitely received valuable experience and training while on the job. But I do recall some of my responsibilities from various internships being: (1) figure out what's wrong with the copy machine; (2) walk to Walgreen's to buy plastic cups; (3) buy miscellaneous office supplies that we needed; (4) stuff, seal, and put postage on hundreds of envelopes and then carry them all to the mailbox to send them out; (5) carefully peel off stamps by hand on an envelope that I put too much postage on; (6) put tampons in the women's restroom; etc... Some days, Ana and I wake up and Party and Bell have already been at Isara for 2 hours doing work. One day, their assignment was to take us around on their motorcycles to visit the temples and get food. Party has also been giving Ana bike riding lessons for the past few days. I can't wait til the day I get to employ my own intern...

We see Bell often, and he helps us teach classes, but I've hardly ever heard him speak. Sometimes, he'll tell Party something and then she'll tell us what he said. When we're bored, Ana and I create dialogue for what we think is going on in his brain, and joke that he actually hates kids and is really only there because his girlfriend made him do it. I'm sure that's not the case, but it always makes us laugh. I hope he never reads this.

The karaoke outing was the first time we hung out with Party + Bell outside of Isara. All of a sudden, Bell turned into Thailand's Next Rock Star. If there were to be such a show, he'd surely win. He was all over the song book and sang with no fear-- and picked Thai rock songs that involved screaming, perhaps about teenage angst and broken hearts. We were surprised to say the least. I didn't even know this guy could talk. Here's a clip of him rockin' out. It was really loud in the room, so it might just sound like noise... But wait til the last 5 seconds when he starts screaming at the top of his lungs. I think we saw a vein popping out of his neck.

Ana and I were limited in our song selection because most of the songs were in Thai. We had a few VCDs to choose super old love ballads from. Little did they know that those are our favorite songs to sing! Here we are singing "Crazy for You" by Madonna.

Just another night in Nong Khai.