วันจันทร์ที่ 29 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Camping Cancelled and Such

Nothing particularily exciting to report. I studied Thai Dance yesterday at school, along with some girls from either Grade 8 or 9 (I'm not sure). We started out class by doing some stretches, but not really the kind of stretches you normally do in dance class. We had to sit all mermaid style on the floor and using one hand we had to bend the fingers back as far as we could on the other hand and hold it for 20 second. Then we had to just stretch our hands back as far as we could on their own for 20 seconds in about 4 different arm positions.. Next we had to stand up and kind of balance on one leg while the other leg was all bent out behind us in a Thai dance style pose and hold it for another 20 seconds. It was hard work. They taught me the beginning part of a routine, and at the end we all had to be tested on it. We split into two groups, and I was in the first group. Since I didn't really have the whole thing memorized yet, I kind of looked over at the other girls to make sure I was on the right foot and stuff. Our group all passed! But none of the girls in the second group did... however, the bell rang before they could be re-tested.


During the last two classes in the afternoon, one of the bands from my school (not Win's band (the band I played with that one day)) put on a bit of a concert at the school. It was fun to watch, I thought they all played really well (it was more soft (Thai) kind of rock) and they were all quite good preformers. Patch had to leave school early, so afterschool I went to the market with Dearh (one of my friends from my class) and her friends from another class. It was fun, since I've never really hung out with those girls after school before. I've seen them around at school and said hi to them. I bought myself a pair of flats for 100 baht (3 dollars) at the market! And then I went home by song-taew with Dearh, who doesn't live on the same street as me, but still goes home the same way.

Now, my host family had been planning on going camping for New Years this year. And although my Thai friends invited me to go out with them for New Years, I told them I couldn't because I was going camping. Well.... camping plans have now been cancelled because my host gramma is sick in the hospital. So, as of now I don't really know what I'll be doing for New Years Eve. I've talked to Elisabeth, and I might go with her and her host sister/Thai friends to Central World (Downtown Bangkok) for the big countdown. However, since I don't really know any of her Thai friends, I'm not sure how much fun it would be. I kind of think I might have more fun if I go with my Thai friends, but since there is no school for the rest of the week, I'm not really sure how I can talk to them about it and see if it's okay for me to go with them still... so I'll probably just end up going with Elli (if her host mom says it's okay for me to spend the night there....)

So, I've been doing some reflecting on my whole exchange business here. And I must admit, I'm glad I decided to stick it out for the whole year rather than going home in December... Because, well basically, I feel like although I did have fun in the first 5 months here... it was more touristy type fun, but now I finally feel like I'm actually developing a LIFE here. I now am enjoying school, have Thai friends, and actually am beginning to feel at home with my new host family. I think there are some exchange students (like Rachel) who were lucky and felt like this alot earlier on in their exchange.. but for me it's taken almost 6 months just to reach this point, which kind of makes me sad, because now I only have about 4 and a half months to actually enjoy this life... and then, well, it's over. Actually, I really only have 2 months left of school, and then after that who knows how much I'll actually be seeing my Thai friends (they'll be busy getting ready for and beginning University).

วันเสาร์ที่ 27 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Quest for Jeans

Yesterday morning, I somehow managed to make it all the way to the Nongchok Market all by myself (Patch was so proud of me!!. I had to walk to the end of my street, flag down a passing van... and then tell the van driver "jo seven duay kha," which means "stop at 7-11 please") to meet up with Patch, La, and Praew (girls from my class) to go to The Mall. Praew didn't stick around for long, because she had to meet up with her sister, but she did give me a cute little crystal (well, what looks like crystal) heart as a New Years Gift. Speaking of New Years, on Christmas Day I was talking to my host mom about how they don't really celebrate Christmas here in Thailand, but we do in Canada... I told her that we have 2 weeks off of school for Christmas and New Years, and she asked me when do we have New Years in Canada. I told her it's the same as in Thailand (only 14 hours behind...) and she was confused, because she thought we celebrated Christmas and New Years on the same day... I think the reason she was under that impression was because of the whole saying, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"

Anyways, back to The Mall yesterday (sorry for that random tangent)... After Praew left, we searched around for the cheapest photo shop to get pictures printed for our Friendship Books. I don't really have all that many pictures with my classmates that I've taken, so I didn't get very many printed up... So, next week (or the week after because next week we only have school on Monday and Tuesday.. we get the rest off for New Years) my mission is going to be to take as many pictures with my classmates as possible. We ate an extremely large amount of KFC, and then met up with Soy and went shopping around the market, which is next to The Mall.. I bought myself a long sleeved shirt (150 baht = 5 dollars), a hoodie (350 baht = 12 dollars), a bra (60 baht = 2 dollars), and then Patch and I went on a mission to find me jeans. And believe me, it was quite the mission. The problem began with the fact that most Thai people just wear skinny jeans (because well, they are all so skinny that skinny jeans look good on then all).. but I wanted to have jeans with a bit of a flare at the bottom... so, most shops didn't even have the kind I was looking for to begin with, and even if they did, they didn't really have any in my size. But, I eventually found some "Levi's" (although I don't think they're actually real Levis) for 350 baht (about 12 dollars)! I know it doesn't sound that exciting and all.. but I was quite excited about it all because it was the first pair of jeans I've bought in Thailand! So, now that I'm starting to outgrow all of the jeans I brought with me from Canada, I finally have a nice, comfortable fitting pair to wear! Also, when we were walking around the crowded market, Soy held my hand to make sure I didn't get lost in the crowd. It was so cute. And it was fun getting all the stares from Thai people (I mean, they stare at foreingers all the time to begin with... but a foreign girl holding hands with a Thai boy (well, he's not really a boy, he prefers to be called a "beautiful girl") and the staring never ends.)

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 25 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Merry Christmas (and a funeral.)

Christmas Eve turned out to be rather anti-climatic. I knitted 3 more rows onto my afghan and then went to sleep at about 9. Yay me! My one host aunt did give me a Christmas gift which was a cute beaded little bracelet. And my host mom told me that apparently the stuffed monkey she bought for me when we went to see the sunflowers was my Christmas gift from her. I also opened my Christmas Eve Present from Bessy.. a beautiful 2008 Christmas Decoration that had words on the packaging which totally helped cheer me up about missing out on Christmas in Canada this year. (of course all of this present-ness happened before I went to sleep at 9..)

