Contests and Concerts

Today we were late for school. Well not really late, we got there at right at 8 o'clock, which is when we are supposed to already be standing in line to sing the national anthem and raise the flag. This happens everywhere in Thailand at 8 in the morning, and at 6 at night the flags are lowered. Not to mention the fact that every single TV channel and radio station also plays the national anthem at these times too. It's weird flipping trough channels and having every channel be exactly the same. Anyways, being late for school we had to stand with the rest of the students who were late. Cherry told me sometimes that the teachers will beat the students who are late, but I know that really they wouldn't do that to me, so I wasn't too worried. However, one of the teachers picked out Cherry and a few other students and told them to report to some other teacher, and I'm still really not to sure what ended up happening with them. I was told to go wait with my AFS coordinator, who then told me to wait for Patch by the office where I wouldn't be in the rain. For some reason it was raining even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. When Patch was done standing in line she met up with me and we walked to the hospital which is right next to the school to go meet with my coordinator. Since it is a government hospital, it was super crowded with sick people. I think I would be quite happy if I don't have to go to that hospital ever again while I'm here. But since I wasn't really sick, and only had to get the document from the doctor saying I'm healthy to go swimming, it was alright. Luckily my coordinator pulled some strings so that I was able to kind of budge ahead of a bunch of people in line. Once that was all done, I needed to go to the bank at Carrefour to deposit the rest of my America money. My coordinator took me on her motorbike, while Patch walked back to the school. We got to Carrefour at about 9:45, and then discovered the bank wasn't open unil 10:30. So, we waited until 10, when KFC opened, to eat an early lunch of chicken, and then went to the bank.
When I got back to the school I met up with Patch, and we spent a while looking around at the science fair, and watching the karaoke. Everyone was trying to get me to do some karaoke, but I didn't really want to, so I used the excuse that I couldn't sing the Thai songs because I wouldn't understand what was on the screen to follow.. so then they would tell me I could just sing an English song... I somehow managed to not sing though. At 2 o'clock we headed up to the auditorium thing (not really an auditorium, it's more like a gym with a stage at one end) to watch the dance competition. Last Friday during the dance competition, the judges chose the best 5 routines to compete in the actual competition, which was today. It was all based around these Thai superstars called "Golf Mike" (one is named "Golf" and the other is "Mike", so why they call themselves "Golf Mike" and not "Golf and Mike" I don't know) who have their own brand of green teas. I honestly don't really understand it all. The stage was decorated with posters of Golf and Mike advertising their beverages, and there were people there giving out free Golf Mike green tea, as well as sunflower seed snacks. The five couples performed, and let's just say I got my first taste of insane asian girls going crazy for superstars, even though the people performing were really their classmates, and not superstars at all. I can't imagine how they could be any louder, although I'm sure they would find a way if say Golf and Mike were actually there. The girls even went crazy over the roadies who were just there putting up the posters and what not. A heard of them would go up to these poor guys and just ask to take their picture. Anyways, my friend Bee and her partner ended up winning the competition. My understanding is that they will then continue on to compete against other schools for some big prize that has to do with Golf and Mike I'm guessing. After the whole dance competition, there was to be a Battle of the Bands. The bands that played were actually really good. Although one the drummers brought out of a double kick and set it up, but then never actually used it in any of their songs. I kept waiting for him to use it, but it never happened. I don't understand the point of having a double kick if you don't use it. Also, all of the bass players used the same 5 string bass, but didn't use the top string! However, one of the bass players actually played some slap bass, which I thought was cool, although I'm pretty sure nobody else in the entire audience realized what he was doing. A bunch of people were dancing around all crazy for all the bands. It was kind of crazy to see all of these girls with matching uniforms and matching bob haircuts all banging their heads. I even saw some girls give this painting they had done of one of the drummers (the guy who always asks me about playing bass) to him... At some point I think maybe all the dancing somehow turned into moshing, and a fight broke out. I didn't see it though, because a bunch of people were in the way. However, the teachers weren't too impressed, and they shut down the whole competition, even though not all of the bands had performed. Apparently they won't be allowing any more concerts at the school again. Kind of sucks that it got ruined for everyone...
After that whole fiasco, Patch and I walked to Tops, where I planned on phoning P'Kla to come and pick me up. However, when I phoned him he told me that he was in downtown Bangkok and wouldn't be able to pick me up. It was kind of frustrating, because usually when he can't pick me up, he tells me earlier in the day so that I can make other plans for getting home, usually by getting a ride from Pailin. I phoned her up to see if she would be able to take me home, which I really hated doing because I know she has her own life besides being my personal driver, and she was busy anyways and couldn't drive me. Patch eventually called my coordinator to see if she could try and find someone to give me a ride, and she was able to arrange for the vice principal at the school to take me.
The rest of my dad was filled with packing for the camp, eating dinner, and washing some clothes. Now I think I will be going to sleep, since I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow morning to head for the camp. Sooo.. this is it until Tuesday. Sa-Wat-Dee.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BESSY (and the search for carrots)

happy birthday bessy! (suk-san wan geut!) I'm sorry I couldn't be there to celebrate it with you, but I promise I will be there next year!

Today was absolutley useless as far as classes go. I went to my Thai Music class, but the teacher didn't show up. The only other class I had today was Thai Language with my AFS Coordinator, and she must be taking tips from Ajan Supanee or something, because she just brought me food to it and that was it for the class. I swear, between the two of them they are determined to make me fat before I leave here. Oh well, at least I will ward off some of the extra weight with badminton and hopefully swimming. Patch and I are planning on joining the school swim team (although we're not really sure if it will be for swimming competitions or just for exercise). In order to join I just need to bring in a letter from the doctor saying I am in good health, a 1 inch picture of me, a photocopy of my passport, and 10 baht. So tomorrow my AFS Coordinator will take me with her when she goes to visit the doctor (about her injury she had the other day when she fell) so I can get the whole doctor letter business out of the way. Apparently tomorrow there are no classes as the whole day will just be a science fair/dance competition (the real version of what happened last week)/concert (the boys who always ask me if I play guitar will be playing with their band). It should be fun I guess. After school Patch and I hung around and watched some people practice for the dance competition tomorrow. I also hung out with a girl named Bee for a little bit. She is fun, kind of reminds me of Sarah Bellamy, except she really doesn't speak much English, so she just kind of grabs me by the arm and takes me to go dance with her. It's all good fun. After a while Patch and I walked to Tops, where we had ice cream. I had a banana split. When we were done our ice cream, Patch announced she wanted a carrot, so we went searching the market for carrots. All the talk of carrots made me want some too, so I ended up buying 1 carrot. I think my host family thinks I'm insane for just bringing home a random carrot. I haven't eaten it yet, I think I will save it for tomorrow... One thing I deffinately like about being an exchange student is being able to do things that may seem a little crazy, but have it be okay because I'm foreign. haha

