Eff my life. That basically sums up my day today. Lets start from the very beginning, meaning 12am, Friday, January 28. Courtney is still awake. And if you read my last blog, you would know I had to get up at 4:45am. 4:45 minus 12 am = 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep. Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough for that. I probably didn't fall asleep until 1230 or maybe even 1. I don't know what the deal is, but apparently I can't fall asleep before 12am these days! Anyway, so I woke up at 4:45, barely functioning as I didn't have much sleep. I put my contacts in, eyes burning like no other, got ready and went out into the darkness of the morning to get a cab to go to my job. I get to the "job site" if you would like to call it that, at about 6am. I start my hair at around 6:15. First note: the hair dressers here always find it necessary to part my hair the opposite of the natural way. They feel the "cow lick" look is nice I guess. Which in their defence, sometimes it doesn't actually look to bad, depends how they do the rest of the hair.. Makeup starts sometime between hair and 7am. At about 730 the hair and makeup people along with other workers take a break to eat "breakfast". Second note: breakfast here means rice and chicken or noodles and chicken or beef or pork or whatever meat you want. In other words, breakfast here is like dinner in Canada or any other part of the world. I start shooting at 8 or soon after 8. Third note: property jobs = no fun at all. It was only print, so it was basically most boring time ever. A really easy job, but so so so boring!! We shoot one setting, then we move areas to a new one, shoot that setting move, etc etc. By the time we finish at this one location it is about 1230 and are ready to move to our next location. Our second location is about an hour away from the first, so I went with the hair dresser and makeup artist. We get lost a few times, but eventually find it at around 2 pm. We eat lunch and then start the last shot (we travelled for an hour for 1 shot..). Anyways, we finish it all at about 5pm, thank god!! I really condensed this day, but it was so so so painful, I cannot even describe. I guess I shouldn't be complaining because being here is a pretty sweet deal, I mean, I could be at school.. But I am currently exhausted and slightly bitter about the day if you didn't already notice.. it was just so slow and monotonous as well as A LOT of waiting around. I was at the job for 11 hours total, but was only actually in action, shooting, for about 4 maybe 5 hours.. That means 6 or 7 hours of waiting around! NOT FUN. Especially when you have a slight impatience problem such as I do.. We leave the site shortly after 5 and I am so happy the day is done and I can go back to my apartment. Unfortunately for me, the ride home took about 2.5 hours. OH MY LORD. I was basically have a freak session in the van. First off, I hadn't been feeling so well all day, probably from the lack of sleep, so a 2.5 hour ride home didn't help (it taking so long because of traffic). I also had to pee extremely bad, but when your in a van in the middle of a large traffic situation, this is slightly difficult. Oh yea, to add to the traffic situation, we sat at a red light for 25 MINUTES. Your thinking, "oh come on Courtney, stop exaggerating". But I'm not! For all I know it could have been longer! We had been sitting at this light for not sure how long and I eventually check the time, its 6:17. By the time the light turned green, it was 6:42 and the light stayed green for a whole 15 seconds, not allowing us to get through. Fortunately, the next red light only lasted 3 minutes, so we were able to get through the next one! Second last point on the agenda here today: at this job, there were copious amounts of mosquitos. Mosquitos love Courtney, wahhhhh. I am now back at my apartment with 5 bites on my left leg and 3 on my right. Joy. Last but certainly not least (this does not pertain to the job at all, but thought it was worth a mention): there are these stores here called "Fresh Mart". When you hear Fresh Mart, your probably thinking fresh produce and fruit and all that jazz. Oh no, none of that is here. Its ALL frozen, packaged food.. Now tell me, how does that qualify as "fresh"? Trying to keep my chin up after a not so lovely day, I'm sure tomorrow will be better and I know Sunday will be, as I am going to be hanging out with my cousins! Later days to whoever is reading this, I'll keep you posted on events to come!