I woke up this morning bright and early to go to school (that is deffinately a new first for me... going to school on Christmas day). During our morning assembly we were informed that one of the teachers from our school has passed away last night from some form of cancer. Apparently she had been diagnosed about 2 years ago, but was determined to keep teaching at school as long as she could.. and she did, up until a few weeks ago. There would be a funeral held after school at the temple across the street from our school, and all students and teachers were invited to attend.... (another first for me.. going to a funeral on Christmas day). On the brighter side, I was able to talk to my family from Canada a bit after the whole assembly thing :) I think I will phone them again tomorrow so I can explain to them what all of their Christmas gifts from me are... The rest of the morning was spent just bumming around the whole Christmas activities thing they had set up at the front of the school. They had some entertain.. some people did some dance routines, sang Jingle Bells in Chinese, etc. However, that band didn't play at all during the day. I'm not really sure why... but overall the day was still alright. I got to hang out with one of my crazy Ladyboy friends (he befriended me during my first week of school here... and now he always stops by and talks to me at lunch time) named Im. He/she, Patch, and I played a game where you pay 10 baht and then choose a random star that is hanging from a tree... based on the number that it on the back of the star you choose, you get certain prizes. I ended up winning a pen and then 2 ice creams for myself. Im won a keychain, which he gave me to. Patch won a clock. It was good fun, but by the end I really didn't want to eat anymore ice cream. Ajarn Wilaiwan (my AFS coordinator) gave me a Christmas present that was all wrapped up nicely in a box. But, in Thai culture, it is rude to open a gift in front of the person who gives it to you. People generally wait until they are all alone at home to open presents... so I waited until I got home to open mine. I'm not really sure how Thai people would handle the whole opening all the gifts under the tree thing at Christmas...

In the afternoon my classmates had a math test, so I just bummed around whilst they did that. Last class was English (during which they had a quiz which was done in groups of 6.. I helped out my friends group and they got 43/45!! (I didn't check EVERY question for them.. and pretty much all the ones I checked they already had correct)), and I got a phone call from Bessy :)

After English, we headed over to the temple for the funeral. Inside the temple, they had the body all layed out, but covered mostly in cloth, so that all that was visible was her face and her hand, which was hanging over the side of the table, above a water basin type thing, and had a bracelet made of jasmine wrapped around it. By her feet, there was a little alter set up where people would light a stick of incense, hold it in their hands in a prayer like fashion, and then place the stick into a pot full of sand. Patch went into the temple with me (holding my hand, because I wasn't really sooooo keen on seeing the body), but since she is Muslim, she couldn't actually do the whole incense lighting ceremony, so instead, my friend Win (drummer from that band at my school) showed me how. We sat around the temple for a bit longer, and then I went with Cherry to do another ritual type thing that involves pouring a little thing of water filled with flower petals over the teacher's hand (so that the water falls into the water basin thing), and then doing the whole insence lighting thing over again. I'm not really sure what the significance of the whole ceremony is. Nobody really explain it to me, and I also didn't ask.... However, before I even got to do the whole water thing, one teacher was all confused because she thought I was Christian and she said I shouldn't be doing it.. Cherry explained to her that I mai me religion. (have no religion).
When I got home I opened my gift from Ajarn Wilaiwan, which was a cute stuffed bear. I also opened the rest of my gifts from Bessy, which were all super nice :) Thank You Bessy! (when I started to unwrap the soap, I thought to myself "something smells like Nelson..." haha) I'm not sure what I'll be doing for the rest of the evening, besides eating a bit of cake which I bought myself at Tops today as a little Christmas gift for myself...

Merry Christmas Everyone!

วันพุธที่ 24 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Christmas Eve



Today is Christmas Eve (Day?) and still no parcel from home. Mai Bpenrai (no worries). Because after all, it really doesn't feel like Christmas at all (no snow, no Christmas lights, no stockings etc). And luckily I had a good day with my friends at school today to help from getting too depressed about missing out on the whole holiday thing. I decided that since I didn't really have any pictures of me with my classmates, I needed to start bringing my camera to school and taking some. So, I had my camera with me today, and Patch pretty much told me that if I just took it out all of my classmates would come running to take pictures (that is one thing Thais LOVE to do.... (take pictures)). So....... it started out as just taking pictures with a few girls (plus Somdech) whilst we were on our way to the hong nam (toilet).... and when everyone else saw that I had my camera out, they pretty much came running. It was one of the funniest things I've seen. It went something like this:

วันอังคารที่ 23 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Earthlings

So, a few interestingish things have happened in the last couple of days. Firstly, I found my bow. In my closet. Exactly where I left it. So no need to panic, my host sister isn't a cleptomaniac (sp?). Went shopping at Fashion Island yesterday with my host family, where I acquired a Friendship Book of my own, which all my Thai friends are super excited about filling out. I told them just to write in Thai or English, whichever they prefer. And if they don't want to write either they can just draw a cartoon or something. Interpretive dance. Whatever. It's the thought that counts. Husna gave me a picture of me and her (with other people in it too, but in the picture me and her are front and center together) and wrote on the back "In Thailand... From Husna". Praew also sent me a text message yesterday that was super cute.. it went like this: "WOW!! Better things waiting for u. I wish u r loved, u r lucky, u r healthy, u r wealthy, u r safe very happy... Merry X'Mas praew" It was very sweet of her. Today when I got home from school I had some mail waiting for me that included a postcard from Bessy (that she sent right around the time she sent me my Christmas parcel (which got here weeks ago) and before she went to Hawaii (and I've already gotten all the postcards she sent me from Hawaii), a New Years card/gift from Bessy (and Nanny!), and a Happy Holidays type card from my family for my host family. What I can conclude from all of this is that mailing things sucks. Despite being super happy when I do get mail.. I don't understand why, for example, the post cards from Hawaii got here so much sooner than the one from Canada :S Maybe it's just Canada Post that sucks. Anyways, still hoping that my Christmas Parcel from my family will get here in time for Christmas.. but it's starting to look like it wont. It took 10 days just to get from Creston to Vancouver... As Alyson wisely said though, it doesn't matter when it gets here, it's the thought that counts. And she is right. I just hope that it does get here eventually, and isn't lost or something.

