08/08/2008

First of all, there are a couple things I forgot to mention yesterday...

1) It was 1 month since I moved in with my host family yesterday!

2) I saw a teacher beating a student for the first time. Actually, it was like one teacher beating 7 or 8 students, and with what looked like a skinny branch from a tree. I can't remember if I mentioned on here before that teachers are still allowed to punish students like that here. I'm really not sure what these boys did to be punished, but they each got 3 good hard whips on their bums (not bare though, don't worry). It honestly kind of disturbed me a little, and now I'm a little scared of that teacher (she is the head of the computer department, so I'm around her alot when I'm in the computer room). But the crazy thing is, after the teacher whips them, they must wai to the teacher and say "korp kun kha/krap" (thank you) for teaching them this lesson. Weird.

Here are some pictures from the restaurant last night, since I finally charged my camera battery:

Lindsey, the cute Thai baby (named Mook), and Patch

Nothing much too exciting happened at school today. After school, however, Kla, Beam, Cherry and I went to the Mall (well first we went to the dentist to get Cherry's braces checked up on) because Beam needed to do some shopping. Anyways, the four of us went out for dinner at a Steak house. It was honestly probably the worst steak I've had in my life, but I still loved it. It was nice to not eat rice with a meal for once. Also, while we were at the Mall, there was this machine thing that would tell you you're weight if you gave it one baht. So I tried it, and lets just say if that machine was accurate, I have already gained a bunch of weight since I've been here. Oh well, AFS told us it happens to all exchange students, and when we go back to our home countries, we will just lose the weight naturally. I really don't understand how Thai girls eat so much and are still so skinny though haha.

So apparently tomorrow I am still going to Wat Phra Kaew with Beam and Kla, so I'm pretty excited about it. We will apparently drive to the Mall and park the car there, and then go to the Temple by boat on one of Bangkok's canals. Afterwards, they will take me to my host cousins house for dinner, near the ocean. Hopefully I will get lots of good pictures of the temple to show you all!