Today I actually went to all of my classes! Although that still isn't very much. I thought I would also just talk about school in general, as there are many things different from Canadian schools. We leave for school at about 730 in the morning. When we get there, we have to walk past the teachers who wait at the front gate of the school (there are different teachers each morning) and wai to them. For those who don't know, wai-ing is the Thai way of saying "hello" and shaking hands. You put your hands together as if you were praying, bow your head (different heights depending on who you are wai-ing to) and say "sa-was-dee." After that I generally follow Cherry around while she looks for her friends, and after we find them we have to go "stand in line." Think of like school assemblies in elementary school, except we're outside (either on the basketball court, or on the soccer field, depending on the weather). It is usually already blisteringly hot out by that time, and all the Thai people are worried about tanning, so they all hold papers up to the light to shield their faces. Once we are all in line, we sit down until the school band starts playing the Thai national anthem, at which point we all stand up and everyone (except me) sings along. After that someone says a Buddhist prayer, and all the Buddhist children pray along. We then sit down again, and some teachers make a few announcements, and then we are dismissed. This morning during the assembly type thing, a girl in my class named May gave me a postcard with a picture of somewhere in Bangkok on it. On the backside she wrote "To Kristen, From May, For Friendship". I thought it was really sweet. Probably the nicest thing someone's given me since I've been here :)
First class this morning was Thai Art, which Cherry and the rest of her friends also have. Even though we go to school at 730, classes don't actually start until 830, so all the students just sit around until the bell rings. And even when the bell does ring, they don't all just hurry to class like we do in Canada. They will sit around for about 5 or 10 minutes before they actually mosey on to class. It's weird, I thought they would all be super hardcore into studying here. And Cherry certainly is with all of her extra classes. But at school, all I ever see is kids just sitting around and talking. Even in class they just pass notes. Half of the time the teacher isn't even there. Oh and I've noticed quite a few times that in the morning during assembly, they all copy the homework thats due that day off of one of their friends. Anyway.. In Thai Art we were to go outside and find a leaf from a tree to sketch. I really enjoyed it, because in Canada I wasn't able to fit Art into my schedule for the last couple of years. I just had fun drawing my leaves, because I know it didn't really matter how well it turned out, but it actually turned out quite good.
After Art I had to go start studying Thai language with my AFS coordinator. We started out by going over basic everyday sentences such as "how are you?" She then taught me some basic nouns and such. I've pretty much forgotten it all already. I think she said soon she will teach me the Thai alphabet :S I will deffinately need good luck with that. She also told me that AFS contacted her about the bed situation, and she said she will do her best to see if it can be solved... which is good news.
The rest of the morning I spent in the computer room checking my emails and chatting on MSN. I know I should be spending it studying Thai, but honestly, I feel exhausted after just trying to learn it for an hour... Cherry came and got me to go for lunch in the cafeteria with her and her friends. She still thinks I'm hopeless at finding my way around. Her friends are really nice though. We had Thai Desserts after our main course (noodles with shrimp). The Desserts were pretty much a mix between a slurpee and a bubble tea. Arroy Ka (delicious). You choose two different bubble thingys that the put in the bottom of a bowl, then they cover them with crushed ice, and top it with whatever flavoring you want (kind of like a snowcone). They were very good, and I thought Bessy might like to know that I've finally had some sort of bubble tea :)
Oh and by the way, lunch works like this: Every student in the school gets a "lunch card" type thing, kind of like a student card. Each day when you go for lunch, you give your card and 15 baht to the lunch lady whose food you are buying. (15 baht is like $00.50!! for a full sized meal) Since the meals are served on real plates with real cutlery, you must return your plate, spoon, and fork when you are done eating, and you get a new lunch card. It's a fairly good system I'd say. I esepcially like how cheap the meals are. You can also buy a water bottle for 10 baht, and when you return the empty bottle, you get 5 baht back.
After lunch I spent alot of time just sitting around in the English room until I had to go to my Thai Dance class. I tried teaching myself some Thai, but my brain kind of gave up on that, so I just read my Exchange Student Survival Kit book and visited with Pylynn. She invited me to go to her house for supper some night this week. Her dad is British, so she said he would cook some British food for us. Although I must admit, Thai food is starting to grow on me.... Well it's good as long as I don't really think about what I'm eating. I really like the desserts though. So for my favorites are sticky rice filled with coconut wrapped up in a banana leaf. And sticky rice cooked into a bamboo shoot with coconut milk. Mmmm sticky rice.