Today after school Patch and I went out with Cherry and her friends to eat Boat Noodles to celebrate Cherry getting into University! Cherry paid for all of our Noodles, and when we were done stuffing ourselves with them, Patch bought us Rotee (which Cherry refused to eat because it will apparently make her fat... I don't see the harm in eating one lil Rotee during a celebration.. it's only if you eat them everyday (like, ahmen, me) thats when one will become fat... but that girl is obsessed with being thin) in order to celebrate her universityness. Patch and Cherry are both going to the same University, which is fairly close to Nongchok (about 1/2 hour drive.. it's the same Uni that P'Beam goes to.. and Patch will be in the same faculty as P'Beam (English), while Cherry will be in Science). I know the reason why Patch decided on this Uni is because it is so close, so she will be able to live at home and will be able to save on housing costs and what not. I'm assuming that Cherry will be living at home too. I dunno, part of me just feels sorry for that girl because she is SOOOO afraid of living. She would never go on exchange because it is too dangerous, she would never even go to the south of Thailand because of the tsunami a few years back, she won't eat anything that would ever cause her to be fat, and now she's going to the closest possible university to home. Part of me just wants to give her a drink and feed her some cake and take her on a rollar coaster or something. Be spontaneous.

I spent a good portion of Sunday trying to download a documentary on Google Video called "Earthlings". It is all about animal rights, and is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. Unfortunately, my internet decided to crap out halfway through downloading the movie, so I never got to finish watching it. The bit I did watch though focused on animals as pets, animals as food, and animals for clothes. I believe it goes on to explain about animals for sports, and animals used for testing products. However, let me just say that what I did watch has been enough for me to decide that when I get back to Canada I am becomming vegetarian. I've already cut pork out of my diet.. so how hard could the rest be? Although I must admit I had really been looking forward to that first Alberta steak when I arrived home. I won't go into details about what was shown in this video, because I think that it is something everyone (esepcially people who eat meat (as Joaquin Phoenix says in the video, "If the walls of slaughter houses were glass, we would all be vegetarians")) should watch. I don't want to sound like one of these preaching vegan/PETA types either. One point I did find interesting in this movie though, was about how in North America, we have dog catchers who go around and catch all of the stray dogs living in the streets, take them to pounds, where most of them are put down.. In Thailand however, they have no such thing. Stray dogs are just left to wander the streets, beg for food, and most likely starve to death. The question which is now in my mind is, which is better? A life full of starvation, heat exhaustion, and injury, OR no life at all? Buddhism believes that life is always better. I'm not sure what I believe. One day when I was walking home from school, a cat crossed my path who seemed to have aquired a rather painful injury to its head. It appeared at though it's brain was exposed. I thought about how if that cat were in Canada, it would certainly be put to sleep, but because it is in Thailand... it is left to suffer (?) and die naturally. Which would the cat prefer?

Enough for now.

Oh, I almost forgot. You really have to love stereotypes, eh? (hahaha I am the only one who is totally amused by that sentence?) Here are a couple of ones I've come across recently. Whilst talking to my host cousin Ron about what Thai food I will miss when I go back to Canada, he made a comment about how healthy Thai food must be compared to the food I'm used to, because all Americans (despite the fact that I'm Canadian :S) just eat hamburgers all the time. Secondly, while talking to one of my host dad's friends about why I chose to come to Thailand, he asked me what countries some of my friends chose to go to. I told him that last year one of my friends went on exchange to France, and his answer was, "well that's not different from Canada." I was like, "uhhhhhh well for one thing France is in Europe." And he said, "yes but French are still farang (Thai word for foreigner)" This is deffinately one thing that drives me crazy about Thai people. All white people to them are "farang." And for some reason Thai's seem to be under the impression that all "farang" are English speaking (usually from America). Everytime I walk down my street on the way home from school, all the Thai people come out of their houses and yell "farang! hello! you! you! my name is?" OhmygoodnessI'maforeignerandIcanwalk!Lookatmego! There are times when I just really really really wish I didn't speak English. I wish I was French Canadian or something, just so I could pretend I didn't understand them (not all foreigners speak English) and keep on walking. I would like to point out that when I went to the Airport with my class while they did their English project of interviewing foreigners, not a single person who we interviewed spoke English as their first language!!

And, to conclude this post of ranting, I have forgot my English. It is official. While writing in Husna's friendship book yesterday I forgot how to spell "address" (or is it adress??). I also wasn't able to tell Patch the proper way to spell "anklet" off the top of my head (is it really "anklet"? because that doesn't look right to me.. Jan I need your help!!) And on the very unfortunate side, although my English is declining, my Thai isn't really getting any better.

วันเสาร์ที่ 20 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Making Kratongs

I guess yesterday when my host family was out shopping, my host mom came across a shop that sold the bits to make Kratongs (remember from November.. Loy Kratong Festival?), and despite the fact that she is Muslim and dosesn't partake in the whole Loy Kratong celebration, she bought supplies so her and I could make some Kratongs together. Although the traditional ones are made from banana trees, the ones we assembled together are just made out of styrofoam (bad for the environment, good for taking back to Canada with me). So last night after dinner her and I sat in my room and glued the pieces of Kratongs together. Unfortunately she forgot to buy some of the pieces (like plastic flowers), so they aren't quite finished yet.. however when they are finished, I will post a picture on here of them.

Also interesting: I have no somehow (without really trying) managed to get my entire host family hoooked on Rotee. Pretty much everyday now we all eat it for dessert. Oooan maak. Arroy maak. Mai Bpenrai. Apparently before I moved in with them they hardly ate it :S Now not only am I going to get fat during my year in Thailand, my host family will all get fat too. Mwahaha.

