This past week was pretty good- on Monday I went to the supermarket and ice cream was on sale!!! so of course I had to get a whole bunch for the students! That made Monday night especially enjoyable-everyone loved having a nice treat (who wouldn't?). Tuesday was Thai army day- all week there were lots of paratroopers in the sky, which was fun to see. Also, there is an election coming up, so there are tons of posters around and trucks with loudspeakers blaring Thai political ads and music. Something funny that happened to me: Friday afternoon I went for a walk- I was walking along the road and all ofthe sudden this black bird crossed the street and walked right up to me! It was really weird because I've never seen a wild bird that was that friendly and unafraid of humans. It was really pretty, and it puffed up its feathers and made a lot of noise. I got a long piece of grass to see if it would take it, but I had no luck. After looking at it for a little bit I threw down the piece of grass and started towalk away- the bird chased me and started pecking my shoes! I started running and it still chased me and tried to eat my feet. Finally I got away- it's a good thing I was wearing tennis shoes or it would have been really painful! I don't know if I disturbed its territory or what, but it wasn't too happy with me. Or, here people only wear flipflops, so maybe it had just never seen tennis shoes before!