Puppies

So this morning when I woke up to get ready for school, my stomach wasn't really agreeing with me, so I asked my host family if I could stay home today, because to be honest I was not really wanting to go through the same scenario I went through last week with the squat toilet. I took some pepto bismol, and went back to bed for a bit, well until my host mom came and asked me to go eat breakfast. Since they figured I just had a stomach ache, and I wasn't really up for explaining to them what the real problem was, they all insisted I take some Chinese Medicine to help with my stomach ache. I took some anyways, even though my stomach wasn't really hurting me, and I figured either it would do nothing, or make my stomach hurt. But nothing really happened, and I was fine for the rest of the day. So I guess I really could have gone to school and everything would have been fine. But it was kind of nice to spend some time alone and catch up a bit on my sleep, even if it was a little hard to sleep because of the roosters and construction. I spent most of the morning reading, and I finished Alias Grace (it was good, but deffinately not the ending I was expecting...), sleeping, and listening to my iPod. I'm not sure which book I'm going to read yet, I think I might try out the Pillars of the Earth. I'm starting to think my book supply won't last me the whole time I'm here, but at least I've seen alot of English books in bookstores so I can go and buy some new books. Poor Juan only brought 3 Spanish books with him, and apparently hasn't been able to find anymore here, so he's reading one of them for the 3rd time this month... Overall, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I finished watching the Phantom of the Opera, and the black dog apparently started having her puppies. I haven't seen them yet though, because I'm not sure where she is having them, and I don't really want to go look, because she kind of scares me. Apparently she (as well as the boy dogs) are American Pitbulls, which I didn't know before. I know now because my host dad told me he can sell each puppy for about 3000 baht ($100).

I think part of the key to lasting through an exchange, is to have lots of things to look forward to, and instead of counting down the whole time I'm here, I should be looking at it in smaller increments and count down until the next exciting thing I have happening. For example, this month my host cousin Debbie from Hong Kong is apparently coming to Thailand with some friends and they will be travelling around being tourists I guess. But apparently I can go with them if I want. Debbie is 21 and speaks very good English, I know because I talked to her a bit the other day on MSN. So right now I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to maybe going to Pattaya with Pailin this month before her school starts back up again. Other things I'm looking forward to throughout the next 9 months include:

-The Culture Orientation Camp with AFS which should be within the next 2 months
-Going Rafting with Beam in September or October (I forget which one...)
-Having a month off of school in October
-The third AFS camp in January/February
-P'Keng's baby coming in January
-Graduating for a second time at the end of February/early March
-My parents and Alyson coming to visit in March!!!!!! (super excited about this one)
-Going scuba diving in the South of Thailand with Beam in March/April
-Water War Festival thing in April (apparently Thailand is famous for it, every single person I talk to tells me about how fun it is... think of the entire country having a water fight for 3 days straight)