Goodbye Rachel

So, going to the Airport to see Rachel off today was a total farce. She told me that she would be leaving her hotel at about 2 and getting to the airport around 3. I met up with my Coordinator and my Advisor at the school around 2ish, and I believe we left for the airport around 2 30.. it takes about half an hour to get there from Nongchok, so we figured we would get there around the same time as Rachel. At about 2 45, while we were in the taxi on the way to the airport, Rachel called me, and she had apparently ALREADY gone through security (not by choice.. she wanted to wait around until I got there (I was literally only a 10 minute drive from the airport by that time..) but the AFS people who were dropping her off had to leave, but they needed to make sure she got through security ok first...) Sooooo, I'm feeling a little bummed out. But, on the bright side of things, at least this means my last memory of Rachel will always be the all-nighter we pulled at her school in Ubon (which was pretty much one of the funnest nights of my life).. rather than having it be a teary goodbye at the airport. However, I didn't get to give her the hamburger keychain.. which means her french fry phone will forever be hamburgerless (which pretty much sucks.)

In memory of all the good times I spent with Rachel... Here is a photo (from that all-nighter we pulled at her school:

And here is the crane I made out of a 20 baht bill (the one on the very left is mine):

Here is me today (see Bessy, Thailand looks beautiful when it snows too):

And here is me looking like a hill-tribe member the other day at school:
And that my friends, is all for now.

วันศุกร์ที่ 19 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Anecdotes

This Is Why I Prefer Dogs To Cats:
The other night, I woke up at about 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom. As usual, my host families cat (I don't know it's name) was sitting around in it's usual spot at the top of the stairs. It followed me down the stairs, all purring and what not, and then proceded to follow me into the bathroom. Now, at first I tried just opening the door for it so that hopefully it would go out of the bathroom, but then I realized it didn't really want to leave. So, then I tried picking it up and putting it out the door, but the damn cat just started clinging to the door with it's claws... Since I really needed to pee, I just gave up on trying to get rid of the cat, and proceded to go pee. But as I was on the toilet, the damn cat attempted to bite my leg (but it didn't actually pierce the skin, don't worry). When that was all over and done, it tried to follow me back into my bedroom, but luckily I was able to get in without the cat. I should have just left the thing in the bathroom.


Now, as you all may know, my host gramma lives with my host family. Even Elisabeth will back me up on this one.. she's deffinately not the nicest looking lady. She just kind of glares at me (well at everyone) as she just wanders around the house all the time. She also knows that I can't speak very good Thai, and when anyone else is around she tends to just kind of ignore me (although when I'm not around she apparently calls me "khon suuay" (beautiful girl))... BUT last weekend (and again this morning!) while the rest of my host family is either at work or at my little sisters swimming lessons, she has started talking to me in quite rapidly fast Thai. I can understand a little bit of what she says.. some like "song khon (two people.. me and her, I'm assuming) bye (go) sooa (which can either mean a shirt, a tiger, a mat, or to buy) Islam." What I interpreted from this was that she wanted me to go with her to either buy a Muslim person, or buy Muslim clothes. I said to her okay, went to go and get my purse, and then I go back downstairs and she's just in her room watching tv. Tres confusing. Ngong maaak. (try saying the word "ngong"... it's the hardest thing in the world for me, same with nguang, nguay, or just anything that starts with "ng" at the beginning... But on the bright side, Thai's have a hard time saying "sp" or "ts".. so for example when they say "speak" it comes out "sah-peak".. and when they try to say "peanuts" it comes out "penis".)

Ampowah Photos

Sooo Patch just sent me pictures from the trip to Ampowah (planing Mangrove trees in the Mangrove forest by the sea... in case you've forgotten..) they can be found here: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/569124683RIWTOq

Tomorrow Rachel will be flying back to Australia.. The plan is for me to go with my Coordinator to the airport in the afternoon tomorrow (maybe around 2ish) so I can say a final goodbye to her. I bought her a silly little gift going away gift after school at Tops today, which hopefully she will like. It's just a little hamburger keychain that says "love you" on it.. to remind her of all the good food (i.e. hamburgers) she is going to get to eat now... and it will match the french fry phone that she bought in Bangkok. Other than that I have absolutely no plans for the weekend. But I'm sure it will be no problem to find something to keep myself occupied.

There are also some new videos at: http://community.webshots.com/album/565019446hXFBpQ?start=0 (but not all of my videos as it takes forever to load them... enjoy... and you guys do know you can always post me comments on here.. sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. It would be nice to have a bit of feedback once in a while... for starters, tell me how you like the videos?)

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 18 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Banding

Yesterday after school I stayed around with a girl from my class named Hussna, and her boyfriend, who plays guitar is this band at my school... which means I FINALLY (after 5 months!!) got to watch this band jam/practice. They even let me play with them for a bit, until we realized that I really don't know any of the songs they play.. and lets face it, I'm not soo good with the whole freestyling thing (something I deffinately need to work on when I get back). But it was still really fun. It was pretty much the same atmosphere as I spent countless hours in at House of Rock in Creston.. so I felt totally at home. Possibly the most at home I've felt in a looooong time. When they were all finished practicing, Hussna's boyfriend drove me and Hussna home (me first), which was nice because it was starting to get dark out, which is when it starts to get dangerous for me to walk down my street alone by myself. He also offered to burn me a CD sometime of all of the music he likes, which I thought was quite nice to him. Other nice things people have done for me lately include:

A girl in my class made me (along with pretty much all the other girls in my class) a huuuuuge bow to put in my hair for school. While I'm pretty sure she sold them to all of the other girls to make a profit, she gave me mine for free. Unfortunately, after I had only worn it two days, I managed to lose it... When I came home from school on Monday I took up hair down and put the bow in my closet (where I always put my bows).. when I went to make my hair on Tuesday morning, it was gone. Which means either someone moved it, or maybe it's hidden within all of my crap. But I don't think it's hidden because I searched through all of my crap, but everyone knows that I am the worst at finding things (can't-find-itis)...