Just another day in the life of an exchange student

I spent the majority of the morning at school today checking my emails, getting my post cards from Bessy (thank you Bessy, getting my first mail here really made my day!), and talking to my AFS Coordinator about the COC Camp. She didn't really tell me too much I didn't already know, since last night after I posted Cherry was able to find all the information for me about it. However, I'm kind of dissapointed because not all the AFS students will be going to the same camp. They are having two different camps, one for students in Central and Southern Thailand (the one I'm going to), and one for students in the North and Northeast of Thailand. My friend Rachel from Australia lives in the Northeast, so I won't be seeing her at the camp... So it better work out that I can go stay with her for a week or else I won't be able to see her at all again. Actually, I don't really have any friends who will be at the camp, besides maybe Elisabeth, the girl from Germany who lives around here, but I really don't know her very well. My other good friend, Amanda, isn't even in Thailand anymore. Oh well, I will just make new friends. I really just didn't make friends with too many people at the Arrival Orientation Camp because I was sooo jet lagged and just slept during all of our free time. Hopefully things will be a little bit different this time around at camp.
As far as I was able to tell from the package AFS sent me, the camp isn't actually too far away from where I live, maybe about a 1 hour drive. On Saturday morning I have to be at the AFS office by 9 a.m. to meet up with all of the other camp go-ers. We will all go together to visit Ayutthaya (wow I don't think that is spelled right at all, sorry), which is the old capital of Thailand. Apparently it s a very beautiful old acient city. Then we will head to the resort, where we will spend until Tuesday doing different activities, and discussing Culture Shock etc. I will obviously explain in more detail the happenings of the camp once I've actually been to the camp...
I had my Thai Language class right before lunch, and Ajan Supanee told me she would take me out to Carrefour for lunch instead of having class. We went with two other teachers to the noodle restaurant in Carrefour. I ordered a noodle dish with BBQ Pork, which was alright, but kind of bland tasting. Ajan Supanee let me try a little bit of her noodles to see if I liked them. I really liked the flavour of hers, it was kind of sour with a tiny bit of spicy. When I was done eating she asked me which dish I would like to have again, and I assumed she meant when I came back another day, so I told her I would probably order the dish she had. Next thing I know, she ordered it for me right then... I ate as much of it as I could without exploding, but kind of felt bad because there was alot leftover.. Then we went upstairs to the grocery store part of Carrefour, and she was determined to buy me as many snacks as I would let her. I was so full that I really didn't want anything, but I eventually let her buy me some Sour Cream and Onion chips, some pistachios, and some Thai Dessert.
The only class I had in the afternoon was Badminton, and since Patch wasn't at school today, I spent the class playing with some boy. I don't know his name, and he didn't speak any English, but he was a good badminton partner.
I was just about to call P'Kla to pick me up when Cherry informed me that Patch had just come to school, even though school was over. She had brought a CD for her friends to practice their hip hop routine to. I spent the next little while just hanging out with Patch, and well as the student teachers, and watching people practice dance routines. They kept on wanting me to teach them Canadian Songs.. but I really couldn't think of any.
Later that evening I went to the market outside of Tops with my host brothers, their girlfriends, Debbie, Ivy, and Debbie's boyfriend. Debbie and Ivy wanted to do some shopping, since things here are so cheap. However, the market there isn't really for souvenir type shopping, it's mostly clothes and food, so they were kind of dissapointed, and we didn't stay long because they wanted to leave to do other things, I'm not really sure what.
And now I'm here... but I think I will go "aab nam" now.
(take a shower)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOOKIE

Today is Dookie's 3rd Birthday. Just so you all know.

Today I actually went to school. Yay me. However, since I'm done my Flower Making class, I had the whole morning free. I spent the first couple of periods just on the computer, checking my emails and emailing different people and what not. For the last period before lunch I went with Patch to one of her classes, where the teacher was just basically giving the students advice for college. I felt almost bad because just me being there was enough to distract the whole class from what the teacher was saying. A bunch of students came and sat by me and started asking me all kinds of things, and getting me to repeat a bunch of different things in Thai, and I still have no idea what they were making me say. I know at one point they were trying to teach me a Thai toungue twister, and then the wanted me to teach them an English one, so I tried to teach them "How much wood could a wood chuck chuck..." It was good fun.
I ate lunch with Patch and Cherry, and I actually really liked what I had for lunch, which is rare for at school. Things tend to either be too spicy or too bland for me, which is pretty much expected with cafeteria food. Today I had an omelette with some kind of vegetable dish which was super yummy.
After lunch I had a free period, and then Thai music. My teacher explain to me that she wasn't feel well so I was just to practice the one song I know by myself. That got pretty boring pretty fast. I was supposed to have Thai Cooking for the last two periods, but my teacher couldn't make it, so more free time! I'm thinking next semester I really need to have a fuller schedule. At first I thought having all this free time would be fun, but it's really gotten boring quite quickly. However, my last two free periods today weren't so bad, since one of Patch's friends, the one who is studying Japanese in University, came because she needed Patch's help with some of her English homework. Some of the English words Patch didn't even understand though, so I had to explain them to her and then she would explain to her friend. After school we were sitting outside at one of the tables just visiting. The student teacher's stopped by and visited for a bit. Next week is their last week at the school. I think I will miss having them around, esepcially Natalie. Natalie was supposed to have some dance class after school, which she invited us to go to with her, so we waited around for a bit, but then she ended up not having the class, I'm not really sure why. Apparently yesterday at school her and the rest of the student teachers dressed up in student uniforms and put on a kind of play in front of the school. I'm actually really sad I missed it.
One of Cherry's friends told me that I have a postcard from Canada, but one of the teachers has it, and I was to go get it from her. So I went with Cherry's friend to the teacher's office, but she apparently had some meeting to go to, so I have to wait until tomorrow for my post card. I'm pretty sure it's from Bessy though, so Bessy if you're reading this, the postcard did get sent through alright, I just haven't actually gotten it yet! I'm so glad I can use email here, because if I had to rely purely on mail, I would never get anything. For example, since the AFS camp is coming up this weekend, AFS mailed me a package with information about it. However, my host parents opened the package, and lost the letter before I got a chance to see it. Cherry told me she would look for the letter a couple of days ago for me, but then she "forgot", so I'm going to hound her tonight to find it. I wasn't too worried before, because I know AFS mailed a similar package to my AFS coordinator, but she apparently fell down this morning and got injured, so I'm not sure if she will be at school in the next couple of days.. So I'm probably not going to be able to get the information from her either. It's very frustrating, because I only have a few more days before the camp, and I need to know if there's anything special I need to do in order to prepare for it. It would also be nice to know where it is and all that other information too. One thing I'm deffinately learning from this experience is patience. I'm going to be the most patient person in the world if all this waiting around for mail nonsense keeps up...

Debbie and Ivy

Last night Cherry told me, "tomorrow you wont go to school." She always says things to me in that form, and I never know if she is asking me a question, or just telling me something. Anyways, she couldn't explain to me why, and just told me her dad would explain to me. Then he told me something along the lines of. "well tomorrow I must go to the south of Thailand and it is a very long journey, about 500 km, so you probably won't want to come. You just stay home and rest instead." I really didn't want to go with him anyways, since he was going on cock-fighting type business, but I didn't understand why that meant I wasn't going to school. But whatever, I've learned to just kind of go with whatever here, and not ask too many questions. I've also kind of gotten in the habit lately of not going to school on Mondays... Needless to say, I spent another lazy day in my room. I got to talk with a bunch of people from home, which really made my day. At about 2 pm I was starting to get hungry for lunch, so I went downstairs and found Klang sleeping on the floor in the living room, then I went into the kitchen and saw my host gramma along with Kai sleeping on the dining room chairs (they just had the chairs all lined up in a row and were laying across them. I didn't want to disturb them so I just went back to my room. Kai came and got me for lunch a little while later. I actually had an entire conversation in Thai with her! It honestly gave me one of the best feelings I've had in a while. The conversation went like this:

Kai: "Gin Som-tam." (Eat some papaya salad.)

Kristen: "Pet mai?" (Is it spicy?)

Kai: "Mai Pet." (Not spicy.)

So I tried the papaya salad.

Kai: "Pet mai?" (Is it spicy?)

Kristen: "Nit noy." (A little bit.)

At some point in the afternoon my host cousin Debbie arrived from Hong Kong with her friend Ivy. It was pretty much the biggest jumble of languages I've seen. Ivy speaks only English and Mandarin, so she didn't understand any of the Thai they were saying (I actually felt a little proud of myself for understanding more than she does!) Debbie speaks Mandarin, English, and the Chinese dialect (not Mandarin) which the rest of my host family speaks. Everyone else in my host family speaks Thai and the other Chinese Dialect. So, someone in my host family would say something in Thai, then someone else would translate it into the Chinese dialect, then Debbie would translate it into Mandarin for Ivy to understand, and then sometimes Ivy would translate into English for me. Tres confusing. Most of the time when they were speaking Thai, Ivy would just look at me with an extremely confused look on her face and I told her, "this is how it's been for me for the last (almost) two months." I feel like a pro at being confused now.

I spent the rest of the evening visiting with Kla and Beam in the living room. Beam has apparently been learning all about North American culture at her school, and she was asking me all sorts of questions, such as about the whole fact that our parents stop supporting us even before we get married. I also told her all about how it is normal for students to have a part time job outside of school, and that we actually have to work for 30 hours in order to graduate. She told me that kids in Thailand generally don't have after school jobs (which I've actually noticed), however she did when she was in high school just to earn some extra cash working at KFC. Pailin came over for a bit to help Klang with some of his homework, apparently the document was given to him in English, and he needed it tranlated into Thai, but Beam couldn't figure it out, hence Pailin coming over.

Overall it ended up being not too bad of a day. I got to spend some time bonding with my host siblings, which is always a good thing. While we were all hanging out in the living room, Keng was playing some computer game which was all in English of course, and whenever instructions would pop up I would have to read them, then explain them to Beam (since the intructions were given using lots of English slang words) in normal English, and then she would translate to Keng. He would always get so into the game and tell me "GOOOD!" after the whole translating scenerio when he would complete the task sucessfully. Yay me.

