Chicken Foot

So this morning when I was eating my breakfast, I looked into my bowl of "jok" (kind of like porridge but made from rice.. it normally has some kind of meat in it as well as bits of fresh ginger and parsley for flavouring) and discovered a chicken foot. It is actually quite normal for people to eat chicken feet around here, but I haven't really turned that Thai just yet. Really, the last thing I want to see is a foot (complete with little things that looked like toenails) staring back up at me from my food.... (everything else I ate today though was absolutely foot-free :) )

Muslim Wedding (Take Two) and 007

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of days, my internet hasn't been working. But it's all good now, so here goes:

This week at school went.. well, schooly. Nothing too exciting. Just reading Harry Potter throughout my classes, visiting with my Thai friends at lunch. I was late for school one morning (not my fault.. my host dad slept in late) but it turned out okay because I just sat by myself at the front of the school and read my book.. It was soo much more comfortable than having to sit out on the ground in the field with everyone else, because I actually got to sit on a bench rather then all cross legged for half an hour which still makes my legs fall asleep (I've set a goal that by the end of the year my legs will no longer go numb!) While I was sitting there, Ajarn Supanee (my Thai language teacher from last semester) told me that if I meet her at the same place on Monday, she will bring me a new Thai dessert to try :) so I guess tomorrow morning I will sleep in a little bit late on purpose :P

My classmates are really nice (although they all randomly just take photos of me with their cellphones throughout the day, which was kind of fun at first, because it makes me feel all famous and what not, but then they start to not even warn me when they are taking pictures and they end up with really embarassing ones of me like yawning and stuff). On Friday one of the boys expressed his concern to me that he doesn't want me to feel lonely in Thailand (which actually wasn't as creepy as I just made it out to seem, my bad).. He told me that all of my classmates are here for me, and that they are all my friends (well this is what I understood from it, since he told me in kind of broken English).. He also really wants to take me shopping sometime (did I mention he is gay?) which I think should be fun.

On Friday afterschool I didn't have any plans... I ended up spending most of the evening just hanging out with my host mom in my bedroom watching The Dark Knight. When the movie was over, we went out to eat some noodles... I think part of the reason I actually enjoy eating noodles so much now is because of the fact that I can actually eat them like a Thai person, i.e. with chopsticks! I think when I go back to Canada I'm gunna be eating noodles like crazy just to proove to you all I can use chopsticks (because unlike Keith, I wasn't born with chopsticks in my hands.)

Saturday morning I woke up fairly early and headed over to P'Patch's house at about 8 30, where we met up with the rest of the Bride's side of the family.. I worse just my own clothes rather than a Muslim get up with a hi-jab (despite my host families best efforst to get me to dress up.. on Friday night my host mom got me to try on all of her different dresses.. but they were all too small for me (which was actually kind of lucky because some of them were '80s-esque (i.e. hot pink with shoulder pads)).. I told them I would just feel more comfortable wearing my own clothes) We all climbed onto a bus and headed over to the Groom's home. Once we got there, all we pretty much did was walk from the Mosque to the Groom's home in a procession with the Bride. Some people went bearing gifts of food and flowers to give to the Groom's family, as is the traditional way of doing things. When we reached the actual house, we just sat and ate some food, said a Muslim prayer, and that was it. Not really what I was expecting to be honest. I thought we would be around there all day doing all kinds of different prayers and rituals, but it turns out the main point of the whole thing was just the whole bringing the Bride from the Mosque to her Groom. So we got back to Patch's house before noon, and Patch and I just spent the rest of the day hanging out with her cousin in her cousins house (which by the way is pretty much just a shack... (it's just random boards all nailed together to kind of resemble a house.. yet there are cracks all between the walls and the floors (in some places walls don't even exist between the inside of the house and the outside) and all of the floorboards sift and sag when someone walks on them.. yet for some reason I felt perfectly at home there... maybe just because of how kind and welcoming all of Patch's family members are..)