One of my good friend from my class, a BEAUTIFUL Muslim girl named Praew gave me a Christmas card yesterday. In it she wrote something along the lines of "I am happy to see you. I hope you are happy too. I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope you are happy when you go back to Canada. I will miss you." It was sooooooooo sweet. Almost made me get all teary eyed when I saw it... mainly because it sucks being away from my family for Christmas, and then there is this girl in my class who obviously has realized that and tried to cheer me up a bit by giving me a card. It really did cheer me up a bit. Didn't make me teary eyed out of sadness... just out of happyness I guess realizing what good friends I have here in Thailand.. and of course the fact that her English wasn't gramatically correct at all (what I wrote above is what the meaning I interpreted from when she actually wrote), but she went to the effort of writing it all out in English for me.

Overall I guess there is one stereotype about Thailand that is deffinately true.. Thai people are really very kind.

วันพุธที่ 17 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Postcards

Nothing too exciting has happened in the last couple of days. Just thought I'd write a quick update to let you all know I'm still alive! Yay! I'm also apparently getting into the bad crowd of kids at school, according to all of my Thai friends... because I've been invited to go to a concert sometime with this same boy from school who is always asking me about playing bass. They all tell me he is "mai dee", a bad boy, and that I shouldn't be around him. All I know is that I would looooovvvvve to go to a concert sometime in Thailand. And don't worry, this whole going to a concert thing wouldn't be considered a date. This, I guess, is just one thing that sucks about being foreign in a new school: I have no idea who the "good" group of kids are, and who the "bad" group are... I really just become friends with whoever smiles and says hi to me. And as much as I'd just like to go by my instinct about who I would like to be friends with, it's esepcially hard to do in a Thai school when people are pretty much just friends with the kids in their particular class. (wow going back and reading that last sentence, it totally doesn't make any sense, but my English is failing me and I have no idea how to make it make sense...) I would love to be friends with and hang out with all the musician type kids at my school, but I don't want to risk losing the friendships I've developed with the "good" kids in my class.

One other thing of interest: I got postcards in the mail from Bessy and Auntie Heather yesterday! They were both beautiful, and totally made my day. Hint to all of you guys out there: I really enjoy getting mail. As easy as emailing can be, it's just not the same as getting actual physical mail.

Also, lately all of the Thai kids have been bringing "friendship" books to school. It's pretty much the same idea as us getting our friends to sign the empty pages in our yearbooks at school... except they happen to have whole books just full of blank pages for everyone to fill out with writing and pictures. I don't have one of my own yet, but I'm hoping to get one soon to have all my Thai friends fill out... I've spent alot of time lately filling out my classmates "friendship" books (and alot of the books I'm filling out I don't even know the name of the person who they belong to... my bad) which is nice because it gives me something to do during the day (since I STILL don't have my own schedule...... everytime I see my Coordinator I ask her about it, and everytime she gives me some lame excuse for why it isn't finished yet....). I pretty much have a standard message which I write in each one.. it goes:

I have enjoyed being in your class this year at school. You have been a kind friend to me in Thailand. I hope we get to spend more time together before I go back to Canada. I will miss you when I go back to Canada, but hopefully I will see you again one day.

วันจันทร์ที่ 15 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Camping/Sunflower Photosssssss

http://community.webshots.com/album/569224102gJSTrq
http://community.webshots.com/album/569227470mkfnbg

Sunflower Fields Forever

On Saturday (I was feeling 100% better sickness-wise by then.. but a bit depressed about upcoming Christmas, I must admit...) Elisabeth came over in the afternoon. Since there's really not too much to do around Nongchok, we walked to Carrefour, loaded up on foreign type snacks, went back to my house, and had a mini-foreign movie marathon to celebrate it being our HALFWAY DAY! and all... it was good fun. We even managed to find a couple of Christmas-themed donuts that we ate happily.

Sunday morning we woke up early to go to Lopburi (a bit farther north of Bangkok than Ayutthaya.... and famous for it's herds of monkeys, although we managed to see exactly zero monkeys while there :S) to see Sunflowers. And when I say we saw Sunflowers, I really truly mean it. I've never seen fields of sunflowers like this before. I really really really wished the Beatles had written a song called "Sunflower Fields Forever" so I could have listened to it while standing in this gigantic field of Sunflowers. I'm sure we have such fields in Canada, but unlike the Thai's, I don't think we'd make these fields into a popular tourist attraction. Why Thai's love their sunflowers so much, I'm not quite sure. They're not really even big fans of eating the seeds. Which reminds me, since I'm now over halfway through this thing, I better break into my huge bag of spitz that I brought with me soon... They had all kinds of shops set up selling all kinds of random things that just happened to have sunflowers glued to them. Elli and I bought ourselves Santa hats with sunflowers! Only in Thailand I tell yeah. My host parents bought us little stuffed monkeys to add to our whole outfits.
Then we went to go have our picnic lunch at a place which at first appeared to only be a park. Upon closer inspection though, we realized that this park was located right next to a huuuge body of water. This is where things got confusing. This body of water was huuuuge, had waves, and was all blustery, which made it appear to be ocean-like. Yet, we did travel north of Bangkok, and the ocean happens to be South of Bangkok. Just when Elli and I thought we would never ceased to be amazed with the things you can find in Thailand (an Ocean in the middle of Lopburi? I was detemined to go taste the water to see if it was salty or not), my host mom ruined our fun by informing us that it was actually a dam. We spent a few hours hanging out around this dam. There were all sorts of people there (well all sorts of Thai people, we were the only foreigners), and all sorts of shops and activities to do. We spent some time being pulled around behind a tractor all the way across the dam wall (trust me, it was sure blustery out there on that ocean), and painting little ceramic sculpture with my host sister. Even though I tried to keep to the shade as much as possible, I (being the silly-skinned person I am) somehow managed to get a sunburn. In the middle of December. Yay me! (Honestly, who gets a sunburn in December?)
On our way back home we stopped at a little rivery, and shady (so I quite enjoyed it) place, where we rolled up our pants and waded into the water a bit. As beautiful as it was, there was still quite a bit of garbage floating around in the water. Seeing things like this really makes me feel sad. Thailand has such beautiful scenery, but also has a habit of leaving garbage all around, which makes all thes beautiful places kind of stinky and not quite so enjoyable.
Today I went to school again, which wasn't too eventful, but I enjoyed it anyways, since I haven't really actually gone to school too much lately.