Today is going to be short and sweet, as I don't have a whole lot to talk about. First off, I did my second entry on modelresource, but I don't think its up yet, so give it a few days and check it out! The past few days have been quiet, not many castings, so basically have just been watching House and hanging out. Today I went shopping for the first time I've been here! Crazy hey? I've been here for 3 weeks and today is the first day for shopping, I must be sick right? I bought shorts, a tank top and a belt, woohooooo. Oh and to add to that... all from a store we have in Canada... forever 21.. haha. My bad! Oh well though, this one is large and probably has stuff the Canadian store doesn't, but who knows. Tomorrow I have a job, some kind of print job for property. Not really sure what that consists of, but I was just told for property, so maybe condo, apartment? Not really sure, but I'll let you know after I find out! Unfortunately this job requires me to get up at 5 am (sad face). Last, there is this cafe here, close to my apartment, where they make waffles, mmmmmmmm. I had one. My gosh, it was sooo good. I decided if I was going to have this treat I mine as well go all the way and get the best one. This included the waffle (obviously), vanilla ice cream, bananas, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. I'm basically drooling as writing this. Below is a picture of the delicious "meal" I ate :)

So this week didn't bring anything to interesting, but I do have a few mentionable things that occured or I saw or whatever. First of all, I had my first job on Tuesday. It was for L'Oreal, an event launching a new Kerastase hair product. There was me and 5 other models. 4 of the models wore gold dresses and did a rehearsal, while me and one other model sat there waiting, wondering what we were wearing and what we had to do. Turns out they made us put on a nude boob tube (as I call it) and a pair of nude long spandex shorts type thing. They came up to just above the bottom of my ribs and ended just above my knees... attractive right? Anyway, so we had to wear this, then they used this gold dust stuff, mixed with baby oil (to turn it into paint..?) and put it all over our arms, chest, stomach, back and legs. In other words we were covered in this stuff! They also tried to put it on the spandex stuff, but that didn't work out so nicely.. This is what we had to wear. No joke. We had to stand on either side of the entrance where all the guests came in. GREAT. I felt ridiculous! Kind of like I forgot to put my clothes on and was painted gold.. fun. Oh yea, and there were photographers there for publicity and stuff, so those pictures will be circulating in the media....even better! (not). Next on the agenda.. I had gone to a casting last Sunday for a Mazda commercial. On Wednesday my booker texts me and tells me I have to go to this Mazda casting again. So I call her, tell her it's okay, I already went, but she tells me they want to re-cast me. I think okay, well maybe its a call back? But no it wasn't it was just another casting, the reason they wanted me to go re-cast was because they wanted to change my hair. Thats it. Just my hair. HAVE SOME IMAGINATION PEOPLE! Come on now, you work in the modelling industry!! They did my hair basically the same, just didn't back comb it as much, so it was a bit more flat than last time. As you can probably tell, I was just sooo impressed... But hopefully that means they really liked me and wanted everything just right? Fingers crossed. Today I go to a casting for Vaseline, there are 2 stories tied to this one.. first, as I am waiting, the guy next to me stands up and is walking around. I notice there is some kind of sticker or patch on his pants and I look, its one of those Parent Advisory signs, like from CD's with "explicit content" or whatever and its on his crotch... weird and slightly inappropriate to wear to a casting I would guess? Second, I show up at this casting at 2:45, there are a bunch of people there, so I sign in and then leave, my apartment was really close so I just walked around and ate lunch etc. At 4 I return and it's still not my turn! They do my hair and makeup and I get changed. I don't go into the casting room until 615 and didn't finish until 7! Talk about waiting! Thats all for now, tune in in a few days or maybe a week to see what happens next..!