Another Lazy Day

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday, minus the whole Muslim wedding thing. I got to talk to my parents on the phone for a while, which was really nice. I read a lot today, and I think I'll probably finish The Pillars of the Earth tonight. I also spent a ridiculous amount of time on youtube.

Something I've been struggling alot with lately is this feeling of being so dependent on everyone around me. It's esepcially hard to deal with at this point in my life, when I've just graduated and should be gaining some independence. It honestly kind of sucks not being able to go out and do anything on my own. I know there is good reason for me not being allowed to do so, mainly because I don't know the language or my way around and am probably a likely target for being robbed etc. If I ever want to do anything, I need to find someone who wants to do it with me, and who will take me there, and it makes me feel almost like a burden to all the people around me. I know they are all busy with their own lives, and I don't want them to drop what they're doing just to accompany me somewhere. I think I need to pick up some kind of hobby for these days I spend alone in my room. (I could spend them alone in the living room, but that is right next to the cock fighting pit, and there is a big window which all the men stare at me through.) When Patch was in America she took up scrapbooking in here spare time, and came back to Thailand with a scrapbook of all her good times in America already made. Maybe I'll try doing something like that. It just sucks because I'm not even allowed to go out for a walk by myself, so I'm pretty much just stuck inside all day. Hopefully within the next couple of months things will start to change a bit, although I doubt it because even Cherry isn't really allowed to do anything on her own. I think it will be really interesting at the Cultural Orientation Camp next weekend to see what kinds of situations everyone else is in, and how they are coping and what not.

I think tomorrow my host cousin from Hong Kong will be coming here with a few of her friends to do some travelling around Thailand. I'm not sure if they are staying with my host family or not, but I think it will be nice to meet her anyways, since she apparently speaks really good English. Although I'm finding that people here who, "speak really good English" usually dont. Well not with me at least. I think the problem is that they're used to speaking in English to someone whose first language isn't English, and therefore they speak very slowly and simply. Then they talk to someone like me who apparently speaks really fast and uses English slang they're not used to. It gets complicated, but basically just leads me to be very skeptical of anyone who claims to speak good English.

For Lack of a Better Title...

Today I actually managed to sleep in until 9 o'clock! I had the best breakfast that I've had since I've been here. It was saffron rice (I think :S) but it tasted super yummy. It had chicken and cucumber with it, which you could dip into this sauce that tasted exactly like the salad dressing from The Other Side. After that I spent some time tidying up my room, and then kind of lazed the rest of the day away reading the Pillars of the Earth. At 6 tonight I went with my host dad to a Muslim Wedding celebration type thing. We only stayed long enough to eat dinner, and my host dad gave them 500 baht as a gift, which is the custom for Thai weddings. That's another cultural difference I've noticed. If a person were to go to someones wedding in Canada, eat the food, and then leave, it might be considered rude. People are expected to stick around and join in on the celebrations and what not. Here it's not considered rude at all. Also, when giving money as a gift, one should be thankful that the couple accept their money, rather than the couple being thankful that someone has given them money. Completely the opposite of how Western cultures think. I'm not sure where my host siblings have all dissapeared to. When we got back from the Muslim thing, nobody else seemed to be home. So I've spent the last little while watching random videos on YouTube, which I'm quite enjoying since I can't ever watch them in Canada due to slow internet. However, I can't help but feel a little guilty because I know I'm not supposed to be watching too many things in English, as it will hinder my Thai learning... My bad.

Dance Contest

This morning assembly lasted for almost an hour. Luckily, the ground was dry, so we could actually sit down instead of just squatting down. However, my legs still feel asleep so badly that I could barely stand, and when I tried walking, it felt just like it did after I broke my leg and had to learn to walk again. The reason it went on so long was because there was a show of Thai dancing going on. I couldn't really see anything honestly, because of all the people sitting in front of me. Cherry usually sits behind me, but beacuse she was detemined to see the Thai dancing, she just left me to go sit at the front. It turned out alright though, because I ended up talking a whole bunch with 3 girls who were sitting beside me. And when I stay talking a whole bunch, I mean they asked me pretty much the only questions they know in English and I tried to give them very simple answers which they could understand. One of the girls was really nice though, and explained to me which part of Thailand each different dance routine was from. I've actually started to notice that more people seem to talk to me when Cherry isn't around me. Sometimes I wish I didn't have a host sister in my class, just because it seems like I'm almost expected to be best friends with her, and it almost feels like I can't have any of my own friends who she isn't friends with. There are so many different people who say hi to me at school and seem like they want to get to know me, and I actually would like to get to know them too. I don't want to confine myself to only a small group of friends while I'm here. The other day at lunch, I was actually kind of excited because I had nobody to eat lunch with, so I planned to just go to the cafeteria and sit with these girls who always gesture for me to go eat lunch with them, but I'm already with Cherry and company. However, at the last minute, Patch phoned me up to meet for lunch. Today when I was waiting for Patch at the cafeteria, some random gay guy asked me to go have lunch with him and his friends, and I honestly think I would have gone if I wasn't waiting for Patch. But then one of Cherry's friends who usually eats lunch with us came up to me and asked if I wanted help getting food, so I said yes and went with her.

Today after school there was a break dancing competition going on. I went and watched it, and it was kind of fun, despite some of the horrible dancing. Quite a few of the routines were just people standing up on stage, flailing their arms around to the music, and really doing no break dancing at all. It was more of a tamed version of hip hop. I enjoyed it all the same though. As part of the rules, they all had to dance to the same song. And now, very unfortunately, that song is engraved in my mind. Garr. Two of Patch's friends ended up winning, and I'm glad they did, because they really were the best performers, despite the lack of any actual breakdancing. Apparently now they will go on to compete against the winners from different schools.

This is officially the first weekend since I've been here that I have absolutely no plans! I think it might be good, because it will give me a chance to sleep in for once, and maybe tidy up my room a little bit if I'm feeling ambitious. I also need to start working on my Thai. It's so frustrating, because it seems like whatever one of my Thai Language teachers tells me, the other one thinks it's wrong. Yesterday my AFS coordinator taught me how to write "my name is.." in Thai. Ajan Supanee saw how I wrote it all out, and she told me it was wrong. It's just confusing because I don't know which one is right. My host dad told me that there is a bike I can ride down the road by our house if I want for exercise, although apparently I'm not allowed to go alone. I don't think I can even go with just Cherry, I need one of my host brothers to go with me. Which kind of sucks, because it would be nice to just have some alone time while bike riding. Anyways, I'm hoping that maybe tomorrow I will get a chance to go, and be able to explore a bit. And hopefully I wont get too bored this weekend....

Goodbye Manda

There were a couple or one things I forgot to mention last night, since it was late and I was trying to write fast. Silly me. First thing: I thought this whole Thai obsession with white skin would be kind of exciting when I first came here, because I'm pretty much the whitest person I know (besides maybe Steven Leadbetter). But I'm finding that this obsession of theirs almost comes out looking like racism, even though it's like racism towards their own race, if that makes any sense. So many people ask me, jokingly I think, if they can have my skin. Or they will ask me what did I do to deserve such nice skin. Then they will go and say they hate their skin. Yesterday morning, some of my class mates asked me if I prefer white or black skin. I was like, "umm I'm not racist, all skin is good." Patch told me that a couple of years ago there was an international teacher at the school who was black. All the students didn't like that, and a couple of students actually threw a bunch of white powder on him. When he asked them why they did that, they told him because they needed him to be white or else they didn't want him as a teacher. I'm also noticing that Thai tend to be very blunt when they talk, or at least it comes out that way when they translate into English. Maybe they just don't realize they're being rude, I don't know. A couple of weeks ago though, Cherry asked me right to my face what I think of her. I told her I thought she was nice and I like being her host sister......