This morning (Sunday) I woke up super early to go swimming with my little host sister. We got to the pool at 8, and were scheduled to swim until 9.. but for some reason Sun-Yair (host sister) just insisted that I go swimming and she would watch (I didn't really understand why, but I think it had something to do with the fact that we only had 1 set of goggles between the two of us).. I tried to tell her she could swim rather than me, but she just kept insisting I swim. So I ended up doing 20 laps of the pool (although I'm not sure how long the pool was.. so I don't really exactly know what distance I swam) which is the most swimming I've done since I was 13. Yay me. I actually really quite enjoyed it. I'm really not one who likes to go running or things like that.. but swimming I do enjoy. and it was nice to actually get some kind of exercise for a change. After all I've been eating here, I really do need the exercise. After the whole swimming bit, we made a quick stop at the doctors office for my host mom to get her pregnancy all checked up, then we headed to Fashion Island, where I went to watch the new 007 movie with my host dad. I really enjoyed the movie, but I must admit that it made me feel kind of homesick, just because all I could think about was how much I would have rather been watching it with my real dad :(

I do have quite alot of interesting things coming up here for the rest of the month. This week is Loy Kratong festival (a Buddhist festival, but I'm not really sure what it is all about), and since my new host family is Muslim and won't be celebrating it, Cherry has invited me to go with her on Wednesday night to celebrate it. All I know so far about the festival is that Buddhist do some sort of ritual where they float something made out of a banana leaf with candles on it down the river/into the ocean. I think Patch will come along with us, so she can translate a bit.. Then the plan is that on Friday in the evening I will go by bus to Ubon to visit Rachel (although nothing is for sure yet, because my Coordinator is supposed to talk to Rachel's Advisor and sort everything out, but I have a feeling she hasn't yet...)! I'm super excited, but kind of sad because it will be the last time I will see her (as she is only here for 1 semester).

Oh, and there are pictures from the wedding yesterday here: http://community.webshots.com/album/568422231AdstRX?start=0

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Today was just a regular day at school. Regular, yet enjoyable. Just more of hanging out with my Thai friends, reading throughout class (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ing brought it to me on Tuesday to read (I'm not really sure why she has the English version) and today I finished it... this is with only reading it in class, not at home in the evening or anything), and then walking to Tops after school with Patch to catch the van home. We stopped at a little Thai noodle shop to eat the famous "boat noodles" that they serve.. which I've never actually eaten before. According to Patch, they are called "boat noodles" because back in the early days of Bangkok, they used to be sold from a boat floating down the canal, rather than from a restaurant. They were pretty yummy I must admit. Pretty much just regular "guay-teeow" (noodles) though. But now that I've figured out how I like to make my noodles (they are always served kind of flavourless, and then you add sugar, chilies, fish sauce, or vinegar to it depending on how you like it), I'm enjoying eating them much more...

I have developed a new love in Thailand. It's name is "ah-han Thai" (Thai food). Although I'm afraid that this new love of mine is causing me to be "ooo-ung" (fat). Some of my favourites include:

• rot-dee (I believe it's actually Indian)... the only way I can describe it (because trust me, I am horrible at describing food) is that it is kind of like a crepe, but filled with buttery/sugary goodness (obviously very fattening)
• hot soy milk that is filled with the same kind of floaty things one finds in bubble tea.. it's my new favourite thing to drink for breakfast
• all the amazing fresh fruits that we don't have in Canada (tiny little super sweet bananas, ngor, etc.)
• these little deep fried pastry things that taste amazing when dipped in hot ovaltine (another favourite for breakfast)

4 MONTHS!!

So, I've now officially been in Thailand for 4 months! Yay me! Over the last month my whole feeling about being here hasn't changed much (unlike how much is changed over the course of the first couple months), I've finally just settled into the routine of day-to-day life here. And I must admit, I'm quite enjoying myself. Which is making the time just fly by. When I think about the last month, it really doesn't seem like it's been a month long, instead mybe only a couple of weeks. Yet, soooo many things happened (massage course, optional trip, changing host families, starting back school...). It's strange how a month can seem so short while it contains soooo many things. One thing that's deffinately nice about being four months in though - I'm now halfway to my parents coming to visit me!! (they are coming in March, when I'll have been here for 8 months) Also, only 1 more month until I will be halfway through this entire thing.. Feeling kind of excited yet a little sad about that fact. Excited because everyone says it's the second half of exchange that is really amazing.. once you've done all the hard work in the first half of learning the language and adapting to the culture, the second half is supposed to be when it all pays off. I'm sad because once I'm halfway there, well I'm halfway there.