In my Thai dance class my teacher just taught me more of the routine which we began last week. It's freaking hard, let's just put it that way, but my teacher was impressed with how quickly I learn, and she said that if I practice real hard, in February I will be able to perform Thai dance in front of the school. I told her I would love that. I also told her that next week I will bring my laptop to school to show her videos of me dancing in Canada (Animal I've Become).
After Dance, Pylynn offered to drive me home so we could hang out for a bit and she could ask my parents about me going over for dinner sometime this week. I showed her my yearbook, and some videos and pictures from Canada that are on my computer. I showed her the video of Animal I've Become and she said "you're not fat at all there!" I was like "excuse me? I'm fat now?" haha I think maybe she just didn't realize it was an insulting thing to say in English. But I must say, if I am getting fat now, it is only because these Thai people are constantly feeding me. Although I think I'm maybe actually losing weight, because my skirt feels looser every time I put it on. Or I could just be imagining it. But I will eat all the food I want while I am here, because who can come to Thailand and not eat all the amazing food, and then worry about my weight when I go back to Canada. Pylynn also told me that most Thai houses aren't like mine, and she also found it weird that I haven't seen all of their house. But she told me that this is the old Thai way of life. She also told me that Cock Fighting is in fact illegal in Thailand, but around this area nobody really cares. It still seems a little strange to me though that AFS would put me somewhere that illegal activities are happening on a weekly basis.
After Pylynn left, I went with P'Kla, P'Keng, P'Klang, and P'Beam (Thai's say P' in front of those who are like older siblings are friends names) to a "nemo farm". It was were they raise clown fish. P'Kla was interested in breeding his clown fish, so he went there to find out about the process, but he decided it was too complicated. Beam and I visited though, and I found out we have some things in common, such as she also had a motocycle accident where she crashed into another bike and broke her leg. Now I am at my host families home, waiting for Cherry to get home so we can have dinner. My host families house is starting to feel more like a house though, because they have finally got some furniture in the room under my bedroom, and a big flatscreen TV is coming for in there in a couple of weeks. Already the whole family is starting to gather in there to spend time together, which deffinately makes it easier for me to get to know them better.
A couple other things about school that are very different from Canada. They still cane children here for being bad. And when they are done, the student must wai and thank the teacher for teaching them this lesson. Also, girls in younger grades must cut their hair short. They all have the same bob cut. It makes it about 10 times harder for me to remember who anyone is, when they all dress the same and have the same hair and have similar names. Oh, and they also all just go by their nicknames. They have crazy ass Thai names that make no sense to me, and then they have English nicknames which they go by. For example, I've met people called Oat and Cartoon. My Thai nickname (which Natalie gave me) is Cream, because of my creamy white skin. They also all drink EVERYTHING with a straw. It kind of drives me crazy to see all these people drinking out of water bottles with straws. I know I'm not really one to talk because I drink tea out of a straw, but drinking water out of a water bottle with a straw... and then they all look at me funny when I just chug back the water... so strange.
First class this morning was Thai Art, which Cherry and the rest of her friends also have. Even though we go to school at 730, classes don't actually start until 830, so all the students just sit around until the bell rings. And even when the bell does ring, they don't all just hurry to class like we do in Canada. They will sit around for about 5 or 10 minutes before they actually mosey on to class. It's weird, I thought they would all be super hardcore into studying here. And Cherry certainly is with all of her extra classes. But at school, all I ever see is kids just sitting around and talking. Even in class they just pass notes. Half of the time the teacher isn't even there. Oh and I've noticed quite a few times that in the morning during assembly, they all copy the homework thats due that day off of one of their friends. Anyway.. In Thai Art we were to go outside and find a leaf from a tree to sketch. I really enjoyed it, because in Canada I wasn't able to fit Art into my schedule for the last couple of years. I just had fun drawing my leaves, because I know it didn't really matter how well it turned out, but it actually turned out quite good.
After Art I had to go start studying Thai language with my AFS coordinator. We started out by going over basic everyday sentences such as "how are you?" She then taught me some basic nouns and such. I've pretty much forgotten it all already. I think she said soon she will teach me the Thai alphabet :S I will deffinately need good luck with that. She also told me that AFS contacted her about the bed situation, and she said she will do her best to see if it can be solved... which is good news.