Today the only classes I had were Thai Music, and Thai Language with my AFS Coordinator. My Thai Music teacher wasn't in her classroom when I got there, so I waited about 20 minutes, and she didn't show up, so I just left. For my Thai Language class, my coordinator had me practice writing out certain sentences in Thai, such as "My name is..." and "I love you." I think my writing got worse the more I practiced, but I've finally memorized how to write out my Thai name. Only my first name though. My host families last name, which I have to use as my Thai name, is super long and difficult, even for Thai people. I asked my AFS coordinator if she knew when the next AFS camp is, to find out if it is the same weekend as the ballet, and it's not! I was super excited about that, and told Pailin, so now we can buy tickets. However, it turns out the camp is actually next weekend, which also happens to be the weekend I was planning on going rafting with Beam, so hopefully we will be able to re-book it. I'm pretty excited about getting to see my AFS friends. Today all of the Americans (I think about 40 of them) who were only here for the summer program left. I really wanted to go to the airport to say goodbye to Manda, but there was no way I could, so I just phoned her up and said goodbye. It was sad. I already know it's going to be really hard when I eventually have to leave Thailand, because at least when I left Canada I was only saying goodbye for 10 months, but when I leave Thailand I will be saying goodbye forever. So now I no longer have a native English speaker living nearby, who I can talk to and gossip about the weird Thai ways.

Since Patch wasn't at school, and I had no afternoon classes, and I wasn't really looking forward to spending the whole afternoon doing nothing, I went with Pailin to her school where she was learning a Thai dance routine to perform in front of her school next week, when her classes begin. I tried joining in on the dance routine, but it was way above my league. It's just all the crazy hand movements I find hard. Thai dancers actually have to practice stretching their hands back from an early age to be able to have correct hand position, and well let's just say mine aren't quite stretched enough yet. I thought Pailin did a very good job dancing though. I met a couple more teachers at her school. Whenever anyone finds out that I'm going to Mattayom Watnongchok School, they look at me like "OMG YOU POOR THING" with a somewhat disguisted look on their face. One teacher even told me I should just go to their school. I kind of laughed it off, but really was thinking, I came to Thailand to learn Thai culture, not go to a British School. They just all seem appauled that I actually study at a Thai school. Now I'm really starting to think that Pailin's idea about bringing students from my school to her school, and students from her school to my school for a day, so they can each see the different education systems, is a really good idea. I think these international students need to realize that the Thai students are teenagers just like themselves as well. Although their parents may not be able to afford sending them to a fancy school, doesn't mean they are bad kids.

I just found out yesterday, that while I was under the impression that this semester ended October 12th, it actually ends somewhere around September 12th, which means I only have a few more weeks left of school before my month long break! I'm kind of excited about that, because hopefully it will give me a chance to see a bit more of Thailand, instead of only being able to do so on weekends. However, once this semester is over, the student teachers will no longer be student teaching at my school. I'm kind of sad about that, because although I don't see the student teachers all that often, when I do they are always really nice to me, and they are really funny, and just fun to be around.

Apparently I have to go play badminton in about an hour. I'm not too excited about that. I played badminton yesterday, and I think it was enough for me for one week. I'm not sure what else I'll be doing tonight. Hopefully I will get to read some more of Pillars of the Earth. Due to Harry Potter watching, I haven't been able to read it in the last few days, and I'm really anxious to find out what happens!

Badminton

This morning was a fairly boring morning at school. I spent the first three classes just nerding it out on the computer, and trying to memorize some more Thai words. Right before lunch I had Thai Language with Ajan Supanee. She brought some new Thai desserts for me, which I must admit, were even a little too sweet for me. I ate them to be polite, but I kind of don't want to ever eat them again. I'm sure you all understand what it's like when you eat something that's just tooooooooo sweet. I ate lunch with Patch and Cherry. I had some fried noodles, which tasted really bland and I'll be happy if I never eat those again either. Patch and I hung out after lunch, since she didn't have any classes all afternoon. We spent the first little while just in the computer room. She worked on a project that is due soon, and I played solitaire. I should have had my Flower Making class, but it's no longer happening, so apparently next week my AFS Advisor is going to try and find a new class for me to take to fill in some extra time. I'm not really sure what I'll end up taking, since it's kind of pointless for me to take anything like science or math, because I wont understand anything that's being said. I think I might actually end up taking a band class (like normal high school band) and start playing flute again, mainly just for the lack of other interesting classes to take. However, since I finally have my sport uniform, I had to go study badminton with Cherry last period. She invited Patch to come with, and it ended up being alot of fun. We spent most of the hour playing Me and Patch versus Cherry and one of her friends. I wasn't keeping score, but it seemed like a fairly even match. Even though badminton is a super popular sport here, unlike in North America, surprisingly the students weren't super amazing badminton players, which I must admit, I was kind of expecting. After badminton, Patch, Cherry and I went to go check out the band from our school, i.e. the guys who keep coming up to me and asking if I play bass and what kind of music I play and such. They were practicing just across the street from the school, in just about the tiniest practice room I've ever seen in my entire life. Needless to say, they couldn't fit anyone more in the room, so we ended up just leaving. I hope sometime I'll be able to at least go and listen to them play through the wall, mostly to see if they're any good. We walked to Tops and had some ice cream, and then I called P'Kla to come pick me up. With him came Beam and my host mom, and the four of us went to Carrefour for some shopping. The only other semi-interesting thing that happened today was I watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with Beam and Kla. And now I'm going to bed. Goodnight all.

p.s. wow, sorry that was a really boring post.

Bromsgrove International School

I had my last flower making class today. I must admit, I'm a little sad. I really enjoyed that class. But since the teacher is retiring at the end of the semester, and I guess she's taught me all she really wanted to, no more flower making for me. Here was my final project:

I ate lunch with Patch and Cherry, and then we went to go have my fortune told by one of Cherry's friends in what I'm pretty sure what the physics classroom. Neither of them could really explain what exactly we were going to do, but I thought it would be fun anyways. They just got me to shuffle a regular deck of cards 18 times, and then they spread the cards all out on the table. They gave me three options to chose from: love, money, or study. I chose money, and then chose 3 random cards from the pile. The girl told me that I am still supported money wise by a white man (yay go Dad!). I then chose study, chose 3 more cards, and she told me that there is still something I am not sure about for my study. Which is true I guess, because I'm still not sure what is going to be happening when I get back to Canada, university wise. I chose three more cards, and the only option left was love. She told me I will always like boys older than me.

In the afternoon, I went to my Thai music class, and Patch went with me, since she had nothing else to do. She ended up just learning with me. It was actually really fun. The teacher had to leave at one point to go do something else, I'm not really sure what. So we just sat around and played some music, and then played with the cute little kittens that live in the Thai music room. (did I forget to mention that our school is home to many cats and dogs?)

Pailin found us in the music room, and the three of us went to Pailin's house, mainly so me and her could try and buy tickets for the Nutcracker. We discovered that Thai people generally aren't too interested in ballet, as there were still a ton of good seats left, and hardly any tickets at all had been sold. We didn't end up buying any, because we figured we would wait a couple more weeks to see when my AFS Cultural Orientation Camp is before we buy any, just in case it's at the same time as the ballet.

Pailin wanted to show us around her school, Bromsgrove International School. It was fairly small, but actually a really nice looking school, much nicer looking than Queen Margarets (the only other boarding school I've seen). However, I kind of got a weird vibe from the school. I met a few teachers (I think maybe one was the headmaster) who are all British. I understand that they want their Thai and other students to emphasize learning English, because as I've learned from being here, English really is the language to know. There is no escaping it. For example, whenever something pops up on a computer, it's in English, and my host brother's or sister need me to translate it for them. Lately my host brother's have all taken to playing some online game, it's kind of like Grand Theft Auto I think, but it's all in English, and they keep asking me what different words used in it are. Today they asked me about "sex appeal". Anyways, back to Bromsgrove School. I understand the push for students to learn English, but the vibe I got from the whole place was, kind of more to eliminate other cultures, which seems a little odd to me since they're situated in a very cultural-rich country. I know I can't really make an accurate judgement though, because I was only there for maybe an hour, but the whole thing just seemed a little off to me. Pailin is trying to organize a day where students from mine and Patch's school will go visit Bromsgrove, and students from Bromsgrove will visit our school. If I go along, then I'm sure I will be able to get a better feel of the school, and then see if I'm still getting a weird feeling.

We went and picked Cherry up from school, dropped Patch off at home, and then Pailin drove Cherry and I home. After dinner, I watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with Beam and Kla. Now I'm exhausted.... Therefore, goodnight.