วันศุกร์ที่ 12 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

HALFWAY

So, since I'm staying in Thailand for 46 weeks in total, and I have now been here for 23 weeks... I am now offically HALFWAY THERE! Yay me!

Sickness

This morning I woke up at 5, because the plan was for me to go to school at 6 and go along with Patch and other students to some university where our school was competing against another school in sport. I’m not really sure exactly what sports they were going to be competing in, but the impression I got was that the whole thing was more of another Sports Day type thing (where the focus was more on Cheerleading etc. than on actual sport playing) only between 2 different schools. All day yesterday students at my school were preparing for the whole event. I helped with painting this huuuuuuuuge ass banner thing a bit after school. All the cheerleaders from our different teams from Sports Days combined to give each other ideas for the whole event. But…. I didn’t go, due to being too sick. I told my host mom I was "mai sabai" (sick) and then went back to bed.. until 2 p.m., when my host mom came in and told me I needed to eat something. So I ate some rice (hurray) with some soup, and now I'm here back in my room. My symptoms include diarrhea, headache, sore throat, nauseau (although I haven't actually thrown up), and a bit of a fever. My host mom is convinced I need to go to the doctor (because Thai people go to the doctor for EVERYTHING!), but I think I really just need some rest... I'm already feeling alot better than I did a couple of hours ago, so if I continue feeling better and better, there's really no need to go to the doctor.... Hopefully I'll feel all better for Sunday though, because my host family has plans to take Elisabeth and I to Lopburi to see fields of sunflowers (or something?)

Edit: Just went to the Doctor, who spoke incredibly good English, and gave me all different kinds of medications/anti-biotics/electrolyte tablets to take.

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 11 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Camping

So since my internet has yet again failed me, this post, unfortunately, is going to be picture-less. Which sucks for you because I have some really nice pictures to share... Camping went pretty much how I expected it would. Although we did end up going camping at Khao Yai National Park (which I wasn't expecting), which is actually one of the places on my Must Visit List in Thailand list. I was planning visiting there with my family when they come in March. My host mom told me we would leave at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon (but since she's Thai that really meant about 4 or 5), and we ended up leaving at about 5 or 6 (I'm not sure). Due to a prolonged wait at a random 7-11 for my host cousin Ron, we didn't end up actually getting to the park until 9 45. Unfortunately the park gates close at 9, so we had to sit outside the gates looking cold and homeless unless one of the park rangers took pity on us and let us in. I quite enjoyed the drive through the park. It was all twitsty and turvy and mountainy, kind of like the lake road. It made me feel at home, after 5 months of the Alberta-esque roads in Bangkok (completely flat and straight). Oh, and Bangkokians drive alot like Alberta drivers too, just to let you all know.

By the time we actually got to the campground and had our tents all pitched (we being my host parents, host siblings, cousin Ron, and a bunch of Random other 30 year olds... kind of weird, Ron's (pregnant) wife wasn't around, but there was another nice lady there who was, ummmm, keeping Ron good company(?)) it was probably about midnight, and believe it or not, it was actually on the verge of cold! Although I can't really say it was cold compared to Canadian standards... but I could actually see my breath while breathing! All the Thai's were wearing their gloves and big winter jackets and toques and things and sitting there shivering.. but I was all nice and relaxed in my jeans and hoodie :) It was the coldest I've felt in quite a while, and I must admit I quite enjoyed it. I was fairly bored though, since everyone else was just sitting around, eating, and smoking "herbs"(???) (apparently alot of Muslims do it... it confuses me too...), so at around 130 I went to bed, despite being completely awake.

I woke up at about 9 the next morning, and we all just sat around for a few hours, eating and what not. There was a gang of monkeys all around the campground which would try to steal innocent campers' food. It was quite amusing. And at one point a Kimodo Dragon (sp?) wandered by! It was exciting for me, since it's the first time I've ever actually seen one.. but I wasn't really too keen on getting close. I went with Sunyair and 3 of the 30-ish girls in our camping group on a "hike" to a nearby (3 km) waterfall. However, we only got about halfway there, when all these girls in their fancy shoes and clothes got tired and called it quits. The rest of the time was just spent sitting around some more, while the Thais socialized. On our way back home we stopped at a beauuuutiful waterfall (1 km walk), although it's not the one within Khao Yai National Park from the movie the Beach (so I deffinatley have to go back just to see that one...) It was tall and quite lovely. I was hoping to post picture of it on here... but unfortunately you will all just have to wait until my internet decides to work in order to see it. If you're really desperate maybe try googling NamTok Haew Narok....?

วันจันทร์ที่ 8 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Eid ul-Adha

Yesterday was the Muslim Holiday Eid ul-Adha, and since nobody in my host family could explain to me what it was all about, and the explaination that Patch gave me was apparently wrong... here is what Wikipedia has to say about the whole thing:

Eid ul-Adha (عيد الأضحى), or the Festival of Sacrifice, falls approximately 70 days after
Eid ul-Fitr (end of Ramadan) and is celebrated in honor of the prophet Abraham willingness to sacrifice his son as a proof of his loyalty to God. Celebrations usually include presenting an animal (usually a cow or a sheep) sacrifice, and the meat is shared with family, friends and those in need.
The festival also marks the end of the Pilgrimage or
Hajj to Mecca.
As with Eid ul-Fitr, there is an early morning prayer for the Eid, and celebrations lasts few days.


For me this meant skipping school (as I'm also doing today), going to the Mosque with my host family in the morning, and then visiting with different host families relatives throughout the rest of the day. I didn't get all dressed up in a hi-jab and Muslim clothes, I just wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt the whole day, which I was alot more comfortable wearing. Going to the Mosque wasn't actually that eventful as I just sat with my host mom and my lil brother and didn't take part in any of the praying at all. I did get a cute picture of me and my lil host brother all dressed up like Santa though:
The rest of the day we just spent at home, and many of my host families relatives gathered around to celebrate. The whole day was actually quite boring for me to be honest. They just sat around and ate noodles, spoke in Thai. I ended up spending alot of time on the computer in my host dad's office. For lunch I ate noodles and some meat balls which I'm sure weren't actually made from beef. They were probably dog or horse or monkey or some other kind of animal I really would not want to be eating.... The made me feel a bit nauseaus actually.

