budding stardom

well as it seems teaching is clearly not my cup of tea for my traveling woman career choice, at least now i have a fallback plan: movie star. one thing i’ve learned about traveling –and life in general- is that it’s almost (almost!) always a good idea to say yes to invitations and opportunities that come up. (*that “almost” excludes such things as meeting random old fat unnamed rockstars in their homes to “chop romaine lettuce” for romantic dinners of ceasar salad with shrimp and wine. but that’s a whole different story…) so naturally, when we hear movie producers in pattaya are looking for young white aspiring actors to play extras as nurses and soldiers in a japanese world war II movie “oba: the last samurai,” of course the answer is a yes. it’s not everyday you get to dress up as an old-fashioned war nurse after all. the opportunity was so inviting in fact, we deem it appropriate to skip school in order to kick start our acting careers. we definitely made the right choice by playing hooky from work to get costumed in head to toe white nurse garb and get pampered by hairstylists and makeup artists in tents that make us feel like legit professional actors, just to sit in the air-con base camp building with nothing to do but steal snacks and load up on free peanut butter and jelly in between making friends with silly japanese quasi movie stars named kenji, filming our own nurse mystery kidnapping short film, and laughing at “tiger” the not-too-brainy thai extra with a permanent wedgie and horrible pickup skills…) the actual “work” that we get paid 2,000 baht for involves walking from point a to point b for one outdoor hospital base camp scene, then caring for wounded soldiers inside the hospital for another…for getting paid double a day of teaching, free retro hair and makeup, and a boatload of complimentary snacks, it wasn’t too bad of a day!