Harry Potter

Today was pretty uneventful, seeing as I stayed home sick for the day, except I really didn't feel sick at all. It was really nice just to get a chance to relax though, because it seems during the week I get all tired from waking up for school at 630 every morning, and then I never get any rest on the weekends because I always have plans. And those plans also usually involve waking up early as well. So overall I haven't really had too much time to catch up on my rest since I've been here, except the first couple of days with the host family before I started school, but I was still too jet lagged then to really be able to take advantage of it. I spent my day chatting with a certain special someone on MSN, then watching Harry Potter with Beam (who stayed home sick from her classes today as well) and Kla, and reading entirely too much of Pillars of the Earth. When I say I read too much of it, I mean I'm starting to freak out because I'm now over halfway through the biggest book I brought with me to read. I'm really starting to doubt that all these books are going to last me the whole time I'm here. At least I've seen quite a few English books in bookstores around here, so hopefully I will be able to re-stock my pile of books sometime soon. I just can't seem to put Pillars of the Earth down (I'm really thankful you lent it to me Bessy!). So for any of you out there who are looking for a good read, I highly recommend The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Tomorrow I think I will make an effort to try and go to school. I just keep reminding myself I only have school until October 12th, and then I get a month long break, if it weren't for that I think I'd be going crazy(er) right now.

OFFICIAL COUNTDOWNS

If I go home December 10th:

If I go home May 21:

Sick Day

Today I spent being sick. I had pretty much all the symptoms that pepto bismol works for, plus a massive headache and a fever. It started at about 2 in the morning, so at 8 I phoned Ajan Supanee and told her I wouldn't be able to go shopping today. She sounded kind of dissapointed, and I was a little dissapointed too because I was excited about going, but at that point in the morning, any movement made my stomach hurt. I phoned my parents in Canada to get my Dads advice on what to do. He was mostly just worried about me getting dehydrated and maybe weak or fainting from not having any nourishment. So I drank an entire water bottle filled with electrolyte stuff which I brought from Canada. I think I maybe drank it a little fast because I was feeling rather thirsty. Let's just say that was a bad idea, and the whole water bottle came back out again. At some point in the afternoon, Kla and Korn came into my room telling me it was lunch time. I tried to explain to them that I was worried if I ate anything, I would just puke it back up. But I was also feeling a little hungry and shakey (an appetite is a good sign right?) so I went down and ate some rice and plain bread. They made me drink this Chinese medicine thing, and take some tylenol. Even though my Dad advised me not to take any medicine yet, I took the tylenol anyways because it's just too hard to explain to them that I didn't want any. However, I ended up not feeling quite as shitty for the rest of the afternoon, and was able to get quite a good nap. At supper time, my host dad was convinced that I needed to eat some soup, so he went out and bought me some. I really didn't want to eat too much of it though, because it had all kinds of meat in it, and I'm really starting to question the meat around here. So I just drank some of the broth and ate some of the noodles, although not many because they tasted kind of greasy. Tomorrow I'm not going to school, even if I feel a bit better, which I think I will because I'm already feeling alot better now than I did this morning. I actually really wanted to go to school tomorrow, since I've missed out on my Monday Thai Dance class for 3 weeks now. My host dad told me he thinks I have the flu, (although I think it's just food poisoning) and that if I'm not better tomorrow they're taking me to the hospital. He also said something about health insurance which I didn't quite understand, but I'm not too worried about it now since I think I'll be feeling better tomorrow. It was nice to be able to catch up on some rest today though. I'm not sure if part of what is making me sick is Culture Shock. Apparently for some exchange students, culture shock can become so extreme that they actually get physically sick. I don't think it's all from that, but I do think that this living in a completely different environment is both physically and emotionally draining, and probably weakens my immune system a little. Although apparently Beam is sick today too, so I'm pretty sure it's just something we ate yesterday, and somehow everyone in my host family is immune to it.

Nonthaburi

Last night we ended up just eating dinner in the kitchen on the fancy new table (which takes up the ENTIRE kitchen by the way). Beam cooked some pork steaks up esepcially for me though. It was probably one of the nicest things someones done for me since I've been here. She was all worried that they wouldn't taste good, but actually they were AMAZING. They made my day. We also had a bunch of barbequed shrimp, which I thought was cooked a questionable amount (i.e. it wasn't cooked very well), but they all seemed to like it.

Today I went with Kla, Beam, and Beam's mother to visit the rest of Beam's family in the province of Nonthaburi, which is right next to Bangkok. It took us about an hour to drive there. Beam told me that Nonthaburi is famous for fruit, and she wasn't joking. Her family there (which includes about a million aunts) owns an orchard/plantation thing, I'm not really sure exactly what to call it, where they grow all different sorts of fruit. We spent the morning driving around in the weirdest contraption I've seen in my life. I think they use it for rice farming. Thailand never ceases to amaze me with it's countless methods of transportation. For some reason blogger isn't letting me upload pictures onto my blog lately. So keep checking my photo page for updates instead if you're interested.

We drove around to different plantations, where they grew and sold many different fruits and flowers. We saw plantations for guava (although it wasn't the same kind of guava as in Hawaii), orchids (they're sooo cheap here, I can't believe it), lotus flowers, and forget-me-nots. Beam's mom and aunts bought some different flowers and an insane amount of fruit. They gave me an entire plastic grocery bag full of guava. Although I think the fruit tastes very good, I really don't think I can eat that much. We ate lunch at a riverside market, part of which actually floated on the water. We had duck with noodles, and I ate the entire meal with chopsticks! I think it was one of my greatest accomplishments yet. Now I won't have to face the embarassment of having to ask for a fork when at Chinese restaurants with my host family. Since they're Chinese, we seem to eat Chinese food alot (go figure), and I'm sure everyone in Canada knows that me and Chinese food don't really mix. But at least me and chopsticks now do. After our main course, we went and had some Thai desserts, which involved some kind of fruit and/or vegetable (I'm not really too sure) which is coated in flour, then fried into a little ball, mixed with coconut milk and ice. It was good, but I wish I would have chosen the green slimey one instead, because I like the flavour of that one better. At the market, I saw the saddest looking little puppy dog ever. It only looked a couple of months old, but I think it had some sort of disease which made all it's fur fall out, and it was soooooooooo skinny. It was just laying there sleeping, but I kept looking at it to make sure it's chest was still moving up and down. Poor thing. I just wanted to take it back home to Canada with me and nurse it back to health. I cannot stand the animal abuse here. I'm just going to be honest and say it. I know I'm not supposed to be critical of my host country, but it's just deffinately not the right country for someone who loves animals.

We spent the afternoon walking around Beam's plantation, while her mom and aunts picked fruit to eat and sell in Bangkok. They had all different kinds of fruit, including Starfuit, and GIANT oranges (that were actually colored green). When all that was done, we headed back to Bangkok to eat dinner with my host family. I took a shower, and now I'm here. My gecko friend appears to not be in my bathroom anymore, unless he was just hiding tonight. I'm kind of a little sad he's gone, because he deffinately made taking shower's more interesting.

Tomorrow I have to wake up at 8 (a fairly reasonable hour I think) to go shopping with Ajan Supanee. That's another weird cultural difference. People basically just refer to eachother by their first names, sometimes with a job title in front included. Ajan means teacher, so we just call all the teachers "Ajan (insert first name here)." For the first little while I was so confused, because most students just call everyone "Ajan." So Patch would tell me to go talk to "Ajan" for something, and I wouldn't have a clue who she was talking about. They also don't normally ask people "how are you?" in Thai, instead the ask "where do you go?" ("bye nye?"). So, whenever I say hello to someone, they will right away ask me where I'm going or where I went the day before, rather than how I am doing.

P'Kla's Birthday

This morning I was told I had to be ready at 7:00 to go "pay the forefathers." Instead of waking up at 6 like I was supposed to, I slept in a bit (until 6 30) and then rushed to get ready in half an hour, I was ready at 7, and whent downstairs to the kitchen. I ended up just sitting at the table while everyone else took all kinds of food offerings up onto the roof :S I didn't go up there with them though, because honestly I was having a bit of a bout of homesickness and didn't really feel like going. Cherry asked me if we do this in Canada as well, and I said no, so then she asked me what do we do when people die? And it was really hard for me because today it's been 6 months since my Nanny passed away, all I could think was, "don't ask me about death right now..." and I just told her that we do different things depending on what the certain person wanted, and I don't think she understood, but at least she stopped asking me about death.