Apparently today I'm going camping with my host family and some of their relatives. I'm not really looking forward to it so much as I think it will just be alot like yesterday, only minus the computer for me to kill time with. Hopefully there will at least be some good scenery to take pictures of, and some good food to eat. I think I'll be happy when I finally get to go to school again on Thursday, because this long weekend has just been toooooo long for me.

วันอาทิตย์ที่ 7 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Photossssssss

New Photos Can Be Found Here:

http://community.webshots.com/album/569124683RIWTOq
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/569117553erGXYb



I bought the best book at The Mall the other day. It's called, "Very Thai" and it explains all about these Very Thai things one may find in Thailand. For example, I've learned from it why exactly people sell and carry around wooden penises everywhere in this country.... (it freaked me out a little bit the first time I was shopping outside a temple and saw one right next to a mini Buddha statue...) Apparently they are a kind of goodluck charm. They make little boys wear these charms around their waist while swimming in the river, because they believe it will distract water demons from damaging the boys actual penis, or something like that. I've also learned from it that Thai's dislike reading because it is something a person does alone, and is therefore un-"sanook" (fun). Thai people, on average, read only 8 lines per day. It was also an American who standardized the Thai writing system, and many attempts have been made by different leaders throughout Thai history to simplify the written language (for example, to add grammar or spaces between words) have been rejected.... Which certainly doesn't make things any easier for me :S

วันเสาร์ที่ 6 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

5 MONTHS!! and Other Things.

As of Friday (which was the King's Birthday), I have been in Thailand for 5 months! Go me! On Friday I went with Patch and 5 of her friends who have also previously gone to America with AFS to a Mangrove Forest Conservation Place in AmPohWah (not really sure on the spelling of that one?) It's not so far from Bangkok. The original plan was for us to spend Friday night there, but seeing as it was Fathers Day in Thailand and all, everyone seemed to think it would be better if we just went for the day, and could spend the evenings back at home with families. I'm not really sure how to describe a mangrove forest. Pretty much it's just a forest growing in mud that is right at the edge of the sea. During the day the tide comes in, and it appears like this forest is just growing right out of the ocean. At night the tide goes out, and all of the muddy/swampyness is visible. Since we were there during the day, we saw the more beautiful side of the whole mangrove forest thing. We drove around in a little wooden boat through the trees and out into the sea, where there were all of these little huts on stilts. Even though these huts weren't the greatest quality, they still looked sooo beautiful just being out in the middle of this blue sea (although I'm sure at night when the tide is out and these huts are just on stilts in the middle of a big mud puddle.. it wouldn't be quite as beautiful). We stopped at one for lunch. We had all different kinds of seafood, including squid and shells which we cooked over this little mini fire. It was really yummy, but didn't agree too well with my stomach.

When we finished our lunch, it was time to head into the mangrove forest to plant some baby mangrove trees. This involved being in mud up to our knees, digging a hole into the mud with a little stick, putting the baby mangrove tree into the hole, and then using our hands to fill in the rest of the hole with mud. Basically the whole thing just involved alot of mud. It was fun nonetheless. On our way out of the mangrove forest, we floated in our boat past a family of monkeys gathered on the muddy banks. Our boat driver gave us some bananas to feed to the monkeys (which he told us wouldn't bite, unlike the monkeys in the mountains...) There was one rather aggressive monkey who climed out onto a branch and practically into our boat in order to get the bananas from us. I felt bad for the sad little monkeys on the shore who weren't getting any bananas, and I wanted to give mine to them.. but I was worried this one aggressive monkey would jump into the boat and steal the bananas from me... so I just gave them to him before he bit me or something. There were more monkeys on the other bank, who didn't get any bananas, so they all started letting out these shrieking monkey noises.... I'm pretty sure we may have started a civil war between the monkey clans or something. It was quite the experience.

Before heading back to headquarters, we stopped a ways out in the sea, and took turns being pulled around on a wooden wakeboard which was tied behind one of the boats. I just sat on it and got pulled around a bit.. and all I could think about was how if I was in Canada right now, I would be doing the exact same thing only it would be behind a snowmobile and in the snow (rather than behind a boat in the sea.)

Yesterday I went to The Mall with Elisabeth so we could go see the movie Twilight. While I waited for her at the movie theatre, I played Guitar Hero at the arcade! My first time playing in 5 months.. and I must admit, my Guitar Hero skills aren't quite so good. At the arcade they have 2 different kinds of Guitar Hero.. one where you play on the "guitar" just like it regular Guitar Hero.. and one where instead of playing a guitar you just hit coloured buttons on the machine. All the Thais seem to prefer playing the one where you just hit these big coloured buttons, which I think is silly because the whole point of the game is to play on the "guitar".... I really enjoyed the movie Twilight, but I must admit it made me quite homesick for my small town with all the mountains and trees and natives and what not. Even Elli felt homesick for Germany when the movie was over. It was kind of depressing to think that we just had to head back to our host families where everything is so confusing and un-familiar.. It just gets exhausting being an exchange student sometimes times, despite all the fun we do have. It will be nice just to be back where everything is familiar and makes sense to me.