So I'm about a week behind on my blogging. Not a whole lot has happened in the past week, so that's possibly why I didn't update you sooner! The week was filled with castings, eating, sleeping, skyping, watching House (thanks to Myron and Brandie for lending me seasons 1-4!!), more castings, going to the gym etc. Fun right? This past weekend I stayed over at Brandie and Myron's house. I went there Saturday afternoon and got back tonight, being Sunday here, around 8 ish. On Saturday they took me on a tour of the kids school. It is called ISB or International School of Bangkok. OH MY GOD. You should see this place! It's from grades 1-12 and it's unbelievable!! It's honestly like a flipping university campus! First, it's huge as ever. It's gated all around and there are guards and gates to get in to the parking lot at the front. It's all open, like obviously there is a roof over the classrooms, lockers etc, but inbetween the hallways its open and stuff. So cool! They have everything here, its unreal. There are separate cafeterias for grades 1-5, middle school and then high school. There is a soccer pitch, a full track, swimming pool, indoor gyms, a couple outdoor gyms, basketball court, baseball diamond, tennis court. You name it, they have it. There is an art building, and auditorium, everything! It is a crazy huge, wild school. I think the whole time we walked around my jaw was dragging on the floor! Kids don't need to bring lunches, it is provided to them at the school. There are different sections in the cafeteria for different kinds of food, sandwiches, noodles, whatever else there is. Also their lockers, at the end of the set there is a door with this square on it, you swipe your student card over the square, go to your locker and open it. Cool hey?! I was just in awe of this school, so thought I'd share it with you! The rest of the time we basically just hung out, watched normal tv, meaning english, no thai, criminal minds included, wooohooo! Nothing to exciting occured during this week that I can remember right now. Oooh except that I am now also blogging for ModelResource! (www.modelresource.com). Just blogging about my adventures overseas modelling, basically like this, but a tad different. I am also the featured model right now too, so check it out! Before I end this for the night, a few things about Bangkok that amuse me, so might amuse you as well:

1. Sometimes drivers like to make their own lanes. I am in a taxi on my way to my moms cousins house, we are on a major road or freeway or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, there are 3 lanes, clearly marked by the dotted white lines. But somehow there are 4 lanes of cars...? I guess the road is big enough, so drivers just get fed up of waiting, fixing the problem by making their own lane? I was slightly confused when this was happening. By the way, my taxi driver was in the fourth, technically non existent lane.

2. People up and down major roads selling these flower things that people hang on their rearview mirrors. They walked inbetween the lanes of cars at red lights. Slightly dangerous I would say? Sometimes there are people selling food too. I guess I can understand that, as sometimes your waiting at a light for literally 180 seconds (it counts down for you at the light).

Thats about all I have for now. Be sure to check out my other blog on modelresource as well! That one will only be updated every couple of weeks though. I'm off to watch House though, check back in a couple days for another update!

I SLEPT IN TODAY! Oh, by sleeping in I mean 8am, yipeee... better than 630 though!! So after my huuuuge sleep in, I ate some breakfast, talked to my parents on Skype and then hit the gym to work on my fitness. After working out I got a text from my agent to go to a casting for Watson, which is kind of like Shoppers, but not really..just the same concept of selling makeup and shampoo and all that shenanigans! I finished that at about 4pm and then came back to the apartment to hang out for about an hour, and then I went to meet my moms cousin Myron, his wife Brandie, their oldest daughter Mekayla and also their nephew Brad and his friend, who are backpacking around Thailand for a few months. I met them on this touristy road called Khao San Road. We walked around for a bit and then ate supper and then walked around and shopped some more. The cost for my 30 minute taxi ride there, 20-30 minute taxi ride back, a dress, a wallet, 4 mini flags and another unnamed item (which I might give to my mom so can't be revealed on here as she reads it), all came to a whopping 30 dollars Canadian! What the heck right?! We stayed there until about 10:15 and then head home. Tomorrow I am going to their house for supper and to hangout as well! That basically sums up my day, nothing to interesting, but something to write about! One last thing to add in before I finish for today.. I was sitting in a taxi today, we are stopped in traffic and I look over, I see a building which says "Index Furniture" on it. There is a big billboard beside it advertising some of their furniture so I look at it, and everything looked exactly like Ikea! Even the layout of the page and the writing they used, and obviously the furniture too. Just thought it was kind of funny!