Patch wasn't at school today because I think she has a cold, or just isn't feeling well for whatever reason. My AFS Coordinator wasn't there either, which made for a very boring day on my part. I spent the first period in the computer room, just checking my emails and what not, then went to my Thai Art class and continued working on the same drawing I've been working on for the last few weeks. After that I was supposed to have Thai Cooking, but the teacher told me "no cooking today" so I went back to the computer room. Then my Flower Making teacher called up to the computer room and told me to go make flowers instead of cooking. I went back down and just painted some more orchid petals, since all of the ones I painted last week went missing. At lunch time I went and ate with Cherry, which wasn't too eventful, except Nink told me I look fatter than I did when I first got here. Apparently in Thailand, they don't consider comments such as these to be rude, so I'm trying not to take it too personally, and I know there's nothing I can really do about it, since all exchange students tend to gain weight, and then just lose it when they go back home. After lunch I headed up to the English room for a change of scenery, and started reading a Bangkok newspaper which was in English. In the newspaper I found an advertisement for a Bangkok Dance Festival type thing (not sure exactly what it is called). It lasts from the middle of September to the middle of October, and has all different performances including The Nutcracker put on by a Russian Ballet Company, and a Comtemporary Dance performance all the way from New York. I then ran in to Pailin, and told her how much I would love to go see one of these performances, and asked if she would want to go with me. So, as long as we can get tickets (they cost between 600-2000 baht depending on the seats), and the dates don't interfere with anything (such as my AFS Cultural Orientation Camp, and nobody seems to be able to tell me exactly when it is, besides the fact that it's within the next couple of months) Pailin and I will go to one of the performances! I'm super excited!

In the afternoon I hung out in the computer room and read my Thai Culture Shock guide, and I was suprised at how many things listed in the book I had actually noticed on my own. Such as the fact that Thai's will only show a guest the "guest room" of their house, while in North America, people generally show a guest all the different rooms of their home. I guess this explains (maybe?) why my host family hasn't shown me all of their house. It also mentioned the different types of spirits Thai's traditionally believe in (although not so much anymore), and one of the scary ones is the spirit of a woman who dies while she is pregnant. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Cherry when she asked me if I am afraid to have children, and I told her no, and she said she was afraid of dieing while giving birth. I was like, "ugh, that hardly happens.?" So I think maybe the real reason she's afraid of it is because of the whole spirit belief. Who really knows though. After being here for about a month and a half, I am really starting to become aware of the "deep" cultural differences. These aren't the obvious ones, such as the different food and different language, but rather the rules we are brought up by, which may influence the way we think or react to certain situations. One thing I have noticed about Thais (I wont mention them all, because it would take up an entire novel, if you are curious, just read CultureShock Thailand) is the whole "saving face" and avoiding conflict idea. Thais will do anything to avoid an argument. As a foreigner, I find this behavior hard to adjust to, esepcially the fact that all emotions must be held inside. You must not let anyone know if you are mad, or sad. They must only see happiness. And (as I've learned actually), if you cry, you cry alone. This is very different for me coming from a culture where if you are angry, you let someone know.

My last class was Thai Language with Ajan Supanee. She had new Thai Desserts for me to try (as always), and today it was shredded sweet potato which was fried and all sugary, and made to look like a birds nest. It is tasty I must admit. This Sunday I will be going with her and her two nieces (if all goes as planned) to JJ Mall. I'm not really sure what the plans are for getting there yet, as she said she will phone me and let me know once she talks to my host family about it. As for tomorrow, I am going with Beam (and I think Kla too) to another province to see Beam's Gramma's house (and presumably meet some of her family too?). Unfortunately, since it is in another province, we have to leave at 7 45, which means probably waking up no later than 7. Which means I will still continue to be a zombie. Hopefully I can sleep in the car.

Today is apparently Kla's birthday, although nobody in my host family informed me of this earlier, so I have nothing to give him. However, I don't think gift giving is too important on birthdays around here. We are supposed to be having a fancy barbeque/seafood type dinner up on the roof tonight for his birthday, but it's just begun raining, so I don't think that will be happening.

Ajan Kristen

Today I went with Patch to her old elementary school, to help her give presentations about her exchange to America. I kind of felt a little bad though, because although I was mainly just there to help her out, all of the students ended up asking me more questions than her, except she had to translate between us. They asked some of the most random questions too. We had to present to 4 different groups throughout the day. The first group mostly just asked me questions about my favorite Thai food, my favorite Thai fruit, if I have a boyfriend (or girlfriend?) in Canada, and they even asked me to sing my national anthem. Well, they didn't just ask me, they kind of bullied me into singing it. At least I warned them to begin with that I'm a horrible singer, so I didn't even have to sing the whole thing :P However, the last couple of groups asked me more questions which were about Canada in general, which I think was more the aim of the whole thing. Patch then showed each group a slideshow entitled "One Year in the USA", as well as a video of her Easter Egg Hunting, and getting ready for Prom. I enjoyed watching them too, and it seemed like she had a really fun year, although she admitted to me it didn't always seem like she was having a ton of fun during the year, when it was time for her to come back to Thailand she thought back on everything she did, and missed it all alot. So I'm just hoping that's how I feel when it's time for me to go home. The teacher whose classes we were presenting too was really nice though. We went and ate lunch with her at another teacher's house nearby, and she even took all the chillis out of the food before she served it to us for me. When we were done all of our presentations, the teacher's (who I am to call "Aaw") husband came and picked Aaw, Patch, and I up from the school, and the four of us went to Carrefour to eat at KFC. They were both very nice people. Aaw gave me her cell phone number, and they both said I can phone them anytime I want if I'm having any troubles. By the way, they both speak very good English (she is the English teacher at the school, and I think her English is better than any of the English teachers at my schools English (my that was a weird sentence)), although the husband's accent sounded more French to me than Thai. When we ordered our food, Aaw told me not to worry, that she would pay for it all, because in Thailand the parents look out for the children and pay for everything for them until they are married, and she considers me and Patch to be her new daughters :) I didn't really know before that the parents here look after their children until they are married, but I guess it explains while all of my host brothers still live at home (even though Kla doesn't actually sleep here, he always comes here for meals and what not) even though they're all in their twenties. Patch pointed out though, what would happen if the kid never gets married? After we ate, we went and picked Cherry up from the school, and then they drove us home, so Patch actually finally knows where I live now. Unfortunately, Patch has to go to help teach at some sort of camp this weekend (which she had forgotten about until today), so I wont be going with her to the baby shower thing. Hopefully I will still be able to go with Ajan Supanee shopping then, although I'm not sure if it's still all a go, because since I wasn't at school today I didn't get to ask her about it. I spent the rest of the day just reading on the couch. My host Aunt, and her friend (although I'm pretty sure they're lesbians, but I don't want to ask) came over for dinner. I tried to explain to them that I already ate at KFC, and wasn't hungry, but since the new marble dining table arrived today, they were set on making me eat me with, so I just at "nit noy" (a little bit). After dinner when I was reading on the couch some more, my host dad came in and told me that when I go back to Canada he will be sad because I will feel like a part of his family. I honestly don't really feel too much like a part of their family yet, but who knows, maybe I will in a few months. I just thought it was nice of him to say that though, because I honestly don't really see him very much. Since tomorrow is apparently 6 months after Chinese New Year, we have to "pay the forefathers", which I don't really understand, but I think it maybe involves putting food on graves or something? All I know is I'll have to wake up at 6 to be ready at 7 to go pay some ancestors. So, I think I will be going to sleep now. Amazingly, Cherry is actually going to bed now too, at a normal hour. By the way, I spent about half an hour trying to take a shower, because of that stupid gecko which now lives in the bathroom, and he was crawling all over the walls, so everytime he would move, I would move to the opposite side of the bathroom, and if that wasn't where the shower was, I would just stand there and wait for the gecko to move. Oh how I miss Canada and it's non-lizardness, and hot showers, which are seperate from the rest of the bathroom. One more thing, this morning when I had to stand in line at school before going with Patch, a teacher was beating a student. That's one thing that really disturbs me, and I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Cherry was asking me if I've ever been punished by a teacher like that, and I tried to explain to her that no, that is illegal in Canada for teacher's to do that, but I don't think she understood me.