Today in the afternoon Patch and I went with 7 other students (and Ajarn Tassanee) to Pailin's school (Bromsgrove International School) as the first people to partake in Pailin's new quest of creating a relationship between our school and hers. I think it is a good idea because, well frankly, the impression I get from the students at Pailin's school is that they think a little too highly of themselves, and seem to look down on the students from my school... and I find this attitude really bugs me. Her school is super fancy, and full of foreigners, but everytime I go there I can't help but get the feeling that these teachers are there simply to get their Thai students (half of which are Thai, the other half are foreigners) to act like British citizens. Speaking English, wearing English school uniforms, going through the British school system. Forget their own Language? Forget their own culture? I mean really, if these teachers were here simply to help Thai students learn English, then they would be international teachers are public Thai schools, just like so many kind people I have met through AFS. But instead they are here to force English upon rich private school children? I don't really know how to explain it. My English seems to be failing me. It just seems to me like they are trying to repress something. Turn the "barbarian" Thais into "proper" British citizens. Besides the fact that they're still living in Thailand. I know it's not on the same level at all, but the whole Bromsgrove thing makes me think of the early years in Canada when Native American children were forced into Residential Schools and forced to speak English and forget their Native language. Not on the same level at all, really. It's just what it makes me think of. Not going to lie though, I really enjoyed eating the European food in the cafeteria there at lunch. Using a fork and knife (no spoon!) to eat my food for once. Eating an entire meal (complete with asparagus!) without rice... It was nice. The only thing I didn't enjoy about the meal were all the weird stares our group was getting from the rest of the students... esepcially staring at me. The only foreigner wearing a Thai school uniform, not a Bromsgrove one. But believe it or not, I actually felt proud to be wearing my Thai uniform. The Bromsgrove students just didn't seem to understand that I would come to Thailand and go to a THAI school. What is so hard to understand about that, I'm not quite sure. Maybe because they themselves would never dare attend a public school in this country? Eek, okay I could go on about this for ages... but I won't. There was one other thing (besides using a knife to cut my beef at lunch!) that I enjoyed quite a bit about visiting Pailin's school.. it was seeing cute little blond haired, blue eyed, freckled, school children. Don't get me wrong... Thai children are quite possibly the cutest kind of kids I have ever seen in my life. But after not seeing any little foreigner children for 4 months, they are quite a cute thing to see too.

You Know You're Going Native (in Thailand) When...

So, yesterday after I wrote in my blog, I experienced something that made me realize just how "native" I am becomming. (note: when I say "native" I mean as in I'm turning Thai, not North American Aboriginal Native or anything...) Want to know what caused me to realize it? My host mom walked into my bedroom wearing a t-shirt and short-shorts! I practically gasped and fell off my bed. This reaction would be due to living in a country where girls only (well, respectable girls anyways) wear t-shirts and capris/jeans. Sometimes they even wear hoodies. In 40 degree weather. So as not to get a tan. I already know I'm going to be in for quite a shock when I get home and see people in tank tops and short skirts everywhere. By the way, the whole Thais not wanting to get tan thing is really starting to bug me.. mainly because at school my new friends keep asking me if I think whatever guy is walking past is handsome. I always say no. And then they always ask me if it's because he is too "black." And it's really hard to explain to them that no, it's not because of his skin colour.......

P'Patch-Less Day

Today I was Patchless at school (as Patch stayed home sick today). And although I thought that meant the day would turn out to be pretty boring with nobody to talk to, it ended up being quite fun actually.. the rest of my class just kind of combined efforts to make sure I wasn't lonely and had people to eat with at lunch etc. In the morning when we had to stand in line for assembly, the grass was all wet, which meant that instead of sitting down all cross-legged, everyone was just kind of crouching down as if they were going to the toilet on a squat toilet. Now, I guess since Thai school children are just used to crouching down like this at school, they find it no problem to sit like this for a good half an hour. But I don't. So one of my friends, named Ing, took out some paper from her backpack and put it on the grass for me to sit on. It was really sweet of her. I spent most of my morning classes just talking to my class mates and reading my book, which I finished (it was amazing, I must admit).. When we were in our Thai Art class (which really just involved everyone watching a Thai movie on the TV) my teacher gave me a book which teaches how to draw Thai Art (and although the instructions are in Thai, it's easy for me to just follow the pictures) for me to practice in. At lunch one of the gay boys in my class asked me to eat with him (and with a bunch of other people from my class it turned out). It was nice to get a chance to just hang out with some new people and get to know them a bit. After lunch we had no classes, but stupid Thai school rules say that students can't leave the premises until 3:00 even if they have no classes. Today happened to be the day that some nurses and doctors came to the school to check up on everyones health.. and first thing my class did after lunch was get our check ups :) It was quite an experience for me... none of the nurses really spoke English, and they were trying to ask me all these questions about my health that I didn't understand.. They asked me what my blood type was, I told them I understood, but I don't know my blood type ("kow-jai but mai-lou") so one of the nurses did a blood typing test on me... and I am type......A! Good to know for the future I guess :S I had to do an eye type test, where I just covered one of my eyes and had to read a line of numbers.. I read them in English, because I thought if I read them in Thai and got my numbers mixed up, they might assume it was my vision that was bad, not my number skills... but afterwards I realized that even though I understood the English numbers, maybe the nurses didn't, and they would have had no clue if I was really reading the numbers right or not. The very last thing I had to do was fill out a form that I think (but I'm not sure) asked me all about my emotional health. Ing translated the first couple of questions for me that were just basically along the lines of "are you feeling happy?" and then she couldn't translate anymore/was in too much of a hurry, so she just filled out the rest of the form for me :S We spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting around and talking until 3, when my host cousin Ron picked me up from school. Now I'm at home.. and just ate an enormous amount of fried rice, which some random lady (who is apparently my host aunt's friend) at our house cooked for me. She told me that tomorrow she is going to cook me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Should be tasty if the Thai version of a grilled cheese is anything like the North American version.....