Alright, so today started with me waking up at about 6:30am, how wonderful. I talked to Kallie for a while on skype and then talked to my mom for a bit, then got ready and went to the agency as my phone wasn't working. I discovered it wasn't working because there was no money on the prepaid card! So I went over to 7-11 and filled the sim card up and then surprise surprise, it actually worked! After that I just hung out at the agency for a bit, waited for my booker, Pluem, to arrive so I could find out if I had any castings today. She arrived and said I had no castings, but gave me a map to one, just in case the client decided they wanted to see me. So later on, she texted me and told me to go to the casting, then to go to the agency after to do a few castings there. The first casting was for chocolate, then the ones at the agency were for Polo clothing, one for skin care and one for hair. I'm hoping maybe this time around I will book a hair job, as my hair was to short last time! The first casting was down all of these smaller roads, not that close to a main road where I would need to get to, to catch a taxi. So after I finished, I started to walk the direction I thought was the right way to get back to the main road. As I am walking, I hit a road that only turns right, so walking straight ahead would be into a wall. But not just a wall was standing there, of course, my favorite, two stray dogs were hanging out there. As I got closer and closer I am trying not to get scared, as last years encounter wasn't so much fun.. The closer I get, the dogs both just stand there and stare at me, I stare back (probably not a good idea on my part), then suddenly they start to bark. Instantly I am thinking "OH SHIT" and slightly panic, but they are still stationary and not running toward me. So panicking, I look back and see a guy coming on a moped type motorcycle thing, so I wave him down to ask if I am going the right direction to a taxi. Eventually I get to where I need to, with no attacks from any dogs! After all of this, it was about 5:30, so I went over to one of my favorite cafes nearby and ate supper, then just went back to the apartment to chill for awhile. I went on my computer for a bit and messed around and then started to download one of the Harry Potter movies, but while it was downloading I fell asleep, which I was trying hard not to do because I want to sleep the whole night, which means not waking up at 6:30am! What can you do though? So I woke up at 8:50 and slightly got angry at myself for falling asleep, but nothing I can do about it now! I got up and waited for my mom to come on Skype, which was not to long after. Before I end this, just a few tid bits of info about Bangkok..

1. Most of the traffic lights have timers on them. Beside the light is a thing that shows you how much longer the red light will last or how much longer the green light will last. Sometimes its up to 200 seconds, which means 3 minutes and 20 seconds. I'm not a fan of this, because I feel when you watch the seconds go by, it takes way longer!

2. I bought some watermelon, papaya and pineapple today, they took the skin or whatever you wanna call the outer shell thing off and they also cut it up for me. Wanna know how much it cost? About 99 cents Canadian!

3. Last but not least, the taxi from my casting back to my apartment was about a 45 minute ride, but only cost me about $3.47. Don't think you could ever say that in Canada now could you?

Day 1. So far it's been good, I finally arrived in Bangkok Wednesday at about 12pm Bangkok time. When I arrived I dropped my stuff off and then went to the agency. There I got a sim card for my phone and my week money. After that I went to the Big C, which is kind of like the Superstore of Bangkok, but has a few more 'supers' in it. It is a 3 floor huge huge huge supercentre. The first floor has food, drinks and all the eating stuff. The second floor is women's clothing, bulk packed drinks, toiletries, toilet paper, detergent etc. Then the third floor is electronics, household items such as irons, kettles etc. and also outdoor stuff, mens clothing and exercise things. So basically this place has anything and everything and is just crazy big! Anyway, I went there, bought some food, water, a towel (which last time the apartment people gave me, but this time no dice), some detergent, and a small mattress pad (my bed is basically hard as rock, mine as well sleep on the tile floor, actually). So after going there, I came back to my apartment and unpacked, ooohhhh how I love unpacking...not. A nap was also in the cards, I had been travelling for basically two days and who knows what time zone my body is really on, so I was in desperate need of a nap. I woke up, talked to my mom on Skype for a bit and then went to bed at around 10pm. Lucky me and having the experience of getting used to what time zone I'm in, I woke up at 4:30, 5:30 and then 7:30, giving me a final waking time of about 8am... fun. I didn't have to go to the agency until 10:30, so I had a couple hours to laze around and get ready. 10:30 rolled around and I went to the agency, getting a map for my first casting which was for drinking water. Luckily I was the first one at the casting, yaay! They did my hair and makeup (normal casting for here), then I changed and went to do the casting. In this casting I had a few shots to take.. One of me telling my friends the reason why I was so beautiful was because I was drinking this water, another of me just holding the water, one of me in my office putting on my makeup, another in a change room looking at my clothes, almost done.. another of me wearing a face mask and last but not least the one where I am actually drinking the water. Oooh how I love castings in Bangkok.... So after all of that shenanigans, I went back to the agency, hung out for a bit and then took another trip to the Big C. This time I got a yoga mat, so I can exercise in my apartment (I have much much floor space, its great - and thats not sarcasm either!). I also got a kettle and some green tea, mmmmm. That's basically all I did today, after the Big C, I came back to the apartment and just chilled. I was trying to force myself to stay awake so I would maybe sleep the whole night, but that did not work at all, I fell asleep for about 45 minutes. Now I am here, waiting for my mom on Skype and then heading to bed once my eyelids won't stay open anymore. Before I forget though, I have a few random things to throw out there:

1. Entering the taipei airport, I had to go through security again, but didn't have to show my boarding pass.. odd.

2. As I went to board the plane in Taipei, no ID or passport was required.. also odd.

3. When I was boarding my plane in Vancouver which went to Taipei, after having your ticket scanned, you walked about a meter and there were two police officers/security guards checking everyones passports and asking quite a few people quite a few questions. When I went up they asked where I was going and then let me right through, others not so lucky! The lady before me was asked where she lived, who she lived with, why she was going to Taipei, if she ever had any trouble with the police etc. Quite a few people were having this happen to them, I was curious why, but obviously never found out.

4. The person that picked me up from the airport to take me to my apartment, the speedometer in the car stayed at 0 the whole time.. in other words did not work. I guess this also brings me to the fact that Bangkok has no speed limit, so goes hand in hand with the non working speedometer.

5. I got a pedicure for  6 dollars Canadian today.. when does that EVER happen?

6. I walked by a McDonalds, saw they had a few pie varieties. At home we have apple and cherry or something, but here they have apple, corn and ham and cheese? Weird.

As the days pass I know this blog is going to fill with weird things about Bangkok, by that I mean things that are way different from Canada. Everything I wrote today is all I remember for now, but I know there is a lot more that will come. Hope you enjoy!

Bangkok

Alright, so the time has come again where the blogging must continue, as I continue on my approximate year long journey. I left Grande Prairie today at 1:35 pm, and got into Edmonton sometime around 2:30 or so. My cousin Tyson picked me up from the airport and we hit up West Ed and then went to a sushi restaurant called Mikado, where we met my Aunty Donna. After that we went back to West Ed for a bit and then I went back to the airport to catch my 8:45 flight to Vancouver. As per usual, my flight was delayed, apparently I can't fly anywhere without that happening! At first it was only delayed 15 minutes, so was supposed to leave at 9pm. We boarded the plane and were ready to go at about 9:30 when the pilot comes on telling us that there is some frost on the wings so we must de-ice. No big deal, that happens in the winter all the time.. but when we get to the de-icing area, he comes on again telling us that the truck that is supposed to de-ice our plane is broken, greeeeeeeat. He tells us we must wait about 10-15 minutes before we know whats going, so we wait, I read, we wait, then he comes on again saying that it is for sure broken and won't be fixed so we need to wait another 15 minutes for another truck to come. Again, we wait, I read, we wait, the pilot comes on and does his apology thing blah blah blah and then tells us we need to wait ANOTHER 15 minutes. At this point its about 10pm, so the 15 minutes taking us to 10:15 and then after de-icing about 10:30. May I mention one more time the plane was supposed to leave at 8:45? WHAT THE HECK! Figure it out people!! Last time I checked, there were many de-icing trucks so this problem would not occur? Like coooooome on! So finally we are off and in the air, woohoo... I fell asleep and before you knew it we were landed in Vancouver at 10:51 vancouver time, which was 11:51 GP time. Of course, my next gate is basically on the other side of the flippin airport so I had to walk all the way, thinking my flight boarded at 11:30. Thankfully it didn't, it doesn't board until 11:50, hence me sitting here typing on my computer. Oh one last note before I have to put all this shinnanigans away and board my 12 hour flight.. I GOT A AISLE SEAT! WOOOOOO! Best day ever basically. So what that means is.. Courtney has to go to the bathroom... and she can go whenever she wants! Yaaaaay. I don't have to wake the person up next to me or wait for them to wake up, I can get up and go as I please! YES. Note to whoever is reading this... always get the aisle seat when travelling a long flight, otherwise you will thoroughly regret it when you have to pee really really bad and the person or two people next to you are sleeping... trust me, not fun! I will continue the blog when I get to Taipei if they allow me to use the internet there, if not, update you when I arrive in Bangkok!