Zombie

I am officially a Zombie. After waking up at 5 a.m. on Tuedsay, and then 6 a.m. today, mixed in with the fact that I haven't really had a break from waking up for school since this time last year, and that it is impossible for me to sleep in here because of the roosters crowing, I have decided that I am now a zombie. Patch told me she feels exactly the same way, only she described it as being a body walking around without the soul, which is exactly what a zombie is, but I don't think she's ever heard the word before... Anyways, today was a pretty uneventful day, which is okay to have once in a while. This morning at school I had Thai Language with Ajan Supanee, and she invited me to go shopping to JJ Market this weekend with her and two of her nieces on Sunday. Patch also invited me to go to a Muslim version of a baby shower on Sunday. Apparently her cousin had a baby, and this Sunday they will give the baby it's first haircut, which is some sort of tradition. According to Patch, they have a similar tradition in Buddhism. I think I will go with Patch rather than shopping, just because it will be neat to see how they celebrate having a new baby, and this may be my only chance to take part in this tradition, whereas I can go shopping anytime of the year... On Saturday for sure though I am going with Beam to her Gramma's house. Not to be confused with visiting her Gramma, because apparently her Gramma has already passed away, and I made the unfortunate mistake of asking her how long we will visit her Gramma for. She was like, "Ummm we will go to her house but we won't see her." Hmmm. In the afternoon I continued working on my orchids in my flower making class. I glued some petals together, and painted some more. The ones I painted last week went missing somehow. I think maybe they got blown all around the room from the fan, and then the janitors maybe swept them up thinking they weren't important. Anyways, I have to use ones that someone else painted, which kind of sucks. However, I got to paint for myself the second kind of petal to use. I don't really know how else to explain it. After school I went to Pailin's house, because P'Kla couldn't pick me up from school. We just went out for dinner, because Pailin was hungry, although I wasn't really hungry, so I didn't eat much. P'Kla then picked me up at her house around 6 and I've just been hanging out with Beam and emailing home and what not since then. I think I will try to get to sleep early this night, since I've been feeling so exhausted lately, however it might be difficult since lately Cherry has taken to either playing her Thai pop music loudly while she chats on MSN, or just talking on her phone loudly while I try to sleep. I usually just listen to my iPod really loudly, until she gets off the phone or computer or whatever, and then I go to sleep. Except one night, when I was really tired and fell asleep at about 10, then woke up at midnight to go to the bathroom, and she was still talking on the phone. Tomorrow I will go with Patch to visit her elementary school, where she will talk to the students about her experiences in America, and to encourage them to continue studying English in school as it can lead to many amazing opportunities. I just found out the other day that Patch wasn't accepted to go abroad with AFS until her third time applying! And today Oat was telling me about how out of everyone who applies for a scholarship to go to America with AFS, only one student is chosen out of the entire Bangkok area, which means Patch was that lucky one last year. It just makes me realize how easy I had it getting here with AFS. Everyone I talk to seems suprised that all I had to do was apply and then have an interview.

Oh, and one more thing I noticed about Pattaya that I thought was kind of amusing, was the fact that there were about a million dental clinics there, and they all had names like "Dental Holiday" and advertised cheap cosmetic dentistry. I can't imagine going to Thailand on vacation just to have dental work done. Kinds of reminds me about the other day at the Market outside The Mall, and I say a white lady (obviously a tourist) getting a tattoo at a little tattoo shop in the market. Deffinately not the kind of place I would want to get a tattoo :S

Pattaya

This morning I woke up before the crack of dawn (5 a.m. to be exact) and got all ready to go to the beach, while Cherry slept. I was all ready by 6. During this hour of getting ready, I incountered both a gecko in my bathroom (and just prayed to Buddha that the gecko wouldn't jump on my head while I was showering), and the biggest frog I have seen in my entire life on my way to get my laundry! Meanwhile, Cherry slept. At 6 I went downstairs, all ready to go, and Cherry was still sleeping. She finally decided to wake up at about 6:15 and rushed to get ready and then we left. Cherry, P'Kla, P'Beam, P'Keng, P'Kai (P'Keng's girlfriend (the pregnant one)), and I went, all in one car, but luckily I got the passenger seat so I wasn't squished in the back.

We drove to Pattaya, the most popular tourist destination in Thailand, apparently. It honestly wasn't a very nice day out today. It was rainy, and the water was kind of mucky looking. We spent quite a bit of time driving around the city of Pattaya, trying to find a nice beach to go swimming at, and I had fun looking at all the different a-go-go clubs that were EVERYWHERE! Well not really fun, I just found it amusing that the signs ouside of the clubs were all in English, so nobody else really realized what they said or what they were advertising. And then I saw a few white men walking to and from these clubs, looking all suspicious. It was actually quite disturbingly amusing.

When we finally found a nice beach, we sat down under some umbrellas (which covered nearly the whole beach, of course, as Thais like to stay out of the sun), and ordered some lunch, which really isn't hard to do in Thailand, since food just seems to come to you. There were so many different people walking around selling all kinds of food which we bought, including someone selling some random kind of bird egg (hard boiled). I ate it, and it tasted just like a chicken egg, but I'm really not sure what kind of egg it was, and nobody knew the name of it in English. After we ate, everyone else went and got changed into their swimming attire (shorts and t-shirts), except me, since I was already wearing the ones I planned on swimming in. Beam, Kai, Cherry and I rented an inner tube and went out into the water floating on it. Everytime we tried to fit everyone onto the tube, we would end up flipping over and all falling off. At one point some random Thai men came over and apparently asked Beam for my phone number, she glared at them, and told them something in Thai, and then they left us alone. Later Beam, Cherry, Kla, Keng, and I went on a "banana boat" which was pulled behind a speed boat. It was kind of like tubing on the lake, only I didn't really like it as much because the salt water would spray into my eyes and sting, so I had to close my eyes really tight, but then I couldn't see anything, and it wasn't quite as much fun. We didn't really get to go for too long though, because I think we only payed to use it for about 15 minutes. The rest of the time at the beach we spent collecting shells, apparently to eat. At first I thought we were just collecting shells for the sake of finding pretty ones, until I realized everyone else was only collecting a certain kind. They kind of looked like oysters, but really small. We filled up about a whole water bottle full, and actually found a couple of crabs in our seach too, which we brought back with us as well.

When we were done swimming we went across the street to take a shower. We had to pay money to use the showers, which were only "bucket showers". Unfortunately my internet isn't letting me upload pictures now, so I can't show you what exactly a "bucket shower" is, but the general idea is that it's a big basin filled with water, which you use a bucket to throw over yourself.

We then drove to a nearby university to see the aquarium there. As I've mentioned before, my host brothers are obsessed with fish. My favorite thing to see there was the seahorses, I actually saw a couple of pregnant male ones. Other than that though, the aquarium wasn't too exciting. We made a quick stop at a market on the way home, and bought all kinds of weird snacks.

This morning when I was getting ready I put some sunscreen on my face, just to make sure I wouldn't get burned in case I forgot. The first thing Cherry said when she saw me this morning was, "Why didn't you wash your face?" because the sunscreen made my face look all greasy. I told her it was sunscreen, and then everyone was kind of laughing at the fact I put sunscreen on on a cloudy/rainy day. Needless to say, I didn't put anymore on when we got to the beach. However, just because my skin is difficult, I still somehow managed to get quite a bad sunburn on my arms. I deffinately proved them wrong, and now all I'm hearing is people asking me if my skin is okay. I'm like, "yes it's fine, I just have very sensitive skin which still burns even when its rainy and overcast." But I don't think any of them have had a sunburn before, so it's all new to them...

It was kind of funny when we were swimming though, because every once in a while a white tourist would come along in a bathing suit (a couple of guys were in speedos :S), and all the Thais would kind of look at them and laugh. Even though I was wearing my bikini under my clothes, it still felt kind of nice being a foreigner, yet kind of fitting in with the Thais better than most foreigners. I have a feeling I will grow to hate tourists, esepcially because of the fact that everyone who sees me will assume that I'm a tourist, even though I wont necessarily feel like one. Although, I do really think I throw people off when they see me wearing a Thai school uniform..