A Weekend full of (Muslim) Weddings.

For pictures of the Optional Trip, and my weekend of weddings, click here:

http://community.webshots.com/album/568422231AdstRX

Yesterday afternoon I headed over to Patch's house for her cousins wedding. There really isn't anything too exciting to report about the whole thing, and the main event took place today (Sunday), but since Patch had her university tests today, we only went yesterday. It mostly involved just sitting around and eating, eating, eating, and meeting all of her relatives (and when I say all, I really mean it... her family is HUUUUGE). I had fun though... and didn't end up making a fool of myself by being the only foreigner who didn't know all the customs! Yay me! Her relatives (including the bride, who is her cousin) were all very welcoming, and all wanted to talk to me and such. The bride even gave me a party favour type thing, which was a little cute set of salt and pepper shakers that are shaped like abstract people hugging eachother. For the actual ceremony type part that took place last night.. it mostly just involved chanting in Arabic (which sounded soooo beautiful by the way... I've decided that even though I don't know what the hell they are singing about when the pray, it is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard in my life... like makes me want to re-think my views of everything in the world amazing), and then the Groom had to say some kind of vows (in Arabic) about how he will be a good husband or something along those lines. Apparently the groom has to repeat it over and over again until he gets the whole thing in Arabic completely right, but our groom last night was lucky and got it right on the first go, which apparently never happens. I left the whole party fairly early, under the impression that I would have to wake up at 5 this morning to go swimming with my host sister.. but it turns out that the sports center was closed today, so we just went to another wedding today instead. This one was the wedding of my host mom's friend, and we actually all got dressed up in Muslim outfits, including hi-jabs (the scarf things that cover a woman's head) for it. I borrowed one of my host mom's outfits, that was light purple with a dark purple hi-jab. The wedding wasn't actually all that exciting, we just sat around and ate (I'm beginning to think that's all people ever do at Muslim weddings...) We took a couple of pictures with the bride and groom, and then headed out to do some shopping before going home.

We stopped at Fashion Island so my host dad could buy a wireless internet router (sp?) so I can have internet in my bedroom (which is where I'm writing this from now).. I felt kind of weird walking around a huuge shopping mall wearing my Muslim get-up (weirder than at the wedding, because everyone at the wedding was dressed all up too...) but the interesting thing was that I seemed to get less stares while wearing it out in public than I usually do when I just wear my normal clothes.. Maybe they didn't realize I was a foreigner because they couldn't see my hair? Who knows.. I just found it interesting. Usually I'm very aware of everyone staring at me (which happens alot, trust me.. Thai's just love to stare at foreigners), and today I was very aware of the fact that NOBODY was staring at me.. Weird. When we got back home, I just hung around with my host mom and watched Signs. She was super hungry (being pregnant and all she is hungry all the time) so she just whipped out this huge stash of snacks (chips, cookies, etc) and we sat on her bedroom floor and ate them all. It was one of the more enjoyable moments I've had since I've been here to be honest. She really feels more just like a friend to me than a mom. She has this little electronic dictionary that she carries around with her that converts Thai into English.. so whenever we're having trouble understanding eachother (which is quite often) she just puts the Thai word into the dictionary and then shows me the English word that comes up. It's super helpful actually. And it helps me learn new Thai words as well.

Tomorrow I must wake up early for school.. and just for everybodies information, I did iron my uniform for school tomorrow.. which really just involved my host mom "helping" me iron, and then just just kind of took over the whole job and did it all herself and kept telling me how beautiful it was... Maybe tomorrow I will actually do all of my ironing for myself.