The rest of the morning I spent in the computer room checking my emails and chatting on MSN. I know I should be spending it studying Thai, but honestly, I feel exhausted after just trying to learn it for an hour... Cherry came and got me to go for lunch in the cafeteria with her and her friends. She still thinks I'm hopeless at finding my way around. Her friends are really nice though. We had Thai Desserts after our main course (noodles with shrimp). The Desserts were pretty much a mix between a slurpee and a bubble tea. Arroy Ka (delicious). You choose two different bubble thingys that the put in the bottom of a bowl, then they cover them with crushed ice, and top it with whatever flavoring you want (kind of like a snowcone). They were very good, and I thought Bessy might like to know that I've finally had some sort of bubble tea :)
Oh and by the way, lunch works like this: Every student in the school gets a "lunch card" type thing, kind of like a student card. Each day when you go for lunch, you give your card and 15 baht to the lunch lady whose food you are buying. (15 baht is like $00.50!! for a full sized meal) Since the meals are served on real plates with real cutlery, you must return your plate, spoon, and fork when you are done eating, and you get a new lunch card. It's a fairly good system I'd say. I esepcially like how cheap the meals are. You can also buy a water bottle for 10 baht, and when you return the empty bottle, you get 5 baht back.
After lunch I spent alot of time just sitting around in the English room until I had to go to my Thai Dance class. I tried teaching myself some Thai, but my brain kind of gave up on that, so I just read my Exchange Student Survival Kit book and visited with Pylynn. She invited me to go to her house for supper some night this week. Her dad is British, so she said he would cook some British food for us. Although I must admit, Thai food is starting to grow on me.... Well it's good as long as I don't really think about what I'm eating. I really like the desserts though. So for my favorites are sticky rice filled with coconut wrapped up in a banana leaf. And sticky rice cooked into a bamboo shoot with coconut milk. Mmmm sticky rice.
In my Thai dance class my teacher just taught me more of the routine which we began last week. It's freaking hard, let's just put it that way, but my teacher was impressed with how quickly I learn, and she said that if I practice real hard, in February I will be able to perform Thai dance in front of the school. I told her I would love that. I also told her that next week I will bring my laptop to school to show her videos of me dancing in Canada (Animal I've Become).
After Dance, Pylynn offered to drive me home so we could hang out for a bit and she could ask my parents about me going over for dinner sometime this week. I showed her my yearbook, and some videos and pictures from Canada that are on my computer. I showed her the video of Animal I've Become and she said "you're not fat at all there!" I was like "excuse me? I'm fat now?" haha I think maybe she just didn't realize it was an insulting thing to say in English. But I must say, if I am getting fat now, it is only because these Thai people are constantly feeding me. Although I think I'm maybe actually losing weight, because my skirt feels looser every time I put it on. Or I could just be imagining it. But I will eat all the food I want while I am here, because who can come to Thailand and not eat all the amazing food, and then worry about my weight when I go back to Canada. Pylynn also told me that most Thai houses aren't like mine, and she also found it weird that I haven't seen all of their house. But she told me that this is the old Thai way of life. She also told me that Cock Fighting is in fact illegal in Thailand, but around this area nobody really cares. It still seems a little strange to me though that AFS would put me somewhere that illegal activities are happening on a weekly basis.
After Pylynn left, I went with P'Kla, P'Keng, P'Klang, and P'Beam (Thai's say P' in front of those who are like older siblings are friends names) to a "nemo farm". It was were they raise clown fish. P'Kla was interested in breeding his clown fish, so he went there to find out about the process, but he decided it was too complicated. Beam and I visited though, and I found out we have some things in common, such as she also had a motocycle accident where she crashed into another bike and broke her leg. Now I am at my host families home, waiting for Cherry to get home so we can have dinner. My host families house is starting to feel more like a house though, because they have finally got some furniture in the room under my bedroom, and a big flatscreen TV is coming for in there in a couple of weeks. Already the whole family is starting to gather in there to spend time together, which deffinately makes it easier for me to get to know them better.
A couple other things about school that are very different from Canada. They still cane children here for being bad. And when they are done, the student must wai and thank the teacher for teaching them this lesson. Also, girls in younger grades must cut their hair short. They all have the same bob cut. It makes it about 10 times harder for me to remember who anyone is, when they all dress the same and have the same hair and have similar names. Oh, and they also all just go by their nicknames. They have crazy ass Thai names that make no sense to me, and then they have English nicknames which they go by. For example, I've met people called Oat and Cartoon. My Thai nickname (which Natalie gave me) is Cream, because of my creamy white skin. They also all drink EVERYTHING with a straw. It kind of drives me crazy to see all these people drinking out of water bottles with straws. I know I'm not really one to talk because I drink tea out of a straw, but drinking water out of a water bottle with a straw... and then they all look at me funny when I just chug back the water... so strange.
Oh and I forgot to mention, when I was in Chaiyaphum, Natalie's family took me to a really old temple. More like they went to the old temple to pray and I just went along. There were all these crazy paintings of different things that will happen if you are a good Buddhist or a bad Buddhist. Like for example, if you cut down a tree, when you die you will be legless. Some of the paintings looked like this:
Totally creepy, right?
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