Mothers Day Ceremony

Since tomorrow is Thai Mothers Day (also the Queen's Birthday) there is no school, and therefore our school had a big Mothers Day ceremony this morning. There weren't really any classes today, so Cherry didn't go to school, which meant it was the first day I went to school on my own! It wasn't so bad though, I just met up with Patch and her mother outside of the school. For part of the ceremony, one student from each class was chosen as an "outstanding student" and was asked to bring their mother to the school today, to be awarded a special certificate. Patch was chosen as the "outstanding student" in her class, which is why her mother was there. I didn't really know what was going on, and neither did Patch, so I just went with them, and well, I ended up being in the ceremony with them haha. The teachers all seemed to think I would get a better idea of what the whole thing was about if if actually took part in the ceremony... Each child was given a bracelet made of jasmin flowers, "love flowers", and roses to give to their mother. Jasmine is a symbol of Mothers Day in Thailand, while "love flowers" are given to those you love. I'm not really sure why the roses were there to be honest, but the bracelets look like this:

At the beginning of the ceremony, there was alot of Thai music, and everyone there sang along to the special Mothers Day song, the Queen's song, and a few others. There was also a display of Thai dance. After all that, each mother would go up to the stage with her child, and the principal would give her a special certificate, and then the mother would go sit on the stage on a chair, while the child sat on the floor facing her. I went along with Patch and her mother, and since it was two of us sitting in front of one chair, it was quite squishy. The principal then made a big long speech, which I didn't understand of course, but Patch explained to me that it was talking about all the amazing things moms do for us, which we may not even realize or appreciate they do. His speech was thanking them for all these amazing things. When he was done his speech, everyone gave their mother (and I gave Patch's mother) the jasmine bracelet, and said "Thank you" to their mother. Alot of the moms were crying. Patch gave her mom a big hug, and it really made me miss my mom seeing it. Then Patch just told me, "Kristen, you can hug my mom too!" so we had a big group hug, and it cheered me up a bit just giving someone a big hug like that. One thing I've noticed from living here is how different the family dynamic (at least in my host family is). For example, I don't ever hear my host siblings telling my host mom they love her (actually Cherry told me that they don't tell eachother that), and they never hug eachother or anything. I think my family just may be an acception though, because from what I saw today, alot of the students are very close with their mothers. Anyways, was I was getting at was one of the things I miss the most about being home is having a mom around. Sure I have my host mom, but it's DEFFINATELY not the same.

When that ceremony was over, we went out to the front of the school, where a few trees had been planed recently in honor of Mothers Day. All the moms took turns taking pictures by the trees. I then went to see my AFS coordinator to see if Patch and I could go meet up with Manda at The Mall for the rest of the day. Before I was allowed to do that though, my coordinator wanted to teach me how to write something nice in Thai to write in the card which she had gotten me to give to my host mom for Mothers day. I'm honestly not too sure what it says, but I think it's something to the effect of "I wish you happiness and good health in the future." And it looks like this:

Patch and I went by van (one of the many forms of transportation here) to The Mall, where we met up with Manda and a few of her friends from school. We went out for lunch at a pizza place, which was alot trickier than I had anticipated since I didn't realize pepperoni is made out of pork, and Patch can't eat pork... The food was good though, amazing actually since I haven't eaten pizza at all since I've been here. After eating, we just wandered around the mall and the market outside for a bit, I didn't buy anything, and neither did Patch. Amanda did though, and I don't blame her since she only has 10 days left in Thailand!!!! Hopefully I will get to see her at least once before she leaves, I'm thinking maybe I will go see her off at the airport, since all of her Thai friends are apparently doing that too.

When I got back to my host families house, I ate dinner (even though I was still full from lunch) then played cards with Beam and Cherry a bit, and now I'm here. Tomorrow we are going to the beach! I'm not sure who all is going, but I know for sure Cherry, Beam, Kla, and I are. I'm also not sure how long it takes to get to the beach from here, but apparently we have to leave at 6 a.m. which means I'll have to wake up at 5, soo, it's time for me to go to bed now. haha goodnight.

p.s. Just heard my first Thai screamo song. It was actually fairly good, I may actually begin to have some faith in Thai music after all.

Wat Phra Kaew

Yesterday, P'Kla, P'Beam and I went to a grand total of three temples: Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. Since temples are considered to be sacred places, everyone has to dress appropriately, which means I had to wear jeans and a t-shirt and shoes all day, and it was incredibly hot. Although amazingly, I didn't get sun-burned at all, just a little bit of a farmers type tan on top, if you can believe it.

Anyways, the first temple of the day was Wat Phra Kaew, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha ("Wat" in Thai means "Temple"). In order to get there, we drove to The Mall, parked the car, and then took a boat down a canal. The boat was crowded, so I didn't really get any good pictures. Also I didn't really see anything, as they have the tarps all on the side of the boat to prevent too much water from splashing in. However, on the way back, that didn't prevent a whole bunch of nasty water from spraying me and Beam. When we got off the boat we took a tuk-tuk to the Temple. I'd never been in a tuk-tuk before, and I think it was probably one of my favorite things about the whole day haha. In case you're wondering, a tuk-tuk is like a three wheeled open-air taxi. I don't really know how else to explain it. So we spent a bunch of time looking around the Temple and the Grand Palace. The buildings were all BEAUTIFUL and sparkly (they're all covered in like tiny mirrors so they sparkle in the sun). One of my favorite things were the Giant statues guarding the temple, and I even bought myself a miniature giant head. Seeing the Emerald Buddha was guite amazing too. I'm not sure of the whole story behind it, and Beam couldn't really explain it to me, but I do know this much: the Emerald Buddha isn't very big (maybe only 2 feet tall?) and it's not made out of real emerald, it is just very important to the Thai people because at one point another country stole it from Thailand, and they Thai's had to fight to get it back. It sits in the main temple, high up on all these different gold decorations, and it wears a different outfit depending on the season, and the King himself is the one who changes the Buddha's outfit for each season. Although most of the buildings were beautiful, I didn't really know what they were, or what their names were, so I mostly just took pictures and had fun being a tourist. Of course, since Kla and Beam are actually Thai, they didn't have to pay to get in to the Temple (or any of them for that matter). It was really neat though to see two Thai people actually praying in the most beautiful and famous Buddhist temple in all of Thailand.

On to the next temple, Wat Pho, which houses the world famous Reclining Buddha. I don't really know too much about this Buddha either, except that it is HUUUUGE, and completely gold, with feet that are covered in mother of pearl. Very Beautiful. And of course, it is Reclining (laying down on it's side, with it's head propped up by it's hand.) For those of you who don't already know, the Thai Buddha is different from the Chinese Buddha (the fat/happy looking Buddha). Thai Buddha's are skinny, and usually not smiling (those are really the only physical differences I can tell, I'm not sure about spiritual differences?) We walked around that temple a bit more, and I took pictures of all the beautiful buildings.

We took a tuk-tuk to a market nearby, where we stopped for a light lunch (which was pork on skewers with peanut sauce) and then took a ferry across the river to go to Wat Arun. At Wat Arun we didn't actually go inside any temples, we just climbed a very big temple. It was actually really fun, because the stairs were sooo steep and scary to climb up, I was clinging for dear life to the handrail. When we got to the top we looked around at the amazing view. I was able to see both Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Pho all the way across the river. Beam was so scared as we walked around, and she kept saying "my legs are shake." Climbing back down the stairs was even scarier, but we all made it down alive, and then it was time to head back to The Mall and then drive to the restaurant for dinner.

I really don't know why my host family insisted I go for dinner with them rather than going to the AFS dinner. We didn't actually end up going to the ocean for dinner, since apparently it was too far away and the road was really bad, so we just stopped at a restaurnt partway there, which was kind of the same as the restaurant I went to on the lake the other night. We had all different kinds of seafood, and I ate Dom-Yum-Goon, or Thai Spicy Soup which is very famous in Thailand. Let's just say it was spicy. So spicy my lips started to burn and went numb. So I stopped eating it. On the way back to my host families home, I fell asleep in the car, and when I got back I just took a shower (and washed off all the nasty river water), checked my emails and then fell asleep. As far as I know I have no plans for the rest of today (Sunday). According to Cherry, she doesn't have to go to school tomorrow, something about her classes being cancelled. I asked her if I have to go, but she wasn't sure. She said I could go or I could not go. I kind of want to go just because I've missed my Thai Dance class for the last two weeks, and I wouldn't mind going to it this week. But on the other hand, Manda has the afternoon free from school tomorrow, so she invited me to go hang out with her, and I really would like to go since I didn't get to go to the AFS dinner last night. I think I will phone my coordinator today and see if I have to go to school. At least I get Tuesday off of school for sure, as it is Thai Mother's day.

Another neat thing about all the temples was that they all had signs outside saying no photography and take you shoes off and all that stuff, but the sign also specifically pointed out to make sure you don't point your feet at the Buddha inside.

I took a lot of neat pictures, which I've uploaded onto my photo page. However, here are a few of my favorites:

View from the back of the boat going down the canal

Inside Wat Phra Kaew

Me with the reclining Buddha

Looking out across the river

Climbing the stairs at Wat Arun

View from the top

Me and P'Beam