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 4 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Thai Father's Day

Tomorrow is the King's Birthday/Father's Day in Thailand. One difference I've noticed from this holiday and the Queen's Birthday/Mothers Day (which was back in August), was that Mothers day seemed to be more about Mothers... but Fathers Day seems to be more about the fact that it's the King's Birthday. Elli and I really wanted to go to the Grand Palace and be two of thousands of Thais who stand wearing yellow shirts (yellow is the King's colour) and waving these yellow flags and wait for the King to make a brief appearance on his balcony. But instead I'm going tree planting with P'Patch and some of her friends who went to America with her last year. It should be fun/interesting. This morning at school we had a ceremony which was similar to the one on Mothers Day (certain students' dads came with them and went up on stage to get special gifts...), except this time the whole thing took place outside. They had set up this nice big stage at one end of our soccer field, and all of us students were lined up neatly in rows covering the entire field. For 3 hours. In 30 degree weather. In the end they let me leave and go sit in the shade because I was overheating. I contributed to the whole ceremony by helping Cherry and her friends give food to the monks (they did the same thing on Mothers Day, but I didn't help them that time...) We waited along a line with all of the Buddhist students while the monks made their way along, collecting food in their alms bowls. Before we could give them the food, we each had to hold it in our hands and say a Buddhist prayer. Since I don't know any Buddhist prayers (or ANY prayers for that matter), I just held the food and Cherry took a picture of me looking like I was praying. When the monks reached us, we all gathered around eachother, and I put my hand on Cherry's back who had her hand on someone elses back who was touching someone elses back etc., so that we were all somehow connected to the person who actually gave the food to the monk. While we did this we had to have our shoes off. I'm not really sure why. The best Cherry could explain to me was we must have our shoes off because the monks don't wear shoes. I took pictures during ths whole thing, but I'm still having internet troubles here, so I won't be able to upload them just yet. After we gave the monks the food, we all squatted down around a little tree and did the whole touching eachother thing again, while one person poured water on a leaf, and a monk sayed a prayer over the microphone. Honestly, I have no idea what this whole act is supposed to signify...

My class has been spending the last few days presenting their math projects in all of our math classes. Today I noticed that one of the boys who was presenting had swastikas decorating his project. I'm sure he isn't a Nazi supporter, he just didn't realize what this symbol stands for. I must admit, I'm amazed that there are still people in this world who don't know what it means. I'm not saying that all Thai people are unaware of the whole Nazi thing, but it sure seems like there are alot of Swastikas around Thailand, and that people don't realize they are a bad thing. They just think they look cool. While this does suprise me, it really upsets the German exchange students, as I've witnessed before, esepcially around Elisabeth. We were at a bookstore at the mall which sells alot of English books last week, and she was looking at a biography about Schindler. She said how much she wishes there had been more people like him. I don't know how to explain it, but the amount of emotions she was experiencing in that moment really reached me. I was amazed by how much even her life seems to be affected by WW2. I had always heard about WW2 from a Canadian or American point of view, and never really viewed it from a German point of view before. Speaking of Canadians/Germans/Americans, just the fact that students from all over the world are able to become friends with students from all over the world (some from countries who were always enemies) proves that AFS has accomplished what they set out to do.

วันอังคารที่ 2 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551

Met Boat Trip

On Sunday I went with Elisabeth, who had won tickets from a local radio station (met 107), to a boat tour of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. She won the tickets by sending in a text message to the station answering a question about why she loves Thailand. Her answer was, "because of the cute guys who work in 7-11".. and I guess the DJs found this answer quite funny, so they gave her 2 tickets, and she invited me along. We had some difficulties actually finding the station in the morning, but when we finally made it we were all sorted into 5 teams, each team containing 2 farang, 1 Thai, and 1 DJ. It was nice to see so many other foreigners, and not just foreign tourists... all of these people are what they call "expats" meaning they actually live in Thailand. One of the ladies was fron Canada (Penticton to be exact), and I talked to her a bit. I was pretty psyched about that because I haven't seen another Canadian in person for just about 5 months now...

We spent the day boating down the river, and stopping at various piers to compete in a photo rally. At each stop we had a mission to complete, which involved finding certain things around the area and taking pictures of them.. I was hoping to include some of these pictures on this blog, but my computer has been having some difficulties. For some reason my wireless isn't working. My host cousin took my laptop to a store at Fashion Island yesterday, and they checked out my computer and said it was absolutely fine.. it worked with their wireless and all. But for some reason it won't work at my host families house. My suspision is that it is something wrong with my host families wireless.. but they seem convinced that it has something to do with my Windows Vista, and they think that if they change my computer to Windows XP, they will be able to fix it... so tomorrow they are planning to install Windows XP.. but I'm honestly not feeling too gun-ho about the whole thing... I wish I had someway to back up all of my pictures and things before they do this.. because yes, I am actually quite paranoid about losing all of my pictures.. esepcially certain ones from Thailand which got deleted off my of camera and I only have them on my computer... back to the photo rally.

One of our stops was at Wat Pho, where we all got free Thai Massages. It was amazing, esepcially since Wat Pho is THE place for Thai Massages... My back kept on cracking during my massage though, at times when I don't think it was supposed to. The lady giving me the massage kept on making noises like, "oh.. that's weird." but it felt good. I feel so much better now after having some good crack.

My team didn't do so good in the whole event. We came last, to be honest. We still won some free German beer and CDs though! The winners each got a 2 night stay in some fancy hotel in Bangkok.. Elli and I had alot of fun, and got to see some new parts of Bangkok which we haven't really had a chance to see before, including one road called "Khao San Road", which is the backpackers haven of Thailand. There were sooo many foreigners and interesting shops. Khao San Road is also apparently THE place to go at Songkran (water festival) in April. One of the DJs from the station, named Melissa (she does the show called "Sa-Wat-Dee Farang" every morning from 6-7) offered to take Elli and I shopping there sometime. And since she also lives fairly near Elli, she drove us back home to Elli's house when the whole thing was over. However, since it was already dark outside when we arrived back at Elli's I wasn't really comfortable taking a taxi home on my own, and my host family wasn't able to come pick me up. So I just slept the night at Elli's and come home by taxi on Monday morning (and skipped school).

Last night I was sitting in my room and my host dad (who was taking my lil host brother to the doctor.. he had a fever) called me, and tried to tell me something that confused me a great deal. I finally realized he was telling me to go outside and look at the moon. I did, and the sky smiled at me. It was so cool. The moon looked like a smile, while there were two planets/stars (someone told me one was saturn, and someone else said jupiter) that looked like eyes. Apparently this kind of alignment happens only once every 4 years. I'm not sure if it can be seen from Canada.. so you guys will have to let me know if anyone saw it?